ABSTRACT
Published in PW II, pp. 169–73. Despite the title assigned by Japp and its apparently impersonal tone, this fragment may have originated as a digression in a passage of autobiographical writing. The reference at the end to the ‘present representative of the Exeter house of the Cecils’ who lacked the basis for ‘conversational display’ suggests that the fragment was originally intended to introduce an anecdote or reminiscence about De Quincey’s near-contemporary Brownlow Cecil, second Marquis of Exeter (1795–1867). The possibility of an autobiographical context is strengthened by the passing reference to ‘W. W. and Sir George’ (presumably, William Wordsworth and his friend and patron Sir George Beaumont). There is, however, no record of a meeting between De Quincey and Cecil, a nobleman who held a number of minor court posts and is remembered, if at all, only for his ownership of a number of successful race-horses. He was probably known to Beaumont since their estates, Burleigh in Lincolnshire and Coleorton in Leicestershire, were in neighbouring counties and at no great distance.
