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DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late L...

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 64 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a See also:Late See also:Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the See also:original sense of to See also:trim, See also:prune)  , one appointed to See also:act or govern instead of another; one who exercises an See also:office in another See also:man's right, a substitute; in representative See also:government a member of an elected chamber . In See also:general, the See also:powers and duties of a See also:deputy are those of his See also:principal (see also See also:REPRESENTATION), but the extent to which he may exercise them is dependent upon the See also:power delegated to him . He may be authorized to exercise the whole of his principal's office, in which See also:case he is a general deputy, or to act only in some particular See also:matter or service, when he is termed a See also:special deputy . In the See also:United See also:Kingdom various officials are specifically empowered by See also:statute to appoint deputies to act for them under certain circumstances . Thus a clerk of the See also:peace, in case of illness, incapacity or See also:absence, may. appoint a See also:fit See also:person to act as his deputy . While See also:judges of the supreme See also:court cannot act by deputy, See also:county court judges and recorders can, in cases of illnessor unavoidable absence, appoint deputies . So can registrars of county courts and returning See also:officers at elections . DE QUINCEY, See also:THOMAS (1785-18J9), See also:English author, was See also:born at Greenheys, See also:Manchester, on the 15th of See also:August 1785 . He was the fifth See also:child in a See also:family of eight (four sons and four daughters) His See also:father, descended from a See also:Norman family, was a See also:merchant, who See also:left his wife and six See also:children a clear income of £1600 a See also:year . Thomas was from See also:infancy a shy, sensitive child, with a constitutional tendency to dreaming by See also:night and by See also:day; and, under the See also:influence of an See also:elder See also:brother, a lad " whose See also:genius for See also:mischief amounted to See also:inspiration," who died in his sixteenth year, he spent much of his boyhood in imaginary worlds of their own creating . The amusements and occupations of the whole family, indeed, seem to have been mainly intellectual; and in De Quincey's case, emphatically, " the child was father to the man." " My See also:life has been," he affirms in the Confessions, " on the whole the life of a philosopher; from my See also:birth I was made an intellectual creature, and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been." From boyhood he was more or less in contact with a polished circle; his See also:education, easy to one of such native aptitude, was sedulously attended to . When he was in his twelfth year the family removed to See also:Bath, where he was sent to the See also:grammar school, at which he remained for about two years; and for a year more he attended another public school at Winkfield, See also:Wiltshire .

At thirteen he wrote See also:

Greek with ease; at fifteen he not only composed Greek verses in lyric See also:measures, but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment; one of his masters said of him, " that boy could harangue an Athenian See also:mob better than you or I could address an English one." Towards the See also:close of his fifteenth year he visited See also:Ireland, with a See also:companion of his own See also:age, See also:Lord See also:Westport, the son of Lord Altamont, an Irish peer, and spent there in See also:residence and travel some months of the summer and autumn of the year 1800,- being a spectator at See also:Dublin of " the final ratification of the See also:bill which united Ireland to See also:Great See also:Britain." On his return to See also:England, his See also:mother having now settled at St See also:John's Priory, a residence near See also:Chester, De Quincey was sent to the Manchester grammar school, mainly in the See also:hope of securing one of the school exhibitions to help his expenses at See also:Oxford . Discontented with the mode in which his guardians conducted his education, and with some view apparently of forcing them to send him earlier to See also:college, he left this school after less than a year's residence—ran away, in See also:short, to his mother's See also:house . There his mother's brother, See also:Colonel Thomas Penson, made an arrangement for him to have a weekly See also:allowance, on which he might reside at some See also:country See also:place in See also:Wales, and pursue his studies, presumably till he could go to college . From Wales, however, after brief trial, " suffering grievously from want of books," he went off as he had done from school, and hid himself from guardians and See also:friends in the See also:world of See also:London . And now, as he says, commenced " that See also:episode, or impassioned See also:parenthesis of my life, which is comprehended in The Confessions of an English See also:Opium Eater." This London episode extended over a year or more; his See also:money soon vanished, and he was in the utmost poverty; he obtained shelter for the night in Greek See also:Street, Soho, from a moneylender's See also:agent, and spent his days wandering in the streets and parks; finally the lad was reconciled to his guardians, and in 1803 was sent to See also:Worcester College, Oxford, being by this See also:time about nineteen . It was in the course of his second year at Oxford that he first tasted opium,—having taken it to allay neuralgic pains . De Quincey's mother had settled at See also:Weston See also:Lea, near Bath, and on one of his visits to Bath, De Quincey made the acquaintance of See also:Coleridge; he took Mrs Coleridge to See also:Grasmere, where he became personally acquainted with See also:Wordsworth . After See also:finishing his career of five years at college in 18o8 he kept terms at the See also:Middle See also:Temple; but in 1809 visited the Wordsworths at Grasmere, and in the autumn returned to See also:Dove Cottage, which he had taken on a See also:lease . His choice was of course influenced partly by neighbourhood to Wordsworth, whom he See also:early appreciated; having been, he says, the only man in all See also:Europe who quoted Wordsworth so early as 18oz . His friendship with Wordsworth decreased within a few years, and when in 1834 De Quincey published in See also:Tait's See also:Magazine his reminiscences of the Grasmere circle, the indiscreet references to the Wordsworths contained in the See also:article led to a See also:complete cessation of intercourse . Here also he enjoyed the society and friendship of Coleridge, See also:Southey and especially of See also:Professor See also:Wilson, as in London he had of See also:Charles See also:Lamb and his circle . He continued his classical and other studies, especially exploring the at that time almost unknown region of See also:German literature, and indicating its riches to English readers .

Here also, in 1816, he married See also:

Margaret See also:Simpson, the " dear M " of whom a charming glimpse is accorded to the reader of the Confessions; his family came to be five sons and three daughters . For about a year and a See also:half he edited the Westmoreland See also:Gazette . He left Grasmere for London in .the early See also:part of 182o . The See also:Lambs received him with great kindness and introduced him to the proprietors of the London Magazine . It was in this See also:journal in 1821 that the Confessions appeared . De Quincey also contributed to See also:Blackwood, to See also:Knight's Quarterly Magazine, and later to Tait's Magazine . His connexion with Blackwood took him to See also:Edinburgh in 1828, and he lived there for twelve years, contributing from time to time to the Edinburgh See also:Literary Gazette . His wife died in 1837, and the family eventually settled at Lasswade, but from this time De Quincey spent his time in lodgings in various places, staying at one place until the See also:accumulation of papers filled the rooms, when he left them in See also:charge of the landlady and wandered elsewhere . After his wife's See also:death he gave way for the See also:fourth time in his life to the opium See also:habit, but in 1844 he reduced his daily quantity by a tremendous effort to six grains, and never again yielded . He died in Edinburgh on the 8th of See also:December 1859, and is buried in the See also:West See also:Churchyard . During nearly fifty years De Quincey lived mainly by his See also:pen . His patrimony seems never to have been entirely exhausted, and his habits and tastes were See also:simple and inexpensive; but he was reckless in the use of money, and had debts and pecuniary difficulties of all sorts .

There was, indeed, his associates affirm, an See also:

element of See also:romance even in his impecuniosity, as there was in everything about him; and the See also:diplomatic and other devices by which he contrived to keep clear of clamant creditors, while scrupulously fulfilling many obligations, often disarmed animosity, and converted annoyance into amusement . The famous Confessions of an English Opium Eater was published in a small See also:volume in 1822, and attracted a very remarkable degree of See also:attention, not simply by its See also:personal disclosures, but by the extraordinary power of its See also:dream-See also:painting . No other literary man of his time, it has been remarked, achieved so high and universal a reputation from such merely fugitive efforts . The only See also:works published separately (not in See also:periodicals) were a novel, Klosterheim (1832), and The See also:Logic of See also:Political See also:Economy (1844) . After his works were brought together, De Quincey's reputation was not merely maintained, but extended . For range of thought and topic, within the limits of pure literature, no like amount of material of such equality of merit proceeded from any eminent writer of the day . However profuse and discursive, De Quincey is always polished, and generally exact—a See also:scholar, a wit, a man of the world and a philosopher, as well as a genius . He looked upon letters as a See also:noble and responsible calling; in his See also:essay on See also:Oliver See also:Goldsmith he claims for literature the See also:rank not only of a See also:fine See also:art, but of the highest and most potent of fine arts; and as such he himself regarded and practised it . He See also:drew a broad distinction between " the literature of knowledge and the literature of power," asserting that the See also:function of the first is to See also:teach, the function of the second to move,—maintaining that the meanest of authors who moves has pre-See also:eminence over all who merely teach, that the literature of knowledge must perish by supersession, while the literature of power is " triumphant for ever as See also:long as the See also:language exists in which it speaks." It is to this class of See also:motive literature that De Quincey's own works essentially belong; it is by virtue of that vital element of power that .they have emerged from the rapid oblivion of periodicalism, and live in the minds of later generations . But their power is weakened by their volume . De Quincey fully defined his own position and claim to distinction in the See also:preface to his collected works . These he divides into three classes:—" first, that class which proposes primarily to amuse the reader," such as the Narratives, Autobiographic Sketches, &c.; " second, papers which address themselves purely to the understanding as an insulated See also:faculty, or do so primarily," such as the essays on Essenism, the Caesars, See also:Cicero, &c.; and finally, as a third class, " and, in virtue of their aim, as a far higher class of compositions," he ranks those " modes of impassioned See also:prose ranging under no precedents that I am aware of in any literature," such as the Confessions and Suspiria de Profundis .

Phoenix-squares

The high claim here asserted has been questioned; and short and isolated examples of eloquent See also:

apostrophe, and highly wrought imaginative description, have been cited from See also:Rousseau and other masters of See also:style; but De Quincey's power of sustaining a fascinating and elevated See also:strain of " impassioned prose " is allowed to be entirely his own . Nor, in regard to his writings as a whole, will a See also:minor general claim which he makes be disallowed, namely, that he " does not write without a thoughtful See also:consideration of his subject," and also with novelty and freshness of view . " Generally," he says, " I claim (not arrogantly, but with firmness) the merit of rectification applied to See also:absolute errors, or to injurious limitations of the truth." Another obvious quality of all his genius is its overflowing fulness of allusion and See also:illustration, recalling his own description of a great philosopher or scholar—" Not one who depends simply on an See also:infinite memory, but also on an infinite and See also:electrical power of See also:combination, bringing together from the four winds, like the See also:angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones into the 'unity of breathing life." It is useless to complain of his having lavished and diffused his talents and acquirements over so vast a variety of often comparatively trivial and passing topics . The world must accept gifts from men of genius as they offer them; circumstance and the See also:hour often See also:rule their See also:form . Those influences, no less than the See also:idiosyncrasy of the man, determined De Quincey to the See also:illumination of such matter for See also:speculation as seemed to See also:lie before him; he was not careful to See also:search out recondite or occult themes, though these he did not neglect,—a student, a scholar and a recluse, he was yet at the same time a man of the world, keenly interested in the movements of men and in the See also:page of See also:history that unrolled itself before him day by day . To the discussion of things new, as readily as of things old, aided by a capacious, retentive and ready memory, which dispensed with reference to printed pages, he brought also the exquisite keenness and subtlety of his highly See also:analytic and imaginative See also:intellect, the illustrative stores of his vast and varied erudition, and that large infusion of See also:common sense which preserved him from becoming at any time a See also:mere doctrinaire, or visionary . If he did not throw himself into any of the great popular controversies or agitations of the day, it was not from any want of sympathy with the struggles of humanity or the progress of the See also:race, but rather because his vocation was to apply to such incidents of his own time, as to like incidents of all history, great philosophical principles and tests of truth and power . In politics, in the party sense of that See also:term, he would probably have been classed as a Liberal Conservative or Conservative Liberal—at one See also:period of his life perhaps the former, and at a later the latter . Originally, as we have seen, his surroundings were aristocratic, in his middle life his associates, notably Wordsworth, Southey and Wilson, were all Tories; but he seems never to have held the extreme and narrow views of that circle . Though a flavour of high breeding runs through his writings, he has no vulgar sneers at the vulgar . As he advanced in years his views became more and more decidedly liberal, but he was always as far removed from Radicalism as from Toryism, and may be described as a philosophical politician, capable of See also:classification under no definite party name or See also:colour . Of political economy he had been an early and See also:earnest student, and projected, if he did not so far proceed with, an elaborate and systematic See also:treatise on the See also:science, of which all that appears, however, are his fragmentary Dialogues on the See also:system of See also:Ricardo, published in the London Magazine in 1824, and The Logic of Political Economy (1844) .

But political and economic problems largely exercised his thoughts, and his See also:

historical sketches show that he is constantly alive to their interpenetrating influence . The same may be said of his See also:biographies, notably of his remarkable See also:sketch of Dr See also:Parr . Neither politics nor See also:economics, however, exercised an absorbing influence on his mind,—they were simply provinces in the vast domain of universal speculation through which he ranged " with unconfined wings." How wide and varied was the region he traversed a glance at the titles of the papers which make up his collected—or more properly, selected—works (for there was much matter of evanescent See also:interest not reprinted) sufficiently shows . Some things in his own See also:line he has done perfectly; he has written many pages of magnificently mixed See also:argument, See also:irony, See also:humour and eloquence, which, for sustained brilliancy, richness, subtle force and purity of style and effect, have simply no See also:parallels; and he is without peer the See also:prince of dreamers . The use of opium no doubt stimulated this remarkable faculty of reproducing in skilfully selected phrase the See also:grotesque and shifting forms of that " cloudland, gorgeous See also:land," which opens to the See also:sleep-closed See also:eye . To the appreciation of De Quincey the reader must bring an imaginative faculty somewhat akin to his own—a certain general culture, and large knowledge of books, and men and things . Otherwise much of that slight and delicate allusion that gives point and colour and See also:charm to his writings will be missed; and on this See also:account the full enjoyment and comprehension of De Quincey must always remain a luxury of the literary and intellectual . But his skill in narration, his rare pathos, his wide sympathies, the pomp of his dream-descriptions, the exquisite playfulness of his lighter See also:dissertations, and his abounding though delicate and subtle humour, commend him to a larger class . Though far from being a professed humorist—a See also:character he would have shrunk from—there is no more See also:expert worker in a sort of half-veiled and elaborate humour and irony than De Quincey; but he employs those resources for the most part secondarily . Only in one instance has he given himself up to them unreservedly and of set purpose, namely, in the famous " Essay on See also:Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," published in Blackwood,—an effort which, admired and admirable though it be, is also, it must be allowed, somewhat strained . His style, full and flexible, pure and polished, is peculiarly his own; yet it is not the style of a mannerist,—its charm is, so to speak, latent; the form never obtrudes; the See also:secret is only discoverable by See also:analysis and study . It consists simply in the reader's assurance of the writer's complete mastery over all the infinite applicability and resources of the English language .

Hence involutions and parentheses, " See also:

cycle on See also:epicycle," evolve themselves into a stately clearness and See also:harmony; and sentences and paragraphs, loaded with See also:suggestion, See also:roll on smoothly and musically, without either fatiguing or cloying—rather, indeed, to the surprise as well as delight of the reader; for De Quincey is always ready to indulge in feats of style, witching the world with that sort of noble See also:horsemanship which is as graceful as it is daring . It has been complained that, in spite of the apparently full confidences of the Confessions and Autobiographic Sketches, readers are left in See also:comparative See also:ignorance, biographically speaking, of the man De Quincey . Two passages in his Confessions afford sufficient clues to this See also:mystery . In one he describes himself " as framed for love and all See also:gentle affections," and in another confesses to the " besetting infirmity " of being " too much of an eudaemonist." " I hanker," he says, " too much after a See also:state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot See also:face misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient firmness, and am little capable of surmounting See also:present See also:pain for the See also:sake of any recessionary benefit." His sensitive disposition dictated the ignoring in his writings of traits merely personal to himself, as well as his ever-recurrent resort to opium as a See also:doorway of See also:escape from present See also:ill; and prompted those habits of seclusion, and that apparently capricious See also:abstraction of himself from the society not only of his friends, but of his own, family, in which he from time to time persisted . He confessed to occasional accesses of an almost irresistible impulse to flee to the labyrinthine shelterof some great See also:city like London or See also:Paris,—there to dwell golitary amid a multitude, buried by day in the See also:cloister-like recesses of mighty See also:libraries, and stealing away by night to some obscure lodging . Long See also:indulgence in seclusion, and in habits of study the most lawless possible in respect of See also:regular See also:hours or any considerations of See also:health or comfort,—the habit of working as pleased himself without regard to the divisions of night or day, of times of sleeping or waking, even of the slow procession of the seasons, had latterly so disinclined him to the restraints, however slight, of See also:ordinary social intercourse, that he very seldom submitted to them . On such rare occasions, however, as he did appear, perhaps at some simple See also:meal with a favoured friend, or in later years in his own small but refined domestic circle, he was the most charming of guests, hosts or companions . A short and fragile, but well-proportioned See also:frame; a shapely and compact See also:head; a face beaming with intellectual See also:light, with rare, almost feminine beauty of feature and complexion; a fascinating See also:courtesy of manner; and a fulness, swiftness and elegance of silvery speech,—such was the irresistible " mortal mixture of See also:earth's See also:mould " that men named De Quincey . He possessed in a high degree what See also:James See also:Russell See also:Lowell called " the See also:grace of perfect breeding, everywhere persuasive, and nowhere emphatic "; and his whole aspect and manner exercised an undefinable attraction over every one, gentle or simple, who came within its influence; for shy as he was, he was never rudely shy, making See also:good his boast that he had always made it his " See also:pride to converse familiarly more socratico with all human beings—man, woman and child "—looking on himself as a See also:catholic creature See also:standing in an equal relation to high and See also:low,. to educated and uneducated . He would converse with a See also:peasant lad or a servant girl in phrase as choice, and sentences as sweetly turned, as if his interlocutor were his equal both in position and intelligence; yet without a suspicion of pedantry, and with such complete See also:adaptation of style and topic that his talk charmed the humblest as it did the highest that listened to it . His conversation was not a See also:monologue; if he had the larger See also:share, it was simply because his hearers were only too glad that it should be so; he would listen with something like deference to very ordinary talk, as if the mere fact of the See also:speaker being one of the same See also:company entitled him to all consideration and respect . The natural See also:bent of his mind and disposition, and his life-long devotion to letters, to say nothing of his opium eating, rendered him, it must be allowed, regardless of ordinary obligations in life—domestic and pecuniary—to a degree that would have been culpable in any less singularly constituted mind .

It was impossible to See also:

deal with or See also:judge De Quincey by ordinary See also:standards—not even his publishers did so . Much no doubt was forgiven him, but all that needed forgiveness is covered by the kindly See also:veil of time, while his merits as a See also:master in English literature are still gratefully acknowledged.' [BIBLIOGRAPHY.—III 1'853 De Quincey began to prepare an edition of his works, Selections See also:Grave and See also:Gay . Writings Published and Unpublished (14 vols., Edinburgh, 1853–186o), followed by a second edition (1863–1871) with notes by James See also:Hogg and two additional volumes ; a further supplementary volume appeared in 1878 . The first comprehensive edition, however, was printed in See also:America (See also:Boston, 20 vols., 1850–1855) ; and the " See also:Riverside " edition (Boston and New See also:York, 12 vols., 1877) is still See also:fuller . The See also:standard English edition is The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey (14 vols., Edinburgh, 1889–189o), edited by See also:David See also:Masson, who also wrote his See also:biography (1881) for the " English Men of Letters " See also:series . The Uncollected Writings of Thomas De Quincey (London, 2 vols., 1890) contains a preface and annotations by James Hogg; The See also:Posthumous Writings of Thomas De Quincey (2 vols., 1891–1893) were edited by A . H . Japp (" H . A . Page "), who wrote the standard biography, Thomas De Quincey: his Life and Writings (London, 2 vols., 2nd ed., 1879), and De Quincey Memorials (2 vols., 1891) . See also Arvede Barine, Nevroses (Paris, 1898); See also:Sir L . See also:Stephen, Hours in a Library; H .

S . See also:

Salt, De Quincey (1904) ; and De Quincey and his Friends (1895), a collection edited by James Hogg, which includes essays by Dr See also:Hill See also:Burton and Shadworth See also:Hodgson.] (J . R . F.) ' The above account has been corrected and amplified in some statements of fact for this edition . Its See also:original author, John See also:Ritchie See also:Findlay (1824–1898), proprietor of The Scotsman newspaper, and the donor of the Scottish See also:National Portrait See also:Gallery in Edinburgh, had been intimate with De Quincey, and in 1886 published his Personal Recollections of him .

End of Article: DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune)
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