Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 7, 2025
He had a morbid fancy that the marble goddesses, or whoever they were, at the base of Nelson's monument opposite, were regarding him with stony disdain and indignation; that the statue of Wellington knew him for an arrant impostor, and averted his head with cold contempt; and that the effigy of Lord Mayor Beckford on the right of the dais would come to life and denounce him in another moment.
Hither comes to me young Captain Beckford, the slopseller, and there presents me a little purse with gold in it, it being, as he told me, for his present to me, at the end of the last year. I told him I had not done him any service I knew of.
William Beckford, whom Byron calls in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights, during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered this tale superior to "Rasselas."
That there is something of manner and trick about this is not to be denied; but it must be allowed that the trick and manner have been followed, apparently with success, in travel-writing for about half a century, while it cannot be fairly said that Kinglake himself had any exact models, though he may have owed something to Beckford and a little to Sterne.
And that Beckford could speak it with a spirit of honest resolution even to his Majesty, as his 'faithful Lord-Mayor of London, is commemorated by the noble monument erected to him in Guildhall . The argument dictated by Dr. Johnson was as follows:
"Yes, I believe he has bound you out to a man in Cranston." "I am sorry," said Herbert. "I shall be sorry to have you go, Herbert, but I thought you wanted to go." "So I do; but by waiting a few weeks I could probably get a place in Beckford & Keyes' store, at the mill village." "What makes you think so?" Herbert detailed his interview of the morning with the junior partner.
Except that both were very much of their time, it would be impossible to imagine a more complete contrast than that which exists between Beckford and Bage.
The tale-telling of Beckford is like the singing of Burns, not uncoloured by the time, but still in the main purely individual; the purpose of the novels of Holcroft, Godwin, and Bage is groping in the dark; the Radcliffian romance and its exaggeration by Lewis exhibit the same uncertainty, the same application of the Rule of False.
January 1st. Up, and presented from Captain Beckford with a noble silver warming-pan, which I am doubtful whether to take or no. Up, and with W. Hewer to the New Exchange, and then he and I to the cabinet-shops, to look out, and did agree, for a cabinet to give my wife for a New-year's gift; and I did buy one cost me L11, which is very pretty, of walnutt-tree, and will come home to-morrow.
He would give advice to the house on this subject in the words, which the late Alderman Beckford used on a different occasion: "Meddle not with troubled waters: they will be found to be bitter waters, and the waters of affliction."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking