[THIS volume completes the autobiographic portion of De Quincey's works. The very full and free reference to his contemporaries renders it especially interesting to the student of English literature of this period, since De Quincey's associates were almost wholly of the guild of letters. One name occurs several times in connection with that of the Wordsworth family, the name of Professor Wilson, but in this volume no extended account is given of him. In a future volume will be given a sketch of Wilson, not hitherto published in any collection of De Quincey's writings.

No one can read De Quincey's references to the Wordsworth family, without perceiving a certain change of attitude from the first fervent idolatry. Without aiming to strike the balance in a question of this kind, it seems right to give the somewhat severe comments made upon the relation of De Quincey and Wordsworth, by the late Miss Harriet Martineau, who was a neighbor of both in Westmoreland. It occurs in her volume of" Biographical Sketches collected from the columns of the" London Daily News."