FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: TICK NOR, REED, AND FIELDS. M DCCC LI. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. CHAPTER I. LITERARY NOVITIATE. IT was in the year 1801, whilst yet at school, that I made my first literary acquaintance. This was with a gentleman now dead, and little, at any time, known in the literary world; indeed, not at all; for his authorship was confined to a department of religious literature as obscure and as narrow in its influence as any that can be named-viz. Swedenborgianism. Already, on the bare mention of that word, a presumption arises against any man, that, writing much (or writing at all) for a body of doctrines so apparently crazy as those of Mr. Swedenborg, a man must have bid adieu to all good sense and manliness of mind. Indeed, this is so much of a settled case, that even to have written against Mr. Swedenborg would be generally viewed as a suspicious act, requiring explanation, and not very easily admitting of it. Mr. Swedenborg I call him, because I understand that his title to call himself 'Baron,' is imaginary; or rather he never did call himself by any title of honor that mistake having originated amongst his followers in this country, |