Procter,--alias Barry Cornwall, formerly of the Marcian Colonnade, now of some prosaical Inn of Court--the kindly Procter, one of the foremost to welcome me into the Brotherhood, with a too-flattering Dedication (another instance against the jealousy of authors), is my own left-hand file. But what he says shall be kept as strictly confidential; for he is whispering it into my Martineau ear. On my other side, when I turn that way, I see a profile, a shadow of which ever confronts me on opening my writing-desk,--a sketch taken from memory, the day after seeing the original[14]. In opposition to the “extra man’s size” of Cunningham, the party in question looks almost boyish, partly from being in bulk somewhat beneath Monsieur Quetelet’s “Average Man,” but still more so from a peculiar delicacy of complexion and smallness of features, which look all the smaller from his wearing, in compliment, probably, to the _Samsons_ of Teutonic Literature, his locks unshorn. Nevertheless whoever looks again, Sees more than marks the crowd of common men. There is speculation in the eyes, a curl of the lip, and a general character in the outline, that reminds one of some portraits of Voltaire. And a Philosopher he is every inch. He looks, thinks, writes, talks and walks, eats and drinks, and no doubt sleeps philosophically--_i.e._ deliberately. There is nothing abrupt about his motions,--he goes and comes calmly and quietly--like the phantom in Hamlet, he is here--he is there--he is gone! So it is with his discourse. He speaks slowly, clearly, and with very marked emphasis--the tide of talk flows like Denham’s river, “strong without rage, without overflowing, full.” When it was my frequent and agreeable duty to call on Mr. De Quincey (being an uncommon name to remember, the servant associated it, on the Memoria Technica principle, with a sore throat and always pronounced it Quinsy), and I have found him at home, quite at home, in the midst of a German Ocean of _Literature_, in a storm,--flooding all the floor, the table and the chairs,--billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging open,--on such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour whilst the Philosopher, standing, with his eyes fixed on one side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than reading from a “handwriting on the wall.” Now and then he would diverge, for a Scotch mile or two, to the right or left, till I was tempted to inquire with Peregrine in John Bull (Colman’s not Hook’s), “Do you never deviate?”--but he always came safely back to the point where he had left, not lost the scent, and thence hunted his topic to the end. But look!--we are in the small hours, and a change comes o’er the spirit of that “old familiar face.” A faint hectic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree dimmer, and each is surrounded by a growing shadow--signs of the waning influence of that Potent Drug whose stupendous Pleasures and enormous Pains have been so eloquently