Mr. Beckford was unquestionably a man of genius and rare accomplishments. “But his abilities were overpowered, and his character tainted, by the possession of wealth so enormous. At every stage of life his money was like a millstone round his neck. He had taste and knowledge; but the selfishness of wealth tempted him to let these gifts of the mind run to seed in the gratification of extravagant freaks. He really enjoyed travelling and scenery, but he felt it incumbent on him, as a millionnaire, to take a French cook with him wherever he went; and he found that the Spanish grandees and ecclesiastical dignitaries who welcomed him so cordially valued him as the man whose cook could make such wonderful omelettes. From the day when Chatham’s proxy stood for him at the font till the day when he was laid in his pink granite sarcophagus, he was the victim of riches. Had he had only 5000_l._ a year, and been sent to Eton, he might have been one of the foremost men of his time, and have been as useful in his generation as, under his unhappy circumstances, he was useless.”[104] It may be added, that he was worse: for he so threw about his money at Fonthill as to corrupt and demoralise the simple country-people. We remember three of his London residences: one on the Terrace, Piccadilly, on the site of the newly-built mansion of Baron Rothschild; another of Beckford’s town residences was No. 1 Devonshire-place, New-road; and the third, No. 27 Charles-street, May Fair, a very small house, looking over the garden of Chesterfield-house. The vanity of wealth is exemplified in the following anecdote, which Mrs. Richard Trench had from an ear-witness: The late Duke of Queensberry, leaning over the balcony of his beautiful villa near Richmond, where every pleasure was collected which wealth could purchase or luxury devise, he followed with his eyes the majestic Thames, winding through groves and buildings of various loveliness, and exclaimed, “Oh, that wearisome river! Will it never cease running, running, and I so tired of it?” To me this anecdote conveys a strong moral lesson, connected with the well-known character of the speaker, a professed voluptuary, who passed his youth in pursuit of selfish pleasures, and his age in vain attempts to elude the relentless grasp of _ennui_.