14. Among the occasional causes should be specified
what Forbes Winslow has denominated a " psycho-
logical romance," those

" Fine Confessions,
That make the reader envy the transgressions,"

as saith the poet of Newstead concerning St. Augus-
tine. When rhapsody shall have assumed the garb



The Causes and Occasions. 159

of earnest truth and romance shall have taken the
impress of history, then may it be expected of De
Quincey's Confessions, draped as they are in a pris-
matic gaudiness of attire, that they shall work upon
the unsuspecting reader as cautionary dissuasives (as
they do not) rather than as provoking appetizers (as
they do). There is yet to be reported the very first
exceptional case. That these "confessions to the
fact" have directly encouraged tentative trials upon'
the same line of experiment is now very certainly
known from independent counter-confessions.
15. The Rev. Walter Colton, late a chaplain in the
U. S. Navy, having read out of curiosity De Quincey's
narrative at a time when he happened to be on the
Mediterranean station, was tempted to make a trial
of opium in his own person. The dose was inordi-
nately large, and the effect appears to have been in
proportion. " Soon lost to the realities of the outside
world (so runs the narrative) for two days and two
nights continuously, I awoke at length confused in
mind and exhausted in body, having been recalled to
my proper self, but only through the assiduous and
untiring attentions and soothings of my bosom-friend.
