ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 2 February 1828, p. 311. Never reprinted. This paragraph continues the gentle mockery of women opera goers, and ‘the fashionable world’ in general, from previous reviews in the Post. It uses the language of pleasure, as De Quincey would, instead of the language of morality, nationalism, or religion. Mention of London as ‘the metropolis’ very strongly suggests De Quincey, for the phrase had long been controversial among contributors and subscribers to the Post. (The same miscue occurs on pp. 50 and 228, above.) Other signs include the sprinkling of italics and dashes, the Anglicism ‘’yclept’, and the phrase ‘son of Apollo’ (which also occurs on p. 198, above). For De Quincey’s enjoyment of ‘Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, &c.’, see the Confessions (Vol. 2), and other works.
