thing to keep his memory green as nothing else of his work or
personality will. The familiar legend that in its present form it was
composed at a single sitting, with such ardor as to entail a severe
illness, and "without the author's taking off his clothes," cannot be
reconciled with the known facts. But the intensely vivid movement of it
certainly suggests swift production; and it could easily be thought that
any author had sketched such a story in the heat of some undisturbed
sitting, and filled, finished, and polished it at leisure. It is an
extraordinary performance; even in Henley's unsatisfactory version it is
irresistible. We know that Beckford expected to add liberally to it by
inserting sundry subordinate tales, put into the mouths of some of the
personages appearing in the last scene. It is quite as well that he did
not. Its distinctive Orientalism, perhaps less remarkable than the
unfettered imagination of its episodes, the vividness of its characters,
the easy brilliancy of its literary manner--these things, with French
diction and French wit, alternate with startling descriptive
impressiveness. It is a French combination of Cervantes and Dante, in an
Oriental and bizarre narrative. It is not always delicate, but it is
never vulgar, and the sprightly pages are as admirable as the weird
ones. Its pictures, taken out of their connection, seem irrelevant, and
are certainly unlike enough; but they are a succession of surprises and
fascinations. Such are the famous description of the chase of Vathek's
court after the Giaour; the moonlit departure of the Caliph for the
Terrace of Istakhar; the episodes of his stay under the roof of the Emir
Fakreddin; the pursuit by Carathis on "her great camel Alboufaki,"
attended by "the hideous Nerkes and the unrelenting Cafour"; Nouronihar
drawn to the magic flame in the dell at night; the warning of the good
Jinn; and the tremendous final tableau of the Hall of Eblis.

The man curious in letters regards with affection the evidences of
vitality in a brief production little more than a century old; unique in
English and French literature, and occupying to-day a high rank among
the small group of _quasi_-Oriental narratives that represent the direct
workings of Galland on the Occidental literary temperament. Today
'Vathek' surprises and delights persons whose mental constitution puts
them in touch with it, just as potently as ever it did. And simply as a
wild story, one fancies