both of that sentimentalism and that superstition which have been alternately debauching of late years the minds of the young.  And if he shall have arrived at this discovery, he will be able possibly to regard at least with patience those who are rash enough to affirm that they have learnt from this book more which is pure, sacred, and eternal, than from any which has been published since Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen.’"[195] On the testimony of Wesley and of Kingsley, all the merits of a moral nature which they claim for the “Fool of Quality” will readily be accorded to it.  But it is very doubtful that such qualities would necessarily interfere with the success of a work of fiction.  The real reason why very few who can help it will read this novel, lies in those characteristics which Kingsley himself admitted would appear to the average reader.  “The plot is extravagant as well as ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.  The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible.  The sermonizing, whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive.  Without artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world, the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none now."[196]

It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because its moral was a good one.  If he had sat down to warn the world against Henry Brooke’s novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more effect.  Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.  The “Fool of Quality” has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an exaggerated form.  The improvement of his reader is a laudable object for a novelist.  But it is an object which can be successfully carried out in a work of art, only very indirectly.  An author may have a great influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which insensibly elevates the reader’s mind.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of works of fiction rapidly increased.  William Beckford, whom Byron calls in “Childe Harold,” “Vathek, England’s wealthiest son,” wrote in his twentieth year the oriental romance “Vathek,” which excited great attention at the time.  It was composed in three days and two nights, during which the author never took off his clothes.  Byron considered this tale superior to “Rasselas.”  It represented the downward career of an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him to everlasting and horrible punishments.  “Vathek” gives evidence of a familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which are remarkable in so youthful an author.  The descriptions of the Caliph and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power.  But in depth of meaning, and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work, it bears no comparison to “Rasselas.”  The one affords an hour’s amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are read and re-read with constant pleasure and satisfaction.