became
Lord Mayor of London. After a careful education, he found himself the
possessor of a colossal fortune. He travelled extensively, and wrote
sketches of his travels. His only work of importance is that called
_Vathek_, in which he describes the gifts, the career, and the fate of the
Caliph of that name, who was the grandson of the celebrated Haroun al
Raschid. His palaces are described in a style of Oriental gorgeousness;
his temptations, his lapses from virtue, his downward progress, are
presented with dramatic power; and there is nothing in our literature more
horribly real and terror-striking than the _Hall of Eblis_,--that hell
where every heart was on fire, where "the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake
of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand
crimes, became a prey to grief without end and remorse without
mitigation." Many of Beckford's other writings are blamed for their
voluptuous character; the last scene in _Vathek_ is, on the other hand, a
most powerful and influential sermon. Beckford was eccentric and unsocial:
he lived for some time in Portugal, but returned to England, and built a
luxurious palace at Bath.

_William Roscoe_, 1753-1831: a merchant and banker of Liverpool. He is
chiefly known by his _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_, and _The Life and
Pontificate of Leo X._, both of which contained new and valuable
information. They are written in a pleasing style, and with a liberal and
charitable spirit as to religious opinions. Since they appeared, history
has developed new material and established more exacting canons, and the
studies of later writers have already superseded these pleasing works.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.

The New School. William Wordsworth. Poetical Canons. The Excursion and
Sonnets. An Estimate. Robert Southey. His Writings. Historical Value.
S. T. Coleridge. Early Life. His Helplessness. Hartley and H. N.
Coleridge.

THE NEW SCHOOL.

In the beginning of the year 1820 George III. died, after a very long--but
in part nominal--reign of fifty-nine years, during a large portion of
which he was the victim of insanity, while his son, afterwards George IV.,
administered the regency of the kingdom.

George III. did little, either by example or by generosity, to foster
literary culture: his son, while nominally encouraging authors, did much
to injure the tone of letters in his day. But literature was now becom