Still none of his contemporaries
wrote as he did; evidently De Quincey has a distinct quality of his
own. Ruskin, in our own day, is like him, but never the same.
Yet De Quincey's prose poetry is a very small portion of his work, and
it is not in this way only that he excels. Mr. Saintsbury has spoken of
the strong appeal that De Quincey makes to boys. [Footnote: "Probably
more boys have in the last forty years been brought to a love of
literature proper by De Quincy than by any other writer whatever."--
_History of Nineteenth-Century Literature_, p.198.] It is not
without significance that he mentions as especially attractive to the
young only writings with a large narrative element. [Footnote: "To read
the _Essay on Murder_, the _English Mail-Coach_, _The Spanish
Nun_, _The Caesars_, and half a score other things at the age of
about fifteen or sixteen is, or ought to be, to fall in love with
them."--_Essays in English Literature_, 1780-1860, p.307.] Few boys
read poetry, whether in verse or prose, and fewer still criticism or
philosophy; to every normal boy the gate of good literature is the good
story. It is the narrative skill of De Quincey that has secured for
him, in preference to other writers of his class, the favor of youthful
readers.
It would be too much to say that the talent that attracts the young to
him must needs be the Opium-Eater's grand talent, though the notion is
defensible, seeing that only salient qualities in good writing appeal
to inexperienced readers.
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