ABSTRACT
The Caliph Vathek is a work known to the public, rather by name than by its merits,1 which are not only considerable but first-rate. It is a masterly performance. It has extraordinary power of thought and facility of execution. Lord Byron has borne testimony to its attractions, and, indeed, it has been said that he owes his mixed style to it; but both are borrowed originally from Voltaire.2 The ironical vein of Candide is the common parent of both, to which Lord Byron has added the charms of verse and of pathetic description, and Mr Beckford the imposing machinery of an Oriental Tale. The style we speak of takes the misanthropic view of human nature, but it takes it with gaiety and good humour. It blends the sacred and prophane with complete indifference, and treats the most serious things with the utmost levity, we must not say with the contempt they deserve. An indignant invective is stopped short by some ludicrous incident – accumulated horrors are carried offby a play upon words. The writer proceeds through his task with perfect alacrity, with perfect equanimity, and is supposed to ‘know all qualities with a learned spirit.’3 Nothing surprises – nothing shocks him; and, after working up the reader’s sympathy or abhorrence to the highest pitch, suddenly relieves him by turning the whole into a jest. A single sentence will explain what we mean. In the midst of an alarming situation, it is recorded of Vathek, that ‘as he continued to eat, his piety increased; and in the same breath which recited his prayers, he called for the Koran and sugar!’4 This is Voltaire all over, and quite as good. ‘The Koran and sugar’ are not things of co-ordinate importance; but the moral seems to be that to a miserable, peevish, sensual, selfish being like the Caliph, they were pretty equal.
