Three, at least, of his friends relate the story in their recollections of him: Mrs. Mathews in her life of her husband; Leigh Hunt in The Companion; and De Quincey in Fraser's Magazine.

Scott will be remembered as the great master of the historical novel, Jane Austen as the skillful realistic interpreter of everyday life, De Quincey for the brilliancy of his style and the vigor of his imagination in presenting his opium dreams, and Lamb for his exquisite humor.

De Quincey on Lamb, 377.

The similarity of the illusions, here attributed to insanity, to those described by De Quincey as the result of opium, is too marked to be accidental.

Yet all the drowsy juices of Circe's garden could not hinder De Quincey from writing his twenty-five volumes.