Excerpt from Memoirs of William Beckford of Fonthill, Vol. 1 of 2 IT was naturally to be expected that before this time some remembrances of one of the most re markable men of his day would have appeared in an authentic shape. Every hour after the death of the individual carries into oblivion some trait of character or peculiarity which distin guished him from other men. Delay in such cases is dangerous. If, said a distinguished writer, a life be delayed until interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a vola tile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tra dition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.