How did he recompense all this exertion and endurance oh his behalf?  In after years, when living (we believe) at Edinburgh, and pressed by debt, he did for once exert himself to write, and what he wrote was an exposure of every thing about the Wordsworths which he knew merely by their kindness.  He wrote papers, which were eagerly read, and, of course, duly paid for, in which Wordsworth’s personal foibles were malignantly exhibited with ingenious aggravations.  The infirmities of one member of the family, the personal blemish of another, and the human weaknesses of all, were displayed, and all for the purpose of deepening the dislike against Wordsworth himself, which the receiver of his money, the eater of his dinners, and the dreary provoker of his patience strove to excite.  Moreover, he perpetrated an act of treachery scarcely paralleled, we hope, in the history of literature.  In the confidence of their most familiar days, Wordsworth had communicated portions of his posthumous poem to his guest, who was perfectly well aware that the work was to rest in darkness and silence till after the poet’s death.  In these magazine articles DeQuincey, using for this atrocious purpose his fine gift of memory, published a passage, which he informed us was of far higher merit than any thing else we had to expect.  And what was Wordsworth’s conduct under this unequaled experience of bad faith and bad feeling?  While so many anecdotes were going of the poet’s fireside, the following ought to be added:  An old friend was talking with him by that fireside, and mentioned DeQuincey’s magazine articles.  Wordsworth begged to be spared any account of them, saying that the man had long passed away from the family life and mind, and that he did not wish to ruffle himself in a useless way about a misbehavior which could not be remedied.  The friend acquiesced, saying:  “Well, I will tell you only one thing that he says, and then we will talk of other things.  He says your wife is too good for you.”  The old poet’s dim eyes lighted up instantly, and he started from his seat and flung himself against the mantel-piece, with his back to the fire, as he cried with loud enthusiasm:  “And that’s true!  There he is right!” And his disgust and contempt for the traitor were visibly moderated.

During a long course of years DeQuincey went on dreaming always, sometimes scheming works of high value and great efficacy, which were never to exist; promising largely to booksellers and others, and failing through a weakness so deep-seated that it should have prevented his making any promises.  When his three daughters were grown up, and his wife was dead, he lived in a pleasant cottage at Lasswade, near Edinburgh, well-known by name to those who have never seen its beauties as the scene of Scott’s early married life and first great achievements in literature.  There, while the family fortunes were expressly made contingent on his abstinence from his drug, DeQuincey did abstain,