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 of his own conception of the halls
of Eblis, Beckford cast off the flippant mood in which he had set
out and rose to an exalted solemnity.
Beckford's mind was so richly stored with the jewels of Eastern
legend that it was inevitable he should shower from his treasury
things new and old, but everything which passes through the
alembic of his imagination is transmuted almost beyond
recognition.
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