PEPPING, GEORGE BERNARD. 



DERBY, EARL OF. 



the display of his precocious talent* induced au opulent gentleman in 

 hi* neighbourhood to place him in the College of Lyou, where his 

 progress in lib studies was rapid and striking, especially in the 

 mathematical branches of science. After finishing hu course in this 

 institution he repaired to Paris, without money and without friends; 

 but he turned his talent* to account by drawing sun-dials, and engaging 

 in other employment of this kiud, by which he was able to obtain a 

 subsistence. His accuracy in thesa drawings being remarkable, he at 

 length acquired an attachment to the pursuit, and obtained ample 

 employment to secure him a comfortable livelihood. Ha afterward* 

 appears to have turned his attention to machinery, and probably his 

 talent* were extensively employed in civil engineering and other 

 collateral subjects. He died September 2, 1768, aged 65. 



His publications were as follows:!, 'Tables Astrouomiques,' 4to, 

 1740; 2, 'Traitt! de Trigonometries Rectiligne et Spborique, avec 

 Traitv de Onomouique et das Tables de Logarithmes,' 4to, 1711 : ', 

 ' Easai eur les 1'robabilites de la Dm do de la Vie Humaine,' 4 to, 1716 ; 



4, 'Response nux Objections contre 1'Essai' (the last work), 4 to, 1746 ; 



5, 'Additions h 1'Kssai,' &c., 4to, 1760; 6, 'MtSmoires sur la Possibility 

 et la Facilitd d'amener auprcs d'Estrapade h Paris les Eaux tie la 

 lUvicre d'lvette,' 4 to, 1765. Besides these separate works he published 

 sixteen memoirs amongst those of the Paris Academy, between the 

 yean 1735 and 1763. 



Doparcieux was created Royal Censor and member of the Academy 

 of Sciences in I'tiri*. He was also a member of the academics of 

 Berlin, Stockholm, Mctz, Lyon, and Montpellier. 



Hi:rriNG, GEORGE BERNARD, was born at Minister, May 11, 

 1781. Having completed his educational course; he visited Paris iu 

 1803, when, forming acquaintances there, and observing the facilities 

 which tho city afforded for the prosecution of literary studies, he 

 determined to make it his permanent residence. The rest of his life 

 was spent there in tho uneventful career of a busy litterateur. He 

 was naturalised in 1827. 



For many years M. Dcpping mainly occupied himself in preparing 

 juvenile and popular works chiefly on geographical subjects, in trans- 

 lating, and in writing for magazines and encyclopedias. His first 

 important original work was one written for a prize offered by tho 

 ite on the ' Expeditions Maritime des Normands en France au 

 10 Siccle,' It won the prize, was printed in 182C, and revised 

 in 1844 : it is a work of sterling value, and contains the fruits of 

 extensive researches in Scandinavian literature. A more important 

 work, for which this had prepared the way, was his ' Histoire de la 

 Normnudie,' from the Conqueror to the re-union of Normandy with 

 France (1066 to 1201), 2 vols. 8vo, 1835. Among his other more 

 important works may be named ' Histoire du Commerce entre le 

 Levant et rEurope, depuis les Croisades jusqu' h la Fondatiou des 

 Colonies d'Amerique,' 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1S30; 'Les Juifs dans le 

 Jloyen Age, esaai historiqne sur leur Etat Civil, Commercial, et 

 Litte'raire,' Svo, 1840; ' Roglements BUT les Arts et Mdtiers, rddiges au 

 Triezicme Siecle, et connus ecus le nom de Livre des Metiers d'Ktienne 

 Boileau," &<x, 4to, 1887; ' Gescbichte des Kriegs der Muusterer und 

 Kolner . . . 1.672-1674,' Svo, Miinator, 1840: ' Correspond ance 

 Administrative sous le Kegno de Louis XIV.' (forming vols. i. to iii. 

 of the ' Collection dfl Documents IiiiSditH do 1'Histoire de France '), 

 4to, 1850-53 ; ' Rotnancero Castellano/ 1 voL 12mo, Paris, 1817, and, 

 greatly enlarged, 2 vols. 12ino, Leipzig, 1844. Some of the above 

 works have been translated into German and Dutch, while several of 

 bis juvenile works havo been translated into most of tho European 

 languages. M. Dcpping wrote many of thn more important articles in 

 the 'Biographic Universslle,' ' L'Art de Verifier les Dates,' &c. lie 

 died at Paris, September 5, 1863. 



DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, one of the most remarkable EnglUh 

 writers of the 19th century, was born in Manchester in or about the 

 1 786. He was the fifth child and second son of a family of eight, 

 born to bis father, a Manchester merchant in wealthy circumstances, 

 who died wbile bis children were yet young, leaving to his widow for 

 tli. ir education a clear fortune of 1600J. a year. Although the name 

 incey looks as if it were of French extraction, the family is an old 

 h one as old as the Conquest After receiving his fir*t educa- 

 tion at his home near Manchester, De Quincey was sent at tho age of 

 twelve to the Grammar school of Bath, tho head muter of which at 

 that time was a Dr. Morgan. Here he remained till hit fifteenth year, 

 laying the foundation of bis extensive and miscellaneoui learning in 

 the studies of the school and in private readings of his own in English 

 and other authors. From 1800 to 1803 the boy spent his time partly 

 at another school, partly in visits to friends in different parts of I 

 and Ireland. From 1803 to 1808 he was at the University of Oxford ; 

 and it was during this time that he Grit contracted the habit of opium- 

 eating, of which, in connection with the peculiarities of his life and 

 geniuv, h- has himself made such proclamation to tho world. Of his 

 eccentricitiei during this period he has given an account in h 

 fmsions of an K.ngli.h Opium- Mi'i-r.' It wan in the j.-ar 1S<07 that ho 

 first mado the acquaintance of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and S mill-;. ; 

 and on quitting college in 1808 be took up his abode at th. 

 and became on- of tho intellectual brotherhood there cou^tit 

 thne men. Wilson was resident at the Lakes about the name time, 

 The diBereoc* between Da Quincey and the LakuU was, that ha element 

 was exclusively prow. Like Coleridge, but with jxculiaritfes sufficient 



to distinguish him from that thiukur, he philosophised and an . 

 and speculated, in sympathy with tho new literary movement, "f wliicli 

 the Lake party was a manifestation. Ho resided ten or > 1 

 at the Lakes; and diiriiu; these ten or rl.'v.-n \,-ar.i wo arc to Btippoie 

 him increasing his knowledge of Greek, of lierman, and of universal 

 history and literature. Iu point of time De < t >iiinc< y juved 

 lyle as a literary medium between Germany and this country ; and 

 some of his earliest literary efforts w re translations from I. 

 Richter, and other Gorman authors. These literary effort*, begun 

 while he was still a student at the Lakes, wore continued with grow- 

 ing abundance after he left them (1819). From first to last, to a 

 degree hardly paralleled iu any other instance where equ 

 been attained, Mr. Da Quincey 's literary career has been, that of a 

 writer for periodicals. First at the Lakes, then in London, t ] 

 other parts of England, then again and again in Louden, and U-tly in 

 Scotland, where he has reside 1 with his family almost continual! 

 1843 (at Laeswode, a small village near Edinburgh), he has .-ent forth 

 a succession of papers, in various British periodicals, ranging m 

 immense variety of subjects, and all so original and 

 being traced to him, they have made his name illustri" 

 the periodicals to which he ha? contributed may be mentioned the 

 ' London Magazine,' so celebrated about 1822-4, under the editorship 

 of John Scott; 'Blaokwood's Magazine,' which began in 1^17, and in 

 whose famous ' Noctes Ambroaianee,' written by Wilson, Do o 

 is made occasionally one of the collocutors; the 'Eneycl 

 Britanuica:' 'Tail's Edinburgh Magazine;' and tho 'North British. 

 Review.' With the exception of ' The Confessions of an English 

 Opium-Eater,' which, after having appeared iu parts in the ' London 

 Magazine,' were published separately iu the year 1S22; and a work, 

 entitled ' The Logic of Political Economy,' published at Ediuburgh 

 in 1844, Mr. De Quincey had until recently issued nothing openly in 

 his own name. He was, in fact, buried and scattered in the i 

 periodical literature of his generation ; and though his admirers kept 

 a register of his principal articles, they had to rummage for them in "11 

 numbers of reviews and magazines. As has happened in other oases, 

 it was in America that the idea of a republicatiou of Mr. DC Quiucey's 

 writings in a collected form, was first carried into effect. Between 

 1851 and 1855 a Boston house (co-operating we believe with the author) 

 gathered together his papers from all sorts of periodicals, and gave them 

 to the trans-Atlantic public in their aggregate. This edition consists 

 of no fewer than eighteen volumes ; and it is impossible for any one 

 who has not glanced over the contents of these eighteen volu 

 form an idea of Mr. De Quiucey's versatility, or of the total amount of 

 matter that has proceeded from his pen. 



Mr. De Quincey has begun an issue of his complete works in this 

 CJ'intry ; but of this issue, only four or five volumes have as \ . I 

 been published. In the preface to this edition, how.-v v, .M r. I >, 

 Quiucey makes a classification of his writings, which it is useful to 

 remember. The immense medley, which, iu the American edition, K 

 arranged on the loosest possible principle, may be distributed, h 

 iu the main, into three classes of papers : first, papers whose chief 

 purpose is to interest and amuse (autobiographic sketches, rcmini. - 

 ceuccs of distinguished contemporaries, biographical memoirs, whim- 

 sical narratives, and such like); secondly, essays of a speculative, 

 critical, or philosophical character, addressing the understanding a, 

 an insulated faculty (of thcje there are many); and thirdly, : 

 belonging to the order of what may bo called ' prose-poetry ; ' t 

 phantasies or imaginations in prose (of which class Mr. De Quiuo . 

 the ' Suspiria de 1'rofuudis,' originally published in Blackwood, as thn 

 most characteristic specimen). Under any one of the three ; 

 here indicated Mr. De Quincey must rank high in the entire li-i. ..; 

 British prose-writers. His papers of fact and retu though 



somewhat discursive, are among the most delightful iu the language ; 

 and his essays have the merit of extraordinary subtlety of thought 

 and of invariable originality. Undoubtedly, however, i., 

 prose-phantasy are the mo.-t splendid iu:iiiife.ilatious of hi- ; 

 Mr. De Quincey himself speaks of them as " modes of impu 

 prose, ranging under no precedents that I am aware of in nny 

 literature;" and, as such, chums for them more "in righto: 

 conception" thau he will venture to do in right of their " 

 Whether one agrees with him or not as to the "utter sterility ..r 

 universal literature in this ouo department of impassioned prose," onu 

 must admit that his own contributions to this department, or rather 

 to the department of subtle-inn/. ", are, as far as our 



literature is concerned, almost unique in their kiud. They are often 

 of such a weirdly and visionary character as to give au additional 

 significance to the circumstance of his being universally known as 

 "the Euglih Opium 'at' r.' 



JJEIlrJY, KDvVARD-GEOFFBBT SMITH STANLEY, Ilia 

 EARL OF, born March 20, 1799, was the eldest son of Edward 

 Smith, Lord Stanley, afi h I'.ul I >"rby, but then only ln-ir- 



apparent to his father, the 12th Earl. After quitting Christ Church, 

 Oxford, where, as well as at Eton, he was greatly distinguished, Mr. 

 Stanley entered the House of Commons in 1820 as member for Stock- 

 bridge. It was not till I r thut h'j h.-gan to take an active 

 part in the business of the House. From the moment that ho did so 

 nis pre-eminent powers as a parliamentary debater gave him an 

 acknowledged right to lead; ami thcEe powers, together with his high 



