Respecting the present volume as a whole, it will now be understood that, while a portion of its contents consists of matter derived from De Quincey's revised edition of 1853-60, considerably the larger proportion consists of recovered magazine articles that have been practically inaccessible hitherto to British readers. So composed, the volume is certainly one of the richest specimens that could be offered of De Quincey's general characteristics. There are ups and downs in it, portions inferior to others in literary merit, and occasional lapses into what may seem spiteful or in bad taste. All in all, however, it illustrates most variously and most amusingly the shrewdness of De Quincey's observations of men and things, the range and readiness of his erudition, the subtlety and originality of his speculative intellect, his faculty of poetic imagination, his power of mournful pathos on the one hand and the most whimsical humour on the other, and the marvellous versatility and flexibility of his style. D. M. AUTOBIOGRAPHY (_continued_) FROM 1803 TO 1808 CHAPTER I OXFORD I[1] [1] From _Tait's Magazine_ for February 1835.--M. It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that I first entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, or rather with a view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous story is told of a young candidate for clerical orders--that, being asked by the bishop's chaplain if he had ever "been to Oxford," as a colloquial expression for having had an academic education, he replied, "No: but he had twice been to Abingdon": Abingdon being only seven miles distant. In the same sense I might say that once before I had been at Oxford: but _that_ was as a transient visitor with Lord W----,[2] when we were both children. Now, on the contrary, I approached these venerable towers in the character of a student, and with the purpose of a long connexion; personally interested in the constitution of the University, and obscurely anticipating that in this city, or at least during the period of my nominal attachment to this academic body, the remoter parts of my future life would unfold before me. All hearts were at this time occupied with the public interests of the country. The "sorrow of the time" was ripening to a second harvest. Napoleon had commenced his Vandal, or rather Hunnish war with Britain, in the spring of this year, about eight months before; and profound public interest it was, into which the very coldest hearts entered, that a little divided with me the else monopolizing awe attached to the solemn act of launching myself upon the world. That expression may seem too strong as applied to one who had already been for many months a houseless wanderer in Wales, and a solitary roamer in the streets of London. But in those situations, it must be remembered, I was an unknown, unacknowledged vagrant; and without money I could hardly run much risk,