g his thoughts in rolling, rhythmical periods of
eloquence, that make _Melmoth_ a memory-haunting book. With all
his faults Maturin was the greatest as well as the last of the
Goths.

CHAPTER V - THE ORIENTAL TALE OF TERROR. BECKFORD.

Beckford's _History of the Caliph Vathek_, which was written in
French, was translated by the Rev. Samuel Henley, who had the
temerity to publish the English version--described as a
translation from the Arabic--in 1786, before the original had
appeared. The French version was published in Lausanne and in
Paris in 1787. An interest in Oriental literature had been
awakened early in the eighteenth century by Galland's
epoch-making versions of _The Arabian Nights_ (1704-1717), _The
Turkish Tales_ (1708) and _The Persian Tales_ (1714), which were
all translated into English during the reign of Queen Anne. Many
of the pseudo-translations of French authors, such as Gueulette,
who compiled _The Chinese Tales_, _Mogul Tales_, _Tartarian
Tales_, and _Peruvian Tales_, and Jean-Paul Bignon, who presented
_The Adventures of Abdallah_, were quickly turned into English;
and the Oriental story became so fashionable a form that didactic
writers eagerly seized upon it as a disguise for moral or
philosophical reflection. The Eastern background soon lost its
glittering splendour and colour, and became a faded, tarnished
tapestry, across which shadowy figures with outlandish names and
English manners and morals flit to and fro. Addison's _Vision of
Mirza_ (1711), Johnson's _Rasselas_ (1759), and various essays in
_The Rambler_, Dr. Hawkesworth's _Almoran and Hamet_ (1761),
Langhorne's _Solyman and Almena_ (1762), Ridley's _Tales of the
Genii_ (1764), and Mrs. Sheridan's _History of Nourjahad_ (1767)
were among the best and most popular of the Anglo-Oriental
stories that strove to inculcate moral truths. In their
oppressive air of gravity, Beckford, with his implacable hatred
of bores, could hardly have breathed. One of the most amazing
facts about his wild fantasy is that it was the creation of an
English brain. The idea of _Vathek_ was probably suggested to
Beckford by the witty Oriental tales of Count Antony Hamilton and
of Voltaire. The character of the caliph, who desired to know
everything, even the sciences which did not exist, is sketched in
the spirit of the French satirists, who turned Oriental
extravagance into delightful mockery. Awed into reverence ere the
close by the sombre grandeur