Note 22 — Chapter I · OUTWARD BOUND.—LIVERPOOL TO LISBON.
Reading edition
Next to Byron, the great modern English literary name associated with this part of Portugal, and not merely from his residence here, but from his delightful and extraordinary pourtrayal of the conventual life of the neighbourhood, in his almost posthumous work, the ‘Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha,’ is he whom the noble bard alludes to in the well-known lines:—
On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; But now the wild flowers round them only breathe; Yet ruin’d splendour still is lingering there, And yonder towers the Prince’s palace fair: There thou, too, Vathek! England’s wealthiest son, Once form’d thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.
Beckford, as is well known, soon after his return to England, built the fairy-like structure of Fonthill Abbey, gorgeous as his own Caliph Vathek, and, like it, as unsubstantial; for, on its being sold to Mr. Farquharson for some £40,000, about one-seventh of what it cost, [the catalogues describing its contents were in prodigious demand at a guinea a piece] it fell to the ground. He died in 1844, aged 84; and was father to the late Duchess of Hamilton, and father-in-law to the present Duke of Hamilton and Duchess of Newcastle.