Another palace--for Beckford had an {290} architectural mania--was built at Fonthill, the place of his birth, not far east of Salisbury. Here was a great ancestral estate, around which he caused to be erected a huge wall of masonry, some ten or twelve miles in length, to secure privacy and protect his birds. Within he built courts, towers, and halls--some six hundred men often working together night and day on these constructions--which he equipped with the rare and munificent spoils brought back from his travel. To this Fairy land, however, Byron's lament would better apply; the walls are down and the towers have fallen; the property is divided; only here and there and blended with new structures and new offices can you see traces of the old architectural extravagance. The spoiled plantations of Jamaica--whence the Vathek revenue mostly came--brought the change; enough, however, remained for the erection of a costly home in Bath, portions of which may still be seen. A daughter of Beckford's became Duchess of Hamilton; another daughter, who declined Ducal overtures which the father favored, was treated therefor with severities that would have become an {291} Eastern caliph--for which, maybe, he now, like the poor creatures of Eblis Hall, is holding his right hand over "a burning heart." _Robert Burns._ [Sidenote: Burns.] We go now out of England, northward of the Solway, to find that peasant poet[15] at whose career I hinted in the last chapter, and whose burst of Scotch song was a new wakening for that kingdom of the highlands and the moors. I dare not, and will not speak critically of his verses; there they are--in their little budget of gilt-bound, or paper-bound leaves; rhythmic, tender, coarse, glowing, burning, with a grip in many of them at our heart-strings which we may not and cannot shake off. To tell you about these poems and of their special melodies would be like taking you to the sea and telling you how the waves gather and roll--with murmurs that you know--along all the shore. {292} Nor can I hope to tell any more of what will be new to you about his life and fate. We all know that white-washed, low, roadside cottage--a little drive out from the old Scotch town of Ayr--where he was born; we have been there perhaps; we have seen other Scottish peasants boozing there over their ale; and have noted the names scribbled over tables and cupboards and walls to testify to the world's yearnings and to its pilgrimages thither. We know, too, that other low cottage of Mossgiel, where his poor father--a gospel abiding man--made his last struggle against the fates--and who of a Saturday night-- "Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward bend."