"On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" is a one-inch punch of psychological criticism in which de Q's absurdly excessive self-insight finds its finest expression in a single scene from Shakespeare. "The English Mail-Coach" is a phantasmagoric Wild Hunt of an essay, jouncing through the national character, empire, the author's fancy-free youth, and detouring into slow-motion opium nightmares and a delirious symbolical dream-sequence that reminded me of the hurtling, headlong dreams I'm prone to on planes. But "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" doesn't live up to its tantalising title, and the interminable piece on Roman eating habits is extremely pointless. There's also an essay on Joan of Arc, who I've never been too excited about, which is described in a 1981 NYT article as a "necrophiliac paean", an assessment I think I agree with. Still and all, there's really no medicine like de Quincey's patent tonic, a bona fide strange brew. ( )