gant as well as
ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.
The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible. The sermonizing,
whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive. Without
artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world,
the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none
now."[196]

It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so
many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because
its moral was a good one. If he had sat down to warn the world against
Henry Brooke's novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more
effect. Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness
almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters
and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.
The "Fool of Quality" has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an
exaggerated form. The improvement of his reader is a laudable object
for a novelist. But it is an object which can be successfully carried
out in a work of art, only very indirectly. An author may have a great
influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by
deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which
insensibly elevates the reader's mind.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
works of fiction rapidly increased. 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." It represented the downward career of
an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and
who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him
to everlasting and horrible punishments. "Vathek" gives evidence of a
familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which
are remarkable in so youthful an author. The descriptions of the Caliph
and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power. But in depth of meaning,
and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work,
it bears no comparison to "Rasselas." The one affords an hour's
amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are
read and re-read with co