even here all we have is on a grander scale. The oriental prodigality of
his magnificence shines out even in trifles. He buys a library where the
other would have cheapened a missal. He is at least a male Horace
Walpole; as superior to the "silken Baron," as Fonthill, with its
York-like tower embosomed among hoary forests, was to that silly band-box
which may still be admired on the road to Twickenham ...

We have no discussions of any consequence in these volumes: even the
ultra-aristocratical opinions and feelings of the author--who is, we
presume, a Whig--are rather hinted than avowed. From a thousand passing
sneers, we may doubt whether he has any religion at all; but still he
_may_ be only thinking of the outward and visible absurdities of
popery--therefore we have hardly a pretext for treating these matters
seriously. In short, this is meant to be, as he says in his preface,
nothing but a "book of light reading"; and though no one can read it
without having many grave enough feelings roused and agitated within
him, there are really no passages to provoke or justify any detailed
criticism either as to morals or politics ...

We risk nothing in predicting that Mr. Beckford's _Travels_ will
henceforth be classed among the most elegant productions of modern
literature: they will be forthwith translated into every language of the
Continent--and will keep his name alive, centuries after all the brass
and marble he ever piled together have ceased to vibrate with the echoes
of _Modenhas_.

ON COLERIDGE

[From _The Quarterly Review_, August, 1834]

_The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge_. 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1834.

Let us be indulged, in the mean time, in this opportunity of making a
few remarks on the genius of the extraordinary man whose poems, now for
the first time completely collected, are named at the head of this
article. The larger part of this publication is, of course, of old date,
and the author still lives; yet, besides the considerable amount of new
matter in this edition, which might of itself, in the present dearth of
anything eminently original in verse, justify our notice, we think the
great, and yet somewhat hazy, celebrity of Coleridge, and the
ill-understood character of his poetry, will be, in the opinion of a
majority of our readers, more than an excuse for a few elucidatory
remarks upon the subject. Idolized by many, and used without scruple by
more, the poet of "Christabel" and the "A