Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey].

  • Thomas De Quincey
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    title. But, as we know that, in regions less remote from Rome, Mona did not always mean the Isle of Man, nor Ultima Thule uniformly the Isle of Skye or of St Kilda, so it is pretty evident that features belonging to Sumatra, and probably to other oriental islands, blended (through mutual misconceptions of the parties, questioned and questioning) into one semi-fahulous object not entirely realised in any locality whatever. The case is precisely as if Cosmas Indicopleustes, visiting Scotland in the sixth century, should have placed the scene of any adventure in a town distant six miles from Glasgow and eight miles from Edinburgh. These we know to he irreconcilable conditions, such as cannot meet in any town whatever, past or present. But in such a case many circumstances might, notwithstanding, combine to throw a current of very strong suspicion upon Hamilton as the town con- cerned. On the same principle, it is easy to see that most of those Romans who spoke of Taprobane had Ceylon in their eye. But that all had not, and of those who really had, that some indicated by their facts very different islands, whilst designing to indicate Ceylon, is undeniable; since, amongst other imaginary character- istics of Taprobane, they make it extend considerably to the south of the line. Now, with respect to Ceylon, this is notoriously false. That island lies entirely in the northern tropic, and does not come within five (hardly more than six) degrees of the equator. Plain it is, therefore, that Taprobane, if construed very strictly, is an ens rationis made up by fanciful composition from various sources, and much like our own mediaeval conceit ol Prester John’s country, or the fancies (which have but recently vanished) of the African river Niger, and the golden city Tombuctoo. These were lies : and yet also,
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