FROM end to end of our long gallery | plodding along his most cheerless way, of national portraits of British authors, smilling at times with a consciousness of ranging through five hundred years, from Chaucer to Tennyson, we shall not pause before a more interesting group than that of the great writers who lived in the opening of our nineteenth century. Only one other group is more remarkable-the starry constellation of Elizabeth-by virtue of the loftier reach, and wider range, and towering majesty of Shakspeare and Bacon. Here is Wordsworth, little suspected as greatest amongst many great by his earlier cotemporaries, with head slightly bowed, and look of solemn thought,

the "all hail hereafter" that he should yet live to hear; but doing his work dutifully while it was day, no matter though he should go to sleep without his fame. Coleridge, the "noticeable man with large gray eyes," in which there glittered the spirit of Eld, and glorious brow, and face as of an angel. Byron, darkly passionate and miserably peevish, with the taste of his own life bitter in his mouth; speaking his new decrees to the world of poetry in the name of a capital "I," and fulminating like a live crater on those who would not bow and believe; eager to storm the take his seat there, unless he reigned heights of Parnassus, but unwilling to alone; pursued all his upward way by the gnawing consciousness that every step

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which lifted him higher over the heads of | bore it on to many victories. Keats, leaning his chin on hand, and luxuriating in his languorous sense of beauty; looking on external nature with the large eyes and clinging love of those who are not long for this life. Talfourd, youthful and in listening attitude, with looks made radiant by reflected light. Hazlitt, gloomy and defiant, ever standing on guard ready to defend Napoleon.

Many other striking faces attract us in this group; but there is one that just now holds our attention more than all the rest

brain, oppressive in brow, and peering out of eyes that have seen much sorrow. The head shows a want of animal force behind. The mouth is drawn down noticeably at the corners. The eyes look out of two rings of darkness. A spirit of singular temper and strange experience! This is Thomas De Quincey. Let us look at his portrait a little further; it is that of a man to know more about.

men only served to expose his poor lame foot! Lamb, with that quick keen face, gleaming eyes, and stammering tongue; with a deep dark tarn of tears in his heart, for all that sunny sweetness overflowing the face; hiding his secret skeleton with all sorts of flowers and queerest quips of frolic and fun; his Quaker primness giving such piquancy to his sly jests; his tender insertion of the hook into his victim, as old Isaac advises respecting the worm, "as though you loved it." Sydney Smith, with his rare, honest, hearty Eng--the portrait of a small man with a large lish presence, and ringing mirth into which he put his whole heart; turning his hnmor to useful purposes, with all the jollity of Mark Tapley under difficulties. Tom Moore, gay and glittering a very humming-bird of song, fluttering from flower to flower, sipping their sweetnesses, and repaying them with a tiny music; all sparkle, and color, and motion; caught amongst the strings of Erin's harp, Although De Quincey has not written. and making melody with the touch of wings rather than with the cunning one of the world's great works-not havfingers of some mighty bard who crowded ing finished his De Emendatione Humani his life into his play. Southey, all dignity Intellectus-he has left us in possession of and distance to strangers, with an air of a vast and delightful body of writings, lofty regard, and a look as though his unique in character and supreme in kind. spirit had reined back the head, like a He was a man very aptly and richly enhorse thrown on its haunches. Honest dowed for a historical critic, and as a Walter Scott, every inch the Laird, with writer of narrative from personal or his strong Border physiognomy; no nim- national history; one of those writers, bus round his brow, but a head and shoul- rare in kind, who, like Mr. Ruskin, possess ders that can bear a world of toil and the better half of the complete critic trouble; a healthy, stalwart man. Shel-nature, having the creative intellect. If a ley, the beautiful Damon "unconditioned;" with eternal youth in his look; a spirit of good in the presence of suffering humanity; a fair fiend with a foul tongue in the presence of that holy Saviour whose earthly form he could not recognize. Godwin, stately and cold as a Greek bust; "all was picture" as he passed his eyes over the map of life; there was nothing real for him but that which is to be. Christopher North, a man of larger mould, with the head of a hero and heart of a lion; a form that might have stood first as the live figurehead of the Norseman's war-ship; moving into the fight chanting some old runic rhyme, with fire in eye, and foam on lip, and battle-axe in hand; large in look, ruddy and radiant with life; a commanding spirit that rode as on wings over the buoyant animal forces, which reared and plunged "like proud seas under it," and

hundred of the world's best authors had to be named by us publicly, De Quincey should be one. Privately, we place him amongst the first fifty!

De Quincey was yet a young man in the great dawn of new life that rose over the world with the French Revolution, touching with strange glamour the eyes of the young, till they saw apocalyptic visions; touching the faces of men, till many caught a glimpse of the coming universal brotherhood, in what seemed a millennial light; touching the lips of common men with fire, till they too shared in the general inspiration, and prophesied; touching the old world with such a gleam of glory, it appeared as though the new heavens were already begining to arch over the new earth. Yet in that time, when humanity seemed marching to a nobler music, towards a splendid future, and "triumphant looks" were the "common