années en Angleterre—had filled up her best years; and she was now too old to finish an undertaking so important.’
D'Éon's portrait, as man, as woman, or as half man, half woman (London Magazine, September 1777), was frequently painted or engraved. Photographic copies of three of these are given by Telfer: one in woman's dress, at the age of twenty-five (also given by Gaillardet); one in military uniform, painted in 1770; and one in woman's dress, attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1777. A well-known caricature by Gillray depicts the assault of arms at Carlton House in 1787; in the foreground ‘the Chevalière d'Éon making a successful thrust, and hitting Saint George in his right arm.’
[The Strange Career of the Chevalier D'Éon de Beaumont, by Capt. J. B. Telfer, R.N. (1885); Mémoires sur la Chevalière d'Éon, par F. Gaillardet (1866); Le Secret du Roi, par le Duc de Broglie (1878); Correspondance secrète inédite de Louis XV, par M. E. Boutaric (1866); Lettres, Mémoires et Négociations particulières du Chevalier d'Éon (4to, 1764); Catalogue of the scarce books and valuable manuscripts of the Chevalière d'Éon … which will be publicly sold by Mr. Christie … on (Thursday, 5 May and following days) 1791, with a preface containing ‘an interesting narrative of the very extraordinary case of Mlle. d'Éon;’ Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. ii. passim. The literature on the subject of D'Éon is very extensive; some of it is catalogued by Telfer. See also the Catalogue of the Brit. Mus., where the name is given under Éon.]
DE QUINCEY, THOMAS (1785–1859), author of ‘Confessions of an Opium Eater,’ was born at Greenheys, Manchester, 15 Aug. 1785. He was the fifth child of Thomas De Quincey, a merchant of reputation and of literary culture, who contributed an ‘Account of a Tour in the Midland Counties’ to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1774; reprinted with additions in 1775 (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iv. 407, xii. 61). The De Quinceys were an old family who took their name from the village of Quincey in Normandy. The Quincys of New England are offshoots from the same stock. De Quincey himself wrote his name ‘de Quincey,’ and would have catalogued it among the Q's (Page, Thomas De Quincey, i. 380). His mother's maiden name was Penson. Her two brothers were in the Indian army: Edward, who died young, and Thomas, who became a colonel, and was for many years superintendent of military buildings in Bengal. The elder De Quincey fell into ill-health soon after the son's birth, and had to spend much time abroad, coming home only to die when the son was in his seventh year. He left an estate of 1,600l. a year. The family consisted at this time of four sons and two daughters: William, five or six years older than Thomas; Mary, Thomas, Richard, Jane, and Henry, a posthumous child. The deaths of two elder sisters, Elizabeth, who died before Thomas was six, and Jane, who died before he was two, had made an impression upon him, commemorated in the ‘Autobiographic Sketches.’ After the father's death William and Thomas were sent for daily lessons to a guardian, the Rev. Samuel Hall, at Salford. William, who had been previously at the grammar school of Louth, was scarcely known to his brother, and De Quincey gives thanks that his infant feelings were moulded by the gentlest of sisters, not by ‘horrid pugilistic brothers.’ William was not only pugilistic, but a boy of remarkable talent. He despised the effeminacy of his delicate brother, domineered in the nursery, and compelled his junior to take part in quarrels with the factory children of the district. His childish fancy created the kingdoms of Gombroon and Tigrosylvania, whose annals may be found in the ‘Autobiographic Sketches,’ and he showed an artistic talent, which led to his being placed as a pupil under Loutherbourg, a Royal Academician. He died of typhus in his sixteenth year. Thomas showed his early promise as a scholar. His mother removed to Bath and sent him to the Bath grammar school, under Dr. Morgan, in his eleventh year. He was accompanied by his brother Richard, or ‘Pink,’ four years younger than himself. The singular career of this boy, who ran away to sea, was taken by pirates, and afterwards became a midshipman, is told in the ‘Autobiographic Sketches’ (chap. xii.). At Bath De Quincey became famous for his skill in writing Latin verses, and then took to Greek, in which he could write easily at thirteen and converse fluently at fifteen. He was removed from Bath on account of a severe illness which ‘threatened his head,’ and was caused by a blow from an usher (Page, i. 36). His mother, a woman of strict evangelical principles, thought that his vanity had been over stimulated by his successes. She kept him for a time under her own eye, and then sent him to another school at Winkfield, Wiltshire, where the religious principles were more satisfactory than the scholarship of the master. Here he became a friend of E. W. Grinfield [q. v.], afterwards a biblical critic, who joined him in writing a school paper called ‘The Observer.’ A year later De Quincey paid a visit to a friend, Lord Westport, then at Eton, son of Lord Altamont, an Irish peer. They had
