Excerpt from Italy, Spain, and Portugal, Vol. 1 of 2: With an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaca and Batalha HE inheritance of wealth destroys more greatness than it stimulates. In Spite of his brilliant successes in literature, William Beckford, the author of Vathek, is an example of genius marred by wealth. Had he been left with only a moderate competence, he might have become one or the brightest stars of imaginative literature. The youth who could write Vathek in French at twenty-two, and at the same time pen the striking travel-letters we here reprint, appeared capable of any success in the realm of literary expression. Whether the death of his wife, Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aboyne, after only three years of married life, had anything to do with his subsequent lapse into the somewhat misanthropic connoisseur and collector who astonished England by the Oriental magnificence he gathered round him at Font hill, we cannot tell. But he never fulfilled the promise Of his youth, and throughout his lifetime was best known as an eccentric lover of magnificence, shrouded in mystery which titillated while it baffled vulgar curiosity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.