Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

608 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
Nobody, it is apparent, had a notion then what
that curious youngster, with all his strange preten-
sions, was to be, and his behaviour at this crisis
earned him many hostile comments. But Watts's
notes are never, as we have said, of an optimistic
kind. He has a keen eye for the smallnesses of the
great, and those mean details into which, with a little
care on the part of the reporter, the largest transac-
tion may be brought down. Here is a glimpse of
the dessous des cartes of an affair which very much
interested and dazzled the spectators of that time,
the melting away of the mystery which had sur-
rounded the wonderful Abbey of Fonthill, with all
its secret magnificence, so carefully defended from
the eyes of the crowd. Beckford's grandeur and
seclusion were no doubt sham to a great degree, and
the ruthless vulgarising of the mystery hurt nobody's
sentiment : but the pleasure with which the romantic
palace, with all its rare and beautiful collections, was
unveiled, and the lowest of trade tricks played amid
its conventional prodigies and wonders, brings squalor
and misery into the very heart of the shrine.
Beckford sells Fonthill Abbey and its appendages to old
Farquhar for upwards of £300,000, reserving to himself a third
of the pictures and books, and purchasing afterwards, by private
contract, another third. It occurred to Phillips, the auctioneer,
that the sale of these effects would afford a glorious opportunity
for the exercise of his accustomed ingenuity and honesty. He
first goes round the trade in London to solicit book commodity
of all descriptions to fill up vacuums in the Library at Fonthill.
In short, the better half of the books sold were what they were
described, the rakings and refuse of the Eow and its vicinity.
This infamous trash was mixed up with some really splendid
and valuable items, once the londfide property of Mr Beckford,