ABSTRACT
First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 12 April 1828, p. 389. Never reprinted. This high-spirited article continues the gentle mockery of Edinburgh’s concert-goers, from previous reviews in the Post. Its first sentence identifies the writer as a regular attendant at concerts in the city, while the final paragraph identifies him as a regular contributor to the Post. Other evidence includes the sentences beginning with ‘But’ or ‘And’, the use of ‘between’ (where other Postians would have used ‘betwixt’), and colloquialisms like ‘well got up’ and ‘wish-it-were-over-ism’. The sentence ‘And now came a novelty of another sort, viz. tea and coffee between the acts’ sounds extremely De Quinceyan. ‘And so it was’ seems to echo other phrases in the present edition, such as ‘and so it is with thee’ (in the review of King James I. of Scotland, p.71), and ‘And so say we’ (see Vol. 6, p. 273). More general evidence includes the wit, the repeated emphasis on ‘pleasure’ and ‘novelty’, and a reference to opera in London. De Quincey was the only known contributor to the Post who could write knowingly on a wide range of cultural subjects, in a style that was witty, lively, and colloquial. For De Quincey’s high regard for Elizabeth Paton, see above, pp. 280–1.
