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DE QUINCEY'S REVOLT OF THE TARTARS
Edited with Introduction and Notes
by
WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS, PH.D.
Professor of the English Language and Literature in Knox College
Boston, U.S.A.
Ginn & Company, Publishers
The Athenæum Press
1899
[Illustration: Thomas de Quincey.
(After a drawing by ARCHER.)]
"In addition to the general impression of his
diminutiveness and fragility, one was struck with the
peculiar beauty of his head and forehead, rising
disproportionately high over his small wrinkly visage
and gentle deep-set eyes."
DAVID MASSON.
PREFACE.
In editing an English classic for use in the secondary schools, there
is always opportunity for the expression of personal convictions and
personal taste; nevertheless, where one has predecessors in the task
of preparing such a text, it is difficult always, occasionally
impossible, to avoid treading on their heels. The present editor,
therefore, hastens to acknowledge his indebtedness to the various
school editions of the _Revolt of the Tartars_, already in existence.
The notes by Masson are so authoritative and so essential that their
quotation needs no comment. De Quincey's footnotes are retained in
their original form and appear embodied in the text. The other
annotations suggest the method which the editor would follow in
class-room work upon this essay.
The student's attention is called frequently to the _form_ of
expression; the discriminating use of epithets, the employment of
foreign phrases, the allusions to Milton and the Bible, the structure
of paragraphs, the treatment of incident, the development of feeling,
the impressiveness of a present personality; all this, however, is
with the purpose, not of mechanic exercise, nor merely to illustrate
"rhetoric," but to illuminate _De Quincey_. It is with this intention,
presumably, that the text is prescribed. There is little
attractiveness, after all, in the idea of a style so colorless and so
impersonal that the individuality of its victim is lost in its own
perfection; this was certainly not the Opium-Eater's mind concerning
literary form, nor does it appear to have been the aim of any of our
masters. Indeed, it may be well in passing to point out to pupils how
fatal to success in writing is the attempt to imitate the style of any
man, De Quincey included; it is always in order to emphasize the
naturalness and spontaneity of the "grand style" wherever it is found.
The teacher should not inculcate a blind admiration of all that De
Quincey has said or done; there is opportunity, even in this brief
essay, to exercise the pupil in applying the commonplace tests of
criticism, although it should be seen to as well that a true
appreciation is awakened for the real excellences of this little
masterpiece.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION:
CRITICAL APPRECIATION vii
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH x
AUTHORITIES AND REFERENCES xxii
THE REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 1
APPENDED NOTES BY MASSON 67
NOTES, EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL 74
INTRODUCTION.
Thomas De Quincey is one of the eccentric figures in English
literature. Popularly he is known as the English Opium-Eater and as
the subject of numerous anecdotes which emphasize the oddities of his
temperament and the unconventionality of his habits. That this man of
distinguished genius was the victim--pitifully the victim--of opium is
the lamentable fact; that he was morbidly shy and shunned intercourse
with all except a few intimate, congenial friends; that he was
comically indifferent to the fashion of his dress; that he was the
most unpractical and childlike of men; that he was often betrayed,
because of these peculiarities, into many ridiculous embarrassments,
such as are described by Mr. Findlay, Mr. Hogg, and Mr. Burton,--of
all this there can be no doubt; but these idiosyncrasies are, after
all, of minor importance, the accidents, not the essentials in the
life and personality of this remarkable man. The points that should
attract our notice, the qualities that really give distinction to De
Quincey, are the broad sweep of his knowledge, almost unlimited in its
scope and singularly accurate in its details, a facility of phrasing
and a word supply that transformed the mere power of discriminating
expression into a fine art, and a style that, while it lapsed
occasionally from the standard of its own excellence, was generally
self-corrective and frequently forsook the levels of commonplace
excellence for the highest reaches of impassioned prose. Nor is this
all. His pages do not lack in humor--humor of the truest and most
delicate type; and if De Quincey is at times impelled beyond the
bounds of taste, even these excursions demonstrate his power, at least
in handling the grotesque. His sympathies, however, are always
genuine, and often are profound. The pages of his autobiographic
essays reveal the strength of his affections, while in the
interpretation of such a character as that of Joan of Arc, or in
allusions like those to the pariahs,--defenceless outcasts from
society, by whose wretched lot his heart was often wrung,--he writes
in truest pathos.
Now sympathy is own child of the imagination, whether expressed in the
language of laughter or in the vernacular of tears; and the most
distinctive quality in the mental make-up of De Quincey was, after
all, this dominant imagination which was characteristic of the man
from childhood to old age. The Opium-Eater once defined the _great
scholar_ as "not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but
also on an infinite and electrical power of combination, bringing
together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what
else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing
life." Such was De Quincey himself. He was a scholar born, gifted with
a mind apt for the subtleties of metaphysics, a memory well-nigh
inexhaustible in the recovery of facts; in one respect, at least, he
was a _great_ scholar, for his mind was dominated by an imagination as
vigorous as that which created Macaulay's _England_, almost as
sensitive to dramatic effect as that which painted Carlyle's _French
Revolution_. Therefore when he wrote narrative, historical narrative,
or reminiscence, he lived in the experiences he pictured, as great
historians do; perhaps living over again the scenes of the past, or
for the first time making real the details of occurrences with which
he was only recently familiar.
The _Revolt of the Tartars_ is a good illustration of his power.
Attracted by the chance reading of an obscure French missionary and
traveller to the dramatic possibilities of an episode in Russian
history, De Quincey built from the bare notes thus discovered,
supplemented by others drawn from a matter-of-fact German
archæologist, a narrative which for vividness of detail and
truthfulness of local color belongs among the best of those classics
in which fancy helps to illuminate fact, and where the imagination is
invoked to recreate what one feels intuitively must have been real.
The _Revolt of the Tartars_, while not exhibiting the highest
achievement of the author's power, nevertheless belongs in the group
of writings wherein his peculiar excellences are fairly manifested.
The obvious quality of its realism has been pointed out already; the
masterly use of the principles of suspense and stimulated interest
will hardly pass unnoticed. A negative excellence is the absence of
that discursiveness in composition, that tendency to digress into
superfluous comment, which is this author's one prevailing fault. De
Quincey was gifted with a fine appreciation of harmonious sound, and
in those passages where his spirit soars highest not the least of
their beauties is found in the melodiousness of their tone and the
rhythmic sweetness of their motion.
It is as a master of rhetoric that De Quincey is distinguished among
writers. Some hints of his ability are seen in the opening and closing
passages of this essay, but to find him at his best one must turn to
the _Confessions_ and to the other papers which describe his life,
particularly those which recount his marvellous dreams. In these
papers we find the passages where De Quincey's passion rises to the
heights which few other writers have ever reached in prose, a
loftiness and grandeur which is technically denominated as "sublime."
In his _Essay on Style_, published in _Blackwood's_, 1840, he
deprecates the usual indifference to form, on the part of English
writers, "the tendency of the national mind to value the matter of a
book not only as paramount to the manner, but even as distinct from it
and as capable of a separate insulation." As one of the great masters
of prose style in this century, De Quincey has so served the interests
of art in this regard, that in his own case the charge is sometimes
reversed: his own works are read rather to observe his manner than to
absorb his thought. Yet when this is said, it is not to imply that the
material is unworthy or the ideas unsound; on the contrary, his
sentiment is true and his ideas are wholesome; but many of the topics
treated lie outside the deeper interests of ordinary life, and fail to
appeal to us so practically as do the writings of some lesser men. Of
the "one hundred and fifty magazine articles" which comprise his
works, there are many that will not claim the general interest, yet
his writings as a whole will always be recognized by students of
rhetoric as containing excellences which place their author among the
English classics. Nor can De Quincey be accused of subordinating
matter to manner; in spite of his taste for the theatrical and a
tendency to extravagance, his expression is in keeping with his
thought, and the material of those passages which contain his most
splendid flights is appropriate to the treatment it receives. One
effective reason, certainly, why we take pleasure in the mere style of
De Quincey's work is because that work is so thoroughly inspired with
the Opium-Eater's own genial personality, because it so unmistakably
suggests that inevitable "smack of individuality" which gives to the
productions of all great authors their truest distinction if not their
greatest worth.
Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, August 15, 1785. His father
was a well-to-do merchant of literary taste, but of him the children
of the household scarcely knew; he was an invalid, a prey to
consumption, and during their childhood made his residence mostly in
the milder climate of Lisbon or the West Indies. Thomas was seven
years old when his father was brought home to die, and the lad, though
sensitively impressed by the event, felt little of the significance of
relationship between them. Mrs. De Quincey was a somewhat stately
lady, rather strict in discipline and rigid in her views. There does
not seem to have been the most complete sympathy between mother and
son, yet De Quincey was always reverent in his attitude, and certainly
entertained a genuine respect for her intelligence and character.
There were eight children in the home, four sons and four daughters;
Thomas was the fifth in age, and his relations to the other members of
this little community are set forth most interestingly in the opening
chapters of his _Autobiographic Sketches_.
De Quincey's child life was spent in the country; first at a pretty
rustic dwelling known as "The Farm," and after 1792 at a larger
country house near Manchester, built by his father, and given by his
mother the pleasantly suggestive name of "Greenhay," _hay_ meaning
hedge, or hedgerow. The early boyhood of Thomas De Quincey is of more
than ordinary interest, because of the clear light it throws upon the
peculiar temperament and endowments of the man. Moreover, we have the
best of authority in our study of this period, namely, the author
himself, who in the _Sketches_ already mentioned, and in his most
noted work, _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, has told the
story of these early years in considerable detail and with apparent
sincerity. De Quincey was not a sturdy boy. Shy and dreamy,
exquisitely sensitive to impressions of melancholy and mystery, he was
endowed with an imagination abnormally active even for a child. It is
customary to give prominence to De Quincey's pernicious habit of
opium-eating, in attempting to explain the grotesque fancies and weird
flights of his marvellous mind in later years; yet it is only fair to
emphasize the fact that the later achievements of that strange
creative faculty were clearly foreshadowed in youth. For example, the
earliest incident in his life that he could afterwards recall, he
describes as "a remarkable dream of terrific grandeur about a favorite
nurse, which is interesting to myself for this reason--that it
demonstrates my dreaming tendencies to have been constitutional, and
not dependent upon laudanum."[1] Again he tells us how, when six years
old, upon the death of a favorite sister three years older, he stole
unobserved upstairs to the death chamber; unlocking the door and
entering silently, he stood for a moment gazing through the open
window toward the bright sunlight of a cloudless day, then turned to
behold the angel face upon the pillow. Awed in the presence of death,
the meaning of which he began vaguely to understand, he stood
listening to a "solemn wind" that began to blow--"the saddest that ear
ever heard." What followed should appear in De Quincey's own words: "A
vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a shaft which
ran up forever. I, in spirit, rose as if on billows that also ran up
the shaft forever; and the billows seemed to pursue the throne of God;
but _that_ also ran on before us and fled away continually. The flight
and the pursuit seemed to go on forever and ever. Frost gathering
frost, some sarsar wind of death, seemed to repel me; some mighty
relation between God and death dimly struggled to evolve itself from
the dreadful antagonism between them; shadowy meanings even yet
continued to exercise and torment, in dreams, the deciphering oracle
within me. I slept--for how long I cannot say: slowly I recovered my
self-possession; and, when I woke, found myself standing as before,
close to my sister's bed."[2] Somewhat similar in effect were the
fancies that came to this dreamy boy on Sunday mornings during service
in the fine old English church. Through the wide central field of
uncolored glass, set in a rich framework of gorgeous color,--for the
side panes of the great windows were pictured with the stories of
saints and martyrs,--the lad saw "white fleecy clouds sailing over the
azure depths of the sky." Straightway the picture changed in his
imagination, and visions of young children, lying on white beds of
sickness and of death, rose before his eyes, ascending slowly and
softly into heaven, God's arms descending from the heavens that He
might the sooner take them to Himself and grant release. Such are not
infrequently the dreams of children. De Quincey's experience is not
unique; but with him imagination, the imagination of childhood,
remained unimpaired through life. It was not wholly opium that made
him the great dreamer of our literature, any more than it was the
effect of a drug that brought from his dying lips the cry of "Sister,
sister, sister!"--an echo from this sacred chamber of death, where he
had stood awed and entranced nearly seventy years before.
Not all of De Quincey's boyhood, however, was passed under influences
so serious and mystical as these. He was early compelled to undergo
what he is pleased to call his "introduction to the world of strife."
His brother William, five years the senior of Thomas, appears to have
been endowed with an imagination as remarkable as his own. "His genius
for mischief," says Thomas, "amounted to inspiration." Very amusing
are the chronicles of the little autocracy thus despotized by William.
The assumption of the young tyrant was magnificent. Along with the
prerogatives and privileges of seniority, he took upon himself as well
certain responsibilities more galling to his half-dozen uneasy
subordinates, doubtless, than the undisputed hereditary rights of
age. William constituted himself the educational guide of the nursery,
proclaiming theories, delivering lectures, performing experiments,
asserting opinions upon subjects diverse and erudite. Indeed, a
vigorous spirit was housed in William's body, and but for his early
death, this lad also might have brought lustre to the family name.
A real introduction to the world of strife came with the development
of a lively feud between the two brothers on the one side, and on the
other a crowd of young belligerents employed in a cotton factory on
the road between Greenhay and Manchester, where the boys now attended
school. Active hostilities occurred daily when the two "aristocrats"
passed the factory on their way home at the hour when its inmates
emerged from their labor. The dread of this encounter hung like a
cloud over Thomas, yet he followed William loyally, and served with
all the spirit of a cadet of the house. Imagination played an
important part in this campaign, and it is for that reason primarily
that to this and the other incidents of De Quincey's childhood
prominence is here given; in no better way can we come to an
understanding of the real nature of this singular man.
In 1796 the home at Greenhay was broken up. The irrepressible William
was sent to London to study art; Mrs. De Quincey removed to Bath, and
Thomas was placed in the grammar school of that town; a younger
brother, Richard, in all respects a pleasing contrast to William, was
a sympathetic comrade and schoolmate. For two years De Quincey
remained in this school, achieving a great reputation in the study of
Latin, and living a congenial, comfortable life. This was followed by
a year in a private school at Winkfield, which was terminated by an
invitation to travel in Ireland with young Lord Westport, a lad of De
Quincey's own age, an intimacy having sprung up between them a year
earlier at Bath. It was in 1800 that the trip was made, and the
period of the visit extended over four or five months. After this
long recess De Quincey was placed in the grammar school at Manchester,
his guardians expecting that a three years' course in this school
would bring him a scholarship at Oxford. However, the new environment
proved wholly uncongenial, and the sensitive boy who, in spite of his
shyness and his slender frame, possessed grit in abundance, and who
was through life more or less a law to himself, made up his mind to
run away. His flight was significant. Early on a July morning he
slipped quietly off--in one pocket a copy of an English poet, a volume
of Euripides in the other. His first move was toward Chester, the
seventeen-year-old runaway deeming it proper that he should report at
once to his mother, who was now living in that town. So he trudged
overland forty miles and faced his astonished and indignant parent. At
the suggestion of a kind-hearted uncle, just home from India, Thomas
was let off easily; indeed, he was given an allowance of a guinea a
week, with permission to go on a tramp through North Wales, a
proposition which he hailed with delight. The next three months were
spent in a rather pleasant ramble, although the weekly allowance was
scarcely sufficient to supply all the comforts desired. The trip ended
strangely. Some sudden fancy seizing him, the boy broke off all
connection with his friends and went to London. Unknown, unprovided
for, he buried himself in the vast life of the metropolis. He lived a
precarious existence for several months, suffering from exposure,
reduced to the verge of starvation, his whereabouts a mystery to his
friends. The cloud of this experience hung darkly over his spirit,
even in later manhood; perceptions of a true world of strife were
vivid; impressions of these wretched months formed the material of his
most sombre dreams.
Rescued at last, providentially, De Quincey spent the next period of
his life, covering the years 1803-7, in residence at Oxford. His
career as a student at the university is obscure. He was a member of
Worcester College, was known as a quiet, studious man, and lived an
isolated if not a solitary life. With a German student, who taught him
Hebrew, De Quincey seems to have had some intimacy, but his circle of
acquaintance was small, and no contemporary has thrown much light on
his stay. In 1807 he disappeared from Oxford, having taken the written
tests for his degree, but failing to present himself for the necessary
oral examination.
The year of his departure from Oxford brought to De Quincey a
long-coveted pleasure--acquaintance with two famous contemporaries
whom he greatly admired, Coleridge and Wordsworth. Characteristic of
De Quincey in many ways was his gift, anonymously made, of £300 to his
hero, Coleridge. This was in 1807, when De Quincey was twenty-two, and
was master of his inheritance. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy,
and in 1809 the young man, himself gifted with talents which were to
make him equally famous with these, took up his residence at Grasmere,
in the Lake country, occupying for many years the cottage which
Wordsworth had given up on his removal to ampler quarters at Rydal
Mount. Here he spent much of his time in the society of the men who
were then grouped in distinguished neighborhood; besides Wordsworth
and Coleridge, the poet Southey was accessible, and a frequent visitor
was John Wilson, later widely known as the "Christopher North" of
_Blackwood's Magazine_. Nor was De Quincey idle; his habits of study
were confirmed; indeed, he was already a philosopher at twenty-four.
These were years of hard reading and industrious thought, wherein he
accumulated much of that metaphysical wisdom which was afterward to
win admiring recognition.
In 1816 De Quincey married Margaret Simpson, a farmer's daughter
living near. There is a pretty scene painted by the author
himself,[3] in which he gives us a glimpse of his domestic life at
this time. Therein he pictures the cottage, standing in a valley,
eighteen miles from any town; no spacious valley, but about two miles
long by three-quarters of a mile in average width. The mountains are
real mountains, between 3000 and 4000 feet high, and the cottage a
real cottage, white, embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen as to
unfold a succession of flowers upon the walls, and clustering around
the windows, through all the months of spring, summer, and autumn,
beginning, in fact, with May roses and ending with jasmine. It is in
the winter season, however, that De Quincey paints his picture, and so
he describes a room, seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven
and one-half feet high. This is the drawing-room, although it might
more justly be termed the library, for it happens that books are the
one form of property in which the owner is wealthy. Of these he has
about 5000, collected gradually since his eighteenth year. The room
is, therefore, populous with books. There is a good fire on the
hearth. The furniture is plain and modest, befitting the unpretending
cottage of a scholar. Near the fire stands a tea table; there are only
two cups and saucers on the tray. It is an "eternal" teapot that the
artist would like us to imagine, for he usually drinks tea from eight
o'clock at night to four in the morning. There is, of course, a
companion at the tea table, and very lovingly does the husband suggest
the pleasant personality of his young wife. One other important
feature is included in the scene; upon the table there rests also a
decanter, in which sparkles the ruby-colored laudanum.
De Quincey's experience with opium had begun while he was a student at
the university, in 1804. It was first taken to obtain relief from
neuralgia, and his use of the drug did not at once become habitual.
During the period of residence at Grasmere, however, De Quincey
became confirmed in the habit, and so thoroughly was he its victim
that for a season his intellectual powers were well-nigh paralyzed;
his mind sank under such a cloud of depression and gloom that his
condition was pitiful in the extreme. Just before his marriage, in
1816, De Quincey, by a vigorous effort, partially regained his
self-control and succeeded in materially reducing his daily allowance
of the drug; but in the following year he fell more deeply than ever
under its baneful power, until in 1818-19 his consumption of opium was
something almost incredible. Thus he became truly enough the great
English Opium-Eater, whose Confessions were later to fill a unique
place in English literature. It was finally the absolute need of
bettering his financial condition that compelled De Quincey to shake
off the shackles of his vice; this he practically accomplished,
although perhaps he was never entirely free from the habit. The event
is coincident with the beginning of his career as a public writer. In
1820 he became a man of letters.
As a professional writer it is to be noted that De Quincey was
throughout a contributor to the periodicals. With one or two
exceptions all his works found their way to the public through the
pages of the magazines, and he was associated as contributor with most
of those that were prominent in his time. From 1821 to 1825 we find
him residing for the most part in London, and here his public career
began. It was De Quincey's most distinctive work which first appeared.
The _London Magazine_, in its issue for September, 1821, contained the
first paper of the _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_. The
novelty of the subject was sufficient to obtain for the new writer an
interested hearing, and there was much discussion as to whether his
apparent frankness was genuine or assumed. All united in applause of
the masterly style which distinguished the essay, also of the
profundity and value of the interesting material it contained. A
second part was included in the magazine for October. Other articles
by the Opium-Eater followed, in which the wide scholarship of the
author was abundantly shown, although the topics were of less general
interest.
In 1826 De Quincey became an occasional contributor to _Blackwood's
Magazine_, and this connection drew him to Edinburgh, where he
remained, either in the city itself or in its vicinity, for the rest
of his life. The grotesquely humorous _Essay on Murder Considered as
One of the Fine Arts_ appeared in _Blackwood's_ in 1827. In 1832 he
published a series of articles on Roman History, entitled _The
Cæsars_. It was in July, 1837, that the _Revolt of the Tartars_
appeared; in 1840 his critical paper upon _The Essenes_. Meanwhile De
Quincey had begun contributions to _Tait's Magazine_, another
Edinburgh publication, and it was in that periodical that the
_Sketches of Life and Manners from the Autobiography of an English
Opium-Eater_ began to appear in 1834, running on through several
years. These sketches include the chapters on Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Lamb, and Southey as well as those _Autobiographic Sketches_ which
form such a charming and illuminating portion of his complete works.
The family life was sadly broken in 1837 by the death of De Quincey's
wife. He who was now left as guardian of the little household of six
children, was himself so helpless in all practical matters that it
seemed as though he were in their childish care rather than protector
of them. Scores of anecdotes are related of his odd and unpractical
behavior. One of his curious habits had been the multiplication of
lodgings; as books and manuscripts accumulated about him so that there
remained room for no more, he would turn the key upon his possessions
and migrate elsewhere to repeat the performance later on. It is known
that as many as four separate rents were at one and the same time
being paid by this odd, shy little man, rather than allow the
disturbance or contraction of his domain. Sometimes an anxious journey
in search of a manuscript had to be made by author and publisher in
conjunction before the missing paper could be located. The home life
of this eccentric yet lovable man of genius seems to have been always
affectionate and tender in spite even of his bondage to opium; it was
especially beautiful and childlike in his latest years. His eldest
daughter, Margaret, assumed quietly the place of headship, and with a
discretion equal to her devotion she watched over her father's
welfare. With reference to De Quincey's circumstances at this time,
his biographer, Mr. Masson, says: "Very soon, if left to himself, he
would have taken possession of every room in the house, one after
another, and 'snowed up' each with his papers; but, that having been
gently prevented, he had one room to work in all day and all night to
his heart's content. The evenings, or the intervals between his daily
working time and his nightly working time, or stroll, he generally
spent in the drawing-room with his daughters, either alone or in
company with any friends that chanced to be with him. At such times,
we are told, he was unusually charming. 'The newspaper was brought
out, and he, telling in his own delightful way, rather than reading,
the news, would, on questions from this one or that one of the party,
often including young friends of his children, neighbors, or visitors
from distant places, illuminate the subject with such a wealth of
memories, of old stories of past or present experiences, of humor, of
suggestion, even of prophecy, as by its very wealth makes it
impossible to give any taste of it.' The description is by one of his
daughters; and she adds a touch which is inimitable in its fidelity
and tenderness. 'He was not,' she says, 'a reassuring man for nervous
people to live with, as those nights were exceptional on which he did
not set something on fire, the commonest incident being for some one
to look up from book or work, to say casually, _Papa, your hair is on
fire_; of which a calm _Is it, my love?_ and a hand rubbing out the
blaze was all the notice taken.'"[4]
Of his personal appearance Professor Minto says:
"He was a slender little man, with small, clearly chiselled features,
a large head, and a remarkably high, square forehead. There was a
peculiarly high and regular arch in the wrinkles of his brow, which
was also slightly contracted. The lines of his countenance fell
naturally into an expression of mild suffering, of endurance sweetened
by benevolence, or, according to the fancy of the interpreter, of
gentle, melancholy sweetness. All that met him seem to have been
struck with the measured, silvery, yet somewhat hollow and unearthly
tones of his voice, the more impressive that the flow of his talk was
unhesitating and unbroken."
* * * * *
The literary labors were continuous. In 1845 the beautiful _Suspiria
de Profundis_ (Sighs from the Depths) appeared in _Blackwood's_; _The
English Mail Coach_ and _The Vision of Sudden Death_, in 1849. Among
other papers contributed to _Tait's Magazine_, the _Joan of Arc_
appeared in 1847. During the last ten years of his life, De Quincey
was occupied chiefly in preparing for the publishers a complete
edition of his works. Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, the most
distinguished of our American publishing firms, had put forth,
1851-55, the first edition of De Quincey's collected writings, in
twenty volumes. The first British edition was undertaken by Mr. James
Hogg, of Edinburgh, in 1853, with the co-operation of the author, and
under his direction; the final volume of this edition was not issued
until the year following De Quincey's death.
In the autumn of 1859 the frail physique of the now famous
Opium-Eater grew gradually feeble, although suffering from no definite
disease. It became evident that his life was drawing to its end. On
December 8, his two daughters standing by his side, he fell into a
doze. His mind had been wandering amid the scenes of his childhood,
and his last utterance was the cry, "Sister, sister, sister!" as if in
recognition of one awaiting him, one who had been often in his dreams,
the beloved Elizabeth, whose death had made so profound and lasting an
impression on his imagination as a child.
* * * * *
The authoritative edition of _De Quincey's Works_ is that edited by
David Masson and published in fourteen volumes by Adam and Charles
Black (Edinburgh). For American students the _Riverside Edition_, in
twelve volumes (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston), will be found
convenient. The most satisfactory _Life of De Quincey_ is the one by
Masson in the _English Men of Letters_ series. Of a more anecdotal
type are the _Life of De Quincey_, by H.A. Page, whose real name is
Alexander H. Japp (2 vols., New York, 1877), and _De Quincey
Memorials_ (New York, 1891), by the same author. Very interesting is
the brief volume, _Recollections of Thomas De Quincey_, by John R.
Findlay (Edinburgh, 1886), who also contributes the paper on _De
Quincey_ to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. _De Quincey and his
Friends_, by James Hogg (London, 1895), is another volume of
recollections, souvenirs, and anecdotes, which help to make real their
subject's personality. Besides the editor, other writers contribute to
this volume: Richard Woodhouse, John R. Findlay, and John Hill Burton,
who has given under the name "Papaverius," a picturesque description
of the Opium-Eater. The student should always remember that De
Quincey's own chapters in the _Autobiographic Sketches_, and the
_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which are among the most
charming and important of his writings, are also the most
authoritative and most valuable sources of our information concerning
him. In reading about De Quincey, do not fail to read De Quincey
himself.
The best criticism of the Opium-Eater's work is found in William
Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_ (Ginn & Co.). A shorter
essay is contained in Saintsbury's _History of Nineteenth Century
Literature_. A very valuable list of all De Quincey's writings, in
chronological order, is given by Fred N. Scott, in his edition of De
Quincey's essays on _Style, Rhetoric_, and _Language_ (Allyn & Bacon).
Numerous magazine articles may be found by referring to Poole's Index.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Autobiographic Sketches_, Chap. I.
[2] _Ibid._
[3] _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, Part II.
[4] _De Quincey_ (_English Men of Letters_), David Masson, p. 110.
HOW TO READ DE QUINCEY.
"De Quincey's sixteen volumes of magazine articles are
full of brain from beginning to end. At the rate of
about half a volume a day, they would serve for a
month's reading, and a month continuously might be
worse expended. There are few courses of reading from
which a young man of good natural intelligence would
come away more instructed, charmed, and stimulated, or,
to express the matter as definitely as possible, with
his mind more _stretched_. Good natural intelligence, a
certain fineness of fibre, and some amount of scholarly
education, have to be presupposed, indeed, in all
readers of De Quincey. But, even for the fittest
readers, a month's complete and continuous course of De
Quincey would be too much. Better have him on the
shelf, and take down a volume at intervals for one or
two of the articles to which there may be an immediate
attraction. An evening with De Quincey in this manner
will always be profitable."
DAVID MASSON, _Life of De Quincey_, Chap. XI.
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS;
OR, FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND HIS PEOPLE FROM THE RUSSIAN
TERRITORIES TO THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA.
There is no great event in modern history, or, perhaps
it may be said more broadly, none in all history, from its
earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to
the imagination, than the flight eastwards of a principal
Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the 5
latter half of the last century. The _terminus a quo_ of this
flight and the _terminus ad quem_ are equally magnificent--the
mightiest of Christian thrones being the
one, the mightiest of pagan the other; and the grandeur of these
two terminal objects is harmoniously supported by the 10
romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness
of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execution
we read an expression of the wild, barbaric character
of the agents. In the unity of purpose connecting this
myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a 15
mark so remote, there is something which recalls to the
mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations of
the swallow and the leeming or the life-withering marches
of the locust. Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance of
Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear 20
and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of
Miltonic images--such, for instance, as that of the solitary
hand pursuing through desert spaces and through
ancient chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking with volleying
thunders those who believed themselves already
within the security of darkness and of distance.
I shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this event
with other great national catastrophes as to the magnitude 5
of the suffering. But it may also challenge a comparison
with similar events under another relation,--viz. as to its
dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in romance
or history, can sustain a close collation with this as to the
_complexity_ of its separate interests. The great outline of 10
the enterprise, taken in connection with the operative
motives, hidden or avowed, and the religious sanctions
under which it was pursued, give to the case a triple
character: 1st, That of a _conspiracy_, with as close a unity
in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest in 15
the moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as
belongs to "Venice Preserved" or to the "Fiesco" of
Schiller. 2dly, That of a great military expedition offering
the same romantic features of vast distances to be
traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, untried routes, 20
enemies obscurely ascertained, and hardships too vaguely
prefigured, which mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses--the
anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the
subsequent retreat of the ten thousand, the Parthian
expeditions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus 25
and Julian--or (as more disastrous than any of them,
and, in point of space, as well as in amount of forces,
more extensive) the Russian anabasis and katabasis of
Napoleon. 3dly, That of a religious _Exodus_, authorized
by an oracle venerated throughout many nations of Asia, 30
--an Exodus, therefore, in so far resembling the great
Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, under Moses and
Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar distinction of carrying
along with them their entire families, women, children,
slaves, their herd of cattle and of sheep, their horses and
their camels.
This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests
it with a more comprehensive interest; but the dramatic
interest which we ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage 5
representation, depends partly upon the marked variety
and the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and
partly upon the succession of scenical situations. Even
the steppes, the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy
deserts are not beyond the scale of our modern representative 10
powers, as often called into action in the theatres
both of Paris and London; and the series of situations
unfolded,--beginning with the general conflagration on
the Wolga--passing thence to the disastrous scenes of
the flight (as it _literally_ was in its commencement)--to 15
the Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina--the
bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the mountain
passes at Ouchim--the surprisal by the Bashkirs and
the advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau--the
private conspiracy at this point against the Khan--the 20
long succession of running fights--the parting massacres
at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes of the Chinese--and,
finally, the tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at
the hunting lodge of the Chinese Emperor;--all these
situations communicate a _scenical_ animation to the wild 25
romance, if treated dramatically; whilst a higher and a
philosophic interest belongs to it as a case of authentic
history, commemorating a great revolution, for good and
for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people--a people semi-barbarous,
but simple-hearted, and of ancient descent. 30
* * * * *
On the 21st of January, 1761, the young Prince Oubacha
assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the death
of his father. Some part of the power attached to this
dignity he had already wielded since his fourteenth year,
in quality of Vice-Khan, by the express appointment and
with the avowed support of the Russian Government.
He was now about eighteen years of age, amiable in his
personal character, and not without titles to respect in his 5
public character as a sovereign prince. In times more
peaceable, and amongst a people more entirely civilized
or more humanized by religion, it is even probable that
he might have discharged his high duties with considerable
distinction; but his lot was thrown upon stormy 10
times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes whose
native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of
superstition, and by a nationality as well as an inflated
conceit of their own merit absolutely unparalleled; whilst
the circumstances of their hard and trying position under 15
the jealous _surveillance_ of an irresistible lord paramount,
in the person of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to
the natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and
irritated its gloomier qualities into action under the restless
impulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No 20
prince could hope for a cordial allegiance from his subjects
or a peaceful reign under the circumstances of the
case; for the dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood
at present was of this nature: _wanting_ the support and
sanction of the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from 25
without to command confidence from his subjects or
resistance to his competitors. On the other hand, _with_
this kind of support, and deriving his title in any degree
from the favor of the Imperial Court, he became almost
in that extent an object of hatred at home and within the 30
whole compass of his own territory. He was at once an
object of hatred for the past, being a living monument of
national independence ignominiously surrendered; and an
object of jealousy for the future, as one who had already
advertised himself to be a fitting tool for the ultimate
purposes (whatsoever those might prove to be) of the
Russian Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck sceptre
under the heaviest weight of prejudice from the unfortunate
circumstances of his position, it might have been 5
expected that Oubacha would have been pre-eminently
an object of detestation; for, besides his known dependence
upon the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, the direct line
of succession had been set aside, and the principle of
inheritance violently suspended, in favor of his own 10
father, so recently as nineteen years before the era of his
own accession, consequently within the lively remembrance
of the existing generation. He, therefore, almost
equally with his father, stood within the full current of
the national prejudices, and might have anticipated the 15
most pointed hostility. But it was not so: such are the
caprices in human affairs that he was even, in a moderate
sense, popular--a benefit which wore the more cheering
aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he
owed it exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness 20
and affability, as well as to the beneficence of his government.
On the other hand, to balance this unlooked-for
prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met with a rival
in popular favor--almost a competitor--in the person of
Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to 25
the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with equal pretensions.
Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of the
same royal house as himself, through a different branch.
On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing
equally good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 30
qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philosophical
observer most odious and repulsive, promised
the most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer
or a conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a popular
support precisely in those points where Oubacha was
most defective. He was much superior in external appearance
to his rival on the throne, and so far better
qualified to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous
people; whilst his dark intellectual qualities of Machiavelian 5
dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and perfidy which
knew no touch of remorse, were admirably calculated to
sustain any ground which he might win from the simple-hearted
people with whom he had to deal and from the
frank carelessness of his unconscious competitor. 10