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WILLIAM BECKFORD

[William Beckford of Fonthill (who must not be confounded with contemporary authors of the same name) was the only child by his second wife of Alderman Beckford, merchant and West India planter, twice Lord Mayor of London. The birth of the boy, which has been misstated by almost all biographers, occurred on the 1st October 1760; the elder Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, was one of his sponsors, and is said to have cautioned the future author of Vathek against reading the Arabian Nights! Losing his father in 1770, he was sent with a tutor to Geneva at the age of seventeen, and afterwards made the grand tour. He married in 1783, and lived in Switzerland till 1786, returning to England after his wife's death. In March 1787 he visited Portugal, whence he wrote letters full of graphic description, and sparkling with sarcasm and humour. After his return to England he devoted himself entirely to the pursuits of a virtuoso and amateur architect. His lavish expense impoverished him, and he died at Bath on the 2nd May 1844, his princely inheritance of "a million sterling, and a hundred thousand a year" having dwindled down to "a beggarly eighty-thousand pounds."]

ALTHOUGH the romantic school of fiction has had its day, the gorgeous, almost Miltonic tale Vathek, the admiration of Lord Byron, who preferred it to Rasselas, still survives after more than a hundred years. The statement made by its author to Mr. Redding, that it was produced at the age of twenty-two, in one sitting of three days and two nights, is a piece of imagination of like character with the work itself. The time taken to write it appears to have been about three months, but however long its production may have occupied, it stands, in a fashion, unique in the language, and had the author but been visited with a little pecuniary misfortune, it might have proved the precursor to a delightful series of imaginative stories. But domestic bereavement and the deceitfulness of riches unhinged the mind of Beckford. His letters from Portugal evince that contempt for the poor, and general cynicism which, when he was no longer able to assimilate rational gratifications, degenerated into misanthropy

and absolute egotism. Of all sensuous enjoyments, that of music appears to have been that which raised him most out of himself. Amidst the sarcastic utterances evoked by the degrading superstition prevailing in Portugal he writes :-"This very morning, to my shame be it recorded, I remained hour after hour in my newly arranged pavilion, without reading a word, writing a line, or entering into any conversation. All my faculties were absorbed by the harmony of the wind instruments, stationed at a distance in a thicket of orange and bay trees. It was to no purpose that I tried several times to retire out of the sound-I was as often drawn back as I attempted to snatch myself away." On another occasion we find that Jomelli's mass for the dead melted him to

tears.

Beckford's first effort, Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, a satirical work, written at the age of seventeen, it is said, to mystify the family housekeeper, was followed by other youthful effusions, and in 1783 he published a quarto volume entitled Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents, the edition consisting of five hundred copies, but, following the mistaken advice of friends, he suppressed the whole except six copies, and afterwards brought out an expurgated edition, the lacunæ in which were for the first time filled up by Mr. G. T. Bettany in the volume of the Minerva Library, edited by him. Vathek, the book by which he is best known, written in French at an early age, was pirated by a clergyman to whom the MS. had been entrusted, and the first authorised edition was published in French at Paris and Lausanne in 1787. The Letters from Portugal and Spain remained unpublished for nearly fifty years after they were written. After his final return to England he ceased to write altogether, but such materials for a biography as he chose to communicate or invent were given to Mr. Cyrus Redding in 1835.

W. J. GARNETT.

A DREAM IN KENT

ALL through Kent did I doze as usual; now and then I opened my eyes to take in an idea or two of the green, woody country through which I was passing; then closed them again; transported myself back to my native hills; thought I led a choir of those I loved best through their shades; and was happy in the arms of illusion. The sun set before I recovered my senses enough to discover plainly the variegated slopes near Canterbury, waving with slender birch trees, and gilt with a profusion of broom. I thought myself still in my beloved solitude, but missed the companions of my slumbers. Where are they? Behind yon blue hills, perhaps, or t'other side of that thick forest. My fancy was travelling after these deserters, till we reached the town; vile enough o' conscience, and fit only to be passed in one's sleep. The moment after I got out of the carriage, brought me to the cathedral; an old haunt of mine. I had always venerated its lofty pillars, dim aisles, and mysterious arches. Last night they were more solemn than ever, and echoed no other sound than my steps. I strayed about the choir and chapels, till they grew so dark and dismal, that I was half inclined to be frightened; looked over my shoulder; thought of spectres that have an awkward trick of syllabling men's names in dreary places; and fancied a sepulchral voice exclaiming: "Worship my toe at Ghent; my ribs at Florence; my skull at Bologna, Siena, and Rome. Beware how you neglect this order; for my bones, as well as my spirit, have the miraculous property of being here, there, and everywhere." These injunctions, you may suppose, were received in a becoming manner, and noted all down in my pocket-book by inspiration (for I could not see), and hurrying into the open air, I was whirled away in the dusk to Margate. Don't ask what were my dreams thither :-nothing but horrors, deep-vaulted tombs, and pale, though lovely figures, extended

upon them; shrill blasts that sung in my ears, and filled me with sadness, and the recollection of happy hours, fleeting away, perhaps for ever! I was not sorry, when the bustle of our coming in dispelled these phantoms. The change, however, in point of scenery was not calculated to dissipate my gloom; for the first object in this world that presented itself was a vast expanse of sea, just visible by the gleamings of the moon, bathed in watery clouds; a chill air ruffled the waves. I went to shiver a few melancholy moments on the shore. How often did I try to wish away the reality of my separation from those I love, and attempt to persuade myself it was but a dream!

(From Dreams and Waking Thoughts.)

THE COURT OF THE QUEEN OF PORTUGAL

I WAS hardly up before the Grand Prior and Mr. Street were announced; the latter abusing kings, queens, and princes with all his might, and roaring after liberty and independence; the former complaining of fogs and damps.

As soon as the advocate for republicanism had taken his departure, we went by appointment to the archbishop confessor's, -and were immediately admitted into his sanctum sanctorum, a snug apartment communicating by a winding staircase with that of the Queen, and hung with bright, lively tapestry. A lay brother, fat, round, buffoonical, and to the full as coarse and vulgar as any carter or muleteer in Christendom, entertained us with some very amusing, though not the most decent, palace stories, till his patron came forth.

Those who expect to see the Grand Inquisitor of Portugal a doleful, meagre figure, with eyes of reproof and malediction, would be disappointed. A pleasanter or more honest countenance than that kind Heaven has blessed him with one has seldom the

pleasure of looking upon. He received me in the most open, cordial manner, and I have reason to think I am in mighty favour.

We talked about archbishops in England being married. "Pray," said the prelate, "are not your archbishops strange fellows? consecrated in ale-houses, and good bottle companions? I have been told that mad-cap Lord Tyrawley was an archbishop

at home." You may imagine how much I laughed at this inconceivable nonsense; and though I cannot say, speaking of his right reverence, that "truths divine came mended from his tongue," it may be allowed, that nonsense itself became more conspicuously nonsensical, flowing from so revered a source.

Whilst we sat in the windows of the saloon, listening to a band of regimental music, we saw João Antonio de Castro, the ingenious mechanician, who invented the present method of lighting Lisbon, two or three solemn Dominicans, and a famous court fool in a tawdry gala suit, bedizened with mock orders, coming up the steps which lead to the great audience chamber, all together. "Ay, ay," said the lay brother, who is a shrewd, comical fellow, "behold a true picture of our customers! Three sorts of persons find their way most readily into this palace; men of superior abilities, buffoons, and saints; the first soon lose what cleverness they possessed, the saints become martyrs, and the buffoons alone prosper.

To all this the archbishop gave his assent by a very significant nod of the head, and being, as I have already told you, in a most gracious, communicative disposition, would not permit me to go away, when I rose to take leave of him.

"No, no," said he, "don't think of quitting me yet awhile. Let us repair to the Hall of Swans, where all the court are waiting for me, and pray tell me then what you think of our great fidalgos."

Taking me by the tips of the fingers, he led me along through a number of shady rooms and dark passages to a private door, which opened from the Queen's presence-chamber, into a vast saloon, crowded, I really believe, by half the dignitaries of the kingdom here were bishops, heads of orders, secretaries of state, generals, lords of the bed-chamber, and courtiers of all denominations, as fine and as conspicuous as embroidered uniforms, stars, crosses, and gold keys could make them.

:

The astonishment of this group at our sudden apparition was truly laughable, and, indeed, no wonder; we must have appeared on the point of beginning a minuet-the portly archbishop in his monastic flowing drapery, spreading himself out like a turkey in full pride, and myself bowing and advancing in a sort of " pasgrave," blinking all the while like an owl in sunshine, thanks to my rapid transition from darkness to the most glaring daylight.

Down went half the party upon their knees, some with petitions

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