touching tribute to the Maid of Orleans, and all doubt upon that point will disappear. Besides, over the surface of his writings there ripples a quaint, genial humor, which is, for the most part, kept within the limits of propriety by an exquisite taste. In marked contrast to many of our most illustrious writers, De Quincey always exhibits a profound respect for Christianity. Listen to his indignant rebuke of Kant, who, in his work on 'Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason,' had expressed opinions so utterly atheistical as to draw forth severe menaces from the reigning King of Prussia, Frederic William the Second: 'Surely, gray hairs and irreligion make a monstrous union; and the spirit of proselytism carried into the service of infidelity--a youthful zeal put forth by a tottering, decrepid old man, to withdraw from desponding and suffering human nature its most essential props, whether for action or suffering, for conscience or for hope, is a spectacle too disgusting to leave room for much sympathy with merit of another kind.' Finally, we love De Quincey for his abhorrence of all knavish or quackish men, and his deep respect for human nature. We suspect that but few dignitaries of the past ever received so sound a 'knouting' as did that 'accursed Jew' Josephus, at his hands; nor do Grotius and Dr. Parr fare much better. He believes Josephus to be a villain, Grotius and Dr. Parr literary impostors, and he strips off their masks in a very summary manner. But with the trials, the struggles, the miseries of humanity, no man more profoundly sympathizes than Thomas de Quincey. 'Oftentimes,' says he, speaking of the daily police reports, 'oftentimes I stand aghast at the revelations there made of human life and the human heart; at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery; at the suffering which oftentimes throws a shadow over palaces, and the grandeur of mute endurance which sometimes glorifies a cottage.' How touching is his memorial of those forlorn twin sisters, who 'snatched convulsively at a loving smile, or loving gesture, from a child, as at some message of remembrance from God;' how tender his tribute to 'poor Pink;' how affecting his devotion to unhappy Ann, whom, in the strength of his gratitude, he could 'pursue into the darkness of a London brothel, or into the deeper darkness of the grave'!