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

to his former residence. The biographer omits
the well-known anecdote of his looking for it
in vain one morning, and rubbing his eyes to
make sure that it was really gone. lle also
tells us that it fell so softly that Mr. Farquhar,
the owner, though in the building at the time,
was not aware of the accident ! a tale we must
be excused for disbelieving.—At Bath, Beckford
prolonged his library by throwing an arch over
the street and joining the opposite house ; and
clothed the whole of the hill in the rear up to
the tower, with fruit, flowers, and terrace walks.
To this domain he for the most part confined
himself, living as retired as at Fonthill, with the
same habits, but on a diminished scale :

The inhabitants of the city in which lie resided knew as
little about him as those of the metropolis. He was seen
occasionally on horseback, with the late Duke of Hamilton ,
passing through the streets, but not more than halfa•doren
persons, literary men and artists, were admitted to his
acquaintance. His old porter at Fonthill, Pero, a dwarf,
continued to be his porter at Bath. Ohl servants were still
in his service, and strongly attached to him, as both his
tenantry and domestics had been at Fonthill. Vincent, his
gardener, between seventy anti eighty years of age, had
planted Fonthill in the newer part. Accompanied by one,
and sometimes two servants, he rode on horseback every day
before dinner, not very regardful of the aspect of the
weather. His course of life left little for the pen to detail.
His health continued good nearly to the last.

He usually took excellent care of himself, but
riding one day during a chill east wind brought
on a cold and fever, of which he died on the 2nd
of May, 1844, aged eighty-four years and seven
months. A superb funeral, witnessed by 20,000
spectators, conducted his remains to a polished
granite sarcophagus, long destined to receive them,
and bearing an inscription (partly from " Vathek"),
—" Enjoying humbly ' the most precious gilt
"of Heaven, Hope.'" In youth he had been
very handsome, as we see from the portrait o f
him by Reynolds, prefixed to his " Letters fro m
Spain and Italy." He had delicate features, full
lips, and a mass of wavy black hair. In later
life he is thus described, vol. ii., p. 187 :
ID person, he was not much above the middle height ,
well formed, and rather slender than full, with features
indicating intellectual power, and small grey eyes of
wonderful acuteness. His dress was almost uniformly a
green coat with cloth buttons, a buff waistcoat, striped,
breeches of the same colour as the coat, and brown topped
boots, the tine cotton stocking appearing over them, much
in the fashion of a gentlemen forty years before. His
apprehension was quick, and his enunciation rapid. His
voice was agreeable, his gesture energetic, especially when
excited in conversation. -When silent or examining any
thing, he placed his freckled fingers over his mouth. His
bodily activity was that of a man of sixty when he was
above eighty ; his face alone bore marks of age. He seldom
sat down even when conversing, especially if particularly
earnest. His manner was courteous and gentlemanly,
while the impression produced on the mind of a stranger
was decidedly that he was one out of the common run of
individuals in the more refined ranks of life.

A few traits of character are recorded in the
close of this book. His temper was violent, and
his sarcastic turn frequently and disagreeably in-
dulged ; but he could atone by lavish generosity
for some of these ebullitions. His family pride
induced him to quarrel with his daughter, who
married Colonel Orde against his consent, and he
refused to see her under subsequent distressing
circumstances; but he was kind to animals, dis-
approved of fox-hunting, and buried his spaniel,
whose death much affected his spirits, under a
marble monument. His memory was unusually
good, and he was proud of it, and liked to make
other people acknowledge him in the right after
all. In London he appears to have spent his
time after a dilettante fashion, among print-
sellers, jewellers, and the like. He went to
exhibitions occasionally, but hated everything
like academic cliques. his biographers account
of his intellectual qualities displays him as not
much more than a trifler of first-rate elegance.
He was certainly an excellent linguist, but the
notes which he pencilled on the margins of his
books arc mostly mere matters of antiquarian
gossip, and the few reflections they contain are
like weak imitations of Voltaire or Gibbon. It
seems to be implied that he " waded " with some
disgust (shared as usual by the biographer)
through Blackstone; and he was much too proud
to have anything to do with politics, because
he could not do as he liked in acting with a party.
For physical science none of the savants whom
he met at Geneva seem to have given him any
taste, and the lectures on experimental physics
by M. D Epinasse he found only a bore. He
seems to have had no appreciation of Dr. John-
son. Locke oOn the Conduct of the Mind "
was " a barren subject to him," nor doe; he semi