Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
In this e-text, paired underscores denote _italicised text_, and a ^ (caret) indicates superscripted text. Footnotes have been positioned below the relevant paragraphs. A small number of spelling and typographic errors have been corrected silently.
Beckford’s indoor occupations were numerous. It has been said, and with some show of reason, that he was the most accomplished man of his time. He was a good musician, he could...
3. Part 3Lord Petersham was a Mæcenas among the tailors, and the inventor of an overcoat called after him. He was famous for his brown carriages, horses, and liveries, all of the same sh...
12. Part 12Fox in his twentieth year entered Parliament as member for the pocket borough of Midhurst in Sussex, and, at his father’s request, supported the Duke of Grafton’s administration...
5. Part 5Everybody played cards in those days. Even at the quiet Court of “Farmer” George the tables were set out in the Queen’s drawing-rooms. Ladies gambled with as much zest as their...
4. Part 4He went no farther than Calais. “Here I am _restant_ for the present, and God knows solitary enough is my existence; of that, however, I should not complain, for I can always em...
14. Part 14Wharton’s gallantries, or, to give them their proper though less euphonious name, profligacies, were carried to such excess that they, together with his political infidelities,...
7. Part 7“The historian of _Sir Joseph Banks_ and _The Emperor of Morocco_, of the _Pilgrims and the Peas_, of the _Royal Academy_, and of _Mr Whitebread’s Brewing-Vat_, the bard in whom...
8. Part 8“I was within an hour once of being his prisoner, and cannot say but I thought it a piece of good fortune to escape that honour, though he has promised to treat all English ladi...
13. Part 13Fox was a great-hearted man, with a beautiful disposition, high spirits, unbounded good-humour, delightful conversation, a great affection for his friends, an undeniable loyalty...
1. Part 1In this e-text, paired underscores denote _italicised text_, and a ^ (caret) indicates superscripted text. Footnotes have been positioned below the relevant paragraphs. A small...
10. Part 10This, however, was but one of many slanders. It was said that Beckford built the high wall round his estate of Fonthill that his orgies might be carried on unperceived--the wall...
9. Part 9The number of members of this convivial community cannot have been considerable. Hall-Stevenson in “Crazy Tales” gives eleven stories, each supposed to have been told by one of...
6. Part 6No satirist could ask for better subjects for his wit than George III. and Queen Charlotte. The slow-witted monarch and his parsimonious consort offered every conceivable tempta...
2. Part 2Hanger, now in the possession of a competence, made little change in his manner of living, and though death did not claim him until 31st March 1824, at the age of seventy-three,...