On the whole, it is always wiser not to play Providence, in fact or fancy.
All that need be said is that Anthony Hamilton and Voltaire are certainly not by themselves--good as they are, and admirable as the first is--enough to account for _Vathek_.

Romance has passed there as well as persiflage and something like _coionnerie_; it is Romance that has given us the baleful beauty of that Queen of Evil, Nouronnihar, and the vision of the burning hearts that make their own wandering but eternal Hell.

The tendency of the novel had been on the whole, even in its best examples, to prose in feeling as well as in form.

It was Beckford who availed himself of the poetry which is almost inseparable from Romance.

But it was Horace Walpole who had opened the door to Romance herself.
[14] Since the text was written--indeed very recently--the long-missing "Episodes" of _Vathek_ itself have been at length supplied by the welcome diligence of Mr.Lewis Melville.