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solemn majestic flood, what a past do we bring before ourselves! what a present! For this is he that talked with Coleridge, that was the friend of Wilson, and-what furnishes a more sublime suggestion-this is he that knows by heart the mountain-fells and the mysterious recesses of hidden valleys for miles around; and we think, if he could convey us from the haunts of this passwade of his old age to those which glorified the Grasmere of his youth, what new chords he might touch of human love, for there it was that the sweetness of his wedded love had been buried and embalmed in a thousand outward memorials of happy hours long gone by; and of human sadness, for there it was that he had experienced the reversal of every outward fortune, and the alienations of friendships which he most highly valued. But the remembrances of Grasmere and of youth seem now to have been removed as into some other life: the man of a past generation walks alone, and amid other scenes. And yonder is the study in which he spends hours that are most holy-hours consecrated to what specific employments is known to none, since across its threshold no feet save his have passed for years. Now and then some grand intellectual effort proceeds forth from its sacred precincts; but that only happens when pecuniary necessities compel the exertion. How is it that the time not thus occupied is spent ?-in what remembrances, in what hidden thoughts, what passing dreams ?

As it grows dark, De Quincey's guest, having spent most precious moments which he feels ought never to cease, signifies the necessity of his taking his departure. To take leave of this strange man, however, is not so easy a matter as one might rashly suppose. There is a genius of procrastination about him. Was he ever known to make his appearance at any dinner in season, or indeed at any entertainment? Yes, he did once, at the recital of a Greek tragedy on the Edinburgh stage; but that happened through a trick played on him by an acquaintance, who, to secure some remote chance of his seeing the performance, told him that the doors opened at half-past six, whereas, in fact, they opened at seven. How preposterous to suppose, then, that he would let an opportunity pass for procrastinating other people, and putting all manner of snares about their feet! It is dangerous with such a man to hint of late hours; for just that lateness is to him the very jewel of the thing. In mentioning the circumstance, you only suggest to him the infinite pleasure connected with the circumstance. Perhaps he will deliberately set to work to prove that candle-light is the one absolutely indispensable condition to genial intercourse-which wonld doubtless suggest a great contrast, in that respect, between the ancient and modern economy-and where, then, is there to be an end? All attempts to extricate yourself by unravelling the net which is being woven about you are hopelessly vain: you cannot keep pace with him. The thought of delay

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enchants him, and he dallies with it, as a child with a pet delicacy. Thus he is at the house of a friend; it storms, and a reasonable excuse is furnished for his favourite experiment. The consequence is, that, once started in this direction, the delay is continued for a year. Late hours were particularly potent to "draw out" De Quincey; and, understanding this, Professor Wilson used to protract his dinners almost into the morning, a tribute which De Quincey doubtless appreciated.

So that it is better to be on the sly about saying "Good-bye" to this host of yours. When, however, it was absolutely necessary to be gone, De Quincey forth with insisted on accompanying his guest. What, then, was to be done? Ominously the sky looked down upon them, momentarily threatening a storm. No resource was there but to give the man his way, and accept his offer of companionship for a short distance, painfully conscious though you are of the fact that every step taken forwards must, during this same August, be retraced by the weary-looking old man at your side, who now lacks barely four years of life's average allotment. Thus you move on: and the heavens move on their hurricanes by nearer approaches, warnings of which propagate themselves all around you in every sound of the wind and every rustle of the forest-leaves. Meanwhile, there is no rest to the silvery vocal utterances of your companion every object by the way furnishes a ready topic for conversation. Just now you are passing an antiquated mansion, and your guide stops to tell you that in this house may have been committed most strange and horrible murders, that, in spite of the tempestuous mutterings heard on every side, ought now and here to be specially and solemnly memorialized by human relation. A woman passes by, a perfect stranger, but De Quincey steps entirely out of the road to one side, takes off his hat, and in the most reverent attitude awaits her passage—and you, poor astonished mortal that you are, lest you should yourself seem scandalously uncourteous, are compelled to do likewise. In this incident we see what infinite majesty invested the very semblance of humanity in De Quincey's thoughts.

Onward you proceed-one, two, three miles— and you can endure no longer the thought that your friend shall go on farther, increasing thus at every step the burden of his journey back. You have reached the Esk bank and the bridge which spans the stream; the storm so long threatened begins now to let loose its rage against all unsheltered mortals. Here De Quincey consents to bid you goodbye to you his last good-bye; and as here you leave him, so is he for ever enshrined in your thoughts, together with the primal mysteries of night and of storm, of the most pathetic of human tragedies and human tenderness.

But this paper, already sufficiently prolonged, should draw to a close. It is a source of great mortification to me that I cannot find some very disagreeable thing to say of De Quincey,

merely as a matter of poetic justice; for assuredly he was in the habit of saying all the malicious things he could about his friends. If there was anything in a man's face or shape particularly uncouth, you might trust De Quincey for noticing that. Even Wordsworth he conld not let off without a Parthian shot at his awkward legs and round shoulders; Dr. Parr he rated soundly on his mean proportions; and one of the most unfortunate things which ever happened to the Russian Emperor Alexander was to have been seen in London by De Quincey, who, even amid the festivities of national and international congratulation on the fall of Napoleon, could not forget that this imperial ally was a very commonplace-looking fellow, after all. But, in regard to physical superiority, De Quincey lived in a glass house too fragile to admit of his throwing many stones at his neighbours. The very fact that he valued personal appearance at so low an estimate takes away the sting from his remarks on the deformities of other people: he could not have meant any detraction, but simply wished to present a perfect picture to the eye, preserving the ugly features with the faultless, just as we all insist on doing in regard to those we love. De Quincey and myself, therefore, are likely to part good friends. Surely, if there was anything which vexed the tender heart of this man, it was, "the little love and the infinite hate" which went to make up the sum of life. If morbid in any direction, it was not in that of spite, but of love; and as an instance of almost unnatural intensity of affection, witness his insane grief over little Kate Wordsworth's grave, a grief which satisfied itself only by reasonless prostrations, for whole nights, over the dark mould which covered her from his sight.

It only remains for us to look in upon De Quincey's last hours. We are enabled to take almost the position of those who were permitted really to watch at his bedside, through a slight unpublished sketch, from the hand of his daughter, in a letter to a friend. I tremble almost to use materials that personally are so sacred; but sympathy, and the tender interest which is awakened in our hearts by such a life, are also sacred, and in privilege stand nearest to grief.

During the last few days of his life De Quincey wandered much, mixing up "real, and imaginary, or apparently imaginary things." He complained, one night, that his feet were hot and tired. His daughter arranged the blankets around them, saying, "Is that better, papa?" when he answered, "Yes, my love, I think it is; you know my dear girl, these are the feet that Christ washed."

Everything seemed to connect itself in his mind with little children.

"Of my brothers he often spoke, both those that are dead and those that are alive, as if they were his own brothers. One night he said, when I entered the room

"Is that you, Horace?' "No, papa.'

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Speaking of his father, one day, suddenly, and without introduction, he exclaimed"There is one thing I deeply regret, that I did not know my dear father better; for I am sure a better, kinder, or juster man could never have existed."

*

When death seemed approaching, the physician recommended that a telegram should be sent to the eldest daughter, who resided in Ireland, but he forbade any mention of this fact to the patient. De Quincey seemed to have a prophetic feeling that she was on her way to him, saying, "Has M. got to that town yet, that we stopped at when we went to Ireland? How many hours will it be before she can be here? Let me see-there are eight hours before I can see her, and three added to that!"

His daughter came sooner than the family expected; but the time tallied very nearly with the computation he had made. On the morning his daughter arrived, occurred the first intimation his family had seen that the hand of death was laid upon him. He had passed a quiet, but rather sleepless night, appearing "much the same, yet more than ordinarily loving." After greeting his child, he said, "And how does mamma's little girl like her leav ing her?" "Oh, they were very glad for me to come to grandpapa, and they sent you this kiss -which they did on their own accord." seemed much pleased. It was evident that M. presented herself to him as the mother of children, the constant theme of his wanderings. Once when his daughter quitted the room, said, "They are all leaving me but my dear little children." "I heard him call, one day, distinctly, Florence, Florence, Florence!'-again,

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My dear, dear mother!'-and to the last he called us My love,' and it sounded like no other sound ever uttered. I never heard such pathos as there was in it, and in every tone of his voice. It gave me an idea of a love that passeth all understanding."

During the next night he was thought dying, "but he lingered on and on till half-past nine the next morning. He told me something about to-morrow morning,' and something about sunshine; but the thought that he was talking about what he would never see drove the exact idea out of my head, though I am sure it was morning in another world he was talking of."

"There was an extraordinary appearance of youth about him, both for some time before and after death. He looked more like a boy of

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fourteen, and very beautiful. We did not like to let in the morning light, and the candle was burning at nine o'clock, when the post brought the following letter, which my sister and myself glanced over by candle light, just as we were listening to his decreasing breath. At the moment it did not strike me with the astonishment, at such an extraordinary coincidence, that when we came to read it afterwards it did.

66

"Brighton, Dec. 7th, 1859. ""MY DEAR DE QUINCEY,-Before I quit this world, I most ardently desire to see your handwriting. In early life, that is, more than sixty years ago, we were school-fellows together, and mutually attached; nay, I remember a boyish paper ("The Observer") in which we were engaged. Yours has been a brilliant literary career, mine far from brilliant, but I hope not unuseful as a theological student. It seems a pity we should not once more recognize one-another before quitting the stage. I have often read your works, and never without remembering the promise of your talents at Winkfield. My life has been almost a domestic tragedy. I have four children in lunaticasylums. Thank God, it is now drawing to a close; but it would cheer the evening of my days to receive a line from you, for I am, with much sincerity,

"Your old and attached friend,
"E. H. G.'

"I do not remember the name of G., but the name of Edward constantly recurred in his wanderings.

"Half an hour after the reading of that letter we heard those last pathetic sighs, so terrible from their very softness, and saw the poor, worn-out garment laid aside." Just before he died, he looked around the room, and said very tenderly to the nurse, the physician, and his daughters, who were present, "Thank youthank you all!” Sensible thus to the very last of kindness, he breathed out his life in simple thanks, swayed even in death by the spirit of profound courtesy that had ruled his life.

CAMP SONG.

Pass the flowing bowl along, Christen it with merry song: He that quaffs it with a sigh, With the dead men let him lie.

We are wearied, comrades mine; Quaff the glass of sparkling wine Till with fire the pulses thrill, Pass along the goblet still.

Let us live while yet we may;
Drink the midnight into day:
Fill the bowl with blushing wine;
Drink to days of "Auld Lang Syne,”

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IGNEOUS ACTION IN THE EARTH.

No. III.

We will now put the question, where were upon which no rain falls; there are others upon these supplies not wanted? Á will of the which it falls in exceptional large quantities. It Creator had to be carried out: the earth had has been found that, on denuding a district of brought forth grass, herb, and tree, and as its timber, its rainfall decreases, while a growth we find in the "Circle of Light," p. 33: "Every of timber increases the supply of water: thus, rock that grew above the waves was clothed, then, when our great productive portions of the and from that time forth, each point as it grew earth had nothing else to do but to furnish their upwards contributed its mite to the making of vegetation, we may imagine that such tracts the law." Vegetation had more than one duty were thickly clothed, that in consequence the to perform, but our history refers chiefly to its rain fell, not as it does here, scarcely as it does burial and its rising again. There was a lux- at present times even within the tropics, but in uriant growth, and a plentiful residue: over all, great and regular torrents, washing off the the winds of heaven blew in olden times as they sloping surfaces of the soil, and everything blow to-day-we will not say that they raged moveable upon it. Great rocks were loosened with greater violence, for of this we should have from the hill-tops, and rolled headlong down; no proof: we cannot say that climates varied great prostrate trees were washed away by the then from what they are at present, because we once modest rivulet, now a turbid and a heaving should then be wandering into the regions of torrent; and even as these torrents rolled along, imagination, and it is our desire not only to there were quiet spots behind some great rock, avoid so great a temptation on this imaginative some angle, or some deep hole, where the subject, but to adhere to the world, its climates, water-carried materials stopped. In some rivers and its temperatures, as we find them now-to great natural dams are formed, by the debris be guided in our little tale by what is before and timber, which turn aside the currents of the us, around us, and to accept nothing for granted. water never to come back again. In some these There are sign-posts in the earth, the ocean, stoppages are only temporary. We see in our and the air, and we must endeavour to find our river-courses, boulders, and great pebbles, fine way through nature's labyrinths by these sim-gravel, and finer sand, and everything finds its ple means, The winds blow now with strength sufficient for our purpose: they destroy our English roofs, our thatches, our trees, and our ships; we hear of the destruction by cyclones in the east, of the hurricane ravages in the west; imagination could scarcely picture to itself a greater force than has been displayed in some of these tempests; we require none greater for the duty they perform to-day, or for the labours they performed of old, when, in their yearly currents, they fell upon the plentiful herbage of the earth, and dashed, as they do now, the weakest members to the ground. We look out of our glazed windows upon our neatly planted woods, our carefully fenced corn fields, and upon our beautiful gardens full of delicate and of charming flowers in the days we go back to, this was not; all was waste (as we call it now when not applied to man's use) and natural luxuriance—but there is not, and there was not a waste, every place has its use in nature. Of all the tangled mass thrown yearly on the earth by old age, natural decay, or violence, some staid where it fell, and contributed its decaying substances to the soil, for various purposes into which we cannot now inquire. There is, however, a change in nature, which we may touch on here, to enable us to bring before our readers a force of which the inhabitants of these islands are comparatively ignorant. There are on the face of this earth large barren tracts

own resting-place. Page tells us, at p. 308: "The farther we descend the river towards its mouth, the finer becomes the texture of the sediment." All these things are wanted where we find them, and every atom which is left behind aids in the building, and in the shaping of this earth. There is no builder but nature; the sands lay together, the gravels work with a beautiful method into their beds, the silt forms the Delta, and in its very softness gradually expels the sea; this receives the yearly tribute of floating vegetation in tangled masses from every river, which has at any time run into it, and it then wafts it onward to its destination.

Our geologists have told us that we are very ignorant regarding the currents of the ocean; and this ignorance has hitherto prevented their giving that credit to ocean labours, which we now propose to do. We are not ignorant of its older actions; they are proved all over the earth, in Central Asia, down the entire line of North and South America, in Africa, in Europe, and here at home, in England. There is, as we have before said, a regular formation of earth due to the currents of wind and water, and we will refer to Page (p. 292-3) to explain fully what we mean: "Most of the hills, as in Britain, present a bare, bold, craggy face, to the west and southwest, as if worn and denuded by water, while their slopes to the east and south-east are usually masked with thick accumulations of

clay, sand, and gravel." This character of country is, he tells us, "known by the name of crag and tail." and after a description of the working of these currents, he tells us, "It is evident that in Britain the transporting currents passed from north and west to south and east." Without consenting to this doctrine as bearing upon the whole formation of our islands, we will use the partial fact as a proof, that the present aspect of the earth offers evidence of the forces used in its building, and that whereever we find one side of a mountain almost scarped and broken, while the other extends in a more gradual slope, we may feel assured that the same agencies of wind and water produced and shaped them, as produced or shaped the hills alluded to by Page.

as

readers the very latest and the best authori-
ties on the subject, and will then continue
our history, leaving the reader to judge
the
case. We refer first to Page,
embracing the opinions of the most eminent
men up to 1859, and as the authority now
placed in the hands of the students of geology
at our royal military college. He tells us that
the surface temperature of the earth" is mainly
derived from the sun;" that "the temperature
of the crust, as depending on extreme heat, is
also variable to the depth of from 60 to 90 feet;"
that downwards "the temperature increases at
the ratio of one degree for every 50 or 55 feet,
and that at this rate"
"a temperature of
2,400 Farenheit would be reached at a depth of
25 miles or thereby, sufficient to keep in fusion
such rocks as basalt," &c.; p. 29 he tells us that
"this high internal temperature is apparently
the cause of hot springs, volcanoes, earthquakes,
and other igneous phenomena which make them-
selves known at the surface." Going on to
page 117, "Theories of volcanic action," we
find that lava is ejected from the volcano by the
contraction of the rock crust within the earth
as it cools, as shown by Page in our first paper.
The next authority that bears upon the sub-

There are other proofs of the directions of currents, perhaps more conspicuous than these, and leading more direct to the point we are considering. We cannot exemplify this agency better than by referring to the maps of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea. Taking the Isthmus of Panama as a land formed from the wash of the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, we find that the great rivers Mississippi and Oronoco empty themselves into the space between them. The promontory of Yucatan,ject may be found in the Chemical News, of 23rd Cuba, and other islands, represent the meetings of the northern with the southern currents on the west. The Bahama islands tell us where the Mississippi waters met the tides and currents of the Atlantic. While from Jamaica to Trinidad we can trace the effects of eddies and whirls between the currents from south and north. Accepting these agencies as the constructors of these islands-not as We now see them, clothed in beautiful herbage, and rich in cultivation, but as burying beneath their eddying water their yearly burdens, we come at once to the great cause of the deposition of igneous or gaseous matter within the earth, as shown in the island of Jamaica.

We have had a picture of the extent of these supplies, our own coal-fields have exhibited their continuous nature, there is nothing beyond our most common ideas in the transaction, there were constant growths, constant deaths, and constant burials; and now we have, and have had from undated time, a frequent resurrection. No place upon earth that we know of has been more notorious for its igneous phenomena than Jamaica; it has no volcano, but there are many evidences of igneous action, and Page tells us (p. 56): "its harbours have been sunk, towns destroyed, and rivers changed from their former courses." These visitations have come at intervals, each testifying to the fact of an outburst of a powerful force through the envelope of some particular stratum, or deposit of vegetable matter. This is the point at issue: is an earthquake, or is any other phenomenon of like nature caused by the escape of gaseous matter from the buried productions of the earth, or from the causes assigned by our great geologists? At the risk of some repetition, we will endeavour to place before our

In

October, 1868, where we are told that the direct
evidence of the "molten liquidity" of the in-
terior is "afforded by the frequent and great
outbursts of molten lava, which, in every quarter
of our globe, are met with, breaking through
the surface of the land and disturbing the bot-
tom of the sea"-leading to "the very natural
inference that these eruptions must proceed
from some vast accumulation of molten matter,
situated at comparatively no very great distance
below the surface." And then the author
(Mr. David Forbes), after many careful and
well-reasoned arguments, concludes that "the
hypothesis of the internal fluidity of the earth"
may be regarded as posted up to date."
the Athenæum of the 3rd of April, 1869, the
same author tells Mr. Malet that he is "not pre-
pared to attribute the issuing of molten matter
from volcanoes solely to this cause," (viz., con-
traction of the crust), and as he refers Mr. M.
to "Vesuvius," we may suppose that he (Mr.
Forbes) endorses the conclusions arrived at by
Professor J. Phillips in that book. This is the
latest and the most authoritative work that we
have it gives a careful and a well-digested his-
tory of the Italian volcano, and the 12th chapter
places before us in elaborate reasoning his "general
views leading to a theory of volcanic excitement."
We all know that there are many conditions of
this, that the conditions of no two localities are
similar, and, further than this, we know that
the conditions of the same locality vary in the
character of their excitements. The author puts
the question: "What are the general condi-
tions? What are the causes of particular diver-
sity?" In these questions he includes the past
and present phenomena of "any particular vol-
cano," and "the general terrestrial or cosmical
conditions of such phenomena," He then

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