General Mournings

First published Edinburgh Evening Post, probably in the missing issue of 29 November 1828. Reprinted Perthshire Courier ‘(From the Edinburgh Post)’, 4 December 1828 [p. 4]. Reprinted, with attribution, in ‘“Lost” Post’, pp. 52–6. This article is English, not Scottish, in perspective, with allusions to England, London, and Francis Bacon. The term ‘viz.’, the series of rhetorical questions, the sentence starting with ‘But’, and the many dashes and italics (including the ubiquitous ‘that’), are all characteristic of De Quincey. Very few writers for the pious Post would have written the words, ‘Expect and be d —’. The passage of pretended dialogue, beginning,

‘All people are expected to put themselves into decent mourning.’ ‘Expected!’ what insolence!

is distinctive, and unlike the subdued prose of other contributors to the Post. It has many echoes in De Quincey: compare, for instance, his account in 1827 of a politician who

goes about… protesting that he might have been Master of the Rolls. Rolls! What Rolls? (Vol. 5, p. 58),

or his exclamation, ‘Frequently! What logic is there in that?’, in an article of December 1828 (above, p. 158 n.). Five further examples from De Quincey are given in ‘“Lost” Post’ (pp. 53–4 and n. 40).