[Review of the Foreign Quarterly Review for November 1827]

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 15 December 1827, p. 254. Reprinted Tave, pp. 221–31 (with attribution, pp. 232–5). The writer’s claim of ‘ties of old friendship with the Editor of the Foreign Quarterly’, together with the evidence of style, and the knowledge of Southey, Kant, and Victor Cousin, establish De Quincey’s authorship beyond doubt. Other evidence includes sentences starting with ‘But’, colloquial phrases like ‘kicked … out’, the allusion to Falstaff, and the interest in English, German, and French literature.