In 1800, at the age of fifteen, De Quincey was ready for Oxford; he had
not been praised without reason, for his scholarship was far in advance
of that of ordinary pupils of his years. "That boy," his master at Bath
School had said, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than
you or I could address an English one." He was sent to Manchester
Grammar School, however, in order that after three years' stay he might
secure a scholarship at Brasenose College, Oxford. He remained there--
strongly protesting against a situation which deprived him "of
_health_, of _society_, of _amusement_, of _liberty_, of _congeniality
of pursuits_"--for nineteen months, and then ran away.
His first plan had been to reach Wordsworth, whose _Lyrical Ballads_
(1798) had solaced him in fits of melancholy and had awakened in him a
deep reverence for the neglected poet. His timidity preventing this, he
made his way to Chester, where his mother then lived, in the hope of
seeing a sister; was apprehended by the older members of the family;
and through the intercession of his uncle, Colonel Penson, received the
promise of a guinea a week to carry out his later project of a solitary
tramp through Wales. From July to November, 1802, De Quincey then led a
wayfarer's life. [Footnote: For a most interesting account of this
period see the _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, Athenaeum Press
_Selections from De Quincey_, pp.
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