He had studied metaphysics and philosophy for years, and not having "shrank from the toil of thinking," he must have evolved much original matter; being a man, as De Quincey says, of "most original genius." Shelling no doubt had gotten ahead of him in publication, but Coleridge had nevertheless undoubtedly thought out the transcendental system before meeting with the works of Shelling. He says himself emphatically, that "all the fundamental ideas were born and matured in my own mind before I ever saw a page of the German philosopher." However, Coleridge says of the whole system of philosophy--the Dynamic System, as I understand the matter--"that it is his conviction that it is no other than the system of Pythagoras and Plato revived and purified from impure mixtures." [The quotations in the above note are from memory, and though not given as exact, they carry the idea intended.] NOTE No. 5.--ON DE QUINCEY'S STYLE OF WRITING. As to De Quincey's style, I think it may be summarized about thus: Fine writing. Afflicted with ridiculous hyperbole. Too discursive. In his narrative pieces he is too rambling and digressive. I have read but one article of those classed under the title of Literary Reminiscences, namely, the one on Coleridge; it does well enough, but I have read other narrative pieces having the faults mentioned. But then his writings are nearly all of a narrative nature. However, the faults above named are not special to his narrative pieces only--they are general defects in his style. In his shorter pieces, such as his article on Wordsworth's poetry, on Shelley, and on Hazlitt, and likely some others of the same series which I have not yet read, he is interesting and sufficiently to the point. But in his essay on the works of Walter Savage Landor, is he not a little too inflated, and does he not run his ironical style into the ground? His "Confessions" I have come to regard more as a literary performance than for any benefit to mankind on the subject of opium there is in them, and as a literary performance the work was undoubtedly intended. There is more uniformity of style in it than in any of his other works of that length that I have read. He is more equable, though smooth and fluent. Still there is a break or two of humor in it that may sound harsh, though not the horrible, grisly, blood-curdling humor that he has in some of his pieces in the shape of irony. He oversteps the modesty of nature in his use of the satirical, I think. He seems hard and cruel sometimes, especially in "Coleridge and Opium Eating," when speaking of Coleridge enticing Gillman into the habit of eating opium, and other places in the same paper. In many instances I think he loses his dignity altogether and becomes very coarse; that is, slangy and common. He ever seems to think that to be smart, to be a success, to be formidable, is to be humorous. He has many brilliant flashes of intellectual humor, but it