The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-13 00:00:00

DE QUINCE'', THE OPIUM-EATER.

Mrs. Gordon, in her life of her father, Professor Wilson,
gives the following sketch cf that singular man, Thomas de
Quincey :—" I remember his coming to Gloucester-place one
stormy night. He remained hour after hour in vain expecta-
tion that the waters would assuage and the hurly-burly cease.
There was nothing for it but that our visitor should remain
all night. The Professorordered a room to be prepared for
him; and they found each other such good company that
this accidental detention was prolonged, without further
difficulty, for the greater part of a year, During this visit.
some of his eccentricities did not escape observation. For
example, he rarely appeared at the family meals, preferring
to dine in his own room at his own hour, not unfrequently
turning night into day. His tastes were very simple, though.
a little troublesome, at least to the servant who prepared.
histboi ns
drf eri
eop
tma. s t.
tThheCelooeffioneoe,k,
weo
hleeod thehri
acmde
aa
atnendr
ama
si
thatki
e,
naenoi dnwvaiatprhiiae
bhc
leiymoffodmr
amui
eyt d-
received her instructions in silent awe, quite overpowered
couldcdoyuse?heyscarcely
chut
iaenvs
gte
isnp o
sktie
enh w
ti
et
rh
ams
asr e d
tehf ee rs ee n: c
—e
by his manner, for had he been addressing a duchess he
a
OH i
go u
tl
od
my system, and the possibility of any
additional disarrangement of the stomach taking place, con-
sequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so,
indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me
from attending to matters of overwhelming importance, if
you do not remember to cut the mutton in a diagonal rather
than in a longitudinal form.' The cook—a Scotchwoman—
had great reverence for Mr.De Quincey as a man of genius ;
but, after one of those interviews her patience was pretty
well exhausted, and she would say, Weel I never hard the
like o' that in a my days; the bodie has an awfu' sicht o'
words. If it had been my ain master that was wanting his
dinner, he would ha' ordered a hale tablefu' wi' little mair
than a wauft o' his haun ; and here's a' this claver aboot a
bit of mutton nae bigger than a prin. Mr. Do Quincey
would make a gran' preacher, though I'm thinking, a
hantle o' the folk wouldna ken what he was driving at.,
But these little meals were not the only indulgences that,
when not properly attended to, brought trouble to Mr. De
r
Quincey. Regularity in doses of opium was even. of
consequence. An ounce of laudanum per diem proogstrre:_treed..
animal life in the early part of the day. It was no f
in
quent sight to find him in his room lying übP:onk,thrug
with his
front of the fire, his head resting upon.
raofound slumber.
arms crossed over his breast, plunged.
For several hours he would lie in
of the torpor had passed away.e
nv towards the early morning
thisTh state, i
time
untilw h etnheh
wasect es
most brilliant was genera--
hours; and then, morein order to show him off,
thans n
in supper-parties arties so that, sitting till
my father arranged i'a
three or four morning, he brought Mr. De Quincey
,and power of conversation he
,
to the
was
so troy
point awtwonktdhi_cee hrfutir!. charm .

AFFAIRS OF POLAND•

The latest accounts from Warsaw tell of disaf-
fection in the Russian army, of the spread of the
Polish Secret Society—which one might have been
sure would tot be diminished by the exile of Count
Andrew Zamoyski, the recognised spokesman of
the moderate and therefore distinctly anti-revolu-
tionary party—and of profound irritation among
all classes, caused by a new mode of conscription—
or, rather, prescription—which leaves the selection
of recruits entirely to the police, and by which any
young man between the ages of 20 and 30 may, on
suspicion of patriotism, not likely to be ill-founded,
and on the report of a spy, be sent off to the army.
Significantly enough, the peasants are exempted
from the action of this decree. It is to be applied
almost exclusively in the towns, which are natu-
rally the great centres of political and national
feeling. Numbers of young men were trying to
escape from Watsaw, and it was to be expected
that some terrible act of vengeance would be pro-
voked by the tyranny and injustice of a measure
which it would be difficult to match, even in the
history of the Russian rule in Poland.
On the other hand, and notwithstanding those
first attempts at assassination, which the arrival of
the Grand Duke in Warsaw in some inexplicable
manner provoked, his Imperial Highness has really
conferred some important benefits on the inhabi-
tants of the kingdom. There are now thirteen
gymnasiums open where formerly there were
only five, and Warsaw has once more its Univer-
sity, which is not the less a University because it
happens to be called a High school. This is
not much, perhaps, but we must remember that pre-
viously there was no superior educational esta-
blishment in all Poland at which the Polish lan-
guage was even tolerated. Prussia, so earnest in
requiring that the Germans—and even the Danes
—of Schleswig shall be taught everything in Ger-
man, will not allow the three upper classes of the
so-called Polish gymnasiums in Poson to receive
instruction in Polish. Austria, after 1846, did not
hesitate to Germanize the ancient University of
Cracow, the continued existence of which as a
national institution was specially guaranteed by
the Treaty of Vienna. Russia swept the Univer-
sities of "Wilma and Warsaw away altogether after
the Insurrection of 1830. This concerted plan to
destroy the culture of a whole nation was, perhaps,
more barbarous even than the partitions of the
last century. It was an attempt, after the blood of
tens of thousands of Poles had been shed, to touch
the remainder on the brain so as to paralyse them
for ever. It has had just the opposite effect, how-
ever, to what was intended. It has stimulated the
national feeling, and often to so painful an extent
as to cause insurrections, which, however hopeless
in a political point of view, were, from moral causes,
quite inevitable.
By issuing a proclamation last month, calling
upon the Poles to assist him in carrying out his
reforms, the Grand Duke showed that he felt the
impossibility of governing in any rational and
humane manner without the concurrence, to some
extent, of the governed. It was not likely that the
members of the Secret Society would aid him.
They have a programme of their own which they
mean to put in action after the Polish Revolution
and the Russian Revolution have taken place. But
in the meanwhile upwards of 300 of the principal
landed proprietors, on seeing the proclamation,
came to Warsaw from various parts of the provinces
and decided that they " in the absence of any legal
organ," would reply to it by an address. This ad-
dress they confided to Count Andrew Zamoyski,
requiring him as their representative to make known
to his Imperial Highness demands which may be
summed up as follows :—That all the provinces of
ancient Poland now in the possession of Russia
should be re-united, endowed with free institutions,
and governed under a Polish administration. On
the other hand, the authors of the address promised
their faithful support to the Government.
No such offer and engagement had ever before
been made on the part of the Poles to an Emperor
of Russia, and Alexander 11. has for the first time
an opportunity of rallying round his throne a nation
which, after having for a whole century stood firm
against violence, now spontaneously promises him
loyalty and fidelity on the sole condition of having
its rights, as recognised by a treaty signed by the
five great Powers, restored to it. The Pubes have
no separate army, and ask for none. How, then,
could Poland happy and contented be a greater
danger to Russia than Poland, as she now is, in a
state of despair, and perpetually on the verge of in-
surrection ?

The Russian Government, by declaring all the
Polish provinces under its dominion in a state of
siege, has if possible increased the unity of feeling
already existing,and which has never ceased to exist,
between the kingdom ceded to Russia, under very
precise conditions, in 1815, and the provinces vio-
lently torn from Poland by Catherine at the first,
second, and third partitions. Russia's title to this
last section, or sections, of territory was also recog-
nised by Europe for the first time in 1815, and then
only on her formally engaging to govern all her
Polish subjects as Poles, and to grant them " repre-
sentative and national institutions." It was not
specified that they should all enjoy the benefit of
the constitution which Alexander promised to grant,
and did grant to the kingdom; but curiouslyenough,
as it must seem to the Russians of the present day,
the Emperor made a point of getting a clause in-
serted to the effect that he reserved the right of
giving to his constitutional kingdom "the interior
extension which he might think proper." It was at
that time thought an immense advantage for Russia
to have the opportunity of joining to her Empire a
Polish kingdom but little inferior in extent to the
Poland of 1772, and Lord Castlereagh, in giving a
reluctant consent to that arrangement—so different
from the one he had really at heart--expressed a
hope " that the independence of Europe would in-
cur none of the dangers which might so justly
be apprehended from the union of the powerful
monarchy of Poland to the empire of Russia."
Now it is Russia who insists on keeping herself
weak, and who regards the proposition of a number
of Polish noblemen that all the Polish provinces
under her shall be united under one administra-
tion as a treasonable offence. Yet within the nar-
row limits traced for it in 1815 the kingdom of
Poland has become for Russia an ever-increasing
source of perplexity, to such a degree that the idea
of giving it up altogether is at this time, if not
agreeable, at least familiar to most Russian states-

ratn. Such a policy has even been advocated in
Russian journals published under the Imperial cen-
h:mhip, more especially in the Day, which has
Penly recommended the withdrawal of the Russian
army from the kingdom and the entire abandon-
ment of
that portion of Polish territory to the Poles.
The addr„, Placed in the hands of Count Zamoyski
"ggcsts di fortify instea4Yfferent solution. It promises to
and the Rereantotarevering the tie between Poland
kinaply that the Emperor
; and the condition is
secured to him of Russia, using the pri-
vilegetrar.sfer from St. Petersburg
by the Treaty of Vienna,shall
of administration of the polish
to Warsaw the centre
Russian
provinces, now i.^_-
all with the
all his Polish subjects that' flapire, and grant to
national institutions" -ose " rqwesentative and
which the fittni e treaty entitles
them to demand.
It is more than probable that
concil ja s t with the king-
ilia
union of the Polish proving adminis-
eona would have sufficed to
to " heal the wound" which, accordeinthe poles
eminent Russian publicists of all parl to the most
Such
an enfeebling effect on all Russia's raB' has
movements.
This idea of reunion is by no means newovelt
was
encouraged by the Emperor Alexander
to the la
*lay of his teign. He spoke of it as his «favouritte
project," and even took steps towards realizing it
by creating with the recruits 'of the Polish
pro,
virics not included in the kingdom a distinct corps
trarmee, called "the Lithuanian Corps." The
Lithuanian colours were very like those of the re-
gular Polish army, end both armies were corn-
nwnded in chief by the Grand Duke Constantine,
uncle of the:present Grand Duke of the same name..
The Emperor Nicholas himself advanced this
combination a step further. He transferred to
Warsaw the supreme direction of the Administra-
tion of those provinces, and confided it to his eldest
brother, who had just ceded to him his right to the