Title: De Quincey Author: David Masson Published: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1887. Pages-198. (Part of the English Men of Letters series edited by John Morley) Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was an English writer widely known as the author of Confessions of an Opium Eater.  The surname might suggest a French importation, but De Quincey was sensitive to this and stressed that his family had come in with the Conquest and even consisted of some Earls of Winchester in the thirteenth century.  Today we might not think much of that, but in De Quincey’s day it was an important distinction. His father was Thomas Quincey (abt. 1752-1792), it seems De Quincey resurrected the “De” with his generation.  His father was a literary man and wrote a book A Short Tour in the Midland Counties of England, performed in the Summer of 1772: together with an Account of a Similar Excursion undertaken September, 1774.  Masson gives us his impression of the father’s book: “There is an eye also for the picturesque in scenery, and for architectural beauties or defects in towns, churches, and country-seats; and the style is that of a well-educated man, accustomed to write English.  Once or twice…