The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

The particulars of the tour are recorded in his
work " Italy and Spain " (1834), parts of which
arc supposed to have been extracted from the
earlier one composed during his first absence
from England. The work is not by any means
inaccessible, but our biographer, in accordance
with his usual practice, has, by dint of extract
and abridgment, made it stand him in good
stead to the extent of fifty pages.—On Beckford's
return to England, a great "coming-of-age"
festival took place at Fonthill, lasting a week—
three hundred people at dinner in the house,
and the lawn covered with dependants and
humbler guests—two booths full of county voters,
two more full of borough constituents—about a
thousand people in all ; illuminations, fireworks,
a grand supper on Saturday, and on Sunday a
sermon from the tutor (now emeritus) ; after
which, " the company at dinner was reduced to
" three tables." Plenty of money was spent on
this occasion, of course; but what was any birth-
day feast to a youth who had just come into
1,000,0001. in ready money, and an income of
100,0001. a year ?
After a presentation at Court, and a slight
coruscation in the world of fashion, Beckford
made a second tour in 1782, with a retinue
which filled three carriages, and included an
artist, a physician, a musician, and his former
tutor ; so that in one part of Italy he was taken
for the Emperor of Austria, and charged ac-
cordingly.
" Vathek" seems to have been written about
1781 or 1782, and was preceded probably by
another tale, called "Al Raoui," which came out
sixteen years after. The author told Mr. Red-
ding in 1835 that he composed " Vathek " at one
sitting, in French, in three days and two nights,
during which he did not take off his clothes.
Probably this was, in part, a vain statement of
the writer. The story occupies 150 pages of the
close t of the " Standard Novels," a quantity
which it is difficult to imagine to have been pro-
duced in only sixty hours. A book called
" Abdallah, les Aventures du Fils de Hand,"
&c. (Paris, 1723), seems to have furnished most
of the supernatural machinery of the story,
and rather diminishes the originality usually
attached to it. Still it has a vigour and light-
ness which arc evidently Beckford's own, being
ejusdem farinw with the " Letters from Italy and
Spain." " Vathek" would never, indeed, create
anything like the tragic impression of the Aga-
memnon, Macbeth, or Lear. It is too grotesque
and extravagant to terrify even a very young
reader. And the Voltarian humour and irony,
good as they are, tend rather to impair the
awfulness of the effect. The author's satiric
genius could not help making sport even of his
own creations; and Carathis, whose "taste for
" dead bodies and everything like mummy is
" decided," and who, on her doom overtaking
her, " glanced off in a rapid whirl that rendered
" her invisible, and continued to revolve without
" intermission," is an image irresistibly ridicu-
lous. But the description of the never-resting
crowd who thronged the hall of Eblis, " each as
" if alone in a desert," and each holding the
right hand over his heart, the receptacle of eter-
nal fire, is grand and original; and Tennyson
seems to have been indebted to it for a striking
line" in one of his most thoughful poems.

Beckford's marriage to Lady Margaret Gordon,
daughter of the Earl of Aboyne, took place on
the sth May, 1783. He immediately set out
with his bride for Switzerland, and remained
there till her death, which occurred in childbirth
four years afterwards. After travelling for a
short time, and then spending a few months in
England, he set out for Spain and Portugal.
His travels there are, of course, abridged by
our biographer from the author's vivacious
into his own wretched style. He removes,
however, one misconception. Beckford was
supposed to have built a house at Montserrat,
which Byron apostrophizes as the residence of
" England s wealthiest son," and which a subse-
quent traveller, Wilde, describes as being in ruins.
This is, literally, a mere château en Espagne, the
only foundation for which was a house built in
an imitation Gothic style by a Falmouth car-
penter, and hired by Beckford on his second
visit.

Returning to England via Paris, he witnessed
the fall of the Bastile, and is said to be the proto-