Benjamin Disraeli

FEW public men in any country have been made the subject of so much hostile criticism as Benjamin Disraeli. The most powerful section of the press in England has always been opposed to him. The rising young Radicals, whether in Parliament or out of it, have found him a convenient object for those vigorous denunciations which are usually accepted as a proof of superior sagacity and fidelity to party. The Conservative organs in England, and especially in London, have not exercised great influence over public opinion during the last thirty years, and what little they possessed has more frequently been thrown against Mr. Disraeli than in his favor. The Quarterly Review has never had a good word to say for him. He has had no friends among journalists, and has never sought to make any. He has never tried to conciliate the forces which control, or are supposed to control, public opinion. Yet for upwards of twenty years he has been the virtual leader of the party which represents the “ territorial aristocracy ” of England. Three times he has led that party to power in the teeth of apparently insurmountable difficulties. Three times he has held the great position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Once, already, he has been Prime Minister; a second time the Queen invited him to take upon his shoulders the cares and responsibilities of that post ; and the hour is probably approaching when he will be called to office under circumstances better calculated to do him justice than any which have hitherto marked his career. If he is the giddy adventurer, the empty charlatan, the unprincipled intriguer that the world has been taught to believe, how has all this success been achieved ? It is not customary in English politics to see adventurers climb slowly to power, and survive the test of thirty years of public life. The highest place in the English government is not to be won by imposters. There must be something more in Mr. Disraeli’s history than most of his critics are willing to have us suppose.

Whenever Mr. Disraeli’s life is written with an impartial hand, it will be found to present one of the most remarkable and instructive stories in the annals of political history. To the young especially it will be full of invaluable lessons, — lessons which are never so forcibly presented as through the medium of example. The advantages of intrepidity, patience, and steadfast endurance in the battle of life were never set forth in a more striking manner. Few young men can enter upon the active business of the world under more discouraging conditions than those which attended the early lot of Disraeli. In a country where wealth and family connections are important auxiliaries to success, and at a time when they were much more important than they are now, “ Disraeli the younger ” began as a clerk in a lawyer’s office without a shilling in the world. Under a social system in which powerful friends are almost indispensable, at least to advancement in political life, he stood alone. At a period when no man was thought fit to enter Parliament who was not either a landed proprietor himself or had one for a patron, lie forced his way into the House of Commons, boasting that “ literature was his only escutcheon.” He made friends as he grew older ; but it was only by the commanding force of his genius, by his calm, invincible resolution, and by the unflinching nerve with which he confronted every difficulty. The world honors courage, and when the world tried to beat down Disraeli, and he beat it down instead, it became his friend. But, for long and weary years, it was an apparently hopeless contest. The only friendly hand extended to him was the hand of that woman whose remains he followed to a wintry grave last December, amid a blinding snow-storm, bareheaded and alone. If anybody desires to know what a wife may be to her husband, with what pure unselfishness and devotion she can give up everything that she has to his service, and find a noble happiness in doing it ; what a support and comfort she can be to him under the inevitable sorrows and misfortunes of life ; how magnificently she can inspire him to fresh exertions, and stand as a bulwark between the adverse world and himself, — any one who wishes to comprehend all this need only read the story of Mr. Disraeli’s married life. It will be found that in such a case the devotion is not all on one side. The affection of a good woman kindles the nobler qualities of a man, and he will repay her devotion with lofty fidelity. If Mr. Disraeli had, as he once said, the “ best of wives,” he, on his part, proved the best of husbands. Till the last day of her life he paid to his wife those attentions which are too often associated rather with the romance of youthful intercourse than with the routine of married life. When he rose to the highest point of his ambition, the only favor he would accept of the Queen was a coronet for his wife. He was scarcely ever absent from her side until the dark day when the fast friends were to be parted. She knew that she was dying, but refrained from telling him so, in order that he might be spared the pain of bidding her farewell. He also knew that her last hour was at hand, but kept silence lest he should distress her. Thus they parted, each anxious to avoid striking a blow at the other’s heart. The domestic lives of public men are properly held to be beyond the range of public comment; but in an age when marriage is the theme of ridicule from “ leaders of progress ” it may be that this passage in Mr. Disraeli’s career may be pondered with some profit by the young.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by JAMES R. OSGOOD SL CO,, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Mr. Disraeli’s connection with the literature and politics of his country has been of a very active kind for upwards of six-and-forty years. Although he boasts that he was “ born in a library,” there is little of the spirit of a recluse in his temperament. Wherever hard blows were to be given or taken, there was lie to be found. His Parliamentary life began with the reign of Queen Victoria, and it was in 1838 that he made the now celebrated speech which brought upon him the ridicule of the House of Commons. The speech itself was in that inflated style which occasionally marks his later efforts. He spoke of the “noble Tityrus of the Treasury Bench and the Daphne of Liskeard,” and described Lord John Russell as “ waving the keys of St. Peter in his hand.” The House laughed him down. “ I am not at all surprised at the reception I have met with,” said he. “ I have begun several times many things, and I have often succeeded at last. I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will listen to me.” But years went by, and apparently he made no headway. He was told that he was “not an Englishman,” although his grandfather settled in England in 1748, and the family have never since quitted that country. To this moment when a “smart ” writer wishes to launch a shaft against Mr. Disraeli, he describes him as being so “ un-English.” And yet it is not every smart writer who can be quite sure that he had a grandfather. A careful study of Mr. Disraeli’s public life leads to the conclusion that he understands “ English affairs ” at least as well as men who do not lie under the reproach of being “un-English.” He opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, but he did so in common with the great party of which he was afterwards to be the leader. The faithlessness of Sir Robert Peel to the Tory party he bitterly resented. It is often alleged that he began life as a Radical, because, upon his first attempt to get into Parliament, a Radical proposed him. People forget that a Tory seconded him, so that the evidence on either side is not conclusive. Undoubtedly Mr. Disraeli’s earliest utterances were in favor of giving greater power to the people. He always maintained, as we shall presently see, that the Tory party was the true democratic — that is, the Liberal — party of England. In 1841 the downfall ot the Whig government was at hand. Ministers attempted to gain popularity by introducing a Poor-Law Amendment Bill, and Mr. Disraeli moved that it be read that day six months ; in other words, moved its rejection. He failed, but he denounced the pauper system then, and he has denounced it ever since, and most men are now obliged to acknowledge that he was in the right. When lie was Chancellor of the Exchequer he proposed several means of increasing the revenue, without casting fresh burdens upon the bulk of the people, and he was laughed at. But some of his ideas — among them the stamp on checks — were afterwards adopted, and were found to work well. In introducing his first Reform Bill, he proposed a lodger franchise, which was received with great merriment, and long afterwards passed into a law, amid the general approval of the country.

His alleged inconsistency in 1867 demands more careful consideration. For many years previous to that time the subject of Parliamentary reform had been regarded with ever-increasing interest by almost all classes, but especially by the laboring class, which was practically excluded from the franchise. The settlement of 1832, arrived at after dangerous disorder and agitation all over the country, was not adequate to the wants of the people, nor was it intrinsically a just measure. From time to time great pressure was brought to bear upon the government of the day to extend the franchise, so that it might include a larger proportion of the working classes. Mr. Disraeli was one of those who insisted on the justice of this demand. He did not, as was so often asserted in 1867, become at that late hour a convert to a workingman’s suffrage. If we turn to a speech which he delivered in the House of Commons on the 20th of June, 1848, we find him boldly asserting that property was already sufficiently represented in that House. “ I am prepared,” he said, “ to support the system of 1832 until I see that the circumstances and necessities of the country require a change ; but I am convinced that when the change comes it will be one that will have more regard for other sentiments, qualities, and conditions than the mere possession of property as a qualification for the exercise of the political franchise. And, therefore, in opposing the measure of the honorable member for Montrose, I protest against being placed in the category of finality, or as one who believes that no change is ever to take place in that wherein there has been, throughout the history of this ancient country,frequent and continuous change, _the construction of this estate of the realm.” He repeatedly avowed his conviction that in the Reform Act of 1832 there was “a want of due consideration of the rights of the woiking classes to the franchise.” But years went on, and small concessions were made in a timid and grudging spirit, for the sole purpose of bringing one ministry in or saving another from being turned out. When a premier became unpopular, one of his first shifts was generally a proposal to admit another handful ot workingmen to the privileges ot the sufirage. In 1858, Lord Derby being then in power and Mr. Disraeli Chancellor of the Exchequer, it became necessary once more to consider the subject of Parliamentary reform. Mr. Disraeli has stated that it was even then proposed in the Cabinet that the “borough franchise should be founded upon the principle of household suffrage”¹ But this measure was thought to be far too sweeping for the hour, and. practically, nothing whatever was done, either by that ministry or its immediate successors. As Mr. Disraeli said, in the speech just referred to, successive ministers attempted to settle the reform problem, and all of them failed. “ Lord Russell failed, Lord Aberdeen failed, Lord Palmerston failed, Lord Derby failed, and we were called upon to consider the question when we came into office [in 1866] after a fresh failure by Lord Russell ”

In 1867 Mr. Disraeli determined to take this question out of the region to which it had previously been confined. He resolved that it should no longer form the subject of a hand-to-mouth policy. He therefore brought forward the celebrated measure which has not since been disturbed, establishing household sufirage in boroughs, and what is called an occupation franchise in counties. Any man who has occupied a house or lodgings in a borough for a twelvemonth prior to an election is entitled to vote at that election. In counties, any man who has occupied lands or tenements to the ratable value of twelve pounds or upwards exercises the same right. The measure was denounced with great bitterness on all sides. Mr. Lowe and many other Liberals resented it, partly because it deprived them ot their stock in trade, partly because it really went much farther than they desired, or had ever intended, to carry reform. Even Mr. Bright said of it,² “ I do not complain of the passing of this bill, or of the House having adopted it in its entirety; but I have said that, looking at the prevailing opinion of powerful classes in this country, who regarded such a step with fear and alarm, and also to the fact which no man can deny, that there is a class, which I hope is constantly decreasing, to whom the extension of the franchise at present can possibly be of no advantage either to themselves or to the country, I should have been willing to consent to some proposition which fell short of household suffrage pure and simple.” Mr. Lowe protested in fervid strains against the transfer of power from the “ middle ” to the “ poorer ” classes, He advised the House to “ prevail on our future masters to learn their letters.” He declared that the measure was viewed with " shame, rage, scorn, indignation, and despair by every Englishman who was not a slave to the trammels of party.” The speeches were very good, and Mr. Lowe was afterwards rewarded for them by being made Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but it is odd that none of his gloomy predictions have been fulfilled, and that he should consent to belong to a ministry which has lately talked of going to the country with the cry of “ household suffrage for counties.”

Mr. Disraeli had the people on his side in this contest, and thus he was enabled to carry out his design in spite of the opposition of Liberals, and the still more embarrassing opposition of his own party. The feelings of many of his followers were vividly portrayed in an article written by Lord Cranborne (now Marquis of Salisbury) in the Quarterly Review of October, 1867, and entitled The Conservative Surrender. Mr. Disraeli was accused of the blackest treachery. It is not very probable that Lord Salisbury holds a different opinion now, but the lapse of six years enables unprejudiced observers to take a fairer view of Mr. Disraeli’s conduct. What was his duty, as a constitutional statesman, in 1867: to oppose an irresistible tendency of the times, or to adopt the policy of “acquiescence ” ? Peel and Wellington had opposed reform, but both were compelled to yield to it. It was of no use lighting against public opinion. The Conservative party could not be always resisting a great popular impulse. Mr. Disraeli believed that he could obey that impulse and yet guide it ; and the events of the past twelvemonth already indicate that he had a clearer insight into the future than his assailants. The Conservatives have gained victories in constituencies where they have for years only looked for defeat. The “ Conservative workingman ” is not quite the myth which was supposed, and at the next general election it is quite possible that his vote will surprise Liberals like Mr. Lowe, who believed that a wider measure of reform would 1 ring upon England all the horrors of the French Revolution.

It was urged th it Mr. Disraeli ought not to have proposed a sweeping extension of the franchise, because he was the Conservative leader, and the Conservatives were opposed to reform. But Mr. Disraeli lias alwavs been a leader; he has never followed his followers. Me boasted, on one occasion, that he had been obliged to “ educate his party.” He bad undoubtedly opposed attempts to meddle with the question of reform which were not designed to settle it. But when he came into power he tried to deal with it so that it should no longer be the shuttlecock of politics. He declared his belief that his scheme would have a conservative rather than a revolutionary tendency; and thus far his anticipations have certainly been justified. “ Inconsistency ” has always been the favorite cry which Mr. Disraeli’s critics hurl at him. If it conveyed a just charge, it ought, at least, to be applied to some other eminent men. Lord Palmerston took office under all sorts of Ministries ; but no one called him inconsistent because he one day served with Tories and the next with Whigs. Sir Robert Peel began as a Tory, and soon threw over the principles then dearest to the Tory heart ; but his friends said that he was quite consistent. Mr. Gladstone was described by Macaulay as the “ rising hope of the unbending Tories ”: we all know what he is now ; yet he is not inconsistent ; at least no one may say that he is. Mr. Disraeli’s course on the reform question was far less variable than the course of any other great statesman has been on a question of equal magnitude, the discussion of which has been protracted over an equal number of years. The Corn Laws were abolished by a Ministry which went into office pledged solemnly to support a policy of protection. Lord Derby’s ministry was in no such position as that on the question of reform. Ministers in England are bound to obey the will of the people, sooner or later. It is a part of their duty as constitutional advisers of the Crown. In Mr. Disraeli’s treatment of the working classes he was true to his old opinions. In his early writings he dealt with the aristocracy in no gentle spirit. His sympathies were clearly with the people. When the “ Great Petition ” of the Chartists was presented (July, 1839), he declared that, though he disapproved of the Charter, he sympathized with the Chartists. In all his books he substantially took the same ground that he held in 1867. Sybil, written nearly thirty years ago, is full of ultrareform opinions. But he treated the question as an advanced Conservative. In the novel just referred to he says : “ In an age of political materialism, of confused purposes and perplexed intelligence, that aspires only to wealth because it has faith in no other accomplishment, as men rifle cargoes on the verge of shipwreck, Toryism will yet rise from the tomb over which Bolingbroke shed his last tear, to bring back strength to the Crown, liberty to the subject, and to announce that power has only one duty,—to secure the social welfare of the people.” These are not the sentiments of a demagogue on the one hand, or of an unprincipled adventurer on the other. He speaks with indignation of class rule in England, and describes the people as being practically two different nations, “ who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets ; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.” In Coningsby — written at the age of thirty-nine — the same ideas were constantly repeated. His theory of a national policy for England was no vague or uncertain one, even so far back as 1844. This is what he wrote at that period : —

“In a word, true wisdom lies in the policy that would effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of existing forms. Nevertheless, if we are forced to revolutions, let us propose to our consideration the idea of a free monarchy, established on fundamental laws, itself the apex of a vast pile of municipal and local government ruling an educated people, represented by a free and intellectual press. Before such a royal authority, supported by such a national opinion, the sectional anomalies of our country would disappear. Under such a system, where qualification would not be parliamentary, but personal, even statesmen would be educated ; we should have no more diplomatists who could not speak French, no more bishops ignorant of theology, no more generals-in-chief who never saw a field.”

There was no “ inconsistency ” in a man who held such views as these in 1844 bringing in a bill in 1867 for the admission of the working classes to the suffrage. The frivolous charge was made that ambition alone led him to bid for popular support. Ambition is not a dishonorable passion, nor is it a crime to appeal on proper grounds for popular support. Mr. Disraeli’s idea of ambition is probably expressed in his own language more fairly than in the language of his opponents : —

“It was that noble ambition, the highest and the best, that must be born in the heart and organized in the brain, which will not let a man be content unless his intellectual power is recognized by his race, and desires that it should contribute to their welfare. It is the heroic feeling, — the feeling that in old days produced demigods ; without which no state is safe ; without which political institutions are meat without salt, the Crown a bauble, the Church an establishment, Parliaments debating clubs, and civilization itself but a fitful and transient dream.”

It can be truly said that Mr. Disraeli has always held views in politics which are generally thought to be confined to “ Liberal ” statesmen, but it must also be admitted that he has never sought to conciliate any class at the expense of another. He has certainly not been very lenient towards the section of society with which his political life has chiefly thrown him into contact. He has never sought to win the favor of the “ higher classes.” They have been obliged to yield to the superiority of his genius, but he has made no overtures to them. He offers no homage to mere rank. Perhaps this is the reason why so many people call him “ unEnglish.” He has told the proudest families in England that, compared with the race from which lie sprung, they are “ muddy-blooded barbarians.” When he became Prime Minister, some one complained that his Cabinet was “full of plain misters.” “It is the most plebeian Cabinet we have ever had,” said the Saturday Review. In his novels he has usually treated the aristocracy with contemptuous sarcasm. “Ancient lineage !” he causes one of his characters in Coningsby to exclaim, “ I never heard of a peer with an ancient lineage. The thirty years of the Wars of the Roses freed us from those gentlemen. We owe the English peerage to three sources, — the spoliation of the Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honors by the elder Stuarts, and the borough mongering of our own times.” His sketch of the Egremont family in Sybil is one which reveals no special love or admiration of the aristocracy. The true claim to public respect of which many a noble family can alone boast is there described : “ The family had their due quota of garters, and governments, and bishoprics ; admirals without fleets, and generals who fought only in America. They had glittered in great embassies, with clever secretaries at their elbows, and had once governed Ireland, when to govern Ireland was only to apportion the public plunder to a corrupt senate.” The picture of Earl de Mowbray, who was raised from the ranks of domestic service to adorn the peerage, and the account of the Vavasours, are evidently the work of a man who cannot be called untrue to himself because in 1867 he supported the cause of the people against class interests. It may not be a pleasant fact for the old Whigs or the new Liberals to contemplate, but a fact it is, that the leader of the Conservative party carried the most liberal measure of reform ever brought into the House of Commons.

As a statesman, it is worse than foolish to describe Mr. Disraeli as a failure. He has never had an opportunity of carrying out a well-defined policy, requiring time and a reserve of strength for its development. He has never been in power for more than a few months at a time, and then always in a minority. But it cannot be denied that he has made the best of his opportunities. As a Parliamentary leader, there is no man living his equal. Much of his success in 1867 must be attributed to his consummate skill in managing the House of Commons. He is a man who never loses his temper, or, if he does, he never allows anybody to detect the loss. The elasticity of his intellect enables him to grapple easily with the most complex questions, and his advice upon them is usually full of common-sense. He does not fly off under the impulse of excitement into all sorts of follies. When Mr. Gladstone was publicly declaring that “Jefferson Davis: had created a nation,” Mr. Disraeli never uttered a word in discouragement of the Northern armies or people. There is no more difficult body of men to lead in the world than those who constitute the House of Commons, and when it has fallen to Mr, Disraeli’s lot to lead them, he has done it with incomparable tact. He never scolds or lectures them, as if they were a pack of naughty children, who ought to be whipped and sent to bed. This is Mr. Gladstone’s method of managing his fellow-members, and it partly accounts for the success with which he turns a majority for him into a majority against him. Mr. Disraeli, on the other hand, deals patiently with the House, humors it in its fits of petulance or anger, and often recalls it to a sense of its duty by a few words of good-humored remonstrance. Once, when he had suffered a great defeat, and the House was wild with excitement, and everybody looked to him for a violent speech, he rose calmly and said, “ I think the best thing is always to put a good face upon a disagreeable state of affairs, and take that sensible view which may be taken even of the most distressing and adverse occurrences, if you have a command over your temper and your head.” ³ In the same way, his trenchant replies to attacks upon himself or his party are always free from malevolence, while at the same time they pierce the tenderest points of his antagonists. He fastens some epithet upon a man which sticks to him for the remainder of his life. Mr. Horsman will always be the “superior person ” of the House of Commons. No one who sees Mr. Beresford Hope rise to make a speech will forget his “ Batavian grace.” Lord Salisbury will be remembered for his “power of spontaneous aversion.” Mr. Lowe is the “inspired school-boy.” When Mr. Gladstone professed to disestablish the Irish Church, after supporting the cause of “ Church and State ” all his life, Mr. Disraeli had the opportunity of pointing out a real case of inconsistency, and he did not fail to use it. He taunted the Liberal leader with endeavoring to “ reverse the solemn muniments of the nation at eight days’ notice,” and with having come forward, “like a thief in the night, to make the enormous sacrifice of all the convictions of his life.” His sketch of the eternal “Irish difficulty” is worth reading, even though it suffers much through being detached from a great speech : — “ I never liked the emigration from Ireland. I have deplored it. I know that the finest elements of political power are men, and therefore I have not sympathized with the political economists who would substitute entirely for men animals of a lower organization.....I am not conscious that I have ever been deficient in sympathy for the Irish people. They have engaging qualities, which I think every man who has any heart must respect. But I must say nothing surprises me more than the general conduct of the Irish people on this subject of sentimental grievances. They are brave, lively, very imaginative, and therefore very sanguine ; but going about the world announcing that they are a conquered race, they do appear to me the most extraordinary people in the universe. Every one of us, nations and individuals, is said to have a skeleton in the bouse. I hope I have not; if I bad, I would turn the key upon him. But why do they go about ostentatiously declaring themselves to be a conquered race ? If they really were a conquered race, they are not the people who ought to announce it. It is the conquerors from whom we should learn the fact, for it is not the conquered who go about the world and announce their shame and humiliation. (Cheers) But I entirely deny that the Irish are a conquered race. I deny that they are more a conquered race than the people of any other nation. Therefore, I cannot see that there is any real ground for the doleful tone in which they complain that they are the most disgraced of men, and make that the foundation for the most unreasonable requests. Ireland is not one whit more conquered than England. They are always telling us that the Normans conquered Ireland. Well, I have heard that the Normans conquered England too (laughter), and the only difference between the two conquests is that while the conquest of Ireland was only partial, that of England was complete. (Renewed laughter.) Then they tell us that a long time ago there was that dreadful conquest by Cromwell, when Cromwell not only conquered hut plundered the people. But Cromwell conquered England. (Great laughter.) He conquered the House of Commons. (Renewed laughter.) He ordered that bauble to be taken away, in consequence of which an honorable member, I believe of very advanced Liberal opinions, the other night proposed that we should raise a statue to his memory. (Laughter and cheers.) Well, sir. then we are told that the Dutch conquered Ireland, but, unfortunately, they conquered England too. They marched from Devonshire to London through the midst of a grumbling population. But the Irish fought like gentlemen for their sovereign, and there is no disgrace in the battle of the Boyne, nor does any shame attach to the conduct of those who were defeated. (Hear, hear.) I wish I could say as much for the conduct of the English leaders at that time. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, the story of the Irish coming forward on all occasions to say that they are a conquered race, and, in consequence of their being a conquered race, to wish to destroy the English institutions, is the most monstrous thing I ever heard of. (Laughter,)”

Lightness and gnyety often appear in Mr. Disraeli’s speeches when all things seem to be going against him. It is his courage and unfailing goodhumor which make him many personal friends, even among his bitter political foes. If a man is doomed to be beaten, it is well to see him taking his punishment with a serene countenance and a cheerful air. Throughout the long and stormy period during which Mr. Disraeli was compelled to remain in the “cold shade of opposition,” he never betrayed signs of a failing heart. ‘‘The determined and the persevering,” as he says in Lothair, “need never despair of gaining their object in this world ” ; and this principle is the keynote to his own life. He allied himself very early with a declining party, and he has remained steadfast to it through almost unexampled vicissitudes. There was a grudge against it in the minds of the people, and it never had a chance of taking up a popular question. All the fruit on the tree fell to the Liberals. Nothing would have been more natural, according to the ordinary behavior of men, than for Mr. Disraeli to have broken down during his long and arduous struggle against a victorious party. He had sat for fifteen years in Parliament before the smallest prospect appeared of his enjoying the solace of office. His party was scattered, demoralized. and cast down. It had no policy before it. Its former long lease of power had rendered the people tired of it; and it had fallen out of accord with the spirit of the age. Younger men and younger ideas were needed in it. Mr. Disraeli was abundantly able to supply ideas, but the very sound of the words “ change ” or “ progress ” scared the country party. They distrusted the unknown man who was at their head in the Lower House. He was much too clever for them, He had a head full of ideas, — that was decidedly un-English. He had written in newspapers, and could not tell the weight ofa bullock by pinching it in the rear. Nothing much worse could be said of a man. The old squires looked askance at the young man with a Hebrew type of face who suddenly appeared among them. He had no land and no money, no “ family,” and no titled kinsfolk. To move a stubborn, inert mass such as the Tory party then was might have defied the strength of twenty men. The task fell to the “adventurer,” and he had to address himself to it while the party was in deep adversity. The lot of a leader in opposition is at the best never an enviable one. His followers are eager for office, and if he cannot bring them to the desired haven they reproach him for his want of capacity and enterprise. If he makes a dash at power and fails, they accuse him of foolhardiness and stupidity. “Anybody,” they will say, “might have seen that failure was inevitable,” although they may all the time have been inciting him to make the attempt. If he goes fast he is hotbrained ; if slow, he is flint-hearted. Mr. Disraeli tried hard for years to bring his party out of the Slough of Despond, and was resisted chiefly by that party itself. In his Life of Lord George Bentinck there is a passage which may well be taken as descriptive of his own experiences : —

“There are few positions less inspiriting than that of the leader of a discomfited party. The labors and anxieties of a minister, or of his rival on the contested threshold of office, may be alleviated by the exercise or sustained by the anticipation of power; both are surrounded by eager, anxious, excited, perhaps enthusiastic adherents. There is sympathy, appreciation, prompt counsel, profuse assistance. But he who in the parliamentary field watches over the fortunes of routed troops must be prepared to sit often alone.

Few care to share the labor which is doomed to be fruitless, and none are eager to diminish the responsibility of him whose course, however adroit, must necessarily be ineffectual. Nor can a man of sensibility in such a post easily obviate these discouragements. It is ungracious to appeal to the grayheaded to toil for a harvest which they may probably never reap, and scarcely less painful to call upon glittering youth to sacrifice its rosy hours for a result as remote as the experience in which it does not believe. Adversity is necessarily not a sanguine season, and in this respect a political party is no exception to all other human combinations. In doors and out of doors a disheartened opposition will be querulous and captious. A discouraged multitude have no future ; too depressed to indulge in a large and often hopeful horizon of contemplation, they busy themselves in peevish detail, and by a natural train of sentiment associate their own conviction of ill-luck, incapacity. and failure with the most responsible member of their confederation : while all this time inexorable duty demands, or rather that honor which is the soul of public life, that he should he as vigilant, as laborious, should exercise as complete a control over his intelligence and temper, should be as prompt to represent their principles in debate, and as patient and as easy of access in private conference, should be as active and as thoughtful, as if he were sustained by all that encourages exertion,— the approbation of the good and the applause of the wise.”

Few men could speak with greater knowledge than Mr. Disraeli of these trials and misfortunes. It was not until £852 that he was first called to office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Twice afterwards lie was compelled to take the same post, with a minority at his back. At length still greater responsibilities were pressed upon him. In the early part of 1868 Lord Derby, under whom Mr. Disraeli had so often served, found his health rapidly declining.

He retired from office, and Mr. Disraeli received the commands of the Otteen to form a Cabinet. When he went down to the House of Commons, on the night of March 5, 1868, everybody expected a memorable speech. The House was crowded, and the new Premier was vehemently cheered as he passed through Westminster Hall. In the House itself he was received with equal warmth. The galleries were filled with people eager to hear the great speech. But Mr. Disraeli does not care to surprise people, — at least not in the way they expect. He delivered a short and modest address, and instantly applied himself to the practical work of the House, — work which few Prime Ministers have ever managed so well. The interest felt by the public in his accession to power was not unnatural. Since Mr. Disraeli had entered Parliament, more than thirty years before, only five men had succeeded in climbing before him to the chief place in the country, — Peel, Aberdeen, Russell, Palmerston, and Derby. He had beaten his rival, Gladstone, in the race. Many great men had come and gone during those thirty years, and had missed the chief mark. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Sir James Graham, Arthur Buller, the Duke of Newcastle, were men of great influence and abilities ; but the unknown member, whose faith was that all things in this life will fall to those who wait and persevere, achieved the distinction which they failed to reach. He had fought out his struggle with a grand courage which would alone render him a man memorable in history. He set himself to accomplish his purpose, not in a feverish or impulsive spirit, but with an heroic patience, an indomitable endurance, and a splendid self-reliance which enabled him to face all antagonists, to rise again and again from repeated reverses and blows, to mock at all difficulties, and finally to vanquish every obstacle which was thrust in his path, He had always led a solitary life. Me had no intimate friends, outside a very small circle of men with whom he lias been acting for years. He began as a solitary man in the wastes of London, with the chances of success incalculably against him. He sought no help from outside. He paid court to no man, and, what must be the strangest thing of all to aspiring politicians, to no newspaper. Social prejudices stood in front of him like a wall of iron. Not the least of these prejudices was that which related to the race from which he sprung. His family traced its descent from the pure Sephardim stock : they were Hebrews of the Hebrews. For two generations at least they had been Christians, but still the favorite taunt levelled at Mr. Disraeli was founded on his Jewish origin. These reproaches, as usual, he met with defiance. So far from repudiating his race, he has always gloried in it. He fought its battles in the House of Commons, and to him fell the honor of completing the removal of Jewish disabilities. He succeeded in gaining for Jews the right to sit in the House of Commons, and he has done more to break down the unjust prejudice against them than any man of his generation. He has made people at last understand that they do not insult him by calling him a Jew, — they only pay him a compliment.

In that powerful, although eccentric novel, Tancred, there is a vigorous argument to prove that the world owes to the Jewish race nothing but gratitude and honor. “ Half Christendom,”he makes one of his characters say, “ worships a Jewess, and the other half a Jew : which do you think should be the superior race,— the worshipped or the worshippers ?” He speaks with bitter scorn of the “ flat-nosed Franks and their progress.” Their gibes at the despised Jew he returns with compound interest. “ And yet,” he says, “ some flat-nosed Frank, full of bustle and puffed up with self-conceit, — a race spawned, perhaps, in the morasses of some Northern forest, hardly yet cleared, — talks of ‘ progress ! ’ Progress to what and from whence ? Amid empires shrivelled into deserts, amid the wrecks of great cities, a single column or obelisk of which nations import for the prime ornament of their mud-built capitals, amid arts forgotten, commerce annihilated, fragmentary literatures, and populations destroyed, the European talks of progress, because, by an ingenious application of some scientific acquirements, he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilization.” In all this there is little attempt to conciliate the class which heaps insults upon the Jews. Taunt for taunt, Mr. Disraeli’s penetrates the deepest. “ London,” he makes one of his heroes remark, “is a modern Babylon ; Paris has aped imperial Rome, and may share its catastrophe. But what do the sages say to Damascus ? It had municipal rights in the days when God conversed with Abraham. Since then, the kings of the great monarchies have swept over it ; the Greek, the Roman, the Tartar, the Arab, and the Turk have passed through its walls. Vet it still exists and still flourishes ; is full of life, wealth, and enjoyment....As yet the disciples of progress have not been able exactly to match this instance of Damascus ; but it is said that they have great faith in the future of Birkenhead.” These sneers may not have tended to make Mr. Disraeli friends among the narrow-minded, but it is by this time understood that, when attacked, he strikes back, and strikes in a way which is not soon forgotten. “ Hath not a Jew hands?” It appears that he has, and sometimes knows how to use them. To apologize for being a Jew or to be ashamed of the name, has never been Mr. Disraeli’s method of dealing with his assailants. He has suffered, and perhaps suffers even now, from the vulgar prejudices which relate to his ancestry, — those prejudices which, as he has told the world, sorely embittered the lives of the first Disraelis who settled in England. The family had been driven from Spain to Venice by religious persecutions, and were enticed to England by the prospect of enjoying complete liberty. The grandfather had but one son, who was the author of the well known series of works beginning with the “ Curiosities of Literature.” He was the father of the present Benjamin Disraeli, and from him the son seems to have inherited not only his literary tastes, but much of his equable temperament and constancy of purpose.

It would carry us far beyond our present purpose, to enter upon a discussion of the series of events which resulted in the defeat of the Conservatives, in 1868. The reform issue was no longer of any service to a party out of power. But there was a question which offered great opportunities to a great statesman, — a question which for several generations had attracted and baffled every one who attempted to deal with it. Pitt tried to settle it, but failed ; arid his successors meddled with it only to increase its complications. This question, we need scarcely say, was the proper method of dealing with Irish discontent. Ihe disease was chronic, and so people had become accustomed to it. although occasionally it assumed a malignant form. Now it was traced to the rapacity of landlords ; then to a famine ; then to injustice to the Catholics ; and at last, by Mr. Gladstone, to the endowment of the Protestant Church. Not that Mr. Gladstone was the first to suggest that the perpetual “ Irish difficulty ” was to be solved by abolishing the Irish Church ; but it was a great discovery so far as he was concerned, for he had been an ardent, almost a bigoted, advocate of the indissoluble union of Church and State, He had maintained this position for many years, and seemed as little likely to part with it as with a member of his body, — with a leg or an arm. Even when he changed his opinions, he professed to he still at heart with the Church party. “There are many,” he said, “ who thought it wrong to lay hands upon the national church of a country.” He sympathized with the feeling ; but lie thought it his duty to overcome and repress it.⁴ He arrived in the spring of 1868 at the conclusion that the existence of the Protestant Church in Ireland was a perpetual offence to the Irish people. He was convinced that if it were abolished there would be no further trouble with Ireland ; the Irish would become devoted adherents of the English government ; we should hear no more of landlords shot on their own doorsteps, of houses burned and shops pillaged. The remedy was no doubt a sudden one, and came from an unexpected quarter. Mr. Gladstone had frequently opposed motions which had for their object the disendowment of the Irish Church. The Liberal party had been thirty years in power, and yet had done nothing to alleviate the sorrows of Ireland, except occasionally to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and hang a “rebel.” Mr. Gladstone had been a party to such measures more than once ; but he had never before introduced a scheme for the pacification of the country. In 1863 his heart all at once yearned over the Irish people. It was necessary to do something for them ; and that something was not to endeavor to restore the manufactures of the country, or to carry out local reforms, or to improve the standard of education. but to strike a blow at a class in Ireland which had always stood faithful among the faithless, which had suffered much for its religion, and made enormous sacrifices for the Crown,— the Irish Protestants. “ I have waited,”said Mr. Gladstone in introducing his preliminary resolutions, “ until the hour had come when the call of duty summoned.” When a minister out of office declares that a measure which will probably bring him into office is clearly in the line ot his duty, but that he has only just discovered it. we need not be surprised that his own friends have some difficulty in keeping their countenances.

Mr. Disraeli and his party opposed this measure to the last. 'I hey maintained that the country should be appealed to before the spoliation of the Irish Church was committed. The general election took place in the autumn of 1863, and for once an issue was put before the people upon which Dissenters and Roman Catholics were of one mind, and could act together. It was a strange coalition, and one like it may never be seen again until Mr. Gladstone or somebody else proposes to abolish the English Church. The Liberals, assisted by their queer allies, gained a victory. Mr. Disraeli, without waiting for the meeting of the new Parliament, promptly resigned, and Mr. Gladstone became Premier. Mr. Disraeli might have continued in office, and caused great embarrassment and loss of time. It was then the early part of December: Parliament did not meet till February. In two months great changes sometimes occur. It can scarcely be doubted that a man of Mr. Gladstone’s temperament would have clung to office, and taken all the chances. But Mr. Disraeli considered the interests of his country rather than the promptings of ambition. “ We are bound to say,” wrote one of his bitterest enemies at the time, “ that in all the incidents of his resignation, Mr. Disraeli has exhibited a spirit of straightforwardness, and consideration for his foes, for which we have hitherto scarcely given him sufficient credit.” Mr. Disraeli not only resigned, but recommended the Oueen to send for his rival. Small malice has never been among his failings.

And thus Ireland was “appeased.” The Protestant Church was dismembered. Vet somehow Irish discontent has not yet become a mere tradition of the past. The Irish people are not quite content to till their own soil and remain on the land of their fathers. Agrarian disturbances are by no means unknown. But it is no longer the Irish Church which can be used as a scapegoat. The demands of the Irish party now take a different form. There must be Home Rule. The land question must be dealt with, not as Mr. Gladstone dealt with it, but on the principle lie adopted in the disendowment of the Irish Church. The landlords must be weeded out. Mr. Gladstone does not seem to be quite ready to respond to these demands. The hour has not yet struck, nor the call of duty summoned. But the Irish party becomes stronger and stronger. It compels the older parties to bid alternately for its support. The Catholic priests announce what policy they wish to have carried out, and the Irish members obey. Their votes may easily turn the scale on a division. As for Protestant Ireland, its condition will some day form the theme of a melancholy page in history, but there are few who pay any heed to it now. Recent legislation has proceeded upon the theory that it is only the Catholic Irishmen who have any wrongs to be redressed. In many respects the United States present a favorable point from which Irish politics may be studied. Irish opinion finds at least as many opportunities of expressing itselt as it can possible find in Dublin. And what we see is that what the people really want is “Ireland for the Irish.” They demand that England should relinquish the country altogether. That is the obvious meaning of Fenianism and “ Home Rule.”

We would gladly have spoken of Mr. Disraeli’s contributions to literature, but that is a subject which demands more space than we have at command. It may, however, be safely predicted that these works will always find numerous readers. They do not belong to the fashionable school of fiction, although it must be remembered that his latest book of this kind had a larger sale titan any other novel which has seen the light for years past. It may also be said that the plots of these novels do not appeal strictly to a modern taste, since marriage vows are not broken in them, young girls are not depicted as monsters of vice, and the unrestrained profligacy of both sexes is not held up to the reader as the summit of human felicity. Nevertheless, they will be found capable of affording no slight amusement, and even instruction, to the younger generation. Coningsby and Sybil are the best political novels ever written. No student of the recent history of England, especially of the decade which followed the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832, can afford to leave these books unread. Most of Mr. Disraeli’s novels would be of value if only for the series of pictures of men and events which are contained in them. His portraits are often bitten in with powerful acids. John Wilson Choker, then the editor of the Quarterly Review, is one of the figures thus preserved. He appears in Coningsby under the name of Rigby: —

“What was the secret of the influence of this man, confided in by everybody, trusted by none ? His counsels were not deep, his expedients were not felicitous ; he had no feeling, and he could create no sympathy. It is, that in most of the transactions of life there is some portion which no one cares toaccomplish, and which everybody wishes to be achieved. This was always the portion of Mr. Rigby. In the eye of the world he had constantly the appearance of being mixed up with high dealings, and negotiations and arrangements of fine management, whereas in truth, notwithstanding his splendid livery and the airs he gave himself in the servants’ hall, his real business in life had ever been — to do the dirty work.”

Again it is said of him that he was “a man who neither felt nor thought, but who possessed, in a very remarkable degree, a restless instinct for adroit baseness.” Alison’s history of Europe was described as “ Mr. Wordy’s history of the late war, in twenty volumes,— a capital work, which proves that Providence was on the side of the Tories.” Of a certain Lady Gaverstock it is said that she was herself pure as snow, “but her mother having been divorced, she ever fancied she was paying a kind of homage to her parent by visiting those who might some day be in the same predicament.” “In England,” he says in Coningsby, “we too often alternate between a supercilious neglect of genius and a rhapsodical pursuit of quacks. In England, when a new character appears in our circles, the first question always is, ‘Who is he ?' In France it is, ‘What is he?’ In England, ‘How much a year?’ In France, ‘What has he done ? ’ ” Some of the keenest epigrams at the expense of English “ society" are scattered throughout these volumes ; yet there have been dull persons who, after reading them, arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Disraeli is a great worshipper of rank and wealth. They thought Lothair was a sort of poem in praise of the British aristocracy. No author can be quite sure that his book will not he read upside down.

That Mr. Disraeli will shortly return to power seems, as we have already said, highly probable. English politics are at this moment in an unsettled, almost a chaotic state. It is not necessarv to discuss the foreign policy of the country, for it no longer has a foreign policy. After the fate which befell the Black Sea Treaty, it is impossible to say what may not happen. But the domestic questions of the day are so grave and menacing that it would be strange if they did not occasion anxiety to the governing men of England. Her commerce is not prospering. The cancer of pauperism has not yet been reached by any remedial measures. Every year increasing numbers of the best class of mechanics seek homes in distant lands. In such a condition of society the trade of the “agitator” thrives, and popular discontent assumes a more threatening form. A heavy responsibility will rest upon the next ministry which governs England, no matter who may be at its head. Mr. Disraeli has recently declared that before he announces a “ policy,” it will be necessary for him to ascertain what materials the Public Departments contain for the formation of a policy. Perhaps he has had enough of unravelling the webs with which Whig ministries have enveloped themselves in the last months of their power. Unless lie can secure the support of an efficient working majority, it is far wiser on his part to remain the leader of her Majesty’s Opposition.” In that capacity he discharges an important function with signal ability and success. He has had no fair chance of showing what lie could do with power; to him has fallen the shadow, while the substance has been elsewhere. The times, however, seem to be changing. Within the past few months, seats have been lost to the government which have always been deemed secure. The people seem inclined to distrust the specifics which Mr. Gladstone has prepared for them. The Liberal party is demoralized, and it would probably be benefited by passing through a season of reverses. Conservatism in these days is sufficiently progressive even for Mr. Bright, although ulta-Liberalism does not go far enough for the school of which Mr. Bright was the founder. Should Mr. Disraeli be placed in power with a majority, there would at least he a strong man at the head of the government. Notwithstanding the prejudice and misrepresentation of which he is constantly the subject, no fair observer of his career can doubt that his sound discernment, his ripe experience, and his intimate familiarity with public affairs would enable him to render great and memorable services to his country.

L.J. Jennings.