Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey].

  • Thomas De Quincey
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pecuniary embarrassments, as tbey were afflicting in the turn they took. Dramatically viewed, if a man were speaking of things so far removed from our own times and interests as to excuse that sort of language, the cir- cumstances of Hazlitt’s last hours might rivet the gaze of a critic as fitted harmoniously, with almost scenic art, to the whole tenor of his life; fitted equally to rouse his wrath, to deepen his dejection, and in the hour of death to justify his misanthropy. But I have no wish to utter a word on things which I know only at second-hand, and cannot speak upon without risk of misstating facts or doing injustice to persons. I prefer closing this section with the words of Mr Gilfillan :—• “ Well, says Bulwer, that of all the mental wrecks which have occurred in our era, this was the most melancholy. Others may have been as unhappy in their domestic cir- cumstances, and gone down steeper places of dissipation than he; but they had meanwhile the breath of popularity, if not of wealth and station, to give them a certain solace.” What had Hazlitt of this nature ? Mr G-ilfillan answers,— “ Absolutely nothing to support and cheer him. With no hope, no fortune, no status in society; no certain popularity as a writer, no domestic peace, little sympathy from kin- dred spirits, little support from his political party, no moral management, no definite belief; with great powers and great passions within, and with a host of powerful enemies without, it was his to enact one of the saddest tragedies on which the sun ever shone. Such is a faithful por- traiture of an extraordinary man, whose restless intellect and stormy passions have now, for fifteen years, found that repose in the grave which was denied them above it.” Mr G-ilfillan concludes with expressing his conviction, in which I desire to concur, that both enemies and friends