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 STATESMEN SERIES. 
 
 EDITED BY LLOYD C. SANDERS. 
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 {All Mights reserved.)
 
 .STATESMEN SERIES. 
 
 LIFE OF 
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD 
 
 BY 
 
 T. E. KEBBEL. 
 
 L O N D O K : 
 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, 
 
 PALL MALL. S.W. 
 
 1888.
 
 U/i c 
 63 1 
 
 LONDON : 
 IPHINTEB BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. S.W.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SERIES. 
 
 The intention of the Statesmen Series is, as its 
 title implies, to comprise a collection of brief 
 biographical studies of the great men who have 
 influenced the political history of the world. 
 Its scope is, therefore, extremely catholic, em- 
 bracing the ancients and the moderns, conti- 
 nental as well as English statesmen, and 
 including not only those who have shaped our 
 foreign policy and domestic institutions, but 
 also the creators of our Indian and Colonial 
 Empires. And the hst of subjects will not be 
 confined to those who have been statesmen in 
 the narrower sense of the term, that is, to 
 ministers of State and members of legislative 
 assemblies. A statesman, according to Dr. 
 Johnson, is "one who is versed in political 
 affairs," and statesmanship is exercised not 
 only by Czars and Popes who act as their own 
 Prime Ministers, but also by constitutional
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 sovereigns who, though in theory they reign 
 but do not govern, have frequently, as Sir 
 Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort 
 shows, brought into action a very appreciable 
 amount of personal authority. Even to modern 
 republics, Thucydides' description of the Athe- 
 nian constitution in the time of Pericles is 
 invariably applicable — they are ostensibly 
 democracies, but are, as a matter of fact, ruled 
 by their first man. Presidents, therefore, and 
 sovereigns — rois faineants always excepted — 
 will find places in the Statesmen Series. 
 
 Though the Series will be comprehensive, it 
 does not pretend to be exhaustive. Complete- 
 ness of treatment is no doubt desirable in 
 books of reference, the primary object of 
 which is to supply information on points that 
 general reading fails to illuminate, but would 
 be unattainable in a collection of volumes 
 which, though deriving a certain amount of 
 strength from unity, must ultimately stand or 
 fall by the merits of each individual work. 
 Nor is the arrangement in which the volumes 
 are to appear affected at all by any considera- 
 tions of chronology. Their publication in 
 historical order would, perhaps, have some 
 advantages, but gaps would inevitably occur in 
 the ranks, and the groups would fail to form a 
 picture. The provinces of history and bio-
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 graphy are, after all, widely different, and tlie 
 old view of history which regarded it as a 
 string of lives of great men has long since 
 been consigned to the limbo of rejected 
 fallacies. 
 
 Political biography has, however, a distinct 
 value and interest of its own ; for if the states- 
 man is the child of his epoch, none the less 
 is his epoch moulded by the statesman ; nor 
 can the relative importance of great social 
 movements be properly understood without an 
 adequate knowledge of the human forces by 
 which they are impelled or controlled. It is 
 the aim of the Statesmen Series to supply that 
 knowledge, in a compact form, and without 
 prejudice to the larger works which, for those 
 who have leisure to consult them, must always 
 contain the most authoritative, because the 
 most detailed, accounts of great political 
 careers. And of incident and interest the 
 lives of great statesmen, as a rule, possess a 
 far greater measure than those of literary men, 
 though less, perhaps, than those of men of 
 action. For if much of a statesman's time is 
 passed in the solitude of the study, much also 
 is passed in the passionate precincts of the 
 Senate and in the hardly less dramatic debates 
 round the council-table. 
 
 Within the limits of a well-defined subject,
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 the selection, then, will be purely arbitrary; 
 and what the Series will lose in continuity of 
 interest it will perhaps be thought to gain in 
 variety. It so happens that the volumes in 
 preparation, as well as that now published, deal 
 with the present century, and may, therefore, 
 be considered to derive a certain amount of 
 additional interest from that quality which it is 
 the fashion to call actuality. They are as fol- 
 low : 77^6 Prince Consort, by Miss Charlotte 
 Yonge ; 0^ Connelly by J. A. Hamilton ; Prince 
 Gortschahoff, by Charles Marvin ; Gamhetta, by 
 F. T. Marzials ; Earl Russell, by Edward Wal- 
 ford ; Lord Palmerston, by the Editor. Other 
 volumes have been arranged. 
 
 L. C. S.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 "I DISAPPROVE of contemporary biography," Lord Bea- 
 consfield once said to the present writer, " and I dislike 
 being the subject of it." We may reasonably conclude, 
 therefore, that none of the biographies which appeared 
 during his lifetime owe much to his own communica- 
 tions. They are all in fact founded on materials acces- 
 sible to the whole world ; nor, down to the present 
 time, has his death set free any information not pre- 
 viously known to all who had studied his career, beyond 
 that contained in the highly interesting Correspondence 
 with his Sister brought out by Mr. Ralph Disraeli. The 
 time will come when a complete and particular account 
 of the life and times of Lord Beaconsfield will be one 
 of the most interesting as well as one of the most valu- 
 able works which can stand upon a statesman's shelves. 
 Till then we must content ourselves with such provi- 
 sional and preliminary biographies as, in the case of 
 almost all our great men, precede the one final and 
 authentic narrative which disposes of the subject and 
 clears the field of all competitors. Of intermediate 
 works of this description there are, in the case of Lord
 
 :k prefatory NOTE. 
 
 l^eaconsfiekl, only three with which I am acquainted, 
 pretending to the character of regular biographies, one 
 by Mr. Thomas Macknight, published in 1854, one by 
 Mr. T. P. O'Connor, published in 1878, and one, by 
 much the best, by Mr. A. C. Ewald, published in 1883. 
 Beside these, a very clever and appreciative study of 
 Mr. Disraeli, by Mr. George Henry Francis, was re- 
 published in 1852 from Fraser's Maf/azine, while the 
 public life of Lord Beaconsfield has been brought out 
 more recently by Mr. Hitchman. A German study of 
 Lord Beaconsfield by G. Brandes, of which a translation 
 was published by Mr. Bentley in 1880, is, I believe, 
 worth reading, and I am sorry that my attention was 
 not called to it till it was too late to consult it for the 
 purpose of the present volume. Of course, of the 
 various pamphlets, memoirs, and quasi-biographical 
 notices of Lord Beaconsfield which have appeared 
 during the last forty years the name is legion, and to 
 give anything like a complete list of them on the pre- 
 sent occasion would be impossible. The obituary 
 notices of him which appeared in the principal daily 
 papers contain much interesting matter, and the 
 Htandard notice was republished by Messrs. Macmillan 
 in a small octavo volume. From the numerous 
 volumes of political memoirs, diaries, and correspon- 
 dence, of which the last few years have been so fertile, 
 abundant particulars relating to both the public and 
 private life of Lord Beaconsfield are to be collected, 
 especially from the Greville Journals, the Memoirs of 
 un Ex-Minister, by Lord Malmesbury, St. Petersburg 
 and London, by Count Vitzthum, the Croker Papers, 
 and the Lives of Lord Palmerston, Lord Melbourne,
 
 PBEFATOBY NOTE. ' xi 
 
 Lord Lyndhurst, Bishop Wilberforce, and Mr. Herries, 
 which have all appeared within the last twenty years. 
 
 The first complete edition of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 works down to that date, was published in 1853. An- 
 other, in ten volumes, appeared in 1857 ; and a second 
 impression of it in 1870. The Hughenden edition of 
 his tales and novels was published in 1881. A very 
 useful and well-executed edition of the Letters of Run- 
 nymede, the Vindication of the British Constitution, 
 and the Spirit of Wliiggism, has also been published 
 by Mr. Hitchman. And two volumes of speeches, 
 edited by myself, with explanatory prefaces attached, 
 were issued by Messrs- Longmans in 188 L 
 
 T. E. K.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRJi-PARLIAMENTAEY PERIOD. 
 1804-1837. 
 Birth and boyhood — First appearance in print — Vivian Grey — Travels 
 on the Continent — Letters to Sarah Disraeli — Entrance into 
 Society — Literary and political activity — Attempts to get into 
 Parliament — Popular Toryism — The Crisis Examined — Quarrel 
 with O'Connell — Disraeli's vindication of his public conduct — 
 Relations with Hume — Disraeli and Lyndhurst — Elected for 
 Maidstone p. 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 
 1837-1813. 
 State of Parties in 1837 — Disraeli's maiden speech — Evidence as to 
 its merits — Position in the House — The Bedchamber plot — The 
 Chartist Petition — Disraeli's marriage — Change in his circum- 
 stances — Dissolution of 1811 — Disraeli returned for Shrewsbury 
 — Exposition of his views on Protection . . ■ . p. 20 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 
 1843. 
 Young England Toryism and Conservatism — Disraeli's position — 
 Breach with Peel — Coniiujshy — The Young England creed — 
 Didactic elements in Coningshy — Its portraits and types — Tour in 
 the manufacturing districts — Syliil — Theme of the novel — Dis- 
 raeli's political ideal — Young England and the Anglican revival. 
 
 p. 34
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIR EOBEET PEEL AND FREE TRA.DE. 
 
 1845-52. 
 First direct attack on Peel — The Post Office scandal — Debate on 
 agricultural distress — Tour on the Continents-Disraeli's econo- 
 mical policy — Fall of Peel's administration — Visit to Belvoir 
 Castle — Disraeli leader of the Opposition — Reconstruction of the 
 Conservative party — Speech on the Burdens upon Land — Success 
 of Disraeli's tactics — Social incidents — The Life of Lord George 
 Bentinck — The first Derby ministry — Bitterness of the Opposition 
 — Successes of the Government — The London Press — Result of 
 the general election — The Budget — Defeat of the Government. 
 
 p. 50 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 
 
 1852-1868. 
 
 The Press newspaper — Funeral oration over the Duke of Wellington 
 — Divisions in the Cabinet — Mr. Disraeli's irony at its expense — 
 Refusal of Lord Derby to take office — Tactics of the Conser- 
 vative party in Opposition — The China debate — Defeat of the 
 Palmerston Government^The second Derby Administration — 
 The EUenborough despatch — The Reform Bill — Resignation of 
 Ministers — The Conservatives in Opposition — Earl Russell's 
 foreign policy — Church and Queen — Mr. Disraeli's financial 
 speeches — The career and defeat of Earl Russell's Government — 
 The Reform Bills — Mr. Disraeli leader of the party . p. 8ft 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. DISRAELI AS LEADER OP THE PARTY. 
 
 18G8-1881. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Irish Resolutions — Mr. Disraeli's speech on the Abys- 
 sinian war — General Election of 18G8 — -Mr. Disraeli's speeches in 
 Opposition — Death of Lady Beaconsfield — Refusal to take office
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 in 1873 — Mr. Disraeli Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow 
 — The Conservative reaction — Mr. Disraeli and the masses — The 
 Cabinet of 1874— The Public Worshiij Regulation Bill— Sam'tas 
 sanitatum — Social legislation — Educational measures — Ecclesias- 
 tical questions — The Royal Titles Act — Mr. Disraeli becomes 
 Lord Beaconsfield — Foreign policy of his Administration — The 
 Eastern Question — The Bulgarian Atrocities — The March Pro- 
 tocol — Declaration of War by Russia — The treaty of San Stephano 
 and its consequences — The Treaty of Berlin — Its results — The 
 The Anglo-Turkish Convention— Peace with Honour — The A£f- 
 ghan war — Unpopularity of the Government — The General 
 Election of 1880 — Lord Beacousfield's last appearances in Parlia- 
 ment — His illness and death— Grief of the nation — The funeral 
 at Hughenden — Visit of the Queen — The Primrose League — 
 Tributes to Lord Beacousfield's memory . . . • p. 115- 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 
 
 Estimates of Lord Beacousfield's statesmanship — His foreign policy 
 
 His domestic jjolicy — Theory of popular government — On© 
 opinion of the duties of Conservatism — Lord Beacousfield's 
 opinion — Changes in his views — Distrust of the middle class — 
 Our territorial constitution— The Irish question — Lord Beacons- 
 field's ecclesiastical views — The monarchical revival — Idealism 
 of Lord Beaconsfield — Increased power of the minister — Lord 
 Beacousfield's position as an orator — Specimens of his eloquence- 
 — His use of rhetoric — His vein of irony — Famous sarcasms. 
 
 p. 161 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Lord Beacousfield's works — His earlier novels — Plots of Coninqsbij 
 and Sybil — Tancred, Lothair. and Endymion — Three prose bur- 
 lesques — Political writings — Lord Beacousfield's style. p. 188
 
 ivi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Hi-i Public and Private Cliuracter — Not an Adventurer — Devotion 
 to Politics — Love of Nature, and of Animals, and of Children — 
 Stories of his early Eccentricities — Life at Hughenden — Popu- 
 larity in the Neighbourhood — His Scholarship — His Library — 
 Lady John Manners's Reminiscences . p. 206
 
 LI'FE OF 
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PEJ3-PARLTAMENTARY PERIOD. 
 
 1804-1837. 
 
 Bii'th and boyhood — First appearance in print — Vivian Grey — Travels 
 on the Continent — Letrers to Sarah Disraeli — Entrance into 
 Society — Literary and political activity — Attempts to get into 
 Parliament — Popnlar Toryism — The Crisis Examined — Quarrel 
 with O'Connell — Disraeli's vindication of his public conduct — Rela- 
 tions with Hume — Disraeli and Lyndhurst — Elected for Maidstone. 
 
 Benjamin Disraeli was born in London on the 21st 
 of December, either in the year 1804 or 1803, the son of 
 Isaac Disraeli, author of the Curiosities of Literature, 
 and Maria Basevi, sister of the well-known architect ; 
 but whether he first saw the light in Bloomsbury Square, 
 in the Adelphi, or in King's Road, Gray's Inn, is still 
 uncertain. It is proved by the Parish Kale Book that 
 at the date of his eldest son's birth Isaac Disraeli was 
 tenant of a house in the last-mentioned street. But 
 against this is to be set the direct statement made by 
 
 1
 
 2 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield himself to Lord Barrington, that he 
 was born "in a set of chambers in the Adelphi"; and 
 likewise the testimony of Mr. Jones, son of the medical 
 man who attended Mrs. Disraeli at the time. In favour 
 of Bloomsbury Square, besides the local tradition, we 
 have merely the statement that when Lord Beaconsfield 
 was asked if he was born there, he said that he had been 
 told so. The best extant account of his own family is 
 contained in his Preface to an edition of the Curiosities 
 published in 1849, from which we learn that his ancestors, 
 who belonged to the Sephardim, or purest branch of the 
 Jewish race, which never left the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean, were driven out of Spain by the Inquisition, 
 and settled in Venice at the end of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. His grandfather came to England in 1748, at 
 the age of eighteen, where he acquired a moderate for- 
 tune, and died at Enfield in 1817 at the age of ninety. 
 Isaac was born in 1766, and died in 1848 at Braden- 
 ham in Buckinghamshire, where he had resided for 
 more than twenty years. The future statesman was one 
 of four children, three sons and a daughter, one of 
 whom alone, Mr. Balph Disraeli, is now living. Of the 
 other brother, I am not aware that anything is known, 
 beyond the circle of his own family ; but the sister, 
 Sarah Disraeli, has lately been introduced to us in a 
 series of very interesting letters, to which reference will 
 frequently be made in this narrative. Benjamin, who 
 was baptized at. St. Andrew's, Holborn, July 31, 1817, 
 was educated at a school kept by the Eev. John Pot- 
 ticarey at Blackheath, where he was popular with his 
 schoolfellows, who usually called him "Jack." His 
 favourite game was *' playing at horses," which is so far 
 curious that in after life he took no interest whatever 
 in homed or anything relating to them. At the age
 
 • FE^-PABLIAMENTABY PERIOD. 3 
 
 of seventeen he was articled to Messrs. Swain and 
 Stevenson, solicitors in the Old Jewry, where he gave 
 such promise of excellence, that his master recom- 
 mended his father to send him to the har. Of this 
 period of his life no anecdotes have been preserved ; 
 but, born in a library, as he used to say of himself, 
 he was not long in putting his literary powers to the 
 test. 
 
 It is commonly said that his first appearance in print 
 was in the Representative newspaper, brought out by 
 Mr. Murray in January 1826 ; but Mr. Disraeli himself 
 denied that he had any connection with it. A share in 
 the Star Chamber, a paper which appeared every Wed- 
 nesday, between the 19th of April and the 7th of June 
 in the same year, has also been attributed to Mr. Dis- 
 raeli, who is said to have written in it a poem, called 
 the " Modern Dunciad," in imitation of Pope. But as 
 the poem is extremely poor, and as Vivian Grey, which 
 was published only two days before the appearance of 
 the Star Chamber, is described in it as the work of one 
 who " is not a very young man," his connection with this 
 short-lived periodical must still remain a doubtful point. 
 Vivian Grey was published on the 17th or 18th of 
 April 1826, and established his reputation at a single 
 stroke. But whether the ignorance of its author professed 
 by the writer in the Star Chamber was real or assumed, 
 we have no means of ascertaining. 
 
 Satisfied for the time with the sensation which he 
 had created, Mr. Disraeli seems to have spent the next 
 two years in rambling through Italy, Switzerland, and 
 parts of Greece. But the Young Duke was written 
 before the passage of the Roman Catholic Emancipation 
 Bill in 1829, and in July 1830 we find Disraeli, who 
 was then at Malta, writing to his sister to send a copy 
 
 1 *
 
 4 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of the book to Lndy Don, the wife of the Governor of 
 Gibraltar, which place Disraeli had just quitted. 
 
 He had started from England a second time on 
 the 1st of June 1830, and it was now that he began 
 the correspondence with his sister which has just been 
 mentioned, extending to May 1831, within which 
 space of time he visited the south of Spain, Greece, 
 Albania, Constantinople, the Holy Land, and Egypt. 
 The companions of his journey were James Clay and 
 William Meredith, of whom the former lived to be 
 Liberal Member for Hull, and a well-known personage 
 both in Parliament and society ; the latter, a young man 
 of the highest promise, and engaged to Mr. Disraeli's 
 sister, died at Cairo, on his way back to England, in 
 1831. The friends, however, did not always keep to- 
 gether, and during the greater part of the time Disraeli 
 seems to have been alone. His letters are always 
 piquant, full of that sprightly and playful egotism, 
 half real and half affected, v^hich was peculiar to him- 
 self. He occasionally appears as the hero of rollick- 
 ing adventures, and indulging in a strain of jocularity 
 difficult to reconcile with the calm and somewhat 
 scornful repose which was the habitual expression of his 
 features in more advanced years. But we prefer to quote 
 his account of peaceful life and society at Granada : — 
 
 After dinner you take your siesta. I generally sleej) for two hours. 
 I think this practice conducive to health. Old people, however, are 
 apt to carry it to excess. By the time I have risen and arranged my 
 toilette it is time to steal out, and call upon any agreeable family 
 •whose Tertullia j'ou may choose to honour, wliich you do, after the 
 first time, uninvited, and with them you take your tea or chocolate. 
 This is often aUfresco, under the piazza or colonnade of the patio. 
 Here yon while away the time until it is cool enoiigh for the alameda 
 or public walk. At Cadiz, and even at Seville up the Guadalquivir, 
 you are sure of a delightful breeze from the water. The sea-breez© 
 comes like a spirit. The effect is quite magical. As you are lolling
 
 PRJE.PABLIAMENTAUY PERIOD. 5 
 
 3n listless languor in the hot and perfumed air, an invisible guest 
 comes dancing into the party and touches them all with an enchanted 
 wand. 2 All start, all smile. It has come ; it is the sea-breeze. There 
 is much discussion whether it is as strong, or whether weaker than 
 the night before. The ladies furl their fans and seize their mantillas, 
 the cavaliers stretch their legs and give signs of life. All rise. I 
 offer my arm to Dolores or Florentina (is not this familiarity 
 strange?), and in ten minutes you are in the alameda. What a 
 change I XW is now life and liveliness. Such bowing, such kissing, 
 such fluttering of fans, such gentle criticism of gentle friends ! but 
 the fan is the most wonderful part of the whole scene. A Spanish 
 lady with her fan might shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now 
 she unfurls it with the slow pomp and conscious elegance of a peacock. 
 Now she flutters it with all the languor of a listless beauty, now 
 -^vith all the liveliness of a vivacious one. Now, in the midst of a 
 very tornado, she closes it with a whir which makes you start, pop ! 
 In the midst of j'our confusion Dolores taps you on the elbow. You 
 turn round to listen, and Florentina pokes you in your side. Magical 
 instrument ! You know that it sj^eaks a particular language, and 
 gallantry requires no other mode to express its most subtle conceits 
 or its most unreasonable demands than this slight, delicate organ. 
 But remember, while you read, that here, as in England, it is not con- 
 fined alone to your delightful sex. I also have my fan, which makes 
 my cane extremely jealous. If you think I have grown extraordinarily 
 effeminate, learn that in this scorching clime the soldier will not 
 moimt guard without one. Night wears on, we sit, we take a panal, 
 which is as quick work as snapdragon, and far more elegant ; again 
 we stroll. Midnight clears the public walks, and but few Spanish 
 families retire till two. A solitary bachelor like myself still wanders, 
 or still lounges on a bench in the warm moonlight. The last guitar 
 ■dies away, the cathedral clock wakes up y^our reverie, you too seek, 
 your couch, and amid a gentle, sweet flow of loveliness, and light, 
 :and music, and fresh air, thus dies a day in Spain. 
 
 Disraeli as well as Pope could make the same ideas 
 serve his purpose twice, as the above description figures 
 again in Contarini Fleming. 
 
 The last letter of this series is dated from Cairo, May 
 28th, 1831, giving an account of a voyage up the Nile 
 as far as Nubia, and the next we hear of him is from 
 his lodgings in Duke Street, St. James', February 18th, 
 1832.
 
 6 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Disraeli was now about to make his eutry into 
 London society, and there is no reason to distrust his 
 own account of the reception which he met with. The 
 second series of letters to his sister, extending from 
 1832 to 1852, is our chief authority on this point, and 
 they clearly show that he mingled with people of the 
 highest rank at as early an age as most men who are 
 not born in the purple. His father's reputation and 
 his own, combined with the fact that he had travelled 
 in countries then but little known to Englishmen, were 
 sufiBcient at once to secure him an introduction to that 
 border laud in which literature and fashion meet; and 
 having secured his footing so far, he did the rest for 
 himself. In 1833 he dines with Lord and Lady St. 
 Maur. In the following year Lady Tankerville, who 
 shared with Lady Jersey the leadership of the fashion- 
 able world, admits him to Almack's. He is intimate 
 with Lady Chesterfield and Lady Londonderry. In 
 1836, before he was a Member of Parliament, he was 
 elected at the Carlton, and, in fact, there is over- 
 whelming evidence to show that the critics who sneered 
 at his portraits of lords and ladies in Coningshy and 
 Sybil, as being drawn exclusively from his own imagi- 
 nation, only showed their own ignorance of that great 
 world which had long before thrown open its doors to 
 him. 
 
 Disraeli, however, makes no secret of his position* 
 So far from disguising the fact that he has won his own 
 way into the charmed circle, instead of having taken his 
 place in it from the first as his natural and proper 
 sphere, the language in which he writes of his social 
 successes proclaim it with almost boyish exultation. 
 He writes like a youthful conqueror, marching from 
 victory to victory, and every fresh card of invitation is
 
 PB^-P ARMAMENT ABY PERIOD. 7 
 
 a fresh certificate of his prowess. Of the style in which 
 he boasts of the attention that was paid to him by the 
 great, had it been intended for any other eyes than 
 those of the little circle at Bradenham, the good taste 
 might perhaps be called in question. But the letters were 
 written to a sister ; and mueh that might otherwise be 
 set down to intoxicated vanity, may fairly be attributed 
 to the desire to amuse, and possibly to divert her mind 
 from brooding over recent troubles. 
 
 It was soon after his plunge into the world of fashion 
 that he first met, at Lytton Bulwer's, in April 1832, his 
 future wife, Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, whom he describes 
 as '* a pretty little woman, a flirt, and a rattle ; indeed, 
 gifted with a volubility I should think unequalled, and 
 of which I can convey no idea. She told me she liked 
 'silent, melancholy men.' I observed that I had no 
 doubt of it." It was about this time, also, that he met 
 Lord Melbourne at Mrs. Norton's, and when Melbourne 
 enquired how he could serve him, replied that he desired 
 to be Prime Minister. It is quite clear that he had 
 already made his mark in society, and was a familiar 
 figure in some of the best London drawing-rooms several 
 years before he entered Parliament. 
 
 The five years which lie between 1832, when Disraeli 
 returned to England, and 1837, when he became mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons, present a tangled skein 
 to the biographer. They are the five years of his 
 greatest literary industry, and they are also five years of 
 incessant political activity, during which it must often 
 have seemed doubtful to himself whether politics or 
 letters were to be his ultimate passport to immortality. 
 Novels, essays and poems, speeches, addresses, and 
 personal controversies pour upon us in such quick 
 succession, and so frequently solicit our attention at the
 
 8 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 same moment, that it is perhaps better to keep the two 
 threads distinct, and reserve all notice of the purely 
 literary works which he published during this period till 
 we come to consider his literary position by itself. Our 
 space will thus be left clear for the continuous treatment 
 of his public life during its most complicated and ambi- 
 guous stage, of which, however, it is absolutely necessary 
 that we should form some clear idea, if we would either 
 comprehend or do justice to the principles by which his 
 subsequent career was regulated. 
 
 On the 22nd of February 1832, Disraeli writes to his 
 sister : " I think peers will be created, and Charles 
 Gore has promised to let me have timely notice if 
 Baring be one." Mr. Thomas Baring was then the 
 member for High Wycombe, the seat on which Disraeli 
 Had his eye, and when, a few months afterwards, the 
 expected peerage was conferred upon him, the young 
 aspirant issued his address. His opponent was Colonel 
 Grey, the son of the Prime Minister ; and Disraeli, 
 whose home was now at Bradenham, only a few miles 
 from Wycombe, came forward as the local candidate. 
 Disraeli, who, at this time, declared his sole principle of 
 action to be opposition to the Whigs, considered himself 
 justified in accepting assistance from all who agreed 
 with him on this point, whatever their opinion on other 
 matters. Lytton Bulwer, at that time his great friend, 
 and a strong Radical, applied to Daniel O^Connell and 
 Mr. Hume to know whether they had any interest in 
 the constituency. They replied that they had none, 
 but in terms sufficiently complimentary to induce Mr. 
 Disraeli's committee to print their letters. But Mr. 
 Disraeli was neither a Radical nor a Home Ruler. 
 He had told O'Connell that he could not listen to the 
 Repeal of the Union ; and on this question there could
 
 pbjE.paeliamentaby period. 9 
 
 he no doubt. Whether he had been equally explicit with 
 Joseph Hume remains uncertain. Hume himself may 
 naturally have supposed that the advocate of the Ballot 
 5ind Triennial Parliaments was a Radical all round. 
 But Disraeli said nothing to confirm this opinion in his 
 speeches or addresses. He declared himself even then 
 u staunch supporter of the Established Church, the 
 House of Lords, and our territorial constitution ; and, 
 as we shall see, he did not get the Radical vote a second 
 time. 
 
 He had, in fact, fashioned out a creed for himself, 
 which he never appears to have renounced. He tried 
 to fit the Toryism of 1730 to the circumstances of 1832; 
 but notwithstanding some points of resemblance which 
 are more than superficial, there are fundamental points of 
 difference between the two periods which rob all his ana- 
 logies, however interesting and original, of that element 
 of actuality which is necessary to give them any locus 
 standi in the domain of practical politics. In each case 
 a revolution had been effected by the Whigs, of which 
 the real and the ostensible motives were not the same. 
 In each case it seemed that a great party triumph had 
 been won from which the people were to gain but little,* 
 and on each occasion there may have appeared to be 
 some real danger lest the balance of power should 
 be destroyed. But the change of dynasty in 1688 was 
 a patrician revolution. The Reform Bill of 1832 was a 
 popular revolution. The Whigs may have turned it to 
 their own account. But the impulse came from below. 
 And when Mr. Disraeli raised the banner of popular 
 T'oryism, recent events were too fresh in men's minds to 
 make it seem otherwise than fantastic. Down to the 
 
 * i\rr. Gladstone's Gleanings of Punt Years, vol. i. p. 148.
 
 10 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 eud of the war the Tories undoubtedly had been the 
 popular party as well as the monarchical party. Even- 
 after that time their administration has been much mis- 
 represented. But their resistance to the Keform Bill 
 was a fact which nobody could get over. Appeals to 
 Bolingbroke and Wyndham fell flat on men's ears who 
 saw the Duke of Wellington and Lord Lyndhurst, and 
 Sir Robert Peel and Mr, Croker walking about the 
 streets of London, and even then perhaps engaged in 
 some plot against ** the people's rights." The revival 
 was premature. A few years later, when the air began 
 to clear, and the passions of 1832 to lose their bitter- 
 ness, the elements of truth which Mr. Disraeli's theory 
 contained had a better chance of being appreciated; and 
 Young England ideas made a place for themselves in our 
 political system. But when the author of them first 
 stood for High Wycombe they were totally unintelligible. 
 
 It may be doubted, however, whether they did not 
 serve Mr. Disraeli's purpose just as well as if they had 
 been more generally comprehended. He could not 
 have carried the seat whatever he had said ; and his 
 political opinions had the great merit of originality. If 
 they did not win him the suffrages of Wycombe, they 
 secured for him the friendship of Lord Lyndhurst,^ 
 and enlisted the admiration of even Sir Robert Peel, 
 who, on reading the Vindication of the British Con- 
 stitution, in December 1836, said that he was gratified 
 and surprised to find that a familiar and apparently 
 exhausted topic could be treated with so much of original 
 force of argument and novelty of illustration. 
 
 It was at the general election in November 1832, 
 when Mr. Disraeli again stood for Wycombe, that he 
 explained more clearly what he meant by popular 
 Toryism, and denied its affinity to Radicalism. But
 
 PBM-PA BLTAMENTARY PERIOD. 1 1 
 
 he had lost the confidence of the Radicals, and was of 
 course defeated. In 1833 he consented to stand for 
 Marylebone, but, the expected vacancy not occurring, 
 he was delivered from the embarrassing position in 
 which the contest certainly would have placed him. A 
 story was current at the time, that being asked by a 
 Marylebone elector on what he intended to stand, he 
 replied, " upon his head." But he himself seems to 
 have treated it as an invention of the newspapers. 
 With 1834 came the famous crisis which he has depicted 
 with such vivacity in Coningshy, and which, oddly 
 enough, from a letter to his sister of June 4th, he himself 
 seems to have foreseen. " My own opinion is that in 
 the recess the King will make an effort to try and form^ 
 a Conservative Government with Peel and Stanley."^ 
 This is exactly what occurred when the death of Lord 
 Spencer raised Lord Althorp to the Lords, and deprived 
 the House of Commons of its leader : and when it 
 became obvious that a dissolution must take place, he 
 for a third time issued an address to the electors of the 
 little Buckinghamshire borough. He had no better suc- 
 cess than before, but his speech of December 16th was 
 republished under the title of the Crisis Examined, 
 and is worth reading, if only for the very characteristic 
 observations to be found in it on the duties and position 
 of a statesman. 
 
 The people [ho says] were content to accept the Reform Bill 
 as a great remedial measure which they had often demanded, 
 and which had been often denied, and they did not choose to scan too 
 severely the previous conduct of those who conceded it to them. 
 They did not go about saying, " We must have reform, but we will 
 not have it from Lord Palmerston, because he is the child of corrup- 
 tion, born of Downing Street, and engendered in the Treasury, a 
 second-rate official for twenty years under a succession of Tory 
 Governments, but a Secretary of State under the Whigs." Not they.
 
 12 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 indeed ! The people returned Lord Palmerston in triumph for Hamp- 
 shire, and pennies were subscribed to present him with testimonials 
 of popular applause. The people then took reform as some other 
 people take stolen goods, '• and no questions asked." The Cabinet of 
 Lord Grey was not ungenerously twitted with the abandonment of 
 principles which the country had given up, and to which no man 
 ■could adhere who entertained the slightest hope of rendering him- 
 self an effective public servant. The truth is, gentlemen, a states- 
 man is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the 
 ■creation of his times. A statesman is essentially a practical cha- 
 racter ; and when he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire 
 what his opinions might or might not have been upon this or that 
 subject ; he is only to ascertain the needful and the beneficial, and 
 the most feasible measures are to be carried on. The fact is, the 
 •conduct and the opinions of public men at different periods of their 
 •career must not be too curiously contrasted in a free and aspiring 
 country. The people have their passions, and it is even the duty 
 of public men occasionally to adopt sentiments with which they do 
 not sjTnpathise, because the people must have leaders. Then the 
 ■opinions and prejudices of the Crown must necessaril}' influence a 
 rising statesman. I say nothing of the weight which great establish- 
 ments and corporations, and the necessity of their support and 
 patronage, must also possess with an ambitious politician. All this, 
 however, produces ultimate benefit ; all these influences tend to form 
 that eminently practical character for which our countrymen are 
 ■celebrated. I laugh, therefore, at the objection against a man, that 
 at a former period of his career he advocated a policy different to his 
 present one. All I seek to ascertain is whether his present policy be 
 just, necessary, expedient; whether at the present moment he is 
 prepared to serve the country according to its present necessities. 
 
 The dissolution of Parliament in January 1835 did 
 not give Sir Kobert Peel an absolute majority, and in 
 the following April he resigned office, and made way 
 for the return of Lord Melbourne. Mr. Labouchere, 
 the new Master of the Mint, on seeking re-election at 
 Taunton, was opposed by Mr. Disraeli, who in the 
 course of his canvass, gave that provocation to 
 O'Connell which the agitator never forgave. In a 
 speech, of which no report has been preserved, Mr. 
 Disraeli said that the Whigs had " grasped the bloody
 
 FBJE.PAULIAMENTABY PERIOD. 13 
 
 hand of O'Connell." The meaning of this was that the 
 Whigs, who had themselves accused O'Connell of 
 treasonable and rebellious practices, had now stooped to 
 solicit his assistance. The attack was upon the Whigs,, 
 not upon O'Connell ; but when the words found their 
 way into a London paper, the latter chose to accept it 
 as a personal offence, and, in a speech made soon after- 
 wards at Dublin, stigmatised Disraeli as the descendant 
 of the impenitent thief, Mr. O'Connell having killed 
 a man in a duel,* had declared that nothing hence- 
 forth should induce him to fight another. But Mr. 
 Morgan O'Connell, who, in the previous May, had 
 acted as his father's representative in a duel with Lord 
 Alvanley, whom O'Connell had called a "bloated 
 buffoon," was at once challenged by Mr. Disraeli in a 
 letter dated from Park Street, Grosvenor Square, May 
 6th, 1835. The son declined to fight in the father'a 
 quarrel a second time, and so far Disraeli came out 
 of the affair with flying colours. But in the news- 
 paper controversy which followed he does not show 
 to equal advantage. The whole story of his con- 
 nection with Hume and O'Connell in 1832 was, of 
 course, raked up against him, combined with taunts and 
 insinuations which evidently stung him to the quick ; 
 and in his retorts upon the editor of the Glohe, who 
 was the chief offender, he loses his temper, and in- 
 dulges in a species of vituperation, of which we may at 
 least say what he said of one of his own assailants many 
 years afterwards, that *' it wants finish." 
 
 All Disraeli's letters on this subject appeared in the 
 Times, and though the personal abuse contained in them 
 
 * Mr. Ei5terre, a mem'ber of the Dublin Corporation, who challenged 
 O'Connell for calling the corporation " beggarly."
 
 14 LIFE OF LORD BEACON SFIELD. 
 
 borders upon Billingsgate, still, in one letter, of the 
 31st of December 1835, is to be read the best vindication 
 of the writer's public conduct down to that date, which 
 is anywhere to be found. My readers will, perhaps, 
 thank me for the following brilliant specimen of it, 
 in which he anticipates Cotiinffsby. 
 
 I was absent from England during the discussions on the Reform 
 Bill. The Bill was virtually, though not formally, passed when I 
 returned to my country in the spring of 1832. Far from that scene 
 of discord and dissension, imconnected with its parties, and untouched 
 by its passions, viewing as a whole what all had witnessed only in the 
 fiery passage of its intense and alarming details, events have proved, 
 with all humility be it spoken, that the opinion I formed of that mea- 
 sure on my arrival was more eori'ect than the one commonly adopted. 
 I found the nation in terror of a rampant democracy. I saw only an 
 impending oligarchy. I found the House of Commons packed, and the 
 independence of the House of Lords announced as terminated. I re- 
 cognised a repetition of the same ohgarchical coup iV€tat from which we 
 had escaped by a miracle little more than a century before ; therefore 
 I determined to the utmost of my power to oppose the "Whigs. Why 
 then, it may be asked, did I not join the Tories ? Because I found the 
 Tories in a state of ignorant stupefaction. The Whigs had assured 
 them that they were annihilated, and they believed them. They had 
 not a single definite or intelligible idea as to their position or their 
 duties or the character of their party. They were haunted with a 
 nervous apprehension of that gi-eat bugbear " the people," that be- 
 wildering title under which a miserable minority contrives to coerce 
 and plunder a nation. They were ignorant that the millions of that 
 nation required to be guided and encouraged, and that they were 
 that nation's natural leaders, bound to marshal and to enlighten them. 
 The Tories trembled at a coming anarchy : what they had to appre- 
 hend was a rigid tyi'anny. They fancied themselves on the eve of a 
 reign of terror, when they were about to sink under the sovereignty 
 of a Council of Ten. Even that illustrious man, who, after con- 
 quering the Peninsula, ought to deem nothing impossible, announced 
 that the King's Government could not be cari-ied on. The Tories in 
 1832 were avowedly no longer a practical party ; they had no system 
 and no object ; they were passive and forlorn. They took their seats 
 in the House of Commons after the Reform Act as the Senate in the 
 Forum when the city was entered by the Gauls, only to die.
 
 . PRjE-PABLIAMENTARY period. 15 
 
 He then goes on to say : — 
 
 I challenge anyone to quote any speech I have ever made, or one 
 line I have ever written, hostile to the institutions of the country. 
 On the contrai-y, I have never omitted any opportunity of showing 
 that on the maintenance of those institutions the liberties of the nation 
 depended ; that if the Crown, the Church, the House of Lords, the 
 Corporations, the Magistracy, the Poor Laws, were successfully 
 attacked, we should fall, as once before we nearly fell, under a grinding 
 •oligarchy, and inevitably be governed by a metropolis. It is true that 
 I avowed myself the supporter of triennial Parliaments, and for the 
 same reasons as Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tories 
 against Walpole, because the House of Commons had just been recon- 
 structed for factious purposes by the Reform Act, as in the days of 
 the Septennial Bill : I thought with Sir William Wyndham, whose 
 speech I quoted to the electors, that the Whig power could only be 
 shaken by frequent elections. Well, has the result proved the shal- 
 lowness of my views ? What has shaken the power of the Whigs to 
 the centre ? The general election of this year. What will destroy the 
 power of the Whigs ? The general election of the next. It is true 
 that I avowed myself a supporter of the principle of the ballot. Sir 
 William Wyndham did not do this, because in his time the idea was 
 not in existence, but he would, I warrant it, have been as hearty a 
 supporter of the ballot as myself, if with his principles he had been 
 standing on the hustings in the year of our Lord 1882, with the third 
 estate of the realm reconstructed for factious purposes by the WhigSj 
 the gentlemen of England excluded from their own chamber, a 
 number of paltry little towns enfranchised with the privilege of 
 returning as many members to Parliament as the shires of this day, 
 and the nomination of these members placed in a small knot of hard- 
 hearted sectarian rulers, opposed to everything noble and rational, and 
 exercising an usurious influence over the petty tradesmen who are 
 their slaves and their victims. 
 
 ^* More than three years after this," he continues — 
 
 came my contest at Taunton against the Master of the Mint, to which 
 the editor of the Globe has alluded. I came forward on that occasion 
 on precisely the same principles on which I had offered myself at 
 Wycombe ; but my situation was different. I was no longer an 
 independent and isolated member of the political world. I had felt 
 it my duty to become an earnest partisan. The Tory party had in 
 this interval roused itself from its lethargy ; it had profited by ad- 
 %'ersity; it had regained not a little of its original character and
 
 16 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 primary .spirit; it had begun to remember, or to discover, that it was 
 the national party of the country; it recognised its duty to place 
 itself at the head of the nation; it professed the patriotic principles 
 of Sir William Wyndham and Lord Bolingbroke, in whoso writings I 
 have ever recognised the most pure and the profoundest sources of 
 political and constitutional wisdom; underthe guidance of an eloquent 
 and able leader, the principles of primitive Toryism had again de- 
 veloped themselves and the obsolete associations which form no 
 essential portion of that great patriotic scheme had been ably and 
 effectively discarded. In the great struggle I joined the party with 
 whom I sympathised, and continued to oppose the faction to which 
 had ever been adverse. But I did not avow my intention of no longer 
 supporting the questions of short Parliaments and the Ballot, merely 
 liecause the party to which I had attached myself was unfavourable 
 to those measures, though that, in my opinion as to the discipline of 
 political questions, would have been a sufficient reason. I ceased to 
 advocate them because they had ceased to be necessary. The pur- 
 poses for which they had been proposed were obtained. The power 
 of the Whigs was reduced to a wholesome measure ; the balance of 
 parties in the State was restored ; the independence of the House 
 of Lords preserved. Perpetual change in the political arrangements of 
 countries of such a complicated civilization as England is so great an 
 evil, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify a recourse to it. 
 
 In the second of these extracts peeps out Disraeli's 
 favourite theory, that one object of the Eeform Bill 
 was to destroy the legitimate influence of the country 
 gentlemen.* But before concluding this passage of his 
 life, it remains to notice what passed between himself 
 and his critics on the subject of his relations with 
 Mr. Hume. It amounts to no more than this — that 
 Mr. Hume very naturally did not understand the 
 new Toryism which Mr. Disraeli had adopted, and 
 supposed that everyone who supported the changes 
 which he advocated himself, did so with the same 
 object. He could make no approach to the point of 
 view from which the Ballot and Triennial Parliaments 
 
 * Vide Vindication of British Constitution 8.nd Spirit of Whiggism^ 
 passim.
 
 PBM-P ARMAMENT ABY PERIOD. 17 
 
 seemed favourable to Toryism, and, excusably, there- 
 fore, when Mr. Disraeli announced himself a Tory, 
 thought he had been deceived. Mr. Hume's memory 
 played him false in some particulars, as, for instance, 
 in supposing that he had an interview with Mr. Dis- 
 raeli in Bryanston Square in 1833, when the latter 
 made a personal declaration of his principles. Mr. 
 Disraeli called during his canvass for Marylebone, 
 but only saw Mr. Hume's private secretary, that gen- 
 tleman himself being confined to his bed. But these 
 details are of little consequence. The general conclu- 
 elusion is that Mr. Disraeli was mistaken by the Radi- 
 cals for one of themselves, because they did not know 
 that what was a Radical measure in 1832 had been a 
 Tory one in 1734, and that it was possible to be in 
 favour of the ballot without being an enemy to the 
 Constitution. That Mr. Disraeli took advantage of 
 their ignorance is, perhaps, the worst that can be said 
 of him. But we gladly turn from what is, after all, 
 but an ambiguous phase in his career, to the days, now 
 rapidly approaching, when he should appear in his 
 true colours, as the preacher of a new creed and 
 the founder of a new party. 
 
 His correspondence at this time is full of Lord 
 Lyndhurst, whom he regarded as his political chief, 
 and who seems to have been the only man of any note 
 who really tried to understand what he meant. Lynd- 
 hurst occasionally went down to Bradenham, and seems 
 to have enjoyed a ramble among the Chilterns with 
 his eccentric young jjroleffe, who probably told the 
 older man a good deal that he did not know before. 
 The two had much in common. Both were daring to 
 the verge of recklessness, cool, and self-reliant — 
 " pleased with the danger when the waves ran high.'* 
 
 2
 
 18 LIFE OF LORD BEACONS FIELD. 
 
 Both came to the consideration of English politics with 
 comparatively open minds, and both had arrived at con- 
 clusions eminently unfavourable to the Whigs. 
 
 The year 1836 passed away. Henrietta Temple had 
 been out some time, and Venetia was just finished, 
 when it was announced that William IV. was suffering 
 one of his customary attacks of hay fever. Those who 
 were behind the scenes knew better, and began to pre- 
 pare for a Dissolution. After lingering, the centre of 
 hopes and fears, for some weeks, William IV. expired 
 early in the morning of the 20th of June 1837. Parlia- 
 ment was dissolved on the 18th of .Tuly, and Mr. Disraeli 
 was returned for Maidstone in company with Mr. Wynd- 
 ham Lewis, on the 27th. Mr. Lewis polled 707 votes, 
 Disraeli 616, and Colonel Thompson, the Liberal can- 
 didate, 412. Disraeli had now got his foot in the 
 stirrup, and his boast of 1833 was to be put to the test, 
 " Heard Macaulay's best speech, Shiel, and Charles 
 Grant. Macaulay admirable ; but, between ourselves, 1 
 could floor them all. This entre noun. I never was 
 more certain of anything than that I could carry every- 
 thing before me in that House."* His chance had now 
 come to him ; as, according to himself, it comes to 
 every man, if he can only wait. He was to take his 
 seat among the men whom the country looked up to as 
 its leaders, and measure himself against them ; and it 
 cannot be denied that his wonderful self-confidence was 
 justified. In writing of Addison, Thackeray says, 
 * You could hardly show him an essay, a sermon, or a 
 poem, but he felt he could do it better." And, sitting 
 in judgment on Disraeli's overweening self-esteem, we 
 must make allowance for that consciousness of genius 
 
 ■* Lettei- to his sister. Feb. 7. 1833.
 
 pbjE-pabliamentaby period, 19 
 
 which told him of his own superiority, and " prophesied 
 of his glory," even through the mists of failure. 
 Seeing what he really was, we must feel that these bubbles 
 of egotism welled up from intellectual depths which 
 the world had not yet fathomed; and though it took a 
 rather exceptionable form, in substance it was far from 
 unwarrantable.
 
 20 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 
 
 1837-184;-!. 
 
 State of Parties in 1837 — Disraeli'a maiden speech — Evidence aa to 
 its merits — Position in the House — The Bedchamber plot — Th» 
 Chartist Petition — Disraeli's marriage — Change in his circum- 
 stances — Dissolution of 1841 — Disraeli returned for Shrewsbury 
 — Exposition of his views on Protection. 
 
 Disraeli took his seat in the House of Commons on 
 the 15th of November 1837, on the second bench just 
 behind Sir Robert Peel. The state of parties at this 
 time has been so accurately described by himself in his 
 political novels that the reader who is curious about it 
 will do well to consult them for himself. Within two 
 years of the meeting of the first Reformed Parliament 
 the Whigs had run through nearly all the popularity 
 which that measure h^d acquired for them ; and after 
 the General Election of 1835 the Tory party, which had 
 apparently been annihilated, rose from its ashes in num- 
 bers far from contemptible, in ability, experience, and 
 debating powers greatly superior to its opponents. It 
 was calculated by the whips and wire-pullers that after 
 another registration Peel would have a clear majority. 
 These hopes were nipped in the bud by the accession of
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 21 
 
 xhe young Queen while the Whigs were still in office, 
 which gave them the chance of appealing to the country 
 as her ministers, an advantage which gained them so many 
 seats that they were able to retain their hold on office 
 through another Parliament. 
 
 But the reaction, temporarily arrested, soon set in 
 :again more strongly and steadily than ever. By their 
 Irish policy, their ecclesiastical policy, and their finan- 
 cial policy, the Whigs disgusted and alarmed thou- 
 sands of independent men, and alienated, at the same 
 time, many of their old friends, who found it necessary 
 to become Conservatives to ensure being ruled by men 
 of business. But it will be seen, as Mr. Disraeli saw, 
 that the tide of opinion which set in against the 
 Liberals from 1837 to 1841 was only very partially and 
 superficially a Conservative or Tory movement. The 
 middle classes began to turn to Sir Robert Peel as 
 the safest and most experienced statesman to whom 
 their fortunes could be entrusted. But they went no 
 farther. Of Tory principles as they were then under- 
 stood, the Toryism of Eldon and Wetherell, they were 
 certainly not enamoured, and they knew of no other. 
 If a peaceful, economical and constitutional Govern- 
 ment, including the ablest administrators of the day, 
 and prepared to give the country such measures as the 
 times required, chose to call itself Conservative, then the 
 nation was Conservative, but not in any other sense. 
 But a party of this kind could never restore that 
 " faith " which the Reform Bill had destroyed, and 
 which, even if devoted to an obsolete system, is still the 
 fountain light of all political creeds. This truth did 
 not dawn on Mr. Disraeli all at once any more than 
 it did on Mr. Gladstone. Both imagined they saw 
 something in the apparent revival of Toryism between
 
 22 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 1885 and 1841 which was not there. Mr. Gladstone 
 says, in his Chajjter of Autohiugraphy, that no sooner 
 were his friends in office than ho found there was not a 
 single man prepared to act on these principles. And 
 Mr. Disraeli, who made a similar discovery about the 
 same time, expressed his sentiments in Goningshy and 
 Sybil. But in 1837 all this was to come. Mr. Disraeli 
 had as yet unbounded faith in Sir Kobert Peel, and 
 looked to him to play the part which he afterwards 
 assigned to Young England. 
 
 Full of these ideas he passed within the portals of 
 those "proud and passionate halls," of which he was 
 destined one day to be the ruler, confident in his 
 destinies, and little dreaming, perhaps, of the trials that 
 awaited him, and which were not to be the least severe 
 when he had apparently distanced all competitors. His 
 maiden speech was delivered on the 7th of December 
 1837, when he experienced a foretaste of the malignity, 
 the injustice, and the persistent misrepresentation which 
 pursued him through his whole career. The subject of 
 debate was a motion made by Mr. Smith O'Brien, 
 relating to an alleged subscription fund in Ireland for 
 promoting petitions against the return of members who 
 belonged to Mr. O'Connell's party. Disraeli followed 
 O'Connell, and his voice was immediately drowned in 
 the clamour raised by a host of members below the bar, 
 consisting of the agitator's " tail," and a few English 
 Radicals who combined with them. Of the speech itself 
 it is enough to say that it was in his early style, while 
 his rhetoric was still green, and when he had not yet 
 learned the due proportion in which epigram should be 
 mixed with solid argument. But it does not appear that 
 his reception by the House at large was altogether 
 unfavourable. We read in his own account of it that
 
 ; THE GEE AT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 23 
 
 Sir Kobert Peel cheered him repeatedly; that Sir 
 John Campbell, the Attorney-General, assured him 
 that the front bench had been very anxious to listen 
 to him, and had no control over the clique below ; 
 and that Sheil, who heard the speech, said to some 
 friends at the Atheneeum : " If ever the spirit of 
 oratory was in a man, it is in that man." There is 
 no difficulty in believing that competent judges saw 
 the promise of future excellence under all these 
 disadvantageous conditions, and notwithstanding the 
 eccentric exterior of the ambitious neophyte. Bulwer 
 asked Sheil to meet him at dinner, and in the course 
 of the evening the experienced orator gave him the 
 following good advice : — 
 
 If you had been listened to, what woukl have been the result ? You 
 would have made the best speech that you ever woiild have made. It 
 •would have been received frigidlj^, and you -^vould have despaired of 
 yourself. I did. As it is, you have shown to the house that you 
 have a fine organ, that you have an unlimited command of language, 
 that you have courage, temper, and readiness. Now get rid of your 
 genius for a session. Speak often, for you must not show yourself 
 cowed, but speak shortly. Be very quiet, try to be dull, only argue, 
 and reason impei'f ectly ; for if you reason with precision, they will 
 think you are trying to be witty. Astonish them by speaking on 
 subjects of detail. Quote figures, dates, calculations, and in a short 
 time the House will sigh for the wit and eloquence which they all 
 know are in you ; they will encourage you to pour them forth, and 
 then you will have the ear of the House and be a favourite. 
 
 But we have still among us a living witness of the 
 scene, whose testimony to the real merits of the speech 
 must be held to be conclusive. ** My lords," said 
 Lord Granville, on May 9Lh, 1881, " I myself, assisted 
 by some of those social advantages which Mr. Disraeli 
 was without, came into the House six months before 
 Mr. Disraeli took his seat in that assembly. I had 
 thus the opportunity of hearing that speech famous for
 
 24 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 its failure, and I am convinced that if that speech had 
 been made in a House of Commons which knew him 
 better it would have been received with cheers and 
 sympathetic, not derisive, laughter." Mr. Disraeli 
 never spoke again without being listened to with 
 attention. Ten days after his first appearance, he 
 presented himself to the House again on Talfourd's 
 Copyright Bill, detaining his audience a very little 
 while, making a practical suggestion to influence 
 Talfourd, and winding up with a point which told 
 very well. " As for myself, I trust that the age of 
 literary patronage has passed, and it will be honour- 
 able to the present Government if, under its auspices, 
 it be succeeded by that of legislative protection." 
 
 His course was now clear. It was soon understood 
 that whatever the general character of his speeches, 
 they were pretty sure to contain something that was 
 original, and probably something that was witty ; and 
 though more than this is necessary to make a man a 
 power in the House of Commons, it is enough, at all 
 events to secure him a fair field, and prevent him 
 from being " howled down." 
 
 The two principal events affecting Mr. Disraeli's poli- 
 tical career during the existence of his first Parliament 
 were the Chartist insurrection and the Bedchamber 
 Plot, such being the name given to a so-called Palace 
 intrigue, whereby the Whigs, it is said, endeavoured 
 to secure their own return to power after resigning on 
 the Jamaica Bill in 1839. Sir Robert Peel, on being 
 sent for, found that Her Majesty desired to retain 
 about her person the ladies of the Bedchamber. It 
 turned out that there were only two whose dismissal 
 Sir Robert thought essential. But the Queen con- 
 tinuing firm, he declined to form a ministry, and
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 25 
 
 the Melbourne Government was reinstated. Opinion 
 ■was much divided at the time on the conduct of the 
 different parties concerned. Disraeli thought Sir 
 Robert wrong. He thought it was both ungraceful 
 and impolitic on the part of the leader of the Tories 
 to thwart a young sovereign, " and that sovereign a 
 woman," in the first exercise of her prerogative. 
 With his head full of a monarchical revival, it was 
 natural that he should think so; as natural, per- 
 haps, as that Sir Robert Peel, who remembered the 
 effects of female influence in a previous reign, should 
 think the reverse. However, the Whigs took little 
 by the manoeuvre. They only gained time to re- 
 double their own unpopularity, so that if the advice 
 which Lord Melbourne gave the Queen was really 
 unconstitutional, he paid the penalty. 
 
 It would have been wiser, however, in Sir Robert 
 Feel, to have waived the point and trusted to the 
 <^)ueen's good sense to save him from the difficulties 
 which he apprehended ; and he too, perhaps, would 
 have had his reward, for had he taken office in 1839, 
 instead of 1841, he would not have come into power 
 so irrevocably committed to the Corn Laws, and his 
 repeal of them would have looked less like the betrayal 
 of confidence than it did under the actual circum- 
 stances. It is rather curious that in Disraeli^s letters 
 ito his sister we find no reference to this affair, and 
 only a very brief mention of the Chartist disturb- 
 ances, in which he took so lively an interest, and of 
 which he has left us so animated an account in Sybil. 
 
 It was on the 12th of July 1839 that he made his 
 speech on the Chartist Petition, presented to Parlia- 
 ment by Mr. Attwood, member for Birmingham, and 
 demanding what were called the five points — manhood
 
 26 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 suflrage, vote by ballot, electoral districts, annual 
 parliaments, and payment of members. He writes 
 about this speech to his sister in his usual style : " I 
 made a capital speech last night," he says. But at 
 all events it was a very remarkable speech, and the 
 one which, it is said, first gained him the ear of the 
 House. Six years afterwards he described it again in 
 the novel we have just named. Sybil, the heroine, the 
 beautiful, refined, and highly-educated daughter of a 
 Chartist leader, and enthusiastically devoted to the 
 cause, is sitting in St. James's Park on a fine summer 
 morning reading the report of the debate. 
 
 Yes. there was one voice that had sounded in that proud Parliament, 
 that, free from the slang of faction, had dared to express immortai 
 truths : the voice of a nohle who, without being a demagogue, had 
 upheld the pojJiJar cause ; had pronounced his conviction that the 
 rights of labour were as sacred as those of property; that if a diffe- 
 rence were to be established, the interests of the living wealth ought 
 to be preferred ; who had declared that the social happiness of the 
 milhous should be the first object of a statesman, and that, if this 
 were not achieved, thrones and dominions, the pomp and power 
 of courts and empires were alike worthless. 
 
 The speech itself is chiefly remarkable for a passage 
 in which Mr. Disraeli expresses his distrust of the 
 middle classes as a foundation for any system of govern- 
 ment. But his sympathy with the Chartists of that 
 day was quite sincere, though he did not agree with them 
 practically ; and his kindly reception of Cooper the 
 Chartist, five years after the speech was delivered, was 
 referred to in terms of high approval by Mr. Gladstone- 
 in his great funeral oration over his rival's tomb. 
 
 Throughout the correspondence for the years 
 1838-39, the name of Mrs. Wyndham Lewis occurs 
 frequently. Sometimes Disraeli accompanies her to the 
 theatre. When he got his Coronation medal he pre-
 
 THE GEE AT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 27 
 
 sented it to "Mrs. W. L.," and after her husband'* 
 death, which took place on the 14th of March 1838, 
 nobody was surprised at hearing who was to be his 
 successor. They were married in London on the 28th 
 of August 1839, and went to Tunbridge Wells for the 
 first days of their honeymoon. They stayed at the 
 " Kentish," then one of the principal hotels in that 
 charming little watering place, and visited Bayham 
 Abbey and Penshurst, where Disraeli found, of course, 
 that his friend De Lisle was out shooting. They only 
 stayed about ten days in England, and then set out for 
 Germany, arriving at Baden-Baden on the 10th of Sep- 
 tember. " The most picturesque, agreeable, lounging 
 sort of place you can imagine," he writes; "a bright 
 little river winding about green hills, with a white 
 sparkling town of some dozen palaces, called hotels, and 
 some lodging-houses like the side scenes of a melo- 
 drama, and an old ruined castle or two on woody 
 heights." Mrs. Disraeli, however, pronounced it " not 
 much better than Cheltenham," so they left it in about 
 a week, and went on to Munich. At Munich they 
 passed about three weeks, and early in November they 
 were at Paris. The end of the month found them in 
 England and settled at Grosveuor Gate. Lord Malmes- 
 bury met them at dinner in the following season, and 
 describes Mrs. Disraeli as a very remarkable woman 
 both in mind and manner. 
 
 Disraeli's marriage made a great change in his cir- 
 cumstances. He was now for the first time beyond the 
 pressure of pecuniary cares, and rich enough to take 
 upon himself the style and fashion of an English 
 country gentleman. He did not, however, become the 
 owner of Hughenden immediately ; and as late as Sep- 
 tember 1843 made Bradenham his countrv home. It
 
 28 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ■WHS here, " in his old writing-room," next to his 
 sister's room, that, in the autumn of 1843, he finished 
 Conitigsbij, which he had sketched out at Deepdene 
 early in September. He was master of Hughenden 
 before 1847, and that is all that I can ascertain. 
 
 Parliament met in the month of January, and the 
 Whigs struggled desperately on through this session 
 and the next. But at this time, in the days of the old 
 ten-pound franchise, and before the growth of that sin- 
 gular product of our own day, the High Church 
 Radical, the three great interests in the country, the 
 moneyed interest, the agricultural interest, and the Church 
 interest, could, when united, carry all before them, and 
 Sir Robert Peel had united them. This was " the great 
 Conservative Party." The motley combination of Re- 
 pealers, Free Traders, and Dissenters, which was all the 
 Whigs had to oppose to him, was no match for this 
 solid phalanx. They were gradually deserted by their 
 ■own followers in the House of Commons, and, finally 
 staking their all on the popularity of a fixed duty on 
 ■corn, they were defeated, in the session of 1841, by a 
 majority of thirty-six, and Sir Robert Peel, who would 
 " rather be the leader of the country gentlemen of Eng- 
 land than possess the confidence of sovereigns,'^ and 
 who opposed the fixed duty avowedly on the ground 
 that it must lead in the end to Free Trad^, gave notice 
 shortly afterwards of his intention to move a vote of 
 want of confidence. This was carried against Govern- 
 ment by a majority of one, and on the 23rd of June 
 Parliament was dissolved. 
 
 The Conservative cause was everywhere triumphant. 
 Mr. Disraeli was returned for Shrewsbury. And Sir 
 Robert Peel became Prime Minister with a majority of 
 seventy at his back. Guizot prophesied that he would
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 29 
 
 be the Walpole of the nineteenth century, and had he 
 adhered to the principles which brought him into 
 power, it is difficult to see what could have turned him 
 out of it. He might have stayed in for two Parliaments 
 at all events, and probably for a third also. But scarcely 
 was he seated in power, ere doubts began to creep into 
 his mind concerning the truth of the commercial theo- 
 ries which, for six years, he had been so diligently in- 
 culcating on his followers. What was he to do ? The 
 rank and file of the party began to complain of his cold- 
 ness, bis reserve, his pride, his arrogance, his impe- 
 riousness. This is just the behaviour we should expect 
 from one who, being at the head of a great party,, 
 and trusted by them implicitly as the champion of a 
 political creed, becomes suddenly infected with scepti- 
 cism, and knows not where to look for sympathy. We 
 may pity a man placed in such a position as this, but 
 we cannot acquit him of a serious error if he takes 
 advantage of the power he has gained by advocating 
 one set of principles to effect the triumph of another ; 
 and, without taking his followers into his confidence or 
 making a single effort to convert them, suddenly, and 
 almost contemptuously, abandons the cause which they 
 had entrusted to him, espouses the system which he bad 
 taught them to abhor, and requires of them at a 
 moment's notice, and on his own sic volo sic j'libeo, to 
 adopt it entirely, on pain of destroying the position 
 which it had been the work of their leader to build up. 
 It was not, however, till Peel had been in office two 
 years that any signs of insubordination began to show 
 themselves. Disraeli defended his earlier financial mea- 
 sures in speeches of marked ability, both in the House 
 of Commons and in an address to his constituents at 
 Shrewsbury. On the 25th of April 1843, when Mr.
 
 30 LIFE OF LOBB BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Ricardo, the Member for Stoke, moved " That the 
 remission of duties should not be postponed to the 
 execution of commercial treaties," Mr. Disraeli delivered 
 a speech which, " to this day," says Mr. Morley,* " is 
 remarkable for its large and comprehensive survey of 
 the whole field of our commerce, and for its discern- 
 ment of the channels in which it would expand." But 
 it is remarkable for more than this. For it distinctly 
 predicts the position in which England would find her- 
 self if, while she adopted Free Trade, the rest of Europe 
 <5lung to Protection ; and he endeavoured to impress 
 upon his audience the very important truth that the 
 great Powers of the Continent place political considera- 
 tions first and political economy second. 
 
 This was his own practice as well. If he was a Pro- 
 tectionist, he was a Protectionist on political not upon 
 commercial principles, and in his speech at Shrewsbury, 
 May 9th, 1843, he expounded his ideas at some length. 
 After showing that Sir Robert Peel was only treading in 
 the footsteps of Mr. Pitt and Lord Liverpool, he 
 ■continued as follows : — 
 
 I never will commit mj'self upon this great question to petty econo- 
 mical details. I will not pledge myself to miserable questions of 
 6d. in 7s. 6d. or 8s. of duties about corn. I do not care whether yom* 
 •corn sells for this sum or that, or whether it is under a sliding 
 scale or a fixed duty ; but what I want and what I wish to 
 secure, and what, as far as my energies go, I will secm-e, is the pre- 
 ponderance of the landed interest. Gentlemen, when I talk of 
 the preponderance of the landed interest, do not for a moment suppose 
 that I mean merely the preponderance of " squires of high degree," 
 that, in fact, I am thinking only of justices of the peace. My thought 
 wanders farther than a lordly tower or a manorial hall. I am look- 
 ing, in iising that very phrase, to what I consider the vast 
 majority of the English nation. I do not undervalue the mere supe- 
 riority of the landed classes ; on the contrary, I think it a most 
 
 * Life of Cobden, vol. ii. p. 336.
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 31 
 
 necessary element of political power, and national civilisation; 
 but I am looking to the population of our innumerable villages, to 
 the crowds in our rural towns ; aye, and I mean even something more 
 than that by the landed interest. I mean that estate of the poor 
 which, in my opinion, has been already tampered with, dangerously 
 tampered with ; which I have also said, let me remind you, in other 
 places besides Shrewsbury. I mean by the estate of the poor, the 
 great estate of the Church, which has, before this time, secured our 
 liberty, and may, for aught I know, still secure our civilisation. 
 
 Gentlemen, we hear a great deal in the present day upon the sub- 
 pet of the feudal system. I have heard from the lips of Mr. Cobden — 
 no, I have not heard him saj' it, as I was not present to hear the cele- 
 brated speech he made in Drury Lane Theatre — but we have all 
 heard how Mr. Cobden, who is a very eminent person, has said, in a 
 very memorable speech, that England was the victim of the feudal 
 system, and we have all heard how he has spoken of the bar- 
 barism of the feudal system and of the barbarous relics of the 
 feudal system. Now, if we have any relics of the feudal system, 
 I regret that not more of it is remaining. Think one moment 
 — and it is well j'ou should be reminded of what this is, because 
 there is no phrase more glibly used in the present day than 
 the barbarism of the feudal sj'stem. Now, what is the funda- 
 mental principle of the feudal system, gentlemen ? It is that the 
 tenure of all property shall be the performance of its duties. Why, 
 when the Conqueror carved out pai-ts of the land and introduced the 
 feudal system, he said to the recipient, " You shall have that estate, 
 but you shall do something for it ; you shall feed the poor ; you shall 
 «ndow the Church ; you shall defend the land in case of war ; and you 
 shall execute justice and maintain truth to the poor for nothing." It is 
 all very well to talk of the barbarities of the feudal system, and to 
 tell us that in those days when it flourished a great variety of gross 
 and grotesque circumstances and great miseries occurred ; but these 
 were not the result of the feudal system ; they were the result of the 
 barbarism of the age. They existed not from the feudal system, but 
 in spite of the feudal system. The principle of the feudal system, the 
 principle which was practically operated upon, was the noblest prin- 
 ciple, the grandest, the most magnificent and benevolent that was ever 
 conceived by sage, or ever practised by patriot. Why, when we hear 
 a political economist, or an Anti-Corn-Law Leaguer, or some conceited 
 Liberal reviewer, come forward and tell us a grand discovery of 
 modern science, twitting and taunting, jserhaps, some unhappy squire 
 who cannot respond to the alleged discovery — when I hoar them sav, 
 as the great discovery of modern science, that " Property has its
 
 32 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 duties as well as its rij^hts," my answer is that that is but a feeble- 
 plagiarism of the very principle of that feudal system which you are 
 always reviling. Let me next tell those gentlemen who are so fond of 
 telling us that property has its duties as well as its rights, that 
 labour also has its rights as well as its duties. And when I see masses 
 of property raised in this country which do not recognise that prin- 
 ciple ; when I find men making fortunes by a method which permits 
 them (very often in a very few years) to purchase the lands of the 
 old territorial aristocracy of the country, I cannot help remembering 
 that those millions are accumulated by a mode which does not recog- 
 nise it as a duty " to endow the Church, to feed the poor, to guard 
 the land, and to execute justice for nothing." And I cannot help ask- 
 ing myself, when I hear of all this misery, and of all this suffering ; 
 when I know that evidence exists in our Parliament of a state of 
 demoralisation in the once happy population of this land, which is not 
 equalled in the most barbarous countries, which we suppose the more- 
 rude and uncivilised in Asia are — I cannot help suspecting that this has 
 arisen because property has been permitted to be created and held 
 without the performance of its duties. 
 
 If we recur to the continental system of parcelling out landed 
 estates, I want to know how long you can maintain the political 
 system of the country ? That estate of the Church which I men- 
 tioned ; that estate of the poor to which I referred ; that great fabric- 
 of judicial rights to which I made allusion ; those traditionary man- 
 ners and associations which spring out of the land, which form the 
 national character, which form part of the possession of the poor not 
 to be despised, and which is one of the most important elements of 
 political power — they will tell you " Let it go." My answer to that 
 is, " If it goes, it is revolution, a great, a destructive revolution. For 
 these reasons, gentlemen, I believe, in that respect faithfully repre- 
 senting your sentiments, that I have always upheld that law which I 
 think will uphold and maintain the preponderance of the agricultural 
 interests of the country. I do not wish to conceal the ground upon 
 which I wish to uphold it. I never attempted to uphold it by talking 
 of the peculiar burthen which, however, I believe, may be legiti- 
 mately proved, or indulging in many of those arguments in favour 
 of the Com Laws which may or may not be sound, but which are 
 always brought forward with a sort of hesitating consciousness which 
 may be assumed to be connected with futility. I take the only 
 broad, and only safe line, namely, that what we ought to uphold is 
 that the preponderance of the landed interest has made England ; 
 that it is an immense element of political power and stability : that 
 ■we should never have been able to undertake the great war in which
 
 THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PARTY. 33 
 
 we embarked in the memory of many present ; that we could never 
 have been able to conquer the greatest military genius the world ever 
 saw with the greatest means at his disposal, and to hurl him from the 
 throne, if we had not had a territorial aristocracy to give stability to 
 our constitution. 
 
 This whole argument for Protection, which takes it 
 out of the region of arithmetic and transfers it to the 
 higher ground of political philosophy, was alien from 
 the mind of Peel, who was by nature a political econo- 
 mist, and whose creed, as has well been said, was the 
 conservatism of the bank and the counting-house, not 
 of the cloister and the manor-house ; and if we would 
 have the key to Young England in a few words, it was a 
 revolt against bourgeois politics, against the hard and 
 uninteresting aspect which Conservatism in the hands 
 of Sir Robert Peel was beginning to assume. There 
 was food for the imagination both in Toryism and 
 Radicalism ; but not in that sober, prudent, middle-class 
 compromise, which was rightly described by Mr. Tad- 
 pole, in Conmgshij, as composed of Tory men and Whig 
 measures. 
 
 •3
 
 84 LIFE OF LORD BEACON 8FIELI). 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Young England Toryism and Conservatism — Disraeli's position — 
 Breach with Peel — Coningshy — The Young England creed — 
 Didactic elements in Coniiu/shy — Its portraits and types — Tour in 
 the manufacturing districts — Sybil — Theme of the novel — Dis- 
 raeli's political ideal — Young England and the Anglican revival. 
 
 The whole of the speech from which the extracts in 
 the above chapter have been taken, and which was 
 delivered by Mr. Disraeli at Shrewsbury on the 
 9th of May 1843, three months before the first breach 
 with Sir Robert Peel, is a foreshadowing of the position 
 which Young England was presently to assume, and of 
 the forthcoming indictment against the great Conserva- 
 tive party, which made the hair of Tadpole and Taper 
 stand on end. That party had not been true to the prin- 
 ciples therein sketched out. Its support of the Poor Law, 
 and its issue of the Ecclesiastical Commission, were 
 blows struck at the territorial position of the Church, 
 and the authority of the landed gentry, which were, 
 in Mr. Disraeli's eyes, among the most sacred de-
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 26 
 
 posits of Toryism. Sir Robert Peel was willing to 
 establish the supremacy of the House of Commons 
 over the two other estates of the realm, and the Crown 
 as well. Conservatism, after all, was only Whiggism 
 under another name. Why Mr. Disraeli did not 
 discover this before is one of the innumerable ques- 
 tions in the history of his political opinions to which 
 no satisfactory answer will ever probably be returned. 
 In 1835, when he looked to Sir Robert Peel as 
 the saviour of the State, the Taraworth Manifesto 
 and the Ecclesiastical Commission, the objects of his 
 bitterest scorn and keenest invective in 1843, had both 
 been issued. Nor could it have been only Sir Robert 
 Peel's change of opinion on Protection which made the 
 <lifference between Young England Toryism and Conser- 
 vatism, for, in the first place, Young England was born 
 before Peel's change of front became apparent, while, 
 what is much more important, not only had the political 
 infidelity which it was the object of Young England 
 to expose nothing whatever to do with such questions 
 as the Corn Laws, but the great statesmen to whom 
 the new party looked for inspiration — Bolingbroke, 
 Shelburne, and Pitt — had themselves been free-traders. 
 Perhaps he waited to see what a Conservative Govern- 
 ment would bring forth before declaring himself more 
 openly. Perhaps he felt some natural reluctance to 
 break with the only party to which he could look for 
 political advancement till he felt more sure of the 
 ground under his own feet, and of his own ability to 
 create a party for himself. At one time it was un- 
 blushingly asserted, and therefore not unfrequently 
 believed, that he had applied to Sir Robert Peel for 
 some appointment in the Government, and that the 
 Prime Minister's refusal was the cause of his declaration 
 
 3 ♦
 
 36 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of hostilities. This cahimny, however, has been ex- 
 ploded long ago, and we can only explain his altitude- 
 between 1835 and 1843 by falling back on the simple 
 expedient of believing that he spoke the truth; that he 
 really meant what he said in his letter to the Times,'^'- 
 which we have already quoted, and in another, which 
 will be found below ; and that, the Tamworth Manifesto 
 notwithstanding, it was the pristine Toryism of the 
 time of Anne and George the First that Sir Kobert 
 Peel, emerging from the darkness of 1832, was expected 
 to restore. That he continued in this faith for the 
 space of eight years is not, of course, to be believed. 
 Scepticism must have been germinating in his mind 
 for some years before it broke out into open mutiny. 
 But at what moment his disbelief in Peelite Conserva- 
 tism became absolute and final it is, of course, impos- 
 sible to say. 
 
 It was in August 1843 that the storm burst. On 
 the 9th of that month Sir Robert Peel's Irish Arms Bill 
 was read a third time, and Mr. Disraeli, Lord J. 
 Manners and others commented on it with some 
 severity. In this they were severely taken to task by 
 the Treasury Bench, and warmly defended by the 
 Morning Chronicle and the Times. This was the first 
 open breach, and it was never healed. Apropos of this 
 affair Mr. Disraeli, writing to the Times, on the 11th of 
 August 1843, expresses himself to the following 
 effect : — 
 
 I voted foi- " the industrial measures of Sir Robert Peel las year^ 
 and defended them during the present, because I believed, and still 
 believe, that thej' were founded on sound principles of commercial 
 policy ; principles which were advocated by that great Tory states- 
 man, Lord Bolingbroke, in 1713 : principles which, in abeyance during 
 
 * December 31. 1835.
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 37 
 
 the Whig Government of seventy years, were revived by that great 
 Tory statesman Mr. Pitt ; and, though tlieir progress was disturbed 
 by war and revolution, which were faithful to the traditional policy of 
 the Tory Party, sanctioned and developed, on the return of peace and 
 order, by Lord Liverpool. It is not merely with reference to commer- 
 cial policy that I believe that a recurrence to old Tory principles 
 would be of great advantage to this country. It is a specific, in my 
 opinion, and the only one, for many of those disquietudes which now 
 perplex our society. I see no other remedy for that war of classes 
 and creeds which now agitates and menaces us but in an earnest 
 return to a system which may be described generally as one of 
 loyalty and reverence, of popular rights and social sympathies. 
 
 The young men round about him who shared in those 
 ideas were Lord John Manners, the Hon. George Smythe, 
 Mr. Bailie Cochrane, and some others ; and out of 
 Parliament they seem to have found a ready sympathiser 
 in Mr. Henry Hope, of Deepdene, where Disraeli now 
 spent a good deal of his time. Here he and his wife 
 spent the Christmas of 1840, with many '' merry 
 gambols, charades, and ghosts " ; such a Christmas, 
 perhaps, as he afterwards describes at Eustace Lyie's, 
 when Bnckhurst was Lord of Misrule. And it was 
 amid these glades and alleys and in close communion 
 with these gifted friends that those ideas were ripened, 
 which were now to find expression in the most remark- 
 able political fictions which our literature has produced. 
 He writes to his sister from Deepdene, in September 
 1843, that he is coming to Bradenham, and wants a 
 workroom. If it does not inconvenience anybody, he 
 would like to have his old writing-room next to hers. 
 It may easily be supposed that his request was granted, 
 and here, amid the beautiful beech-woods of his favourite 
 Buckinghamshire, he composed Coningsly. 
 
 The main object of Coninyshy was to protest 
 against the elimination of the royal prerogative from 
 our Constitutional system, which had been effected by
 
 38 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the revolution of 1688, and to recall to the public mind 
 the writings of Bolingbroke as representing the true 
 principles of the Monarchy. The downfall of the oli- 
 garchic system in 1832 might, he thought, pave the way 
 for the revival of them. But Young England went far- 
 ther than this. It embraced that emancipation of the 
 Church from Parliamentary dictation in matters purely 
 spiritual, which is now universally desired by all sober 
 and moderate High Churchmen : that maintenance of 
 ancient local jurisdictions, and, if necessary, the crea- 
 tion of new ones, which somehow or other the Liberal 
 Party, with its unrivalled powers of mystification, has 
 contrived to represent as its own invention ; and that 
 improvement in the condition of the labouring classes, 
 both urban and rural, of which Mr. Disraeli lived to 
 accomplish much, and which his successor is now 
 occupied in completing. 
 
 But it was not so much the particular measures to be 
 adopted by the Tory party in order to re-establish its 
 title to be *' the popular political confederacy " of this 
 country, as the spirit in which the work was to be 
 undertaken, that distinguished the teaching of Young 
 England. Coningsby told his grandfather that he 
 wished to see the restoration of political faith, whicb, 
 to Lord Monmouth, was foolishness. But that these 
 words, in the year 1844, had a real meaning in the 
 eyes of sober politicians may be gathered from an 
 article in the Ediiihiirgh Revieic, vol. Ixxx., in which 
 the writer says of the old regime : "This was a system 
 on which one's moral nature could repose, a solid 
 temple in which one could sincerely worship." With 
 these words may be compared Mr. Gladstone's : — 
 
 One of my objects in this brief retrospect is to suggest what 
 party prejudice appears to forget, that the true character of our
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 39 
 
 working Parliamentary system is not determined exclusively by 
 the condition of the franchise and what is termed the distribution 
 of seats. Another is to make an apology for those who felt that, 
 in surrendering the former system as a whole, to substitute 
 for it the scheme of 1832, they were committing themselves to ;i 
 series of changes, and not to one alone. The convictions of men like 
 Mr. Burke, Lord Grenville, Mr. Canning, Mr. Hallam, in its favour 
 represent something much higher, much more historical, than has 
 since been, or could be, arrayed in defence of schemes essentially 
 intermediate and provisional, against further modificiition.* 
 
 . Voild lout. Here is the whole foundatiou and 
 justification of that " unparalled betrayal ' in which 
 so many good Conservatives were only too willing to 
 believe. 
 
 It is true that Mr. Disraeli himself was no admirer of 
 the old regime, which fell in 1832. Both the Edin- 
 burgh Reviewer and Mr. Gladstone would have admitted 
 that it was worn out. But in at least half the nation 
 it did still inspire real faith. With all its corruptions, 
 with all its exclusiveness and intolerance, were com- 
 bined great elements of strength, and ancient and glo- 
 rious associations. It had on its side all the weight of 
 antiquity, experience, and prescription. Men had sat 
 under its shadow for many generations, in peace, happi- 
 ness, and prosperity. It represented distinct principles 
 which were not mere names; a monarchy which, how- 
 ever limited, still possessed real power ; an aristocracy 
 which really governed, and a Church which was still the 
 one recognised religion of the nation, and possessed a 
 legal claim on the support of the entire people. These 
 were principles, erroneous or otherwise, for which men 
 felt that they could fight ; and the hope of establishing 
 something in its place, which should inspire the like 
 degree of reverence, and rest on the same solid founda- 
 
 * Gleaningx, vol. i. p. 1''7.
 
 40 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 tions, was the inainspriDg of the Young England creed. 
 Mr. Gladstone seems to have come to the conclusion that 
 this was not possible, and that it was the wisest course 
 to throw over the past altogether, and go forward to 
 meet the democracy with open hands. Mr. Disraeli 
 and his party thought otherwise. They hoped that it 
 was not yet too late to obliterate the traces of mis- 
 government which had prejudiced the working classes 
 against all established institutions, and to rekindle 
 that attachment to the Throne, the Church, and the 
 landed proprietors of the kingdom, " the natural leaders 
 of the people," which, though the flame burned low, 
 was yet far from being extinct. 
 
 In Coningshijy the dramatic and didactic elements 
 are not so closely interwoven with each other as not to 
 admit of being separated, and it is perfectly possible to 
 convey to the reader a clear idea of the chief positions 
 which are maintained in it, without trenching on the 
 province of the literary critic, or anticipating the re- 
 marks we have to make on the plot, the characters, and 
 the language. 
 
 Harry Coningsby is the grandson and only lineal de- 
 scendant of the Marquis of Monmouth, a great noble of 
 colossal fortune, the incarnation of common sense, cyni- 
 cism, and selfishness, though disposed to act kindly to 
 those who do not thwart him ; a worshipper of Pitt, but 
 practically a supporter of the later school of Toryism, 
 which was developed by the French Revolution. We 
 are introduced to the boy and the man, the representa- 
 tives of the old generation and the new, in May 1832, 
 just as the old constitution was making its expiring 
 efifort. And on the character of the Parliamentary Ee- 
 form which the Whigs succeeded in establishing, Mr. 
 Disraeli has the following very interesting remarks, of
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 41 
 
 -which much of Mr. Gladstone's essay on the County 
 Franchise is only a repetition : — 
 
 When the crowned Northman consulted on the welfare of his king- 
 tlom, he assembled the estates of his realm. Now an estate is a class 
 •of the nation invested with political rights. There appeai-ed the 
 ■estate of the clergy, of the barons, of other classes. In the Scandina- 
 vian kingdoms to this day, the estate of the peasants sends its repre- 
 sentatives to the Diet. In England, under the Normans, the Church 
 and the Baronage were convoked together with the estate of the com- 
 munity, a term which then 23robably described the inferior holders of 
 land, whose tenure was not immediate of the Crown. This third 
 ■estate was so numerous that convenience suggested its appearance by 
 representation; while the others, more limited, appeared, and still 
 appear, f)ersonally. The third estate was reconstructed as circum- 
 stances developed themselves. It was a reform of Parliament 
 when the towns were summoned. In treating the House of the third 
 estate as the House of the People, and not as the House of a privi- 
 leged class, the Ministry and Parliament of 1831 virtually conceded 
 the principle of univei'sal suffrage. In this point of view, the ten- 
 pound franchise was an arbitrary, irrational, and impolitic qualifica- 
 tion. It had, indeed, the merit of simplicity, and so had the 
 •constitutions of Abbe' Sieyes. But its immediate and inevitable 
 result was Chartism. Biit if the Ministry and Parliament of 1831 
 had announced that the time had arrived when the third estate should 
 be enlarged and reconstructed, they would have occupied an intelligible 
 position; and if, instead of simplicity of elements in its reconstruction, 
 they had sought, on the contrary, various, and varying, materials, 
 which would have neutralized the painful predominance of any parti- 
 cular interest in the new scheme, and prevented those banded 
 jealousies which have been its consequences, the nation would have 
 found itself in a secure condition. Another class, not less numerous 
 than the existing one, and invested with privileges not less impoi'tant, 
 would have been added to the public estates of the realm ; and the 
 bewildering phrase " the People " would have remained what it really 
 is, a term of natural philosophy and not of political science. 
 
 Passing over the intermediate years which are taken 
 up with the boyhood of Coningsby, we come to the 
 political crisis of 1834-5, which introduces us to a fine 
 dissertation on the Duke of Wellington and Sir Eobert 
 Peel, with an account of the Liverpool Administration
 
 42 LIFE OF LORD BEAGONSFIELB. 
 
 in its earlier and later stages. In the former it was tlie 
 " Cabinet of Mediocrities," which has now become a 
 household word. In the latter, " it had come to be 
 generally esteemed as a body of men who for Parliamen- 
 tary eloquence, official practice, political information, 
 sagacity in council, and a due understanding of their 
 epoch, were inferior to none that had directed the policy 
 of the Empire since the Eevolution." 
 
 At this point Mr. Disraeli enters at once upon the his- 
 torical and constitutional theory for the sake of which the 
 book was written, and of which the following passage 
 presents, perhaps, an adequate epitome: — 
 
 If we survey the tenor of the policy of the Liverpool Cabinet 
 during the latter moiety of its continuance, we shall find its character- 
 istic to be a partial recurrence to those frank principles of government 
 which Mr. Pitt had revived, during the latter part of the last centni'V , 
 from precedents that had been set us either in practice or in dogma 
 during its earlier period, by statesmen who then not only bore the 
 title but professed the opinions of Tories. Exclusive principles in 
 the Constitution and restrictive principles in commerce have grown 
 up together, and have really nothing in common with the ancient 
 character of our political settlement or the manners and customs 
 of the English people. Confidence in the loyalty of the nation, 
 testified by munificent grants of rights and franchises, and favour to 
 an expansive system of traffic, were distinctive qualities of the 
 English sovereignty, until the House of Commons usurped the better 
 portion of its prerogatives. A widening of our electoral scheme, 
 great facilities to commerce, and the rescue of our Roman Catholic 
 fellow-subjects from the Puritanic yoke, from fetters which have been 
 fastened on them by English parliaments, in spite of the protests and 
 exertions of English sovereigns ; these were the three great elements 
 and fundamental truths of the real Pitt system — a system founded on 
 the traditions of our monarchy, and caught from the writings, the 
 speeches, the councils, of those who, for the sake of these and analo- 
 gous benefits, had ever been anxious that the Sovereign of England 
 should never be degraded into the position of a Venetian Doge. It is 
 in the plunder of the Church that we must seek for the primary 
 cause of our political exclusion and our commercial restraint. That 
 unhallowed booty created a factitious aristocracy, ever fearful that 
 they might be called upon to re-gorge their sacrilegious spoil. To
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 4S 
 
 prevent this, they took refuge in political religionism, and paltering 
 with the disturbed consciences or the pious fantasies of a portion of 
 the people, they organized themselves into religious sects. Thes© 
 became the unconscious Prajtorians of their ill-gotten domains. At 
 the head of these religionists, they have continued ever since to 
 govern, or povrerfully to influence, this countrj'. They have in that 
 time pulled down thrones and churches, changed dynasties, abi'ogated 
 and remodelled parliaments ; they have disfranchised Scotland and 
 confiscated Ireland. One may admire the vigour and consistency of 
 the Whig Party, and recognise in their career that unity of purpose 
 that can only spring from a great princi2)le ; but the Whigs introduced 
 sectarian religion, sectarian religion led to political exclusion, and 
 political exclusion was soon accompanied by commercial restraint. 
 
 But even the Government, which was led in one 
 House by Mr. Canning and Sir Robert Peel, and sup- 
 ported in the other by the splendid reputation, ripe 
 sagacity, and disinterested patriotism of the Duke of 
 Wellington, was not equal to the occasion : — 
 
 This Ministry, strong in the confidence of the Sovereign, the Parlia- 
 ment, and the people, might, by the courageous promulgation of great 
 historical truths, have graduallj- formed a public opinion that would 
 have permitted them to organize the Tory Party on a broad, a per- 
 manent, and national basis. They might have nobl}' effected a 
 complete settlement of Ireland, which a shattered section of this very 
 Cabinet was forced a few years after to do partially, and in an equivo- 
 cating and equivocal manner. They might have concluded a satis- 
 factory reconstruction of the third estate, without producing that 
 convulsion with which, from its violent fabrication, our social sj'stem 
 still vibrates. Lastly, they might have adjusted the rights and pro- 
 perties of our national industries in a manner which would have 
 prevented that fierce and fatal rivalry that is now disturbing every 
 hearth of the United Kingdom. We may, therefore, visit on the 
 lilchef of this Ministry the introduction of that new principle and 
 power into oui- constitution which ultimately may absorb all — agitation. 
 This Cabinet, then, with so much brilliancy on its surface, is the real 
 parent of the Roman Catholic Association, the political unions, and 
 the Anti-Corn Law League. 
 
 Next comes the Tamworth Manifesto, the account of 
 which is made the vehicle for a description of Conserva- 
 tism which, as has been already pointed out, contrasts
 
 44 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 strangely with his opinion of it in 1835, just after that 
 document had been published. 
 
 Conservatism assumes in theory that everything established shouki 
 be maintained ; but adopts in practice that everything that is esta- 
 blished is indefensible. To reconcile this theory and this practice, 
 they produce what they call " the best bargain"; some arrangement 
 which has no principle and no purpose, except to obtain a temporary 
 lull of agitation, until the mind of the Conservatives, without a guide 
 and without an aim, distracted, tempted, and bewildered, is prepared 
 for another an-angement, equally statesman-like with the preceding 
 one. Conservatism was an attempt to carry on aft'airs by substituting 
 the fulfilment of the duties of office for the performance of the func- 
 tions of government ; and to maintain this negative system by the 
 mere influence of property, reputable private conduct, and what are 
 called good connections. Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks 
 from Principle, disavows Progress ; having rejected all respect for 
 Antiquity, it offers no redress for the Present, and makes no prepai'a- 
 tion for the Future. 
 
 Two years afterwards Coningsby leaves school, and 
 during an excursion in the long vacation through the 
 Midland counties, falls in with Sidonia. He meets him 
 at an inn in a forest, where both take refuge from a 
 thunderstorm — all the elements of romance combining 
 to lend an interest to the interview — and that day is a 
 turning point in Coningsby's career. The stranger — a 
 Jew of the purest race, and a complete citizen of the 
 world — knows everything, has been everywhere, and 
 has seen everybody ; a colossal capitalist, and the 
 resource of half the statesmen in Europe in their pecu- 
 niary difficulties, he is acquainted with the inner life of 
 all the Continental Governments, looks on all institu- 
 tions with a calm, unprejudiced eye, and notes their 
 merits and defects in the tone of an unconcerned spec- 
 tator. The first thing which Coningsby learns from him 
 is the "influence of the individual," and then that 
 "* the history of Heroes is the history of Youth."
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 4& 
 
 They meet again soon afterwards at Coningsby Castle, 
 the seat of Lord Monmouth in the North, where 
 Sidonia gives his pupil some further lessons in history,, 
 politics, and ethnology, and teaches him that theory 
 of the Jewish race, which took the world as much by 
 surprise as the theory of the British Constitution. 
 
 Coningsby goes up to Cambridge bent upon " con- 
 quering knowledge," and with the foundation to build 
 upon with which Sidonia had supplied him, he was 
 soon equal to the task of opening the minds of his 
 companions. The following is his first letter to 
 Buckhurst, Lord Vere, and Lord Henry Sydney : — 
 
 I repeat it [said Coningsby], the great object of the Whig leaders 
 in England, from the first movement'under Hampden to the last more 
 successful one in 1688, was to establish in England a high aristo- 
 cratic republic, on 'the model of the Venetian, then the study and 
 admiration of all speculative politicians. Read Harrington, turn over 
 Algernon Sydney, and you will see how the minds of the English 
 leaders in the seventeenth century were saturated with the Venetian 
 type. And they at length succeeded ; William III. found them out. 
 He told the Whig leaders, " I will not be a Doge." He balanced 
 parties. He bafHed them as the Puritans baffled them fifty years 
 before. The reign of Anne was a struggle between the Venetian and 
 the English systems. Two great Whig nobles, Argyle and Somerset, 
 worthy of seats in the Council of Ten, forced their sovereign on her 
 death-bed to change the Ministry. They accomplished their object ; 
 they brought in a new family on their own terms. George I. was a 
 Doge, George II. was a Doge ; they were what William III., a great 
 man, would not be. George III. tried not to be a Doge, biit it was 
 impossible materially to resist the deeply-laid combination. He 
 might get rid of the Whig magnificoes, but he could not rid himself 
 of the Venetian constitution. And a Venetian constitution did govern 
 England, from the accession of the House of Hanover till 1832. Now, 
 I do not ask you here to relinquish the political tenets which in 
 ordinary times would have been your inheritance. All I say ia, the 
 constitution introduced by your ancestors having been subverted 
 by their descendants your contemporaries, beware of still holding 
 Venetian principles of government when you have not a Venetian 
 constitution to govern with.
 
 46 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Couingsby goes to see his friend Milbauk at 
 Oxford, and his theme is still the same, the degrada- 
 •dation of the Monarchy and the Church, the transitory 
 character of the settlement of 1832, and the possibility 
 of finding in the Crown a cure for " the moral and 
 material disorganization " which society presents. For 
 this purpose, says Coningsby — 
 
 I would accustom the public miud to the contemplation of an 
 •t'xisting though torpid power in the constitution, capable of removing 
 our social grievances were we to transfer to it those prerogatives 
 which the Parliament has gradiially usurped and used in a manner 
 ■which has produced the present material and moral disorganization. 
 The House of Commons is the house of a few ; the Sovereign is the 
 sovereign of all. The proper leader of the people is the individual 
 who sits upon the throne. 
 
 Representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, par- 
 liamentary. Parliament is not sitting at this moment, and yet the 
 nation is represented iu its highest as well as in its most minute 
 interests. Not a grievance escapes notice and redress. I see in the 
 newspaper this morning that a pedagogue has brutally chastised his 
 pupil. It is a fact known over all England. We must not forget 
 that a principle of government is reserved for our days, that we 
 shall not find in our Aristotle, or even in the forests of Tacitus, nor 
 in our Saxon Wittenagemotes, nor in our Plantagenet parliaments. 
 -Opinion now is supreme, and Opinion speaks in print. The represen- 
 tation of the Press is far more complete than the representation of 
 Parliament. Parliamentary representation was the happy device of a 
 ruder age, to which it was admirablj'^ adapted — an age of semi- 
 civilization, when there was a leading class in the community — but it 
 ■exhibits many symptoms of desuetude. It is controlled by a system 
 of representation more vigorous and comprehensive, which absoi'bs 
 its duties and fulfils them more efficiently, and in which discussion is 
 pursued on fairer terms, and often with more depth and infoi-mation. 
 
 If we are forced to revolutionise, let us jDropose 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 bj' a free and intellectual press. Before 
 such a royal authority, supported by such a national opinion, the 
 «ectional anomalies of our country would disappear. 
 
 The future fortunes of Coningsby himself we shall
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 47 
 
 refer to at a later stage. But from the above extracts 
 the reader will be able to discern for himself the nature 
 of the political system which was recommended in the 
 pages of Coningshy, as a cure for the social chaos 
 and disintegration which had followed the Reform Bill 
 of 1832. That subsequent events have justified a 
 good deal of the language which fifty years ago was 
 thought fantastic, and even puerile, will hardly be 
 denied. The House of Commons has certainly not 
 risen in public opinion since Cottinysby first saw the 
 light. Many of the problems therein referred to have 
 only increased in intensity within the last half century. 
 Coninyshy, therefore, has quite lived down the charges 
 originally brought against it of having been written 
 exclusively for efibct without any regard to sober 
 reality, or probability. What was then despised, 
 ridiculed, and made a butt for the sarcasms of every 
 fifth-rate political hack who trod the pavement of Pall 
 Mall has actually come to pass. Toryism has appealed 
 to the people, and appealed with success ; the degene- 
 racy of the House of Commons is admitted and 
 lamented by all parties; the restoration to local 
 jurisdictions of many of the powers which Parliament 
 has absorbed into itself is the acknowledged remedy. 
 And if the progress of events has not strengthened the 
 prerogative of the Crown, it has made the *' individual" 
 more powerful, for a modern Prime Minister with a 
 party majority at his back is much more absolute now 
 than he was before the Reform Bill. 
 
 Goiiinyshy was published in the spring of 1844, and 
 for a time nothing else was talked about. Many 
 years afterwards Mr. Croker pretended that he had 
 never heard of Cojiingshy. Let those believe it who 
 will. The book contained several striking portraits,
 
 48 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 but the most striking of all was Rigby. John Wilson 
 Croker was Rigby, Lord Henry Sydney was Lord John 
 Manners, Buckhurst was Bailie Cochrane, Eustace 
 Lyle, Ambrose Philips. Coningsby was George Smythe^ 
 Beaumanoir, of course, was Belvoir. But of all the por- 
 traits in the gallery Rigby was facile princeps. The 
 likeness was recognised at once. Whatever might 
 be thought of the charges of meanness and base- 
 ness brought against him, there were some qualities 
 assigned to him about which there could be no mistake^ 
 His love of contradiction and dictation, his determination 
 to be always in the right, and to allow no one to be right 
 except himself, were too well known for anyone ac- 
 quainted with the original to doubt for a moment who 
 Rigby was. The Duke of Wellington, whose intimacy 
 with Croker never cooled, said that he once tried to 
 prove to him that he did not know the difference between 
 a scarp and a counterscarp. This story by itself is 
 sufficient to prove that Rigby was no exaggeration. 
 
 The clubs rang with the inimitable satire. In every 
 house in the country which pretended to any interest 
 in either politics^ literature, or fashion, the book lay 
 upon the table. Have you read Co?ii?igsby ? was the 
 stock question which people asked each other at dinner 
 parties. And then for Mr. Croker to pretend some 
 years afterwards that he had never heard of Co?iingsbt/ 
 is too heavy a tax on our credulity. 
 
 But, as types distinct from individuals, the palm is 
 borne off by the two brothers-in-arms. Tadpole and 
 Taper; the two political underlings, half hacks, half 
 adventurers, employed to do the dirty work of the 
 party, and trusted to some extent in consequence ; 
 members of the Carlton, received in society, and rather 
 courted than otherwise by noble and wealthy outsiders,
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 49 
 
 but the incarnation of all that is lowest and meanest 
 in public life, mistaking dodges for statesmanship, and 
 party slang for the vocabulary of political wisdom. 
 
 But only half of what Disraeli had in his mind when 
 he undertook the exposure of Peelite Conservatism was 
 completed by the publication of Coningshy. In Con- 
 ingshy we have laid before us the history of English 
 Parties, and its effect upon the Monarchy and the 
 Church. We are now to advance a step farther and 
 observe its eiFect upon the people. He had only touched 
 the fringe of the labour question in Cotiingsby. Henry 
 Sydney and his Maypoles, Eustace Lyle and his doles^ 
 were only little prettinesses, which did not pretend to 
 go to the root of the matter. In Sybil he struck a 
 deeper note. 
 
 On the 30th of August 1844, he writes to his sister 
 that Manchester has invited him to take the chair at 
 its literary meeting. He accepted the invitation, and 
 took the opportunity thus afforded him of making a tour 
 through the manufacturing districts, and inspecting the 
 working of the factory system with his own eyes. He 
 was accompanied by Lord John Manners and the Hon. 
 George Smythe, and the speeches which they delivered 
 at Manchester and at Bingley, in Yorkshire, were repub- 
 lished in 1885, under the title of Young England. On 
 the title page we read — "As attempts are being made to 
 persuade the new electors that small farms, allotments, 
 and opportunities for physical and mental recreation 
 are new inventions of the new Birmingham school of So- 
 cialistic politicians, it has been thought well to republish 
 this little volume exactly as it appeared 40 years ago.'' 
 No editor's name appears on the title page. But wc 
 can scarcely be wrong in assigning that office to Lord 
 John Manners himself. 
 
 4
 
 50 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Near the town of Bingley, Mrs. Ferrnnd had recently 
 established some allotments for the benefit of operatives, 
 and it was in reference to these that Lord John Manners 
 spoke some forty-three years ago, in support of those 
 views which the Radicals have since stolen from the 
 Tories, and in which many of the Tories themselves do 
 not recognise their ancient inheritance. But it is chiefly 
 in connection with Mr. Disraeli's observations on the 
 state of factory labour that this visit will be remembered, 
 although his description of " war to the cottage," in the 
 pages of his second great political novel, is inferior only 
 to the vivid picture which he has drawn of the cellars 
 and garrets, the "butties" and the "Tommy shops," 
 of our great mining and manufacturing capitals. 
 
 The *' degradation of the people," then, is the theme 
 of Syhily and in it Mr. Disraeli discovers that pal- 
 liation of Chartism which he had glanced at in his 
 speech of 1839. Sybil Gerard is the daughter of an 
 operative, but both father and daughter are exceptional 
 members of the class. Gerard is the descendant of an 
 ancient family, which has gradually sunk into the ranks 
 of labour, but still retains its traditions, and the hope 
 of regaining its estates. He is a manly, generous, 
 good-hearted Radical of the Cobbett type, and leader of 
 the physical force section of the Chartists. He earns 
 excellent wages at a mill which is conducted on excep- 
 tionally humane and kindly principles, and he and his 
 daughter live in a cottage outside the town, quite above 
 the reach of poverty. They are Roman Catholics, and 
 Sybil, young, beautiful, and highly educated by the Abbess 
 •of a neighbouring convent, is destined for the veil, as 
 it is totally impossible she could marry in her own sta- 
 tion of life. When Sybil, we suppose, is about eigh- 
 teen, she accidentally makes the acquaintance of Charles
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 51 
 
 Egremont, the brother of Lord Marney, the owner of 
 Jarge estates in the neighbourhood, and one of the worst 
 specimens of the worst class of English aristocracy, a 
 cynical and selfish utilitarian, whose character is Dis- 
 raeli's masterpiece. Charles Egremont, however, is of 
 a very different mould. He is so struck with the con- 
 versation of Gerard, who tells him at their first meeting 
 that the Queen reigns over ** two nations, the Rich and 
 the Poor," that he resolves to see more of the people ; 
 assumes the character of a journalist unattached, and 
 takes lodgings near the town of Mowbray. The rest 
 may easily be imagined. Egremont falls in love with 
 Sybil, and Sybil and Gerard between them almost con- 
 vert Egremont. The reader now knows enough to un- 
 derstand the following extracts. Sybil and Egremont 
 meet upon an errand of charity, the latter accompanied 
 by the clergyman of the parish, Mr. St. Lys : — 
 
 "You feel deeply for the people," said Egremont, looking at her 
 earnestly. 
 
 "And do you not? Your presence here assures me of it," said 
 Sybil. " When I remember -what the English people once was; the 
 truest, the freest, and the bravest, the best natured and the best 
 looking, the happiest and most religious race upon the surface of this 
 globe, and think of them now, -with all their crimes and all their 
 slavish suffeiings, their soured spirits and their stunted forms, their 
 lives without enjoyment and their deaths without hope, I may well 
 feel for them, even if I were not the daughter of their blood." 
 
 After Egremont has become intimate with the Ge- 
 rards, their conversation generally turns on these 
 subjects. Gerard tells his friend that England is still 
 divided between the conquerors and the conquered : — 
 
 " But do not yon think," said Egremont, " that such a distinction 
 has long ceased to exist ? " 
 
 "In what degree?" asked Gerard. "Many circumstances of op- 
 pression have doubtless gradually disappeared ; but that has arisen 
 from the change of manners, not from any political recognition of 
 
 4 *
 
 52 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 their injustice. The same course of time which has removed many 
 enormities, more shocking, however, to our feelings than to those who 
 devised and endured them, has simultaneously removed many alle- 
 viating circumstances. If the mere baron's grasp be not so ruthless, 
 the champion wo found in the Church is no longer so ready. The 
 spirit of conquest has adapted itself to the changing circumstances 
 of ages ; and however its results vai"y in form, in degree they are much 
 the same." 
 
 '• But how do they show themselves ? " 
 
 '• In many circumstances, which concern many classes ; but I speak 
 of those which touch my own order, and therefore I say at once, in 
 the degradation of the people." 
 
 " But are the people so degraded ? " 
 
 " There is more serfdom in England now than at any time since the 
 Conquest. I speak of what passes under my daily eyes when I say 
 that those who labour can as little choose or change their masters 
 now, as when they were born thralls. There are great bodies of the 
 working classes of this country nearer to the condition of brutes than 
 they have been at any time since the Conquest. Indeed, I see 
 nothing to distinguish them from brutes except that their morals are 
 inferior. Incest and infanticide are as common among them as among 
 the lower animals. The domestic principle wanes weaker and weaker 
 everj' year in England ; nor can we wonder at it when there is no 
 comfort to cheer and no sentiment to hallow the home." 
 
 " I was reading a work the other day," said Egremont, " that sta- 
 tistically proved that the general condition of the people was much 
 better at this moment than it had been at any known period of 
 history." 
 
 " Ah ! yes. I know that style of speculation," said Gerard. 
 " Your gentleman who reminds you that a working man has now a 
 pair of cotton stockings, and that Harry the Eighth himself was not 
 as well off. At an}' rate, the condition of classes must be judged of 
 by the age, and by their relation with each other. One need not dwell 
 on that. I deny the premisses. I deny that the condition of the 
 main body is better now than at any other period of our history ; 
 that it is as good as it has been at several. I saj', for instance, the 
 people were better clothed, oetter lodged, and better fed just before 
 the War of the Roses than they are at this moment. We know how 
 an English peasant lived in those times ; he ate flesh eveiy day, he 
 never drank water, was well housed, and clothed in stout woollens. 
 Nor are the chronicles necessary to tell us this. The Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, from the Plantagenets to the Tudors, teach us alike the price of 
 provisions and the rate of wages ; and we see in a moment that the
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 53 
 
 ■wages of those days brought as much sustenance and comfort as a 
 reasonable man could desire." 
 
 "I know how deeply you feel upon this subject," said Egremont, 
 turning to Sybil. 
 
 " Indeed it is the only subject that ever engages my thought," she 
 replied, " except one." 
 
 " And that one ? " 
 
 " Is to see the people once more kneel before our Blessed Lady," 
 replied Sybil. 
 
 As the views expressed in this passage were much ridi- 
 culed when they first appeared, we would refer the 
 reader to an authority that will be allowed to be unim- 
 peachable : the Report, namely, of the Commission for 
 Enquiry into the Employment of Women and Children 
 in Agriculture, in which the connection of the pea- 
 santry with the land and their physical condition is 
 traced from the earliest times down to the present date. 
 The Blue-book of 1868 fully corroborates the novel of 
 1845, and shows that in this as in many other parti- 
 culars, both in Coningsby and Sybil, which have been 
 called in question, Mr. Disraeli's statements were 
 founded on accurate knowledge. 
 
 We must now suppose the Chartist movement to have 
 reached its height. The petition has been presented 
 and rejected, and the people are represented as feeling 
 that they have nothing more to hope for from either 
 Party. "Once," says the author, "it was other- 
 wise''' — 
 
 once the people recognised a Party in the State whose principles 
 identified them with the rights and privileges of the multitude ; but 
 when they found the parochial constitution of the country sacrificed 
 without a struggle, and a rude assault made on all local influences in 
 order to establish a severely-organized centralisation, a blow was 
 given to the influence of the priest and of the gentleman, the ancient 
 champions of the people against arbitrary courts and rapacious 
 parhaments, from which they will find that it requires no ordinary 
 •courage and wisdom to reco
 
 54 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 In St/btl the political views of (Joningsby ure repeated 
 and enforced by fresh arguments ; and in the conclud- 
 ing pages the aims of both are thus expressed : — 
 
 And thus I conclude the last page of a work which, though its form 
 be light and wnpretonding, would yet aspire to suggest to its readers 
 some considerations of a very opposite character. A yearjago I pre- 
 sumed to offer to the public some volumes that aimed at calling their 
 attention to the state of our political parties, their origin,|,their his- 
 tory, their present position. In an age of political infidelity, of mean 
 passions, and faulty thoughts, I would have impressed upon'the rising 
 race not to despair, but to seek in a right understanding of the history 
 of their country, and in the energies of heroic youth, the [elements of 
 national welfare. The present work advances another step in the 
 same emprise. From the state of pai'ties, it now would^draw public 
 thought to the state of the people whom those parties for two cen- 
 turies have governed. The comprehension and the cure of this 
 greater evil depend upon the same agencies as the first ; it is the 
 past alone that can explain the present, and it is youth that alone 
 can mould the remedial future. The written history of our country 
 for the last ten reigns has been a mere phantasm, giving to the origin 
 and consequence of public transactions a character and colour in 
 every respect dissimilar to their natural form and hue. In this 
 mighty mystery all thoughts and things have assumed an aspect and 
 title contrary to their real quality and stj'le ; Oligarchy has been 
 called Liberty ; an exclusive Priesthood has been christened a 
 National Church ; Sovereignty has been the title of something that 
 has had no dominion, while absolute power has been wielded by those 
 who profess themselves the servants of the People. In the selfish 
 strife of factions two great existences have been blotted out of the 
 history of England, the Monarch and the Multitude ; as the power of 
 the Crown has diminished the privileges of the People have disap- 
 peared, till at length the sceptre has become a pageant, and its sub- 
 ject has degenerated again into a serf. It is nearly fourteen years 
 ago, in the popular frenzy of a mean and selfish revolution, which 
 emancipated neither the Crown nor the People, that I first took the 
 occasion to intimate, and then to develop, to the first assembly of my 
 countrymen that I ever had the honour to address, these convictions. 
 They have been misunderstood, as is ever for a season the fate of 
 Truth, and they have obtained for their promulgator much misrepre- 
 sentation, as must ever be the lot of those who will not follow the 
 beaten track of a fallacious custom. But Time, that brings all things, 
 has brought also to the mind of England some suspicion that the
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 65 
 
 idols they have so long worshipped, and the oracles that have so long 
 deluded them, are not the true ones. There is a whisper rising in 
 this country that Loyalty is not a phrase, Faith not a delusion, and 
 Popular Liberty something more diffusive and substantial than tho 
 profane exercise of the sacred rights of Sovereignty by political 
 classes. That we may live to see England once more possess a free 
 monarchy and a privileged and prosperous people is my prayer ; that 
 these great consequences can only be brought about by the energy 
 and devotion of our youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when 
 to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We 
 must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are 
 represented by suffering millions ; and the youth of a nation are the 
 trustees of Posterity. 
 
 I have given copious extracts from these two novels 
 because I desired that the author should speak for him- 
 self. What he intended to convey is clear enough ; 
 how far he thought it practical is a separate question. 
 
 Sybil was published — appropriately — on May Day 
 1845, and was dedicated to " a perfect wife." It 
 attracted little less attention than Coningsby, and was 
 welcomed by the High Church party as an important 
 contribution to their literature. Lord Ashley, too, 
 and the promoters of the Factory Acts recognised a 
 powerful auxiliary in the hand that drew Hell House 
 Yard, Diggs's Tommy Shop, Devil's Dust, and the 
 lodgings of Warner, the hand-loom weaver. Hence- 
 forth Mr. Disraeli was everywhere recognised as the 
 leader of a political and social revival which did not 
 allow that the laws of political economy were necessarily, 
 at all times and all places and under all circumstances, 
 of paramount and absolute authority. 
 
 In what form, or under what conditions, he contem- 
 plated the realisation of the political ideal sketched 
 out at this period it is impossible to say. But it is 
 quite certain that in Co7iingshy and Sybil, where he 
 pushes these views to the farthest point to which he
 
 56 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD, 
 
 ever carried them, he was not contemplating democracy. 
 He was fond of using the word democracy to denote a 
 class — not a form of government ; and he generally 
 seems to have meant by it the people in their political 
 capacity; the people invested with political rights; and 
 regarded as a political force. But that they should be 
 supreme — ui plurimum plurimi valeant — was never his 
 intention for a moment. We can only approach his 
 meaning by generalising from a large number of state- 
 ments published in various shapes and uttered at 
 various times. We were to have a monarchy with real 
 powers and prerogatives for daily use. The Sovereign 
 was not only to reign, but to govern. Nor did his 
 speculations point in the direction of a democratic 
 despotism, for equally important, in his eyes, with the 
 revival of the Monarchy and the Church, was the main- 
 tenance of our " territorial constitution," and the 
 authority and jurisdiction of the gentry, a system in- 
 compatible with despotism in any form. In his later 
 years he seems to have seen that one-half of this scheme, 
 the revival of prerogative, was for the present, at all 
 events, unattainable; and this conviction must have 
 modified his views upon the other parts of the system 
 which constituted the Young England creed. The 
 extension of popular functions was to be balanced by 
 the extension of monarchical authority. Unless the 
 two could be combined he would, perhaps, have recom- 
 mended neither. But if the first should become 
 inevitable, as it did after Lord John Russell re-opened 
 the Reform Question, then, in the absence of the second, 
 we must do the best we could with our existing 
 materials, and not disdain even the help of the oligarchy 
 to preserve the balance of the constitution. At the 
 cost of anticipating events we may be allowed, perhaps,
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND. 57 
 
 at this point, to quote his speech of 1873, as showing 
 more clearly than any other passage to which we can 
 refer, the degree in which, at the age of sixty-eight, he 
 still clung to his original convictions, and the form 
 which they had taken in his mind, after thirty years 
 experience of progress. 
 
 I believe that the Tory Party at the present time occupies the 
 most satisfactory position which it has held since the days of its 
 greatest statesmen, Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville. It has divested 
 itself of those excrescences which are not indigenous to its 
 native growth, but which in a time of long prosperity were the con- 
 sequence partly of negligence, and partly, perhaps, in a certain 
 degree, of ignorance of its traditions. We are now emerging from 
 the fiscal period in which almost all the public men of this genera- 
 tion have been brought up. All the questions of Trade and Naviga- 
 tion, of the Incidence of Taxation, and of Public Economy, are 
 settled. But there are other questions not less important, and of 
 deeper and higher reach and range, which must soon engage the 
 attention of the country : the attributes of a constitutional 
 monarchy — whether the aristocratic principle should be recognised in 
 our Constitution, and, if so, in what form? Whether the Commons 
 of England shall remain an estate of the realm, numerous but privi- 
 leged, and qualified ; or whether they should degenerate into an 
 indiscriminate multitude ? Whether a National Church shall be 
 maintained ; and if so, what shall be its rights and duties ? The 
 functions of corporations, the sacredness of endowments, the tenure of 
 landed property, the free disposal, and even the existence of any kind 
 of property, all those institutions, and all those principles which have 
 made this country free and famous, and conspicuous for its union of 
 order with liberty, are now impugned, and in due time will become 
 great and burning questions. 
 
 These may fitly be called the last words of Young 
 England ; and they breathe a spirit of Conservatism 
 wliich thirty years experience had shown to be a 
 necessary element even of the most popular Toryism. 
 
 In spite of Mr. Disraeli's attack upon Kitualism at a 
 later period of his life, there was much in common between 
 the Anglican revival and Young England ; Antiquam 
 exquirite malrem was the motto of each. Both
 
 58 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 originated in the same source, the political and religious 
 latitudinarianisra which followed the revolution con- 
 summated in 1832, as they follow ail revolutions. Each 
 aimed at a revival of faith, by setting up before the 
 people a better system than the one which had collapsed, 
 and recalling to their minds what had been the essential 
 principles of the Church of England in the seventeenth, 
 and of the Tory party in the eighteenth, century ; and the 
 work in which Newman explains his own conception of 
 the attempt in which he was engaged, might serve^ 
 mutatis mutandis, for an epitome of Mr. Disraeli's. 
 " It remains to be tried," wrote Newman, in 1837, 
 " whether, what is called Anglo-Catholicism — the 
 religion of Andrews, Laud, Hammond, Butler and 
 Wilson — is capable of being professed, acted on, and 
 maintained on a large sphere of action ; or whether it 
 be a mere modification of a transition state of either 
 Romanism or popular Protestantism." So. in 1843, it 
 remained to be tried — so, at least, thought Young 
 England — whether the Toryism of the patriot King was 
 capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained 
 on a large sphere of action ; or whether it was a mere 
 modification of either Absolutism or Venelianism. That 
 the experiment has left a real and lasting impression on 
 English politics, will be allowed, though its influence 
 has been much more indirect and imperceptible than 
 that of the Anglican movement ; and that it sprang 
 from some want of which modern society was only half 
 conscious, may fairly be inferred from the fact that 
 between Disraeli and Carlyle there is a fundamental 
 agreement in principle. The '* individual " of the one 
 is only " the hero " of the other.
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 1845-52. 
 
 First direct attack on Peel — The Post Office scandal — Debate"^on 
 agricultural distress — Tour on the Continent — Disraeli's econo- 
 mical policy — Fall of Peel's administration — Visit to Belvoir 
 Castle — Disraeli leader of the Opposition — Reconstruction of ^tho 
 Conservative party — Speech on the Burdens upon Land — Success 
 of Disraeli's tactics — Social incidents — The Life of Lord George 
 Bentinck — The first Derby ministry — Bitterness of the Opposition 
 — Successes of the Government — The London Press — Result of 
 the general election — The Budget — Defeat of the Government 
 
 I HAVE referred to Mr. Disraeli's speech on the Irish 
 Arms Bill in 1843, when he wondered why the descen- 
 dants of the Cavaliers should persist in governing Ire- 
 land on the principles of the Puritans. In February 
 1844, he spoke on Ireland again, when he uttered the 
 memorable words, " An absentee aristocracy, an alien 
 church, and a starving population — that is the Irish 
 question." But it was in June 1844 that he made his 
 first direct attact upon Sir Robert Peel, and began the
 
 60 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 battle, the wounds inflicted in which have scarcely 
 healed yet. 
 
 The speech of the 17th of June was on the Sugar 
 Duties. In the same session Ministers had been beaten 
 on a motion of Lord Ashley's, and Sir Robert had com- 
 pelled the House to rescind its vote. They were beaten 
 a second time on the Sugar Duties by Mr. Mills, when 
 the House was again condemned to a similar act of 
 self-abasement. Disraeli now reminded Sir Robert of 
 what he had said in 1841, namely, that he had never 
 joined in the anti-slavery cry, and would not then join 
 in the cheap sugar cry. He had now, said the speaker, 
 joined in both, but there was one place where his 
 ancient predilections were still allowed full play, and 
 that was on the benches just behind him. " There the 
 gang is still assembled, and there the thong of the whip 
 still sounds.^' 
 
 The next session, 1845, was an eventful one. It 
 began with the famous " Post Office Scandal," and 
 included a great debate on agricultural distress, and 
 another on the Maynooth Grant. Mr. Disraeli spoke 
 on all three, but it was rather to the conduct of Sir 
 Robert Peel than to the merits of the question that he 
 addressed himself in each case. In the previous year a 
 complaint had been made to Parliament that the letters 
 of Mazziui and others had been opened at the General 
 Post Office by order of the Home Secretary. A com- 
 mittee of inquiry was appointed, but their report was 
 considered so unsatisfactory, that in 1845 Mr. T. Dun- 
 combe, who had moved for the first committee, moved 
 for another. The motion was defeated by a large majo- 
 rity, and he then returned to the charge by demanding 
 the production of the Post Office books. He was again 
 beaten. But Mr. Disraeli supported him on both occa-
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 61 
 
 sions, and reproached the Prime Minister with making 
 a party question of what had nothing to do with party. 
 Some ministers, he said, might be excused for acting 
 in this manner. One who had a very small majority, 
 or none at all, might think it necessary to exact strict 
 obedience. But Sir Robert Peel might be more in- 
 dulgent. He occupied an impregnable position. He 
 had no need of a coalition. He had got his own 
 majority behind him, and he had appropriated the 
 principles of the Opposition. "The Right Honour- 
 able gentleman had caught the Whigs bathing and 
 walked away with their clothes." He had nothing 
 to fear from either side. He had the votes of one 
 and the principles of the other. The sarcasm has 
 always seemed to me to have been rather dragged in 
 by the head and shoulders ; but at the time it was 
 irresistible. 
 
 About a fortnight afterwards, on the 17th of March, 
 followed the debate on Agricultural Distress. It was 
 moved by Mr. Mills " that in the application of surplus 
 revenue towards relieving the burdens of the country, 
 due regard should be had to the necessity of affording 
 relief to the agricultural interest." In his speech on 
 this occasion, Mr. Disraeli was delivered of one of the 
 most finished and pointed satires which ever fell from 
 his lips. Referring to Sir Robert's change of tone 
 towards the agricultural interest, he said : — 
 
 There is no doubt a difference in the right honourable gentleman's 
 demeanour as Leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. 
 But that 's the old story ; you must not contrast too strongly 
 the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true 
 that the right honourable gentleman's conduct is different. I 
 remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best 
 speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right 
 honourable say, " I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of
 
 62 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 England than possess tho confidence of sovereigns." That was a 
 grand thing. We don't hear much of the " gentlemen of England" 
 now. But what of that ? They have the pleasures of memory, the 
 charm of reminiscences. They were his first love, and though he 
 may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can 
 recall the past ; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these 
 scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these 
 cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to 
 appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man, 
 almost, has gone through it. My honourable friends reproach the 
 right honourable gentleman. Tho right honourable gentleman does 
 what he can to keep them quiet ; he sometimes takes refuge in arro- 
 gant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity ; 
 and if they knew anything of human nature, they would take the hint 
 and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens ? 
 What happens under all such circumstances ? The right honourable 
 gentleman being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who 
 says in the genteelest manner, " We can have no whining here 1 " And 
 that. Sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest — that 
 beauty which everybody wooed, and one deluded. There is a fatality 
 in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her 
 career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that 
 Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For 
 my part, if we are to have Free Trade, I, who honour genius, prefer 
 that such measures should be proposed by the honourable member for 
 Stockport (Mr. Cobden) than by one who, through skilful parliamen- 
 tary manoeuvres, has tampered with the generous confidence of a 
 great people, and of a great party. For myself, I care not what may 
 be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have 
 betrayed, and appeal to the people, who, I believe, mistrust you. For 
 me there remains this, at least, the opportunity of expressing thus 
 publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organized 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 The valet was Mr. Sidney Herbert, and the sting 
 •was never either forgotten or forgiven. 
 
 Disraeli's opposition to the Maynooth Grant, accord- 
 ing to his own statement, broke up the Young Eng- 
 land party, but his speech on the second reading is 
 remarkable rather for an excursus on Party government 
 than for any views which it contains on the question 
 of Roman Catholic endowment. He warns Sir Robert
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 63 
 
 Peel that he is breaking up the system of Party, and 
 that the destruction of Party means the destruction of 
 Parliamentary government. There was plenty to be 
 said, he added, against the Party system, only he 
 cautioned the House not to undermine it with their 
 «yes shut, and without seeing what they were about. 
 The breach between the minister and the able and 
 audacious mutineer who was rapidly forming a party 
 of his own was now complete, and when, in the 
 following year Sir Robert abandoned Protection 
 altogether, even those who had condemned Mr. Dis- 
 raeli's personalities were compelled to acknowledge 
 his foresight. 
 
 In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Disraeli went abroad again, 
 and took a house for a month or two at Cassel, where 
 he found bad accommodation but a fine country and 
 excellent cookery. " Our cook," he wrote to his sister, 
 ** stews pigeons in the most delicious way ; eggs, cloves, 
 and onions in a red brown sauce, a dish of the time of 
 the Duke of Alva." He returned by Paris in December, 
 when he had an audience of the King and Queen, and 
 met Washington Irving, whom he thought vulgar and 
 stupid. It was while he was at Paris that he heard of 
 the Ministerial crisis in England, and as the letters to 
 his sister break off at this point, we presume he lost no 
 time in returning to the scene of action. 
 
 There is here a gap in the correspondence, which, 
 with one exception, extends to the beginning of 1848, 
 and we must now turn to the Life of Lord George Ben- 
 tinck for Mr. Disraeli's own version of the great Free 
 Trade struggle. This book was not published till 1852. 
 But we must avail ourselves of its contents in tracing 
 the career of Mr. Disraeli, through the two momentous 
 years which intervene between the autumn of 1846 and
 
 64 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the autumn of 1848. Not that we need linger on them 
 very long. Disraeli took up the position from the first, 
 not that Free Trade was in the abstract indefensible, for 
 his great heroes, Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Pitt had 
 been Free Traders, but that Sir Robert Peel had first of 
 all betrayed his party and afterwards insulted it ; had 
 violated the understanding on which he had been placed 
 in power, and then reproached and derided his followers^ 
 for adhering to the lessons which he himself had taught 
 them. It is true that Disraeli was opposed then, and 
 was opposed to the last, to the unconditional system of 
 Free Trade which was preached by the Anti-Corn Law 
 League, and which had for its avowed object the transfer 
 of political power from the territorial to the commercial 
 aristocracy. But the purely economic aspects of the 
 question he always thought of secondary importance. To 
 understand his views fully we must go back to his earlier 
 speeches. Even in 1843 he told his constituents at 
 Shrewsbury : " Your corn laws are only the outwork of a 
 great system, fixed and established upon your territorial 
 property ; and the only object the Leaguers have, in 
 making themselves masters of the outwork, is that they 
 may easily overcome the citadel." On the 20th Feb- 
 ruary 1846, on the proposal to go into Committee of 
 the whole House to consider the question of the Corn 
 Laws, he said : — 
 
 I know that we have been told, and by one who, on this subject, 
 should be the highest authority, that we shall derive from this great 
 struggle not merely the repeal of the Corn Laws, but the transfer of 
 power from one class to another — to one distinguished for its intelli- 
 gence and wealth — the manufacturers of England. 
 
 And it was against this transfer that he always took up 
 his parable. 
 
 I repeat what I have repeated before, that in this country there are 
 special reasons why we should not only maintain the balance between
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 65 
 
 the two branches of our national industry, but why we shoiild give a 
 preponderance — I do not say a predominance, which was the word 
 ascribed by the honourable member for Manchester to the noble lord 
 the member for London, but which he never used — why we should 
 give a preponderance, for that is the proper and constitutional word, 
 to the agricultural branch. And the reason is, because in England 
 we have a territorial constitution. We have thrown upon the land 
 the revenues of the Church, the administration of justice, and the 
 estate of the poor; and this has been done not to gratify the pride, 
 or pamper the luxury, of the proprietors of the land, but becaiise in a 
 territorial constitution you, and those whom you have succeeded, have 
 found the only security for self-government, the only barrier against 
 that centralising system which has taken root in other countries. 
 
 The importance of our " territorial constitution " is 
 the key-note of bis economical policy. His speeches 
 are full of it. And when Sir Robert Peel said that he 
 would rather be the leader of the country gentlemen of 
 England than possess the confidence of princes, he 
 must have entertained the same high opinion of it as 
 Mr. Disraeli did. Mr. Gladstone has also given us his 
 own version of the uses of a landed aristocracy, and here 
 it is: — 
 
 We think that we ought to look forward to bringing about a state 
 of things in which the landlords of Ireland may assume, or may more 
 generally assume, the position which is happily held as a class by 
 landlords in this country — a position marked by residence, by per- 
 sonal familiarity, and by sympathy among the people with whom they 
 live, by long traditional connection handed on from generation to 
 generation, and marked by a constant discharge of duty in eveiy form 
 that can bo suggested — be it as to the administration of justice, be it 
 as to the defence of the country, be it as to the supplj' of social, or 
 or spiritual, or moral, or educational wants ; be it for any pur- 
 pose whatever that is recognised as good or beneficial in a civilised 
 society.* 
 
 Whether Protective Duties were necessary to the 
 support of the class whose existence is so beneficial to 
 
 * House of Commons. Fehrunry I7th. 1870. Speech on Irish Lnml 
 Act.
 
 66 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 society is another question, and Mr. Disraeli would 
 certainly not have insisted on the affirmative. All he 
 said was that if the Corn Law of 1815 were repealed, 
 the laud must be relieved of those peculiar burdens for 
 which Protection was supposed to compensate. And 
 the justice of this view seems now to be admitted by all 
 parties. 
 
 Disraeli's speeches on Free Trade and the Agricultural 
 interest, extending from January 1846 to February 1851, 
 are remarkable for their breadth and foresight. He, 
 from the first, scouted Cobden's idea that the rest of the 
 world would follow the example of England, pointing 
 out very pertinently that the rest of the world did not 
 subordinate every other national consideration to political 
 economy, and he also uttered a propliecy which thirty 
 years afterwards he had the gloomy satisfaction of seeing 
 fulfilled .— 
 
 It may be vain now, in the midnight of their intoxication, to tell 
 them that there will he an awakening of bitterness ; it may be idle 
 now, in the springtide of their economic frenzy, to warn them that 
 there may be an ebb of trouble. But the dark and inevitable hour 
 will arrive. Then, when their spirit is softened by misfortune, they 
 will recur to those principles that made England great, and which, 
 in our belief, can alone keep England great. Then, too, perchance, 
 they may remember, not with unkindness, those who, betrayed and 
 deserted, were neither ashamed nor afraid to struggle for the " good 
 old cause " — the cause with which ai'e associated principles the most 
 popular, sentiments the most entirely national, the cause of labour, 
 the cause of the people — the cause of England. 
 
 Mr. Bright said of this speech it was the finest he 
 had ever heard. It was delivered on the 15th of May 
 1846, on the third reading of the Corn Importation 
 Bill, and in the spring of 1879, exactly one generation 
 afterwards, Lord Beaconsfield was called upon to an- 
 swer a motion in the House of Lords praying for a
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 67 
 
 Royal Commission to enquire into the distressed state of 
 agriculture. " The dark and inevitable hour" had at 
 last arrived. But, as he then told his complainants, it was 
 too late. We could not retrace our steps. The country 
 had decided after due deliberation, and by that decision 
 we were bound. 
 
 It was at half-past one o'clock on the morning of 
 Friday. June 26, 1846, that the division was taken 
 on the Irish Coercion Bill which put an end to Sir 
 Robert Peel's Administration, and of which so vivid a 
 picture has been left us in the Life of Lord George 
 Bentinck. 
 
 But it was not merely their numbers that attracted the anxious 
 observation of the Treasury Bench as the Protectionists passed in 
 defile before the Minister to the hostile lobby- It was impossible that 
 he could have marked them without emotion, the flower of that great 
 party which had been so proud to follow one who had been so proud 
 to lead them. They were men to gain whose hearts, and the hearts 
 of their fathers, had been the aim and exultation of his life. They 
 had extended to him an unlimited confidence, and an admiration 
 without stint. They had stood by him in the darkest hour, and had 
 borne him from the depths of political despair to the proudest of 
 living j^ositions. Right or wrong, they were men of honour, breed- 
 ing, and refinement, high and generous character, great weight and 
 .station in the country, which they had ever placed at his disposal. 
 They had been not only his followers but his friends, had joined in the 
 eame pastimes, drunk from the same cup, and in the pleasantness of 
 private life had of ten forgotten together the cares and strife of politics. 
 He must have felt something of this while the Manners, the Somersets, 
 the Bentincks, the Lowthers, and the Lennoxes passed before him. And 
 those country gentlemen, those gentlemen of England, of whom but 
 five years ago the very same building was i-inging with his pride of 
 being the leader — if his heart were hardened to Sir Charles Burrell, 
 Sir William .Jolliff'e, Sir Charles Knightly, Sir John Trollope, Sir 
 Ed\vard Kerrison, Sir John Tyrrell, he surely must have had a 
 pang when his eye rested on Sir John Yarde BuUer, his choice and 
 pattern country gentleman, whom he had himself selected and invited 
 but six years back to move a vote of want of confidence in the Whig 
 Government, in order, against the feelintj df the Court to install Sir 
 
 5 -^
 
 68 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Robert Poel ill their stead. They trooped on : all the men of metal 
 and large-acred squii-es whose spirit he had so often quickened, 
 and whose counsel he had so often solicited in his fine Conservative 
 speeches in Whitehall Gardens : Mr. Bankes, with a parliamentary 
 name of two centuries ; and Mr. Christopher from that broad Lin- 
 colnshire which Protection had created ; and the Mileses and the Hen- 
 leys were there; and the Buncombes, the Liddells, and the Yorkes ; 
 and Devon had sent there the stout heart of Mr. Buck, and Wiltshire 
 the pleasant presence of Walter Lon^^ Mr. Newdegate was there, 
 whom Sir Robert had himself recommended to the confidence of the 
 electors of Warwickshire, as one of whom he had the highest hopes ; 
 and Mr. Alderman Thompson was there, who, also through Sir 
 Robert's selection, had seconded the assault upon the Whigs, led on 
 by Sir John Buller. But the list is too long, or good names remain 
 behind. 
 
 The Government were beaten byamajority of seventy- 
 three. When Sir Robert was told, as he sat upon the 
 Treasury Bench before the numbers were announced, 
 " he did not reply, or even turn his head. He looked 
 very grave and extended his chin, as was his habit when 
 he was annoyed, and cared not to speak. He began to 
 comprehend his position, and that the Emperor was 
 without his army." 
 
 During the recess Disraeli paid a visit to the Duke 
 of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, which he seems then to 
 have seen for the first time. On the 10th of August 
 he writes to his sister : — 
 
 1 tliought you would like to have a line from Beaumanoir, though 
 it is not in the least like Beaumanoir, but Coningsbj' Castle to the 
 very life ; gorgeous Gothic of a quarter of a century past, and sloj)es 
 and shrubberies like Windsor ; the general view, however, notwith- 
 standing the absence of the Thames, much finer. Granby and myself 
 arrived here in a fly on Thursday, and were received by two rows of 
 •servants, bowing as we passed, which very much reminded me of the 
 arrival of Coningsby himself. Xothing can be more amiable than the 
 family here, agreeable and accomplished besides. George Bentinck 
 went off this morning at dawn, the Duke of Richmond on Saturday. 
 On that day we rode over to Harlaxton Manor, a chateau of Fran9ois 
 T.'s time, now erecting by a Mr. Gregory. Yesterday, after the pri-
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 69 
 
 vate chapel, we lionised the Castle, which I prefer to Windsor, as the 
 rooms, in proportion to the general edifice, are larger and more mag- 
 nificent. Afterwards to the Belvoir kennel, which itself required a 
 day. 
 
 At the General Election of 1847, Mr. Disraeli, as we 
 have seen, was returned for Buckinghamshire, and in a 
 speech delivered at Aylesbury on the 26th of June, he 
 drew that distinction between Liberal opinions and 
 popular principles, of which his subsequent career 
 afforded many singular illustrations. 
 
 For one session Lord George Bentinck, chiefly through 
 the exertions of Disraeli, was the leader of the Protec- 
 tionist party. But the vote which he gave in 1847 in 
 favour of the Jew Bill cost him his place, or rather 
 evoked remonstrances which led to his resignation of it. 
 Lord Stanley was consulted on the choice of his suc- 
 cessor, but refused to interfere, and ultimately, ac- 
 cording to Greville, the choice fell upon Lord Granby. 
 But he seems to have been a roi faineant. Lord George 
 Bentinck at the opening of next session took his seat 
 below the gangway, Disraeli still retaining his own on 
 the front Opposition bench ; but the Opposition was in 
 reality " acephalous " as Greville calls it. Throughout 
 this session there was no practical chief. But Disraeli 
 was rapidly showing that there could be only one. On 
 the 20th August he made a speech on Foreign Policy, 
 which even Greville, an unwilling witness, allows to 
 have been a '* very brilliant one." Ten days afterwards 
 be spoke again, on the '* Labours of the session, and it 
 was this speech to which he himself always attributed 
 his being invested with the leadership after the death of 
 Lord George Bentinck. This took place in September 
 1848, and had Lord Granby really been leader. Lord
 
 70 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 George's death would have made no difference — would 
 have occasioned no necessity, that is, for choosing a new 
 one. Such however, was its consequence. And on 
 January 1849 the party met for that purpose. Lord 
 Granby himself was one of the first to propose Disraeli. 
 The Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Kichmond, Mr. 
 Miles, and Mr. Bankes, are also named in his letter 
 to his sister, as having urged his qualifications on 
 Lord Stanley. Disraeli himself says " the only awk- 
 ward thing now is Stanley's position in consequence of 
 his first rash letter." That letter may be conjectured to 
 have been the one which he wrote when applied to the 
 year before on the resignation of Lord G. Bentinck. 
 At page 165 of vol. iii. of the Croker Papers is to be 
 found a letter from Lord George Bentinck to Croker, of 
 the date of March 2nd, 1848, from which it might be 
 inferred that Lord Stanley was at that time opposed to 
 the pretensions of Mr. Disraeli. Lord George, after a 
 high encomium on Mr. Disraeli's oratory, records his 
 conviction that, " in spite of Lord Stanley " and others, 
 it will end in Disraeli being leader of the party before 
 two sessions are over. The prediction was fulfilled in 
 less than half the time. And Lord Stanley very soon 
 saw that he was the right man in the right place, and 
 for the remainder of his life never failed on every 
 occasion to do justice to his genius and his character. 
 
 In 1849, then, he took his seat in the House of 
 Commons as the acknowledged Leader of the Oppo- 
 sition ; and now began his great work — the recon- 
 struction of the Conservative Party. The following 
 is his own account of the steps which he took for 
 that purpose. After the General Election of 1847, 
 the number of supporters on whom the Leader of the 
 Opposition could rely hardly exceeded one hundred and
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 71 
 
 fifty. On his motion on Irish Railways, in 1848, the 
 great trial of strength for the session, Lord George 
 Bentinck only carried a hundred and eighteen members 
 into the lobby with him. But there were still more 
 than a hundred Peelites who belonged to the landed 
 interest, and who, on all subjects but one, were still 
 thorough -going Conservatives. To accustom them to 
 find themselves in the same lobby with their former 
 associates was Disraeli^s first object, and he began with 
 a motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the 
 " Burdens upon Land,^' on the unequal pressure of 
 taxation on the agricultural classes. The existence of 
 considerable distress among the farmers was admitted 
 on both sides of the House. The Peelites, as country 
 gentlemen, were deeply interested in obtaining compen- 
 sation for their tenantry. Any project of this kind, 
 undarkened by the shadow of Protection, they were 
 bound to support; and when the division took place 
 it justified Mr. Disraeli's foresight, as it gave him an 
 increase of forty votes over the best division which the 
 Conservatives had to show since the dissolution. The 
 speech which he made upon this occasion is perhaps the 
 most truly eloquent of all his great speeches on the 
 subject. It breathes what are rarely found together, 
 genuine feeling combined with brilliant rhetoric. 
 
 The agriculturists [he §aid] have not forgotten that they have been 
 spoken of in terms of contempt by Ministers of State — ay, even by a 
 son of one of their greatest houses : a house that always loves the 
 land, and that the land still loves. They have not forgotten that 
 they have been held up to public odium and reprobation by trium- 
 phant demagogues. They have not forgotten that their noble 
 industry, which in the old days was considered the invention of gods 
 and the occupation of heroes, has been stigmatised and denounced as 
 an incubus upon English enterprise. They have not forgotten that 
 even the very empire that was created by the valour and the devotion
 
 72 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 of tlieir fathers has been held up to public hatred, as a cunibersome 
 and ensaiiguinod machinery, only devised to pamper the luxury and 
 feed the rapacity of our territorial houses. 
 
 You think that you may trust their proverbial loyalty. Trust 
 their loyalty, but do uot abuse it. Their conduct to you has exhibited 
 no hostile feeling, notwithstanding the political changes that have 
 abounded of late years, and all apparently to a diminution of their 
 powers. They have inscribed a homely sentence on their rural ban- 
 ners ; but it is one which, if I mistake not, is already again touching 
 the heart and convincing the reason of England — '• Live and Let Live." 
 
 Your system and theirs arc exactly contrai'y. Thej- invite " union." 
 They beUeve that national prosperity can only be produced by the 
 prosperity of all classes. You prefer to remain in isolated sj^lendoui' 
 and solitary magnificence. But, believe me, I sjjeak uot as your 
 enemy, when I say that it will be an exception to the principles which 
 seem hitherto to have ruled society, if you can succeed in maintaining 
 the success at which you aim without the possession of that perma- 
 nence and stability which the territorial principle alone can aft'ord. 
 Although you may for a moment flourish after their destruction — 
 although your ports may be filled with shipping, your factories 
 smoke on every plain, and your forges flame in every city — I see no 
 reason why you should form an exception to that which the page of 
 history has mournfully recoi-ded : that you, too, should not fade like the 
 Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian palaces. But united with 
 the land, you will obtain the best and surest foundation upon which 
 to build your enduring welfare. You will find in that interest a coun- 
 sellor in all j-our troubles, in danger your undaunted champion, and 
 in adversitj- your steady customer. It is to assist in producing this 
 result. Sir, that I am about to place these resolutions in your hands. 
 I wish to see the agriculture, the commerce, and the manufactures of 
 England, not adversaries, biit co-mates and partners, and rivals only 
 in the ardour of their patriotism and in the activity of their public 
 spirit. 
 
 In the following year, on the 19th of February 1850, he 
 returned to the charge with resolutions recommending 
 a large remission of local taxation. On this occasion he 
 enlisted the support of Mr. Gladstone, and, on a division, 
 the numbers were 273 to 252, a majority of only 21. In 
 1851, the agricultural distress being acknowledged in the 
 Queen's Speech, Mr. Disraeli on the 1 1 th of February,
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 73 
 
 moved that Ministers should be called on to introduce 
 some remedial measures in conformity with the language 
 which they had advised Her Majesty to employ ; and on 
 this occasion the Ministerial majority sank as low as 
 fourteen — 267 members following Mr. Disraeli's banner, 
 and 281 the Government. The Opposition strength 
 had now risen from 189 in 1849 to 267 in 1851. Lord 
 John Russell became anxious to escape from a position 
 which was no longer either necessary to the public or 
 creditable to himself, and he seized the opportunity 
 presented by his defeat on the County Franchise ques- 
 tion, to place his resignation in Her Majesty's hands. 
 The Queen sent for Lord Derby, who, not without some 
 slur, as it was thought, upon his own colleagues in both 
 Houses, declined to take office, and the Whigs held on 
 for another session. 
 
 But Mr Disraeli had achieved his task. He had 
 raised the Conservative Party from the dust, and 
 restored its energy, its self-respect, and its status in the 
 country as a great political connection. And he had 
 done this under disadvantages such as no other states- 
 man engaged in a similar undertaking had ever experi- 
 enced before. Sir Robert Peel's reconstruction of the 
 party after 1832 certainly cannot be compared to it. 
 Half the great statesmen whom the country had looked 
 up to for years were his colleagues or confederates. 
 The Church, disgusted by the ecclesiastical policy of 
 the Whigs, was on his side to a man. Popular distress 
 resulting in Chartism, also told against the Government. 
 In 1848 every one of these advantages was on the other 
 side. The experienced Conservative statesmen whom 
 Peel had trained to affairs stood sullenly aloof; a large 
 and influeutial section of the Church of England believed 
 itself represented by these gentlemen. Tlie agricultural
 
 74 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 distress which undoubtedly prevailed at that time made 
 the victorious interests of the country still more jealous 
 of Lord Derby. In the teeth of these difficulties, 
 he had restored to the shattered and dispirited rem- 
 nant which still called itself the Conservative Party, 
 something like the dimensions, the cohesion, and the 
 dignity of a regular Opposition, who were now not 
 unwilling to try a fall with their opponents, or to 
 take the judgment of the country on their respective 
 merits. 
 
 In 1850 and 1851 the letters to Sarah Disraeli contain 
 a good deal of social matter as well as political, that is of 
 much interest. In January he went again to Belvoir^ 
 where he seems to have witnessed, for the first time, the 
 spectacle of the hunting-men dining in their red coats. 
 From Belvoir he went on to Burghley, which he 
 admired very much. " The exterior of Burghley is 
 faultless, so vast, and so fantastic, and in such fine 
 condition, that the masonry seems but of yesterday. 
 In the midst of a vast park, ancient timber in profu- 
 fusion, gigantic oaks of the days of the Lord 
 Treasurer, and an extensive lake. The plate mar- 
 vellous." By the end of March he was at Hughenden, 
 where some hitch seems to have occurred in his Par- 
 liamentary position. He writes, *' If I cannot lead the 
 party after the holidays, I had better retire altogether." 
 This probably refers to some obscure party discussion,^ 
 which is now forgotten, though no doubt men were 
 busy at work trying to trip him up during the whole 
 three years which preceded 1852. In May we find 
 him at the house of Sir William Jolliffe nearPetersfield, 
 " a beautiful home, and a still more beautiful family 
 of all ages from three to twenty, and all good-look- 
 ing."
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 75 
 
 In September 1850 he receives two immense chests 
 from the Duke of Portland, containing Lord George 
 Bentinck's papers, and in October he has made a good 
 start with the Biography. His letters are dated from 
 Hughenden, and tell of the beautiful autumn, and the 
 gorgeous tints of the beech-woods which girdled his 
 country home. 
 
 In January 1851, Lord Stanley, the present Lord 
 Derby, came to stay with him in Buckinghamshire, 
 and found it very charming " after Lancashire." 
 At this time, Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli, oddly enough, 
 kept no horses, and the statesman and his guest had 
 to make their excursion on foot. They visited Great 
 Hampden, Wycombe Abbey, Denner Hill, and other 
 places of interest, and returned to town for the 
 meeting of Parliament in February. In a letter dated 
 February 26th, there is an allusion to the speech of 
 the 11th, which has been already described, coupled 
 with an anecdote of Croker, which reminds one of 
 Coni/ffffibt/. " Croker met me and nearly embraced 
 me. I hardly recognised him. He said the speech 
 was * the speech of a statesmen, and the reply was 
 the reply of a wit.' How very singular," adds the 
 writer. After the portrait of Mr. Rigby, it certainly 
 was. 
 
 The Life of Lord George was published at the end 
 of December 1851, and independently of the great 
 interest attaching to the political career of this very 
 singular man, the work contains a portrait of Sir 
 Robert Peel which has often been thought the painter's 
 masterpiece, and a chapter on the Jews, in which he 
 unfolds the views first propounded in Conif/f/sbi/ and 
 Tancred with even more precision, more earnestness, 
 and greater power of argument than he places in the
 
 76 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 uioutb of Sidonia. He winds up the character of Peel 
 in the following memorable words: — 
 
 One cannot say of Sir Robert Peel, notwithstanding his unrivalled 
 powers of despatching affairs, that he was the greatest minister that 
 this country ever produced, because, twice placed at the helm, and 
 on the second occasion with the Court and the Parliament equally 
 devoted to him, he never could maintain himself in power. Nor, 
 notwithstanding his consummate parliamentary tactics, can he be 
 described as the greatest party leader that ever flourished among us, 
 for he contrived to destroy the most compact, powerful, and devoted 
 party that ever followed a British statesman. Certainly, notwith- 
 standing his great sway in debate, we cannot recognize him as oar 
 greatest orator, for in many of the supreme requisites of oratory he 
 was singularly deficient. But what he really was, and what posterity 
 will acknowledge him to have been, is the greatest Member of Parlia- 
 ment that ever lived. 
 
 He anticipates the conversion of the Jews, or rather, 
 to use his own words, that they will accept the whole 
 of their religion instead of only the half of it, as they 
 gradually grow more familiar with the true history and 
 character of the New Testament. And he lays great 
 stress on the fact that the non-Christian Jews at the 
 present day are for the most part descendants of the 
 earlier exiles, whose ancestors never heard of Christ till 
 centuries after the crucifixion, when His religion ap- 
 proached them in the guise of a persecution. " It is 
 improbable," he thinks, " that any descendants of the 
 Jews of Palestine exist who disbelieve in Christ." His 
 appeal to men of his own race is an example in his best 
 style : — 
 
 Perhaps, too, in this enlightened age, as his mind expands, and he 
 takes a comprehensive view of this period of progress, the pupil of 
 Moses may ask himself whether all the princes of the house of David 
 have done so much for the Jews as that Prince who was crucilied on 
 Calvary? Had it not been for Him, the Jews would have been com- 
 paratively unknown, or known only as a high Oriental caste which 
 had lost its countrv. Has not He made their historv the most famous
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 77 
 
 in the world ? Has not He hung up their laws in every temple ? Has 
 not He vindicated all their wrongs ? Has not he avenged the victory 
 of Titus and conquered the Caesars ? What successes did they anti- 
 cipate from their Messiah ? The wildest dreams of their rabbis have 
 been far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and changed 
 its name into Christendom ? All countries that refuse the 
 Cross wither, while the whole of the New World is devoted to the 
 Semitic principle and its most glorious offspring the Jewish faith ; and 
 the time will come when the vast communities and countless myriads 
 of America and Australia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks 
 upon Greece, and wondering how so small a space could have achieved 
 such great deeds, will still find music in the songs of Sion and solace 
 in the parables of Galilee. 
 
 Disraeli did not think that Lord George Bentinck 
 would have succeeded as a party leader. Though with- 
 out vanity, he was remarkable for obstinacy. His 
 mind, he said, had little flexibility. He was no orator, 
 and his early education had not been of a kind to 
 qualify him for Parliamentary distinction. His clear 
 head, his strong memory, his wonderful powers of acqui- 
 sition, and his undaunted courage and perseverance, 
 made him a very useful leader of the Protectionists 
 in the time of their trials, but would not have been 
 sufficient for the permanent leadership of a party. 
 
 In 1852 occurred the famous quarrel between Lord 
 John Eussell and Lord Palmerston on the subject of the 
 Coiip (Telai, followed by the retirement of the latter from 
 the Foreign Office. Lord Palmerston did not mince mat- 
 ters. He made no secret of his intention to " have his 
 tit-for-tat with John Russell" — and an opportunity 
 occurring on the Militia Bill, introduced by Government, 
 he put him in a minority and out of office at the same 
 time. Now comes the first Derby Ministry, and a very 
 memorable chapter in Mr. Disraeli's life. The change 
 of Government took place at the end of February, and 
 the new arrangements were very speedily completed.
 
 78 LIFE OF LORD BEAQONSFIELB. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli became Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and Leader of the House of Comn:ions. His colleagues 
 in the lower House were, with one or two exceptions, 
 men whom he had silently singled out, during the past 
 four or five years, as well qualified for office ; nor was 
 his knowledge of human nature at fault. In Mr. Henley 
 and Sir John Pakington especially he found two as 
 able administrators as could be found among the 
 veterans of the Opposition. It was unfortunate that 
 Lord Derby was comparatively unacquainted witb the 
 personnel of his party in the lower House. It is said 
 that of some of the gentlemen recommended by the 
 leader of that assembly he had never even beard tbe 
 names. Eleven of them were sworn-in Privy Councillors 
 on the same day. And it was owing to this circumstance 
 that Lord Derby always seemed to think it impossible 
 that he could carry on a Government without the help 
 of Mr. Gladstone or Lord Palmerston. His followers 
 were justly mortified, as may be read in the Memoirs of 
 Lord Malmesbury, who now becomes our most trust- 
 worthy authority for the Parliamentary history of the 
 period. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, 
 had no such misgivings. He was in the highest spirits, 
 and declared that " he felt like a girl going to her first 
 ball." The new Ministry was constituted as follows : — 
 
 First Lord of the Treasury, Earl of Derby. 
 
 Lord Chancellor, Lord St. Leonards. 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli. 
 
 President of Council, Earl of Lonsdale. 
 
 Privy Seal, Marquis of Salisbury. 
 
 Foreign Secretary, Earl of Malmesbury. 
 
 Home Secretary, Mr. Spencer Walpole. 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, The Duke of North- 
 umberland.
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 79 
 
 Colonial Secretary, Sir John Pakington. 
 President of Board of Customs, Mr. Herries. 
 First Commissioner of Works, Lord John Manners. 
 
 These were the Cabinet. Mr. Henley was President 
 of the Board of Control ; and the Law Officers of the 
 Crown were Sir Frederick Tiiesiger and Sir Fitzroy 
 Kelly. 
 
 Tne new Ministry ought not to have been the object 
 of any special hostility. They had not taken office till 
 it was forced upon them. The previous Administration 
 was not turned out ; it fell to pieces of its own accord. 
 The change was not due to any personal intervention of 
 the Sovereign, as in 1834, or to any stroke of party 
 vengeance, as in 1846. The Ministry of Lord John 
 Russell was too weak to carry on the Government, and 
 nobody was better aware of the fact than Lord John 
 Russell himself. He was even anxious to escape from 
 his position, yet no sooner were the leaders of the Oppo- 
 sition seated on the Treasury Bench than they were 
 assailed by a fire of invective from Whigs, Peelites, and 
 Radicals, as if they had been guilty of some gross breach 
 of Parliamentary morality. Lord Derby, in 1851, had 
 held out the olive branch to Mr. Gladstone. He had, 
 with Mr. Disraeli's consent and approbation, offered the 
 lead of the House of Commons to Lord Palmerston. 
 Neither would join him, though neither could allege any 
 difference of principle between himself and the new 
 Prime Minister, except on the one question of the Corn 
 Laws ; and the possibility of these being revived by two 
 such men as Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli was too 
 remote to have influenced the minds of any practical 
 man. Their union with the Ministry would have 
 brought the Conservatives the strength which they
 
 80 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 required. But each, in fact, was playing for his own 
 hand ; and they judged, perhaps rightly, that the 
 course of events was likely to bring the ball to their feet 
 under more favourable circumstances than then pre- 
 sented themselves. But this was no excuse for the 
 flood of vituperation poured upon the heads of the new 
 Government by the Opposition and their organs in the 
 press; and when remarks are made on the bitterness of 
 Disraeli's satire, and the cutting irony in which he spoke 
 of some at least of the Peelite leaders, we should do well 
 to remember his provocation. Of the malignity of 
 which he himself was the object, it is difficult to speak, 
 even at this distance of time, with common patience or 
 forbearance. If it is said that he brought it on his 
 own bead by his treatment of Sir Robert Peel ; the 
 answer is that it is only among savages that the rights 
 of revenge are held to be inexhaustible, and that in all 
 civilised morality there is, so to speak, a statute of limi- 
 tations, under which the lex talionis expires after a cer- 
 tain time. Even with Juno's unrelenting hate Jupiter 
 interferes at last. The more than feminine fury of the 
 Peelites was alike insensible to justice and incapable of 
 satiety ; and knowing the splendid position which Lord 
 Beaconsfield afterwards attained, and the love, honour, 
 and troops of friends which attended him to his grave, 
 it is difBcult to note the language in which he was 
 spoken of five and thirty years ago, and believe that we 
 are reading of the same man, the same English people, 
 and the same century. 
 
 During the early part of the session of 1852, 
 the Government was thought to have done well. 
 They carried a Militia Bill which gave general satis- 
 faction, and Mr. Disraeli astonished the world by 
 the capacity which he displayed as Finance Minister.
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 81 
 
 On the 30th of April he introduced his first 
 Budget, whioh, says Greville, " was a great per- 
 formance, very able, and received with great applause 
 in the House." The fi*auk acceptance of the prin- 
 ciples of Free Trade which it contained gave offence 
 to some of his supporters, and was denounced by the 
 Opposition as an unparalleled act of tergiversation. 
 But no one who had given any intelligent consideration 
 to his speeches during the previous twenty years had 
 any right to be surprised or shocked. He had always 
 been in favour of Free Trade conducted upon equitable 
 principles, which the principles of the League were not. 
 He had quite recently declared that the country having 
 deliberately endorsed the policy of Sir Robert Peel, the 
 farmers' friends must look for compensation rather than 
 restitution.* This was all he said in the Budget. It 
 was quite open to him to recognise the beneficial effects 
 of Sir Robert Peel's policy, without either condoning 
 the means by which it had been carried out, or ignoring 
 the injustice which it had inflicted on a large and most 
 important interest. Mr. Disraeli said that this might 
 be remedied without flinging back the injustice upon 
 the shoulders of any other class. And the local 
 taxation reformers of 1888, including men of all parties 
 in their ranks, are only saying the same thing. 
 
 However, Mr. Disraeli had made himself a great 
 many enemies among the Peelites, who had great 
 literary talent at their command : and he also had the 
 Press against him. By far the two most influential 
 daily papers of that date were the Times and the 
 Morning Chronicle, of which the one was anti-Con- 
 servative and the other Peelite to the core. The Morn- 
 
 * Speech in House of Commons, March 8, 1849.
 
 82 LIFE OF LORD BEAGONSFIELD. 
 
 ing Post and the Globe were J^almerstonian, and the 
 only regular Conservative daily which then existed was 
 the Mornifif/ Herald, hardly less unfriendly to Mr. 
 Disraeli than any of the other four. Among them he 
 had no chance ; and it is u wonderful tribute to his 
 genius that with these formidable odds against him the 
 battle should have been doubtful for a moment, and that 
 even from a class of adversaries who rarely err on the 
 side of magnanimity he should have extorted, in spite 
 of themselves, a reluctant eulogy. 
 
 In July 1852 Parliament was dissolved, and a final 
 appeal was made to the country to decide whether it 
 would continue " to fight hostile tariffs with free 
 imports," or pronounce for what is known as Reciprocity. 
 The Conservative candidates won a great many seats — 
 some because they were Protectionists, others because they 
 were Conservatives, and because the public began to be 
 afraid of Lord John Russell and his new Reform Bill : 
 but they did not win enough, as the sequel will show ; and 
 they had to deal with old Parliamentary hands who 
 knew well how to strike when the iron was hot. They 
 perceived that if the Chancellor could be forced to make 
 his financial statement before the expiration of the 
 year, it would be morally impossible for him not to 
 propose something for the farmers, which, in all proba- 
 bility, they would be able to use against him. What 
 they foresaw came to pass. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli always regretted that his Party had been 
 obliged to take office at the particular moment when 
 they did. In another year the agricultural distress which 
 had prompted his great speeches in 1819, 1850, and 1851, 
 would have passed away. Could the dissolution of 
 Parliament have been postponed for another nine months, 
 it would have been unnecessary to say anything about
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 83 
 
 it, and many Conservative Free Traders would have 
 given their votes for Lord Derby. Even could the finan- 
 cial statement have been deferred to its usual period, 
 the month of April 1853, he used to say that a Budget 
 might have been framed which the House of Commons 
 would have accepted. But the Opposition saw this as 
 well as he did, and forced his hand. They professed 
 the most violent alarm lest the Corn Laws were about 
 to be revived. The Anti-Corn Law League resumed 
 its sittings, and assumed something of the functions 
 and importance of a vigilance committee. The Grovern- 
 ment werb compelled to call Parliament together in 
 November. Resolutions re-affirming the principles of 
 Free Trade were flung in the face of the Ministry, 
 and it became clear to Mr. Disraeli that he had better 
 declare his financial policy and take his chance, than 
 provoke a vote of want of confidence, which would 
 almost certainly have been carried against him, or 
 lost by so small a majority as to have destroyed the 
 moral influence of the Government. 
 
 Accordingly, on the 3rd of December 1852, he pro- 
 duced the Budget, which gave the Opposition their 
 expected opportunity. Its chief features were — the 
 remission of half the malt tax ; the gradual remission 
 of half the tea duty ; the assessment of income tax on 
 one third of the farmer's rental instead of one half; the 
 extension of income tax to incomes of .^100 a year of 
 precarious income, and to ^£50 a year of permanent 
 income ; the extension of the house tax to houses of 
 iJlO a year rateable value, and an increase of the assess- 
 ment to Is. fid. in the pound on houses, and Is. on shops, 
 the whole produce being calculated at ^Gl, 723,000. 
 
 Being compelled to make his statement in December, 
 instead of in the following April, the reduction of the 
 
 6 *
 
 84 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 malt tax and the alteration in the assessment of the in- 
 come tax on agricultural incomes were forced upon him, 
 and to compensate for these remissions he was com- 
 pelled to resort to the unpopular provisions above men- 
 tioned, the extension, namely, of the house tax and the 
 income tax. 
 
 The speech in which Mr. Disraeli replied to his critics 
 was delivered on the 16th of December, and, together 
 with Mr. Gladstone's answer to it, will long be memo- 
 rable. He was convinced to the last, and probably 
 with justice, that the coalition was aimed against him- 
 self, and he used to compare his position in 1852 with 
 that of Lord Shelburne in 1783. It was the recollec- 
 tion, indeed, of that historic crisis which inspired his 
 famous words : *' This I know, that England does not 
 love coalitions," and encouraged him, perhaps, to utter the 
 prediction which was not long in being fulfilled. But 
 he had in the oourse of his speech referred to Sir James 
 Graham in terms which seem to have been misun- 
 derstood on the Opposition benches, and afforded Mr. 
 Gladstone an opportunity of delivering an indignant 
 rejoinder, which had a great effect upon the House. It 
 was thought that but for this. Ministers might have 
 secured a small majority. As it was, the Coalition 
 counted 305 against the Ministerial 286, and Lord 
 Derby immediately resigned. He was succeeded, after a 
 period of complicated negotiations, by Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 The party, however, had scarcely expected to retain 
 office. They had considerably increased their number 
 by the general election. They now reckoned nearly 
 three hundred bayonets. They had held office with 
 credit, had exhibited great administrative abilities, and 
 had taught the public to respect them. They were no 
 longer a despised remnant, afraid to meet their enemy in
 
 SIB ROBERT PEEL AND FREE TRADE. 85 
 
 the gate. They were a powerful and well-disciplined 
 party, and the proper functions of an Opposition, which 
 had been too long in abeyance in the House of Com- 
 mons, were once more re-established. 
 
 All Lord Derby's doubts had now vanished, and hence- 
 forth he fully justified the saying of Mr. Disraeli, that 
 *' an aristocracy hesitates before it yields its confidence, 
 but never does so grudgingly. Under such circum- 
 stances, the social feeling and the principle of honour 
 which governs gentlemen mingle in political connec- 
 tions." Lord Derby gave his entire and cordial con- 
 fidence to his able lieutenant in the House of Commons, 
 and the Derby-Disraeli connection remained intact 
 until the hour of Lord Derby's death.
 
 86 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MK. DISEAELI AND LORD DEKBY. 
 
 1852-1868. 
 
 The Press newspaper — Funeral oration over the Duke of Welliugtott 
 — Divisions in the Cabinet — Mr. Disraeli's irony at its expense — 
 Refusal of Lord Derby to take office — Tactics of the Conser- 
 vative party in Opposition — The China debate — Defeat of the 
 Palmerston Government — The second Derby Administration — 
 The Ellenborough despatch — The Reform Bill — Resignation of 
 Ministers — The Conservatives in Opposition — Earl Russell's 
 foreign policy — Church and Queen — Mr. Disraeli's financial 
 speeches — The career and defeat of Earl Russell's Government — 
 The Reform Bills — Mr. Disraeli leader of the party. 
 
 Such was the position of Mr. Disraeli and his party 
 when they resumed their seats on the Opposition 
 henches in January 1853. And Mr. Disraeli now made 
 it the business of his life to expose the hollowness of 
 the foundation on which the Coalition rested. His prin- 
 cipal speeches in Parliament were all directed to this 
 end, and in the summer of 1853 he established for the 
 same purpose the Press newspaper. 
 
 The Press was a weekly newspaper on the model of 
 the Anti-Jacobin, and designed to write down the ob- 
 noxious Coalition. The first number appeared in the 
 summer of 1853^ and it remained under the direction
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 87 
 
 of Mr. Disraeli till 1858, when it was sold to Mr. 
 Newdegate. When I first knew anything of the Press 
 it was edited by Mr. Samuel Lucas, for many years 
 connected with the literary department of the Times, 
 assisted by Mr. Shirley Brooks as the writer of squibs 
 and verses, and by Mr. Disraeli himself and the pre- 
 sent Lord Derby as leader writers. Mr. Disraeli wrote 
 the first leading article in the first number, in which 
 the head of the Coalition is styled ** an austere in- 
 triguer," and the then Lord Stanley continued to 
 write pretty regularly. Mr. Disraeli's most confiden- 
 tial servant, however, was Mr. D. T. Coulton, the 
 founder of the Britatmia newspaper, and well known at 
 that time as the author of a very able article on Junius 
 in the Quarterly Revieiv. Mr. Disraeli had a very high 
 opinion of Mr. Coulton, who died in 1857, at the early 
 age of forty-six, and every Friday night, while Parliament 
 was sitting, used to prime him for the next day's leader 
 with all the newest arguments and information. Mr. 
 Coulton used to return to the office in the Strand with 
 a mass of notes, which he speedily reduced into an article, 
 remarkable, generally speaking, for point, precision, and 
 that peculiar weight, more easily understood than de- 
 scribed, which marks the combination of literary ability 
 and special knowledge. The Press was much read at 
 the time, and is often referred to by Lord Malmesbury ; 
 but it never had a very large circulation, and was chiefly 
 useful as showing that all the wit, brains, and literary 
 skill of London journalism were not monopolised by the 
 Liberals. 
 
 In September 1852, while the Conservative Govern- 
 ment was still in office, the Duke of Wellington died, 
 and nobody remained behind to represent the old school 
 of statesmen, who had been trained in the Revolutionary
 
 88 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 war, and possessed that influence with the European 
 Courts which England had justly acquired hy the sacri- 
 fices made on their hehalf. Both Lord Aberdeen and 
 Lord Palnierston began their political life early in the 
 century. But neither had that personal acquaintance 
 with the sovereigns of the Continent possessed by men like 
 AVellington and Castlereagh. The death of the former re- 
 moved one of the last pillars of the old system as settled 
 at the Congress of Vienna; and the effect of it was 
 soon seen in the attitude of Russia towards Turkey. 
 It fell to the lot of Mr. Disraeli to pronounce the 
 funeral oration over the great Duke in the House of 
 Commons, and he was unlucky enough to introduce into 
 his speech a passage on the Duke's military character 
 containing a quotation from Claudian, which he had 
 read many years before in an article on Marshal St. 
 Cyr, written by M. Thiers for the Revue Trimestre in 
 1829. He had once pointed it out to George Smytlie, 
 who quoted it in the Morning Chronicle of July 4th, 
 1848. And it is needless to say how his enemies gloated 
 over the discovery. The Times argued in his defence 
 that he had copied the passage into his common-place 
 book, and had forgotten whence it came. 
 
 But the death of the Duke of Wellington soon gave 
 the world more important things to think about than 
 a quotation from Claudian. The Crimean War was the 
 direct result of it, and the Coalition Ministry were, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Disraeli, the efficient cause. It was, so he 
 urged, the natural consequence of a divided Cabinet and 
 distracted counsels, and they were now reaping the benefit 
 of having installed a Government in office which had 
 no principle or sentiment in common, but hatred of a 
 particular individual. The Peelites and the Radicals 
 held back Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston and
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 89 
 
 Xiord John Russell dragged forward Lord Aberdeen. The 
 result was a complete deadlock, almost equal to the famous 
 •one in the Critic, and Russia of course seized the oppor- 
 tunity and flew at the throat of her victim. Either the 
 peace party or the war party might have made terms with 
 Russia, but a Government which alternated between the 
 two policies, to-day under the influence of one, to- 
 morrow under the influence of the other, was simply 
 'impotent, and the Sebastopol winter was the con- 
 sequence. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, however, never sought to hamper or 
 impede the Government. He set the example of giving 
 ithem a patriotic support both through the trying time 
 which preceded the declaration of war, and after hos- 
 tilities had commenced. But soon after the Government 
 was formed, he had an opportunity of saying what he 
 thought upon the subject without exposing himself 
 to any charge of factious opposition. A speech which 
 he delivered on our relations with France, on the 
 18th of February 1853, may be considered to be 
 one of his most brilliant performances. The polished 
 irony, the scornful satire, and the genuine humour with 
 which again and again he presses home this main 
 <luestion : What is the foreign policy of this hetero- 
 geneous Cabinet, of which the members only a year or 
 two ago were abusing each other like pickpockets? 
 are blended together with the highest oratorical art. 
 The Prime Minister was Lord Aberdeen, the Foreign 
 Secretary was Lord John Russell, the First Lord of 
 the Admiralty was Sir James Graham, and the Home 
 Secretary was Lord Palmerston. How had they de- 
 scribed each other and each other's principles in the great 
 <lebate of 1850 ? On hearing the Government pro- 
 gramme, says Mr. Disraeli, in which it was stated that
 
 90 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 our foreign policy would be the same as it had been 
 for the last thirty years — 
 
 I could not forget that the principles of the foreign policy then (I'.e, 
 1850) pursued, and which has been pursued for years by the Govern- 
 ment presided over by the noble Lord the Member for London, had 
 been described as unbecoming to the dignitj* of England and perilous 
 to the peace of Europe. I could not but remember that this was the 
 language used by one of his colleagues in this Coalition Ministry. I 
 could not but recollect that Lord Aberdeen himself, with reference to 
 the then foreign policy and the jjrinciples on which it was conducted, 
 had used an epithet rarely admitted into parliamentary debate, for he 
 stigmatised them as " abominable." I could not but recollect, also, 
 that the great indictment of the foreign policy of the then Govern- 
 ment was opened in this House, -with elaborate care and vehement 
 invective, by the honourable baronet now First Lord of the Admi- 
 ralty. 
 
 I will not be detei'red from putting the question I am about to ask. 
 I say we have a right to ask Ministers upon what principle our foreign 
 policy is to be conducted. Is their system to be one of "liberal 
 energy "or of "antiquated imbecility"? When the noble Viscount 
 opposite (Lord Palmerston), who was then Foreign Secretaiy, was 
 vindicating himself from attacks, he took credit for the liberal energy 
 of his policy, and described the principles recommended by his present 
 chief as a system of "antiquated imbecility." 
 
 The sarcasm which follows at the expense of " All 
 the Talents," was really not unjustifiable. It expresses, 
 in fact, the sober and prosaic truth that tlie veterans 
 of the Peel party and tbe veterans of tlie Russell party^ 
 supposed to be the only men capable of carrying on 
 the Government, were already beginning that extraordi- 
 nary series of blunders which led to the Crimean war. 
 
 The present Government tell us that they have no principles — at 
 least not at present. Some peoj^le are uncharitable enough to sup- 
 pose that they have not got a Party : but, in Heaven's name, why are 
 they Ministers if they have not got discretion ? That is the great 
 quahty on which I had thought this Cabinet was established. Vast 
 experience, administi-ative adroitness — safe men, who never would 
 blunder — men who might not only take the Government without a 
 principle and without a Party, but to whom the country ought to be
 
 MB. DISBAELI AND LOBD DEBBY. 91 
 
 grateful for taking it under such circumstances ; yet at the very first 
 outset, we find one of the most experienced of these eminent states- 
 men acting in the teeth of the declarations of the noble lord opposite, 
 and of Lord Grey, made in 1852, and holding up to public scorn and 
 indignation the ruler and the people, a good and cordial understanding 
 with whom is one of the cardinal points of all sound statesman- 
 ship. 
 
 Events justified Mr. Disraeli's words. Two years 
 afterwards the Coalition Ministry was overwhelmed by a 
 storm of public indignation. But Lord Derby, though 
 with the best intentions, unhappily did not seize the op- 
 portunity which was offered to him, and, to the life-long 
 regret of Mr. Disraeli, declined to form another Govern- 
 ment. He had everything in his favour. The Free 
 Trade controversy was over, the Keform controversy was 
 dormant. The Conservatives would have come into 
 office unhampered by pledges of any kind. The weight 
 of Protection had turned the scales against them in 
 1852, but that was now thrown off. All the nation 
 wanted was a strong Government, and a general elec- 
 tion would, in the tlien temper of the country, hav& 
 been certain to yield a Conservative majority. But 
 the chance was lost and never came again. In 1858 
 and in 1866 a different class of questions had arisen,, 
 as embarrassing to the Conservatives as Protection ;. 
 and even in 1874, though a change of Government 
 was desired, there was not the same opportunity for 
 distinction, and for responding to a great national 
 demand, as there was in 1855. Lord Palmerston 
 stepped in, assumed the responsibilities which Lord 
 Derby shrank from undertaking, and had the country 
 with him for his life. 
 
 All this was gall and wormwood to Mr. Disraeli, who- 
 saw the cup dashed from his lips, and the legitimate re- 
 wards of public life snatched away from his grasp, when in
 
 92 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 imagination it had almost closed on them. The party, 
 if we are to believe Lord Malmesbury, was as angry as 
 himself. And both leaders and followers entered on a 
 passage of their history which is not particularly credit- 
 able to either. They felt that they had lost a chance 
 which would not present itself again. The party began to 
 lose heart, to become garrulous and mutinous, and, as 
 they were anxious to vent their spleen upon somebody, 
 to vent it on their leader in the Commons. They had 
 steadily kept aloof from any co-operation with the 
 Radicals, though plenty of opportunities occurred. But 
 now they became hopeless and demoralised, and disposed 
 even to be factious. Mr. Disraeli was driven into a 
 method of opposition which will not bear very close in- 
 vestigation. The excuse is that it was necessary to do 
 something to keep up the spirits of the party. The 
 tactics for which he has been blamed often had their 
 origin in this necessity, compelling him at times to fight 
 battles without profit, and to take office without power, 
 solely for the sake of stimulating the energies, and re- 
 viving the confidence of his followers. Every general 
 knows what it is to be at the head of a dispirited army, 
 in the face of a superior force, weary of inaction, doubt- 
 ful of the ability of its leaders, and deteriorating every 
 day in discipline and self-respect. Then if an oppor- 
 tunity offers of inflicting a sharp check upon a pre- 
 sumptuous adversary, and of affording to his own troops 
 the excitement and encouragement of a successful battle, 
 he knows that the moral effect of such a field will more 
 than repay him for the effort, even though the issue 
 bring him no material advantage. Mr. Disraeli in his 
 time fought many a battle of Busaco. At the same time, 
 it must be remembered that Lord Palmerston was kept 
 in power by a confederacy between Whigs and Eadicals,
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 93 
 
 based on a theory which had long ceased to be a fact ; that 
 the hollowness of this pretence was fully recognised by 
 the Radical leaders ; and that, although by a process of 
 dexterous mystification the fiction of a great Liberal 
 party was still kept alive in theory, it had not for 
 many years been a working reality in Parliament. Lord 
 Palmerston was the very man to head such a confederacy, 
 and to oil its hinges when they creaked. But, if the 
 public wish to know what, in 1856 and 1857, Mr, Glad- 
 stone thought of the chief whom he preferred to Lord 
 Derby, they need only refer to the Life of Bishoj) 
 Wilherforce. After his return to power in 1859, Lord 
 Palmerston threw off the mask and became virtually a 
 Tory Prime Minister. The Opposition tactics then took 
 another form, and were directed rather against the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer than the head of the Govern- 
 ment. But from 1855 to 1858 this was not the case; 
 and Mr. Disraeli felt that in all his attacks on Lord 
 Palmerston during those three years he had his party 
 with him. 
 
 Nor is this statement materially affected by what 
 occurred in 1857. The famous China debate of that 
 year turned on a principle by which both the generosity 
 and common sense of Englishmen are always deeply- 
 moved. The doctrine that " the servants of the Crown 
 must be supported " is one that has necessarily grown to 
 be an article of faith with a people whose flag waves on 
 every sea, and whose colonies and commerce extend to 
 every quarter of the globe. Our honour, our interests, 
 and the safety of our countrymen and subjects have to be 
 protected in the remotest and most barbarous regions of 
 the earth, and this never could have been done as it has 
 been done had not every British officer from the highest 
 to the lowest known that he was certain of support at
 
 «4 LIFE OF LOUD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 home, ami that, phiced in circumstances of difficulty 
 and danger, and compelled to act on his own respon- 
 sibility alone, the most favourable construction would 
 always be placed upon his conduct if ever it should be 
 called in question. These are broad general truths 
 which find an echo at once in the instincts of the British 
 nation, to which no appeal, so enforced, is ever addressed 
 in vain. It is to Mr. Disraeli's credit that he quite under- 
 stood this, that the debate on Mr. Cobden's motion was 
 none of his seeking, that he took part in it with re- 
 luctance, and that he regretted the defeat of tlie Govern- 
 ment. The division took place on the 4th of March 
 -at half-past two in the morning, when for Mr. Cobden's 
 motion there were 263 and against it 247, the majority 
 against the Government being 16. Lord Palmerston 
 immediately dissolved Parliament, and a rout of his oppo- 
 nents followed comparable only to the rout of the Whigs 
 in '84. Mr. Cobden lost his seat for Huddersfield, Mr. 
 Bright and Mr. Milner Gibson were rejected at 
 Manchester, Mr. Layard was defeated at Aylesbury, 
 Mr. Cardwell at Oxford, Lord A. Hervey at Brighton, 
 Mr. Masterman in London. Mr. Koundel Palmer did 
 not venture to stand a contest at Plymouth ; and the net 
 result was that Lord Palmerston returned to Parliament 
 with a clear majority of seventy over both Peelites and 
 Conservatives. It seemed now as if nothing could 
 unseat him, for the Radicals had received a sharp lesson, 
 and the Conservatives had lost thirty seats — nearly all 
 they had won in 1852. 
 
 It was at this time that Mr. Gladstone made his 
 nearest approach to a reconciliation with the Tory party. 
 He spoke and voted against Lord Palmerston on the 
 Chinese question. He had previously joined Mr. 
 Disraeli in condemning Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 95 
 
 Budget, though here again the mutinous Tories refused 
 to follow their leader, who was defeated by a majority of 
 eighty. After the general election of 1857 he still con- 
 tinued to evince a friendly spirit towards Lord Derby. He 
 told Bishop Wilberforce that it was only Mr. Disraeli's 
 Budget which made him oppose the Government in 1852. 
 And the Bishop thought that he was evidently for a 
 Conservative alliance. In the following year, 1858, 
 when an attempt had been made on the life of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon, and Lord Palmerston in consequence 
 had introduced the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, Mr. 
 Milner Gibson moved an amendment, regretting that 
 the Government had not previously replied in a fitting 
 manner to the remonstrance addressed to them by the 
 French Minister. In favour of this amendment Mr. Glad- 
 stone both spoke and voted ; and the Government, being 
 defeated by a majority of nineteen. Lord Palmerston 
 resigned and made way for Lord Derby, with Mr. 
 Disraeli in his old place. 
 
 Before constructing his Administration Lord Derby 
 made proposals to Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of 
 Newcastle, and Earl Grey. But they declined to 
 join him, and the Administration was composed for 
 the most part of the old materials.^ It had to en- 
 
 * The second Administration of the Earl of Derby was composed 
 ^8 follows: — 
 
 Earl of Derby, First Lord of the Treasury. 
 Lord Chelmsford, Lord Chancellor. 
 Marquis of Salisbury, Lord President. 
 Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Privy Seal. 
 Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 Mr. Walpole, Home Secretary. 
 Earl of Malmesbury, Foreign Secretary. 
 Lord Stanley, Colonial Secretary. 
 Colonel Peel, War Secretary.
 
 96 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 counter a very bitter opposition, and was nearly 
 wrecked upon the threshold, in consequence of a ques- 
 tion arising out of the Indian Mutiny, and relating 
 to a despatch addressed by Lord Eilenborough, the 
 President of the Board of Control, to the Governor- 
 General, Lord Canning, severely censuring his policy 
 towards the landed proprietors of Oude. The despatch 
 turned out to be perfectly justifiable ; and Sir James 
 Outram, a valued authority on Indian questions, en- 
 tirely agreed with Lord Eilenborough. But the British 
 public did not know all this ; and the despatch, un- 
 luckily, being communicated to members of the late 
 Ministry, formed the basis of an attack on the Govern- 
 ment which threatened to be fatal. Lord Eilenborough 
 resigned, but the attack went on. It was defeated in 
 the House of Lords. But a motion of Mr. Cardwell's 
 was debated four nights in the House of Commons, and 
 a majority of eighty in its favour was at one time antici- 
 pated. Meanwhile, however, the truth had begun to 
 leak out. The supporters of Government fell away,, 
 and what followed we shall tell in Mr. Disraeli's own 
 words : — 
 
 There is nothing like that last Friday evening in the history of the 
 House of Commons. We came down to the House expecting to divide 
 at four o'clock in the morning — myself probably expecting to deliver 
 an address two hours after midnight. . . . Our serried ranks seemed 
 to rival those of ©ur proud opponents, when suddenly there rose a 
 wail of distress, but not from us. I can only liken the scene to the 
 
 Earl of Eilenborough, Board of Control. 
 
 Mr. Henley, Board of Trade. 
 
 Duke of Montrose, Duchy of Lancaster. 
 
 Sir John Pakington, Admiralty. 
 
 Earl of Eglinton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
 
 Lord Xaas, Chief Secretary. 
 
 Lord John Manners, Woods and Forests.
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 97 
 
 mutiny in the Bengal army. Regiment after regiment, corps after 
 corps, general after general — all acknowledged that they could not 
 march through Coventry. It was like a commotion of nature more 
 than an ordinary transaction of human life. 1 can only liken it to one of 
 those earthquakes which take place in Catania and Peru. There was 
 a rumbling murmur, a groan, a shriek, a sound of distant thunder. 
 No one knew whether it came from the top or the bottom of the 
 House. There was a rent, a fissure in the ground, and then a village 
 disappeared, then a tall tower toppled down, and the whole . of the 
 Opposition benches became one great dissolving view of anarchy. 
 
 The above is quoted from Mr. Disraeli's speech at 
 the celebrated Slough banquet, and we may as well add 
 the words in which Lord Derby afterwards criticised it: 
 " Great as was the wit, great as was the clearness, great 
 as was the humour of this most graphic description, 
 that which peculiarly appertained to it was its undeniable 
 truth. There was no exaggeration, even of colouring, 
 for no exaggeration could be applied to that matchless 
 scene at which — I shall remember it to the last day of 
 my life — I had the good fortune to be present." 
 
 During the remainder of the session of 1858 the 
 Government carried a Bill for transferring the Govern- 
 ment of India from the Company to the Crown, and for 
 tiie admission of Jews to Parliament. The latter was 
 effected by means of a Bill introduced by Lord Lucan 
 in the House of Lords, and supported by Lord Derby, 
 authorising eitlier House by Special Kesolution to alter 
 the form of oath to be taken by a member. And thus 
 Mr. Disraeli had the satisfaction of seeing the cause 
 which he had so much at heart triumph under the 
 auspices of a Conservative Government. 
 
 The great question of the day, however, was Parlia- 
 mentary reform, which Lord Derby, on taking Office,- 
 declared himself prepared to deal with. Mr. Disraeli 
 had foreseen and provided against the possibility that 
 the Conservative Party would some day be called upon 
 
 7
 
 98 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 to settle this question ; and he had taken an early 
 opportunity of anticipating the objection that it was 
 not a fitting duty for Conservatives. Tn 1848 he had 
 expressed his views upon the subject, and in the interval 
 had frequently declared that, though it was not with 
 his consent that the settlement of 1832 had been dis- 
 turbed, he reserved to the Conservative Party the full 
 right of dealing with the question, now that their oppo- 
 nents had re-opened it. It has been too much for- 
 gotten that the measure of 1832 was by no means 
 satisfactory to the Conservatives, and that Sir Robert 
 Peel was praised for his patriotism in promising honestly 
 to accept it. But when their opponents themselves 
 revived the question the case was entirely altered. 
 
 Accordingly, on the 28th of February 1859, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer explained the provisions 
 of a Bill which the Government were prepared to intro- 
 duce, its two cardinal provisions being the equalisation 
 of the town and county franchise, both being fixed at 
 £10, and the restriction of the 40s. freeholder in boroughs 
 to a vote for the borough in which he lived, depriving 
 him of his vote for the county in which he did not live.* 
 Mr. Disraeli also broached on this occasion his tlieory 
 of Parliamentary representation, namely, thatit should be 
 the representation neither of population nor of property, 
 but of interests. It should, he said, " be large enough 
 to be independent, and select enough to be re- 
 sponsible." To this end he introduced certain fancy 
 franchises, as they were then called, for giving votes to 
 holders of stock, to depositors in savings' banks, to 
 holders of pensions of £20 a year and upwards, and to 
 lodgers paying a rent of 8s. a week. The educational 
 
 * The non-resident borough freeholder would have retained his vote 
 for tte county.
 
 MR. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 99 
 
 franchise gave a vote to members of universities, and 
 members of the liberal professions. But the Bill did 
 not satisfy either his own party or the Opposition. Mr. 
 Henley and Mr. Walpole disapproved of identity of 
 suffrage as likely to lead to an " ugly rush," and retired 
 from the Ministry. Lord John Russell condemned 
 what he called the disfranchisement of the borough 
 freeholders, though the Whig Government in 1832 had 
 all but agreed to do the same thing, and the non-reduc- 
 tion of the borough franchise ; and, opposing the second 
 reading on these grounds, defeated it by a ma-jority 
 of thirty-nine. On this occasion, too, Mr. Gladstone 
 supported Lord Derby both by his speech and his vote, 
 Mr. Disraeli, in his introductory speech, demolishes 
 the mild Conservative policy, which he calls "a feeble 
 and a dangerous policy," of a £20 county, and £(i 
 borough franchise, advocated by the noble lord, the 
 Member for Tiverton, and by his right honourable 
 friends, and he would probably have said even at 
 that time that there was no intermediate halting-place 
 between the £10 franchise and the pure rating fran- 
 chise. But that he would have preferred the former 
 seems evident from the following very remarkable pas- 
 sage. Mr. Sturt had said, in the course of the debate, 
 that he was not afraid of the people, Mr. Disraeli 
 said : — 
 
 Why, Sir, I have no apprehension myself that, if you had manhood 
 suffrage to-morrow, the honest, brave, and good-natured people of 
 England would resort to pillage, incendiarism, and massacre. Who 
 expects that ? But though I would do as much justice to the quali- 
 ties of our countrymen as any gentleman in this House — though I may 
 not indulge in high-flown and far-fetched expressions with respect to 
 them like those we have listened to, for the people may have their 
 parasites as well as monarchs and aristocracies — yet I have no doubt 
 that, whatever may be their high (jualities, our countrymen are sub- 
 ject to the same political laws that affect the condition of all otlier 
 
 7 ^-
 
 100 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 communities and nations. If you establish a democracy, you must in 
 due season reap the fruits of a democracj*. You will in due season 
 have great impatience of the ])ublic burdens combined in due season 
 with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due 
 season have wars entered upon from passion and not from reason ; and 
 you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and igno- 
 miniously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps 
 endanger your independence. You will in due season, with a demo- 
 cracy, find that j-our property is less valuable, and that your freedom 
 is less complete. I doubt not, when there has been realised a suffi- 
 cient quantity of disaffection and dismay, the good sense of this 
 country will come to the rally, and that you will obtain some remedy 
 for your grievances, and some redress for your wrongs, by the pro- 
 cess through which alone it can be obtained — by that process which 
 may make your property more secure, but which will not render your 
 liberty more eminent. 
 
 These are prophetic words, and they expressed Mr. 
 Disraeli's real convictions. For the Reform Bill of 
 1867, be threw the responsibility first on those who bad 
 re-opened the settlement of 1832, and, secondly, on 
 those who rejected the Bill of 1859. 
 
 Lord Derby dissolved Parliament, and gained largely 
 at the elections, but be was still left in a minority ; 
 and on a vote of want of confidence, moved by Lord 
 Hartington, being carried by a majority of thirteen, 
 the second Derby Ministry was dissolved. Lord 
 Hartington's indictment, however, was not confined 
 merely to the Reform Question. He reproached 
 Ministers with having failed to prevent the war be- 
 tween France and Austria, which had broken out 
 just after the dissolution; a topic handled with still 
 more severity by Lord Palmerston, who implied that 
 they had even threatened France, and encouraged 
 Austria by expressions of sympathy and approval. 
 When the correspondence between Lord Malmesbury 
 and the other Powers came to be published, these impu- 
 tations were sufficiently refuted. But in the meantime
 
 MK. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 101 
 
 they turned the scale, and led to the downfall of the 
 Government. The strangest thing of all is, that while 
 the debate was still in progress, these papers were 
 actually printed ; and why they were not laid on the 
 table of the House is a mystery to this day. Lord 
 Malraesbury says, in a letter to Lord Cowley, of the 18th 
 •of June 1859, that it was because Mr. Disraeli himself 
 had not read fJiem, and could not have fought them in 
 debate. But this does not seem to be his matured 
 opinion, since five-and-twenty years afterwards he writes 
 as follows : — 
 
 Thus fell the second administration of Lord Derby. With a dead 
 majority against him, it is evident that he could not for long have 
 maintained his ground, but it is equally certain that he would not 
 have been defeated on the Address if Disraeli had previously laid on 
 the table the Blue Book containing the French and Italian correspon- 
 dence with the Foreign Office. Why he chose not to do so I never 
 knew, nor did he ever explain it to me ; but I presented it to the 
 House of Lords at the last moment, and at least twelve or fourteen 
 Members of Parliament who voted against us in the fatal division 
 ■came out of their way, at different times and places, to assure me that 
 had they read that correspondence before the debate they never would 
 have voted for an amendment which, as far as our conduct respecting 
 the war was concerned, was thoroughly undeserved, we having done 
 everything that was possible to preserve peace. Mr. Cobden was one 
 of these, and expressed himself most strongly on the subject.* 
 
 Such also seems to have been the opinion of Mr. 
 iDelane, the editor of the Times, who, after reading the 
 Blue Book, wrote to Lord Malmesbury, as follows : — 
 
 Dear Lord Malmesbury, 
 
 ... I sincerely believe that if you had published your 
 •despatches a fortnight earlier they would have had a very important 
 influence on the division, and I think it has been sufficiently proved 
 -how I would have done you justice irrespective of party interests. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 John T. Delane. 
 
 * Memoirs of an ex-Minister, vol. ii., p. 181>.
 
 102 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli told me himself, a few weeks after the 
 division, that the papers were not ready. But how this 
 statement is to be reconciled with Lord Malmesbury's 
 I do not pretend to say. 
 
 The Chinese Vote of 1857, the unsuccessful Keform 
 Bill, and the mismanagement, as was supposed, of the 
 Debate on Lord Hardngton's amendment weakened 
 for a time the confidence of the Opposition in Mr. 
 Disraeli's powers ; and the next five years were not the 
 happiest period of his Parliamentary career. Many 
 members of the Tory party thought Lord Palraerston a 
 better leader than their own ; and when the latter had 
 planned an attack, which, if properly supported by the 
 Opposition, would have turned out the Government, he 
 had the mortification of seeing the officer to whom it 
 was entrusted refuse to fight when he understood what 
 the consequences would be. The question was reduc- 
 tion of expenditure, and the debate occurred the day 
 before the Derby. Mr. Disraeli said : — 
 
 I see several amendments on the paper which are offered for the 
 purpose of attainmg it [a reduction]. With most of them I am 
 obliged, for one reason or another, to differ ; there remained that of 
 my right honourable friend, -which I was disposed to prefer to them 
 all. To-morrow I believe we shall all be engaged elsewhere. I 
 daresay that many honourable gentlemen who take more interest than 
 I do in that noble pastime will have their favourites. I hope they 
 will not be so unlucky as to find their favourites bolting. If they 
 are placed in that dilemma they will be better able to understand 
 and sympathise with my feelings on this occasion. 
 
 I have been told that, during the greater part of Lord 
 Palmerston^s second administration, Mr. Disraeli was a 
 good deal isolated from his party. And in point of 
 fact, the policy of Lord Palmerston left very little for the 
 leader of the Opposition to do. It was a time of peace, 
 to which many old Conservatives looked back after his 
 death, as Tories of the older school looked back after
 
 ME. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 103 
 
 the Reform Bill, to the halcyon days of Lord Liver- 
 pool., Throughout the whole of it foreign affairs 
 were the principal subject of interest. Lord Russell was 
 Foreign Secretary, and, in the absence of domestic topics. 
 Lord Russell and Italy, Lord Russell and Savoy, Lord 
 Russell and the Pope, Lord Russell and Denmark, Lord 
 Russell and the Emperors of Russia, Austria, and France, 
 afforded an inexhaustible fund of amusement every 
 session to both Houses of Parliament. The " rich 
 harvest of autumnal indiscretions," as Mr. Disraeli 
 facetiously termed the annual results of Lord Russell's 
 work in the recess, supplied the leader of the Opposi- 
 tion with food for many brilliant efforts ; and scat- 
 tered up and down the volumes of Hansard during 
 these five years are to be found some of the most 
 masterly speeches on the foreign policy of England which 
 Parliament can boast, and which make one sometimes 
 regret that so important a department of public affairs 
 had never been committed to one who, in many circum- 
 stances of his career as well as in his conception of 
 English interests, so closely resembled Canning. 
 
 Some of his best speeches on domestic subjects were 
 delivered during the same period. Among them may be 
 mentioned a speech on Commercial Treaties on the 17th 
 of February 1863, one on Reform in 1865, and four 
 speeches on the Church of England in the year 1861, 
 1862, 1863, and 1864 respectively. The gist of his 
 remarks on Commercial Treaties was that they could do 
 us very little good now, when, owing to our Free Trade 
 policy, we had nothing left to give in exchange. His 
 speeches on the Church of England, taken together, 
 constitute a little treatise, and were collected and pub- 
 lished in pamphlet form under the title of Church and 
 Queen. The first was spoken on the 14th of November
 
 104 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 1861, at the meeting of the Oxford Diocesan Church 
 Societies, with the Bishop of Oxford in the chair. In 
 this speech the statesman addresses himself to what he 
 conceives to be the want of [union in the Church, which 
 prevents her from showing that irresistible front to 
 her opponents, which, under other circumstances, she 
 might present. He traces the disunion to three causes: 
 a feeling of perplexity arising out of the state of parties 
 in the Church, a feeling of distrust arising out of the 
 Existence of scepticism within her pale, and a feeling of 
 discontent arising out of her relations with the civil 
 pdwer. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli said that there had always been par- 
 ties in the Church, that the scepticism was stale and 
 6ft-repeated scepticism, and the connection with the 
 State conferred a benefit on the Church, for which she 
 would do well to endure all its inconveniences. Mr. 
 Disraeli, however, forgot that though there may always 
 have been parties in the Church, they were not always 
 at open hostilities with each other. Between the Re- 
 formation and the Restoration they were so, neither 
 believing that the other had any lawful footing in the 
 Church of England. And we know what followed. But 
 from the Restoration to the Oxford Revival such was 
 not the case. The High Church and the Low Church 
 parties existed alongside of each other, without either 
 wishing to exterminate the rival school. But the quarrel 
 between the Ritualists and Evangelicals seemed at one 
 time likely to develop into something almost as dan- 
 gerous as that between Puritan and Anglican. As for 
 the scepticism, it mattered little whether it was old or 
 new, if it continued to unsettle men's minds and shake 
 their faith in the sincerity of the clergy. It was in that 
 speech that Mr. Disraeli passed his famous judgment
 
 3fR. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 105 
 
 upon the Essayists and Reviewers, saying that though 
 he was "all for free enquiry, it must be by free en- 
 quirers.'^ He was quite right, however, in the conclu- 
 sion [to which he was leading up, namely, that union 
 among Churchmen only could avert the disestablishment 
 of the Church. The clergy must not be deceived by the 
 victories of the Conservative Party in the House of Com- 
 mons on the question of Church rates. The enemies 
 of the Church might be only a minority, " but the his- 
 tory of success is the history of minorities." 
 
 The second of these speeches was delivered at High 
 Wycombe, at a public meeting held in aid of the Society 
 for the Augmentation of Small Benefices, on the 30th 
 of October 1862, and in this and in the fourth of the 
 series, he sketches out the means by which the Church 
 may assert her nationality, in the face of the fact that so 
 large a part of the nation is estranged from her commu- 
 nion. His suggestions are eight in number. The 
 Church must educate the people. She must increase 
 the episcopate. She must jealously maintain her exist- 
 ing parochial constitution. She must invite the co- 
 operation of the laity in Church government. Slie must 
 endeavour, as far as possible, to place the pecuniary posi- 
 tion of the clergy on a more satisfactory footing. Con- 
 vocation should be constituted on a broader basis, with 
 a better representation of the parochial clergy, and, 
 perhaps, a union of the two provinces. The relations 
 of the Colonial Cliurch with the Metropolitan must be 
 improved. And, tiually, a satisfactory Court of Appeal 
 in ecclesiastical causes must be established. 
 
 In all these recommendations we can see the laborious 
 effort of a powerful and acute intellect to throw itself 
 into a cause which appeals to the speaker's head more 
 than to his heart; an effort which, we cannot help say-
 
 106 LIFE OF LORD BFACONSFIELD. 
 
 ing, is not entirely successful. There is something 
 artificial in the earnestness with which he presses these 
 counsels on the Church; and, more than all, there is an 
 absence of what elsewhere never fails him — that tone of 
 originality and freshness with which his remarks, even 
 on the most hackneyed topics, were usually characterised^ 
 At the same time, his suggestions are practical and sen- 
 sible, and most of them are now numbered among recog- 
 nised ecclesiastical necessities. There are, moreover, in the 
 last of these speeches, some striking and eloquent passages, 
 principally in relation to the new school of scepticism 
 which was then developing itself. Mr. Disraeli asks — 
 
 Will these opinions siiccced? Is there a possibility of their suc- 
 cess? My conviction is that they vrill fail. I -wish to do justice to 
 the acknowledged talent, the influence, and infoiTaation which th& 
 new party command ; but I am of opinion that they will fail, for two 
 reasons. In the first place, having examined all their writings, I 
 believe, without any exception, whether they consist of fascinating 
 eloquence, diversified learning, and picturesque sensibility — I speak 
 seriously what I feel — and that, too, exercised by one honoured in 
 this University, and whom to know is to admire and to regard ; or 
 whether you find them in the cruder conclusions of prelates who 
 appear to have commenced their theological studies after they had 
 grasped the crozier, and who introduce to society their obsolete dis- 
 coveries with the startling wonder and frank ingenuousness of their 
 own savages ; or whether I read the lucubrations of nebulous profes- 
 sors, who seem in their style to revive chaos ; or, lastly, whether it 
 be the provincial arrogance and the precipitate self-complacency 
 which flash and flare in an essay or review, I find the common cha- 
 racteristic of their writings is this — that their learning is always 
 secondhand. 
 
 All that inexorable logic, irresistible rhetoric, bewitching wit, could 
 avail to popularise those views, were set in motion to impress the 
 new learning on the minds of the two leading nations of Europe — the 
 people of England and the people of France. And they produced 
 their effect. The greatest of revolutions was, I will not say, occa- 
 sioned by those opinions, but no one can deny that their promulgation 
 largely contributed to that mighty movement popularly called th& 
 French Revolution, which has not yet ended, and which is certainly
 
 MR. BISBAELI AND LORD DERBY. 107 
 
 the greatest event that has happened in the history of man. Only 
 the fall of the Roman Empire can be compared to it ; but that was 
 going on for centuries, and so gradually, that it cannot for one 
 moment be held to have so instantaneously influenced the opinion of 
 the world. Now, what has happened ? Look at the age in which 
 we live, and the time when these opinions were successfully promul- 
 gated by men who, I am sure, with no intention to disparage a new 
 party, I may venture to say were not unequal to them. Look at the 
 Europe of the present day, and the Europe of a century ago. It is 
 not the same Europe ; its very form is changed ; whole nations and 
 great nations which then flourished have disappeared. There is not 
 a political constitution in Europe existing at the present time which 
 then existed. The leading community of the Continent of Europe- 
 has changed all its landmarks, altered its boundaries, erased its local 
 names. The whole jurisprudence of j Eurojie has been subverted. 
 Even the tenure of land, which of all human institutions most affects 
 the character of man, has been altered. The feudal system has been 
 abolished. Not merely manners have been changed, but customs 
 have been changed. And what has happened ? When the turbulence 
 was over, when the shout of triumph and the wail of agony were alike 
 stilled ; when, as it were, the waters had subsided, the sacred 
 heights of Sinai and of Cavalry were again revealed, and amid the 
 wreck of thrones and tribunals, of extinct nations and abolished 
 laws, mankind, tried by so many sorrows, purified by so much 
 suffering, and wise with such unprecedented experience, bowed again 
 before the decisive truths that Omnipotence in His ineffable wisdom 
 had entrusted to the custody and the promulgation of a chosen 
 people. 
 
 The simile at the end of this passage occurs in Can- 
 ning's speech in proposing the vote of thanks to the 
 Duke of Wellington after the battle of Vittoria. Sir 
 Walter Scott has also introduced it in his Life of Napo- 
 leon. But Lord Beaconsfield has embellished it, and 
 applied it with increased effect. 
 
 This, too, is the speech in which another memorable 
 phrase occurs : — " What is the question now placed 
 before society with a glib assurance the most astound- 
 ing ? The question is this : Is man an ape or an angel ? 
 My Lord, I am on the side of the angels."
 
 108 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 Tlie following nuiark, again, is well worthy of being 
 recorded : — 
 
 There is another point in connection with this subject which I can- 
 not help noticing on the present occasion. It is the common cry — the 
 common blunder — that articles of faith and religious creeds are the 
 arms of a clergy, and are framed to tyrannise over a land. They are 
 exactly the reverse. The precise creed and the strict article are tho 
 title deeds of the laity to the religion which has descended to them ; 
 and whenever these questions have been brought before Parliament, I 
 have always opposed alterations of articles and subscriptions on this 
 broad principle — that the security and certainty which they furnish 
 are the special privileges of the laity, and that you cannot tell in 
 what position the laity may find themselves if that security be with- 
 drawn. 
 
 In the year 1862 Mr. Disraeli re-publisbed, in the 
 form of a pamphlet, two financial speeches, one deli- 
 vered in February 1860, on the introduction of the 
 Budget, the other on the 8th of April 1862, on a similar 
 occasion. The two together form a summary of Mr. 
 Gladstone's financial policy from 1853 to 1862, and 
 events have to some extent justified Mr. Disraeli's 
 criticism. They certainly tend to modify the somewhat 
 extravagant estimate which had been formed of Mr. 
 Gladstone as a financier, and to suggest that his highly 
 popular projects were more showy than safe. 
 
 The General Election of 1865 was unfavourable to 
 the Conservatives, and after Lord Palmerston's death in 
 the autumn of that year Earl Russell succeeded to the 
 Treasury with a nominal majority of seventy. But a 
 considerable proportion of these had been returned to 
 support the late Premier, and in the admission of Mr. 
 Bright to the confidence of the new Cabinet they saw 
 little guarantee for the further continuation of his policy. 
 A Reform Bill was introduced by Mr. Gladstone, dealing 
 only with the franchise, and postponing to a more con- 
 venient season the redistribution of seats. The objec-
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 109 
 
 tion to this plan is obvious. If the Ministry were 
 allowed to carry their Franchise Bill by itself, they 
 would be able to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the 
 enfranchised classes on the question of redistribution 
 only. Thus they would be sure of a majority, and could 
 manufacture their electorate as they pleased. 
 
 Disaffected supporters and keen-witted opponents 
 were not likely to lose this opportunity. The plan was de- 
 feated by a combined movement of the two — the present 
 Duke of Westminster and the present Earl of Derby 
 being the mover and seconder of a hostile resolution. 
 Now was formed the celebrated " Cave " — a body of 
 seceders from the Ministerial Party likened by Mr. 
 Bright to the inmates of the Cave of Adullam. They 
 included the present Duke of Westminster, Lord Wemyss, 
 and Lord Sherbrooke, all three at that time in the House 
 of Commons, the Earl of Lichfield, his brother. Major 
 Anson, Member for Lichfield, and numbered altogether 
 some twenty or thirty votes, suflBcient, as it proved, to 
 support the Conservative Government in their Keform 
 Bill of the following year. But though Ministers, 
 left with a majority of only five, abandoned their 
 proposal and brought in a complete measure, they 
 never recovered from the shock, and, after a pro- 
 tracted struggle, marked by various vicissitudes, 
 they fell before a resolution of Lord Dunkellin's, 
 affirming the superiority of a rating to a rental fran- 
 chise. 
 
 Had these events happened but one year earlier 
 — had Loid Palmerston died in the autumn of 1864, 
 and Lord Eussell's Government been defeated before 
 the General Election of 1865 — how different our his- 
 tory might have been ! The Tories in that case would 
 have dissolved their own Parliament ; all the Conserva-
 
 110 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 live public feeling which went to support Lord Palraer- 
 ston would have gone to swell their own ranks, and 
 instead of losing, as they did, nearly twenty seats, they 
 would probably have gained double, and have returned 
 to Parliament with a clear working ma-jority. But it 
 was not to be, and for the third time Mr. Disraeli found 
 himself Leader of the House of Commons with only a 
 minority at his back.* 
 
 Under these circumstances, the policy of the Tory 
 Oabinet was spirited and sagacious. It might certainly 
 have been desirable, had it been possible, that the 
 settlement of 1832 should remain undisturbed, though 
 founded on no principle, and exposed to criticisms 
 against which the argument from experience, however 
 brilliantly enforced, was always felt to be inadequate. 
 But it was not possible. The Whig-Radical Party had 
 committed themselves to a further change ; and they 
 could have turned out any Tory Government at a 
 months' notice, wliich declared itself hostile to reform. 
 
 * The third Derby Administration was composed as follows : — 
 First Lord of the Treasuiy, Earl of Derby. 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli. 
 Lord Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford. 
 Home Secretary, Mr. Walpole. 
 Foreign Secretary, Lord Stanley. 
 Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon. 
 ' Secretary for War, General Peel. 
 
 Secretary for India, Lord Cranboume. 
 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Marquis of Abercom. 
 
 Chief Secretary, Lord Xaas. 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir J. Pakington. 
 
 Lord President, Duke of Buckingham. 
 
 Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Malmesbury. 
 
 Commissioner of Works, Lord John Manners. 
 
 President of the Board of Trade, Sir S. Northcote. 
 
 President of the Poor-Law Board, Mr. Gathorne Hardy. 
 
 Postmaster-General, Duke of ]Montroso.
 
 MR. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. Ill 
 
 There was but one thing to do. The Conservative 
 leaders saw from the first that if you could not defend 
 the £10 test, you could not defend any other equally 
 arbitrary one. The existing franchise had acquired 
 «ome prescriptive sanctity. Parliaments returned by it 
 had done great things. If the people would not hold 
 by that, what chance was there that they would long 
 endure a £7 franchise with no such titles to their reve- 
 rence ? Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli thought the £10 
 franchise worth a fight ; and they fought in its defence 
 a gallant and well-contested action. But having ouce 
 been beaten on it they treated that result as final, and 
 resolved to have no more to do with it. Mr. Henley, a 
 typical Conservative, took the same view; and even 
 Lord Sherbrooke himself acknowledged that there was 
 no permanent resting-place between the £10 franchise 
 and household suff'rage. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, however, determined, if he could, to 
 remove the question from the domain of party, and to 
 make the whole House of Commons assist him in the 
 work. This was the meaning of his celebrated thirteen 
 " Resolutions," by means of which he hoped to ascer- 
 tain the collective opinion of the House, so as to frame 
 a measure which could not be assailed on pure party 
 grounds. As the success of this proposal would have 
 had the effect of disarming the Opposition, its lenders, 
 of course, refused jt, and the Cabinet was compelled to 
 bring in a Bill at once. Mr. Disraeli proposed a £15 
 county franchise, and a borough franchise based on 
 household rating, combined with two years' residence 
 and personal payment of rates. But between the intro- 
 duction of the Resolutions on the 11th of February and 
 the further discussion of them on the 25th, duubt arose 
 n th3 minds, of Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and
 
 112 LIFE OF LORD BEAGONStlELD. 
 
 General Peel with regard to tho nitiug suffrage, and on 
 Sunday the 24th they placed their resignation in the 
 hands of Lord Derby. They consented to remain on 
 condition that a different measure was proposed ; and 
 the "Ten Minutes' Bill/' substituting a £6 franchise in 
 the borough, was adopted. Mr. Disraeli had literally 
 liardly more than an hour to prepare himself for this 
 sudden change of front, and he offered to resign office 
 rather than undertake a task so much to his own dis- 
 taste. However, he was overruled. At three o'clock 
 on that Monday afternoon, February 25th, he had eaten 
 nothing, and, after taking a single glass of wine in 
 Downing Street, he went down to the House, there to 
 discharge his allotted task with an air of depression 
 and deprecation which surprised everyone who heard 
 him. The Bill, naturally, was only born to perish, and 
 the Government and the Conservative Party had now to 
 consider what course they should pursue. The Govern- 
 ment, however, was not left to decide. A meeting was held 
 at the Carlton Club, the result of which was to inform the 
 Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 that the Tory Party now would support the original 
 scheme and no other. Thus, so far from Mr. Disraeli 
 having dragged an unwilling party after him, the party 
 itself insisted upon his acting as he did ; and he had no 
 sincerer supporters through the desperate struggles 
 which ensued than some of those very county members 
 whose trust he was said to have abused. 
 
 Whatever may have been thought of the policy of 
 the Government measure, there is no doubt that Mr. 
 Disraeli's parliamentary reputation was enormously 
 enhanced by liis conduct of it. So bitter and ruthless 
 an opposition has rarely been met by such consum- 
 mate tact, such immovable good temper, such alert
 
 MB. DISRAELI AND LORD DERBY. 113 
 
 logic, and such perfect self-possession. His humorous 
 comments on Mr. Gladstone's bursts of passion de- 
 lighted both sides of the House; the easy good-humour 
 with which he expressed his satisfaction at having had 
 the table between himself and Mr. Gladstone, during 
 one of that gentleman's diatribes, destroyed its whole 
 effect in a moment. His description of Mr. Lowe, after 
 that gentleman had referred, in illustration of his own 
 position, to the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of 
 Chseronea, as an "inspired school-boy"; and his retort 
 on Mr. Beresford Hope, who refused to support an 
 Asian mystery, that in his severest sarcasms there was 
 a " Batavian grace " which robbed his words of all their 
 sting, will never be forgotten, either by those who 
 heard him at the time, or those who treasure up the 
 traditions of Parliamentary eloquence and wit. 
 
 Nor were his graver efforts less surprising. One 
 night he wound up a great debate, answering the 
 House all round in a speech of three hours duration, 
 without a single note ; and it was allowed on all sides 
 that he had not missed a point, nor failed to make 
 the most of an argument throughout the whole of it. 
 When after his first great division against the whole 
 might of Mr. Gladstone, which he won by a majority 
 of twenty-one, Tory members crowded up to the 
 Treasury Bench to shake hands with and congratu- 
 late him, they only expressed the feeling of three- 
 fourths of the House, who would have liked to pay 
 the same tribute of admiration to so genial and gallan 
 an antagonist. 
 
 The Franchise clauses of the Bill itself, as origi- 
 nally introduced by its author, will be found in the 
 Appendix. It was greatly altered for the worse in 
 Committee. But Mr. Disraeli is not responsible for 
 
 8
 
 114 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 the consequences. As it originally stood, it was a much 
 more Conservative measure tlian in its final form. The 
 abolition of the compound householder, and the change 
 of two years residence for one, destroyed two of its 
 principal securities. 
 
 The year 1868 bfought to Mr. Disraeli, in his sixty- 
 third year, the prize to which he had aspired from his 
 early manhood, and for wliich he had served as few 
 have ever served before him. He had fought his way 
 by his eloquence and his wit, and, on the resignation 
 of Lord Derby in March 1868, be was at once recog- 
 nised by all competent judges as his only possible 
 successor. His speech on taking his seat as Prime 
 Minister in the House of Commons was brief and 
 dignified; and so was his tenure of the oflBce. But it 
 must always be regarded as one of the most important 
 events in modern history, as it undoubtedly had the 
 effect of re-opening the Irish Question, and entailed on 
 us the long and disastrous train of consequences which 
 seem still to be unexhausted. If we allow ]\tr. Gladstone's 
 Irish Resolutions of 1868 to have been a legitimate 
 party move, the fact remains that but for Mr. Disraeli's 
 elevation to the Premiership, and his prospects of a 
 majority at the next General Election, these resolutions 
 would never have been introduced) and the terrible 
 struggle of the last eight years would have been either 
 postponed or averted altogether.
 
 116 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. DTSRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 
 
 1868-1881. 
 
 Mr. Glarlstone's Irish Resolutions — Mr. Disraeli's speech on the Abys- 
 sinian war — General Election of 1868 — Mr. Disraeli's speeches in 
 Opposition — Death of Lady Beaconsfield — Refusal to take office 
 in 1873 — Mr. Disraeli Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow 
 — The Conservative reaction — Mr. Disraeli and the masses — The 
 Cabinet of 1874 — The Public Worship Regulation Bill- -Sdnitas 
 sanitaium — Social legislation — Educational measures — Ecclesias- 
 tical questions — The Royal Titles Act — Mr. Disraeli becomes 
 Lord Beaconsfield — Foreign policy of his Administration — The 
 Eastern Question — The Bulgarian Atrocities— The March Pro- 
 tocol — Declaration of War by Russia — The treaty of San Stephano 
 and its consequences — The Treaty of Berlin — Its results — The 
 The Anglo-Turkish Convention— Peace with Honour — The Aflf- 
 ghan war — Unpopularity of the Government — The General 
 Election of 1880 — Lord BeaconsSeld's last appearances in Parlia- 
 ment — His illness and death — Grief of the nation — ^The funeral 
 at Hughenden — Visit of the Queen — The Primrose League — 
 Tributes to Lord Beaconsfield's memory. 
 
 Henceforth we have to regard Mr. Disraeli and 
 Mr. Gladstone as the two rival chiefs of Conservatism 
 and Liberalism, towering hy a head and shoulders over 
 all thciir contemporaries, and converting party warfare 
 into a duel between the two heroes. It was in 1868 
 that Mr. Gladstone brougiit in the first of his Irish 
 
 8 *
 
 116 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Resolutions, wliicli, after a long debate and a powerful 
 reply from the Prime Minister, was carried by a ma- 
 jority of sixty-five. Mr. Disraeli then said that as the 
 appeal was ultimately to the nation he would not give 
 the House the trouble of dividing upon the others. 
 But he was not allowed to escape without a severe 
 cross-examination, conducted by Mr. Bright and Mr. 
 Gladstone, whose contention was that he ought to have 
 resigned at once. But his position was this : he 
 would not allow that the existing House of Commons 
 was a fair judge of the question. When an adverse 
 vote may fairly be taken to express the opinion of the 
 country, a constitutional minister resigns; when there 
 is a doubt upon the point, he dissolves Parliament, 
 and puts the question directly to the people. These 
 are the two constitutional courses, one or other of 
 which a minister is bound to adopt. Now, what had 
 been the recent history of the Irish Church question 
 up to that period ? Shortly before the last General 
 Election, Mr. Gladstone himself had spoken of the Irish 
 Church as a question " out of the domain of practical 
 politics," as surrounded with *' immense difficulties," and 
 as not likely to come forward in his own time — exactly 
 as he speaks of the Church of England now. With 
 these statements staring the country in the face, the 
 question of the Irish Church could have had no in- 
 fluence whatever in determining the choice of the 
 constituencies. The existing House of Commons, 
 therefore, was no adequate reflection of public opinion 
 on the subject ; consequently it was no part of Mr. 
 Disraeli's duty to resign office. 
 
 The legitimate alternative was to advise Her Majesty 
 to dissolve. This, then, was the course which he adopted, 
 coupling his advice, however, with a tender of resignation
 
 DISRAELI AS LEABEB OF THE PARTY. 117 
 
 should it seem more conducive to Her Majesty's personal 
 convenience. Pestered with inquiries as to whether 
 he had recommended an appeal to the present con- 
 stituencies or the new ones, Mr. Disraeli said his 
 advice had been quite general, and would include an 
 appeal to either, but that he hoped it might be possible 
 to make his appeal to the latter in the following 
 autumn. With this statement, the Opposition was 
 obliged to be contented, and with a few lingering growls, 
 their anger gradually subsided. But it is perfectly 
 clear that Mr. Disraeli had only followed the course 
 prescribed by the Constitution in taking the opinion of 
 the country before he retired from the helm. Had he 
 been forced by the factiousness of Opposition to dis- 
 solve before the new system was completed, and so 
 necessitate two general elections, one upon the heels of 
 the other, that would have been their fault, not his. 
 
 Before the Session of 1868 was over, it fell to Mr. Dis- 
 raeli's lot to propose a vote of thanks to the troops en- 
 gaged in the Abyssinian war, which had been undertaken 
 in 1867 to obtain the release of some Englishmen kept 
 in prison by the King of that country. In the course 
 of his speech the Prime Minister said that Englishmen 
 must take a peculiar interest in the fact that '* the 
 standard of St. George had been hoisted on the moun- 
 tains of Rasselas." It has been alleged that Johnson 
 was not thinking of the real mountains of Abyssinia 
 when he wrote Rasselas. The objection would be 
 hypercritical in any case. But in my edition of Lord 
 Beacons6eld's speeches, will be found some information 
 supplied by Lord Stanley of Alderley, which makes it 
 almost certain that Johnson was thinking of the real 
 mountains when he wrote.* 
 
 * See Speeches, vol. ii. p. 129.
 
 118 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Oil the evo of the General Election of 1868, Mr. 
 Disraeli issued an address to his constituents, brief 
 indeed, but expressing a great truth with that terse 
 and concise gravity which is tlie highest excellence of 
 that kit)d of composition. 
 
 So long as there is in this country the couuoction through the 
 medium of a Protestant Sovereign between the State and the National 
 Church, religious liberty is secure. That security is now assailed by 
 various means and on different pleas ; but admidst the discordant 
 activity of many factions there moves the supreme purpose of one 
 power. The philosopher may flatter himself he is advancing the 
 cause of enlightened progress ; the sectarians may be roused to exer- 
 tion by anticipations of the downfall of ecclesiastical systems. These 
 are transient efforts, vain and passing aspirations. The ultimate 
 triumph, were our Church to fall, would be to that power which 
 would substitute for the authority of one sovereign the supremacy of 
 a foreign prince, to that power with whose traditions, learning, and dis- 
 cipline, and organization our Church alone has hitherto been able to 
 cope, and that, too, only when supported by a determined and devoted 
 people. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, however, had overrated the strength of 
 his own position, and the comparative force of the dif- 
 ferent opinions which were arrayed against each other in 
 the country. On the one band was the strong Protes- 
 tant feeling of England and Scotland, and the support 
 which might reasonably be expected from the newly 
 enfranchised classes. On the other lay the combined 
 armies of Nonconformity and Popery, laying aside 
 their mutual hostility as they have done before in 
 their common hatred of the Establishment, and both 
 backed up by the rising strength of the Radicals, who 
 are naturally in favour of all revolutions, whether civil 
 or ecclesiastical. The event proved that the latter 
 combination was the stronger. Mr. Disraeli, at the 
 Mansion House dinner on tlie 9th of Nnveraber, pre- 
 dicted a victory, and boasted that the " arms of precision **
 
 DISBAELT AS LEA BEB OF THE PABTY. 119 
 
 — ■whatever he may have meant by the expression — 
 were on the Conservative side. Ho was doomed to 
 disappointment, and the verdict of the country con- 
 signed him once more to five years of opposition. 
 
 On this period of his life we need not linger long. 
 He did not take a very prominent part in the debates 
 on either the Irish Church Bill or the Irish Land Bill. 
 He had said what he had to say about the Church in 
 his speech on Mr. Gladstone's Resolution, when he 
 referred to the words which he had used in 1844, and 
 which had been turned against liim in tlie debate — ** an 
 alien church, a starving population, and an absentee 
 aristocracy.'^ He said tlie situation was changed now, 
 for the people were no longer starving, and the pro- 
 prietors were no longer absentees. As to the alien 
 church, of course, he could say nothing, and his views 
 on that subject will be deferred to a later chapter. 
 
 During the session of 1869-70, he seemed, in fact, 
 to be "lying by." But the breaking out of the French 
 and German War in 1870, and the question of the 
 neutrality of Belgium which arose out of it, drew forth 
 from Mr. Disraeli, on the 1st of August, perhaps one 
 of the most powerful speeches on foreign affairs which 
 he ever delivered. After calling on the House of 
 Commons to take note that there were ** vast ambitions 
 stirring in Europe," he went on to remind it of what 
 took place in 1853, and it is important to quote these 
 words because of what occurred in 1876,"^^ and because 
 of the light which they throw on what Mr. Disraeli 
 mrant by the " armed neutrality," which he recommended 
 England to observe. Admitting the advantage of pos- 
 sessing a strong Government at such a moment, com- 
 posed of able and experienced men, he said that in 
 * Sco page 140-43.
 
 120 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 1853 we had a still stronger Goverament. composed of 
 still abler men, and yet what happened ? " It was at 
 this very period of the year, at the end of July, that, 
 after two mouths of hesitation, Russia crossed the 
 Pruth, and we have it upon record, we have it upon 
 authoritative and authentic evidence, that Russia would 
 not have crossed the Pruth had England at that time 
 been decided ; had she told Russia that it was a ques- 
 tion of war with England. . . . What did it end in ? 
 In the i\Iarch of next year you had to go to war with 
 Russia, because she had crossed the Pruth in the pre- 
 ceding July, and involved herself in war with Turkey." 
 A word in time would have prevented the Crimean war. 
 But for a neutral power to be able to speak that word, 
 her neutrality must be an armed neutrality. What he, 
 therefore, wished to impress upon the public was that, 
 if we desired to prevent the violation of the treaties 
 guaranteeing Luxemburg and Belgium, our neutrality 
 must be an armed neutrality, for it was evident from the 
 secret treaty that both France and Prussia would have 
 violated them without remorse. 
 
 In the following year, however, when the two great 
 Irish measures had been passed, Mr. Disraeli descended 
 into the arena again with all his wonted vigour. At the 
 commencement of the session he spoke twice on the 
 Treaty of Paris,* with great force and great mastery 
 of the question. On the famous Westmeath Com- 
 mittee he attacked the Government with an energy of 
 sarcasm which reminded one of the Peelite period. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) was 
 elected for a sj^ecitic pnrjjose: he was the Minister who alone was 
 
 * Russia had announced her intention of abrogating of her own 
 accord the article in the Treaty of Paris providing for the neutrali- 
 sation of the Black Sea. Select Speechet, vol. p. ii. 133.
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 121 
 
 capable to cope with these long-enduring and mysterious evils that 
 had tortured and tormented the civilisation of England. The right 
 honourable gentleman persuaded the people of England that with 
 regard to Irish politics he was in possession of the philosopher's 
 stone. Well. Sir, he has been returned to this House with an immense 
 majority, with the object of securing the tranquillity and content of 
 Ireland. Has anything been griidged him ? Time, labour, devotion 
 — whatever has been demanded has been accorded, whatever has been 
 proposed has been carried. Under his influence and at his instance 
 we have legalised confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, condoned high 
 treason ; we have destroyed churches, we have shaken property to its 
 foundation, and we have emptied gaols ; and now he cannot govern a 
 country without coming to a parliamentary committee ! The right 
 honoui-able gentleman, after all his heroic exploits, and at the head 
 of his great majority, is making government ridiculous. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli opened the Session of 1872 with de- 
 claring that during the whole of the preceding autumn 
 Ministers had lived in " a blaze of apology/' And when 
 the Ballot Bill was introduced he declared that the time 
 had gone by when the country stood in need of the 
 ballot. The Prime Minister had, he said, " passionately 
 embraced a corpse." 
 
 It was during the Easter holidays of this year, 1872, 
 that Mr. Disraeli paid a long-promised visit to Lanca- 
 shire, and delivered a long speech at Manchester, shortly 
 after Mr. Gladstone had been present at a great Liberal 
 reception in the same city ; a circumstance which fur- 
 nished the subject of a cartoon to Punch illustrating a 
 quotation from Bombastes : — 
 
 I too have heard on inky Irwell's shore 
 
 Another lion give a louder roar. 
 
 And the first lion thought the last a bore 
 
 The gist of this speech lies in the one sentence. 
 " The programme of the Conservative party is to main- 
 tain the institutions of the country." We have then
 
 122 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 an exhaustive consideration of the various component 
 parts of tliat Constitution, and the advantages of each, 
 especially of the monarchy, which had then been recently 
 attacked in a lecture at Newcastle by Sir Cl)arles 
 Dilke. Some remarks on the union of Church and State 
 follow; then comes tlie condition of the people, both 
 agricultural and manifacturing, with some reference to 
 the doctrines of Feni inism ; and the speech concludes 
 with a description of the Ministry and their conduct of 
 foreign aflfairs, which, whatever its justice, will long 
 be remembered for its felicitous imagery and biting 
 satire. 
 
 It was in this speech that the following passage 
 occurs, which really has more literal truth in it than 
 the jocular rhetoric of Mr. Disraeli invariably pos- 
 sessed : — 
 
 But, gentlemen, as time advanced, it was not difficult to perceive 
 that estraragance was being substituted for energy by the Govern- 
 ment. The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms 
 ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their 
 eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat 
 opposite the Treasury Bench the Ministers reminded me of one of 
 those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South 
 America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanos. Not a flame 
 flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. 
 
 This speech was followed up by another at the Crystal 
 Palace on the 24t,h of June, whicli was in some respects 
 a repetition of the former, laying down the Conservative 
 programme as the " maintenance of the Empire, the 
 preservation of our institutions, and the improvement of 
 the condition of the people." 
 
 Before the end of the year it became apparent that 
 the Gladstone Ministry bad lost its hold upon the 
 country. But " the perfect wife," who had cheered so
 
 piSBAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 123 
 
 many of her husband's darker hours, was not spared to 
 witness the brilliant dawn that was at hand, '* to sliare 
 tlie triumpli or partake the gale." Mrs. Disraeli, whom 
 Her Majesty had created Lady Beaconsfield in 1869, died 
 in the winter ofl872, and Mr. Disraeli might almost have 
 said with Johnson that success came to him at last when 
 he was old and could not enjoy it, when he was solitary and 
 could not impart it. Deprived of her active sympathy, 
 he seems still, however, to have been sustained by her 
 memory; and certainly his judgment was never more 
 conspicuous than in the Ministerial crisis of 1873. 
 Defeated on the Dublin University Bill by a majority 
 of three, Mr. Gladstone at once resigned, and Her 
 Majesty, without a moment's delay, summoned Mr. 
 Disraeli to her councils. Contrary to the judgment of 
 some of his friends at the time, he declined to take 
 office, assuring Her Majesty at the same time that he 
 should have no difficulty in constructing an Adminis- 
 tration, but that he could not undertake to do so with 
 the existing House of Commons. Nor did it suit Mr. 
 Disraeli to take office and dissolve Parliament. As he 
 pointed out to the House in his explanatory statement, 
 a new Government on coming into office cannot dis- 
 solve at once. The mere formation of the Ministry is 
 a work of time. The time necessary for obtaining that 
 accurate knowledge of the state of our foreign relations, 
 and of our financial prospects, which is accessible only 
 to men in office, and without which an incoming 
 Ministry can hardly appeal to the country on any de- 
 finite principles, is still greater. Practically, said Mr. 
 Disraeli, he should have to finish the Session before he 
 could dissolve Parliament, and what would happen 
 in the interval ? He knew only too well from bitter 
 experience.
 
 124 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 Wc should have what is called " fair Jjlay," that is to say, no vote 
 of want of confidence would be proposed, and chiefly because it 
 would be of no use. There would be no wholesale censure, but retail 
 humiliation. A right honourable gentleman will come down here, he 
 ■will arrange his thumb-screws and other instruments of torture on 
 this table — we shall never ask for a vote without a lecture ; we shall 
 never perform the most ordinary routine office of government without 
 there being annexed to it some pedantic and ignominious condition. 
 
 I wish to express nothing but what I know from painful personal 
 experience. No contradiction of the kind I have just encountered 
 could divest me of the painful memory ; I wish it could. I wish it 
 was not my duty to take this view of the case. For a certain time we 
 should enter into the paradise of abstract resolutions. One day 
 honourable gentlemen cannot withstand the golden opportunity of 
 asking the House to affirm that the income-tax should no longer form 
 one of the features of our Ways and Means. Of course a proposition 
 of that kind would be scouted by the right honourable gentleman and 
 all his colleagues ; but then they might dine out that day, and the 
 resolution might be carried, as resohitions of that kind have been. Then 
 another honourable gentleman, distinguished for his knowledge of 
 men and things, would move that the diplomatic service be abolished. 
 While honourable gentlemen opposite were laughing in their sleeves 
 at the mover, they would vote for the motion in order to pnt the 
 Government into a minority. For this reason. Why should men, 
 they would say, govern the country who are in a minority ? totally 
 forgetting that we had aceeeded to office in the spirit of the Constitu- 
 tion, quite oblivious of the fountain and origin of the position we 
 occupied. And it would go very hard if on some sultry afternoon 
 Bome honourable member should not " rush in where angels fear to 
 tread," and successfully assimilate the borough and the county fran- 
 chise. And so things would go on until the bitter end — until at last 
 even the Appropriation Bill has passed, Parliament is dissolved, and 
 we appeal to those millions who, perhaps six months before, might 
 have looked upon us as the vindicators of intolerable grievances, but 
 who now receive us as a defeated, discredited, and degraded Ministry, 
 ■whose services can be neither of value to the Crown nor a credit to 
 the nation. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seemed inclined to lay down the 
 doctrine that no leader of Opposition is entitled to give a 
 vote calculated to defeat the Minister unless he is prepared 
 to take his place. Such a doctrine, if generally acted on,
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 125 
 
 would make all effective criticism impossible. A states- 
 man strong enough to take the Minister's place would 
 not long remain in Opposition, and one not strong 
 enough would have no right to exercise the power which 
 alone makes an Opposition formidable. Mr. Gladstone 
 resumed office, and the session came to a close without 
 any further incident of importance. 
 
 In the autumn of 1873 Mr. Disraeli was chosen Lord 
 Eector of the University of Glasgow, an honour which 
 was renewed in 1874, when he defeated Mr. Emerson 
 by a majority of two hundred. The Tory party had 
 now for the time become the popular party in the 
 country. Of that there could be no doubt. The 
 measures of the Government had produced consider- 
 able irritation in the nation, which was not dimi- 
 nished either by their administrative failures,"^ or by 
 certain equivocal transactions, which produced a great 
 sensation at the time, though it is needless to recapitu- 
 late them now. 
 
 The vague floating discontent thus gradually en- 
 gendered resulted in a state of public opinion, to- 
 wards the close of Mr. Gladstone's Government, 
 which was sufficient to account for its overthrow, 
 even had the nation been indifferent to Toryism. But 
 it was not. Concurrently with the active dislike of Mr. 
 Gladstone's policy, both foreign and domestic, had grown 
 up a feeling that some injustice had been done to the Con- 
 servatives. The country had enjoyed five years for reflec- 
 tion. People saw that after all the Conservatives had 
 been the party which effected the extension of the 
 
 * Mr. Disraeli's Bath letter, in which he described the policy of the 
 Government as one of " plundering and blundering," was thought no 
 exaggeration at the time.
 
 126 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 franchise, let them have tliought aboutit what they might. 
 It was brought home to the working classes that the 
 Conservatives were the authors of that beneficent factory 
 legislation which theLiberalshad so strenuously resisted, 
 and they began to understand too that Conservative 
 principles of foreign policy might be more advantageous 
 to the people than Liberal ones. The Cliurch also, 
 during these five years, had made great progress among 
 the working classes. Many old prejudices had been 
 dissipated, and many new ideas had dawned upon the 
 labouring population, when the General Election of 
 1874 revealed the fact that the existence of the Con- 
 servative working man was not a dream. 
 
 Add to this that, by skilfully taking advantage of every 
 opportunity that occurred, and of every mistake committed 
 by his opponents, in order to draw out those ingenious and 
 sugf^estive contrasts between Conservatism and Liberal- 
 ism, which for nearly thirty years formed so marked a 
 feature in all his political addresses, Mr. Disraeli had suc- 
 ceeded in disturbing very materially the vulgar concep- 
 tion of Toryism which had prevailed in England from 
 the Peace to the middle of the present century, and we 
 shall understand that other causes were at work besides 
 weariness of sensational legislation to ensure the Con- 
 servative victory of 1874. Of the contrasts to which 
 reference has been made, though the eflFect might be 
 heightened by that dexterous manipulation of phrases in 
 which he was so great an adept, the foundation was 
 sufficiently real to secure for them a place auiong the 
 recognised topics of the party ; and, though they might 
 be too fine-drawn for middle aged men of business, 
 there is no doubt that over the minds of a younger 
 generation, always pleased with what is subtle and 
 adroit, they exercised considerable influence.
 
 mSBAELl AS LEAVER OF THE PARTY. 127 
 
 Her Majesty dissolved Parliament in January 1874, 
 Mr. Gladstone promising the people that if he was again 
 returned to power he would abolish the income tax. The 
 answer to his appeal was a Conservative majority of fifty. 
 The result was largely due to the action of the working- 
 classes in the towns, and Mr. Disraeli's severest critics 
 were forced to admit that he had taken the measure of 
 the British workmen more accurately than themselves. 
 The fact is, that those who denied the possibility of the 
 Conservative working man, proceeded on the assump- 
 tion that all his instincts were selfish. They knew 
 that he had been taught to associate cheap food, high 
 wages, and reduced taxes with the political creed re- 
 presented by Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone, and they 
 reasoned that no counter attraction could possibly be 
 strong enough to detach him from the Liberal Party. 
 The elections of 1868, of course, strengthened the con- 
 viction. But it was seen in a very short time that such 
 views were entirely superficial, and that in relying on 
 the existence of a deeper chord of feeling in the work- 
 ing classes, which would respond at once to appeals of 
 a more generous character, Mr. Disraeli had shown his 
 knowledge of human nature and of English human 
 nature in particular. He spoke to them of Eng- 
 land ; of her glory and her duty ; of the imperial in- 
 heritance which their ancestors had won, and which 
 they must transmit to their posterity ; of the proud 
 position which she occupied among the nations of the 
 world, and of the divine mission which it was her pri- 
 vilege to fulfil in the spread of civilisation and religion. 
 In an age of economy and materialism, of cheap break- 
 fast tables, and bread and butter prosperity, these ac- 
 cents fell upon the public ear, long unaccustomed to such 
 sounds, with thrilling power. It may be perfectly true
 
 128 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 that in these appeals to the popular imagination, and to 
 the poetic and romantic element of which almost every 
 man has some small share in his composition, Mr. Dis- 
 raeli was occasionally bombastic, grandiose, or turgid. 
 But through all the gorgeous vapours and fantastic 
 shapes in which his eloquence occasionally clothed itself, 
 a real truth was always visible, and ever and anon flashed 
 out with startling and convincing brightness. This was 
 the secret of Mr. Disraeli's power with the masses: and 
 that they should not understand it who believed that the 
 people of England were incapable of rising to any loftier 
 conception of national life than had been propounded 
 by the Manchester school, was natural enough. 
 
 It is also to be remembered that Mr. Disraeli, even 
 when he could not secure the votes, always commanded 
 the admiration of the English people. They liked his 
 pluck, his humour, his cynicism, his audacious eccen- 
 tricity, and the blows he had levelled at the " big-wigs." 
 They regarded him, at the same time, as a man of the 
 people, whose escutcheon was his pen, and who had 
 fought his own way to greatness and power through 
 tremendous obstacles. 
 
 Thus, from whatever point of view he was regarded^ 
 whether judged by his opinions, his character, or his 
 history, personally, politically, or socially, he was emi- 
 nently an interesting man. And the interest which he 
 excited himself was communicated in some measure ta 
 the party of which he was the leader. Toryism began 
 to appear the more picturesque creed of the two. The 
 people were tired of the whitey-brown monotony of 
 middle-class Liberalism. " I 'm all for the nobs," says 
 the factory girl in Sybil, " if we can't have our own 
 man." And the sentiment is perfectly natural, 
 Toryism and Socialism have this in common, at all
 
 BISBAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 129 
 
 events, that they both lift us out of the region of the 
 commonplace, and appeal to ideas, though the conclu- 
 sions derived from them may be absolutely contradic- 
 tory of each other. 
 
 As soon as Mr. Gladstone saw that the elections left 
 him no hope of a majority, he followed Mr. Disraeli's 
 example in 1868, and hastened to resign his office, 
 without waiting for the meeting of Parliament. Mr. 
 Disraeli was now commissioned by the Queen once more 
 to undertake the task of forming a Conservative Admi- 
 nistration. 
 
 Melioribus opto 
 Aiispiciis, et qufo fuerit minus obvia Graiis. 
 
 He received Her Majesty's commands on the 18th of 
 February, and in about three weeks all his arrange- 
 ments were completed. The following composed the 
 Cabinet : — 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, First Lord of the Treasury. 
 Lord Cairns, Lord Chancellor. 
 The Duke of Richmond, President of the Council. 
 The Earl of Malmesbury, Privy Seal. 
 The Earl of Derby, Foreign Secretary. 
 Marquis of Salisbury, Secretary for India. 
 Earl of Carnarvon, Colonial Secretary. 
 Mr. Gathorne Hardy, Secretary for War. 
 Mr. R. A. Cross, Home Secretary. 
 Mr. Ward Hunt, First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 Sir Stafford Northcote, Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer. 
 Lord John Manners, Postmaster-General. 
 
 Among the members not in the Cabinet, Mr. Disraeli 
 found efficient colleagues in Lord Sandon, Mr. Sclater 
 
 9
 
 130 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Booth, Mr. Clare Sewell Read, Lord George Hamilton, 
 and Mr. Bourke. 
 
 He had uow, as it seemed, a fair chance of realising 
 some of his favourite ideas. It is true, he was sixty- 
 eight years of age. But he was seven years younger than 
 Lord Palmerston when he became Prime Minister for 
 the second time in 1859, and a year younger than Lord 
 Aberdeen when he went to the Treasury in 1853. He 
 had always been considered a man of vigorous constitu- 
 tion, and his frame was well built and robust. Yet 
 certain it is that no sooner was he in office than he 
 seemed rather disposed to rest upon his laurels, and 
 leave the active work of legislation to his colleagues. 
 Unfortunately for himself, however, he had not been in 
 office more than two months before a Bill was introduced 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury which affected Mr, 
 Disraeli during the whole remainder of his life. This 
 was the Public Worship Regulation Bill, which was 
 brought in on the 20th of April, and read a third time 
 in the House of Lords on the 25th of June. In the 
 House of Commons the measure was entrusted to Mr. 
 Russell Guruey, and it was uncertain almost to the last 
 moment which side Mr. Disraeli would espouse. So 
 far the Government had treated it as an open question ; 
 and the Marquis of Salisbury, the new Secretary of 
 State for India, had not concealed his dislike of it. In 
 the House of Commons, Mr. Hardy (Lord Cranbrook), 
 spoke in the same strain ; and it was not till Mr. 
 Disraeli rose on the 15th of July that the Anti- 
 Ritualists knew what a powerful ally they were to find. 
 We read in the Life of Bis/ioj} Wilberfo?-ce that the 
 Prime Minister only made up his mind to support the 
 measure on the morning of the day when informed that 
 all the Bishops were in favour of it, and that if it was
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 131 
 
 rejected, disestablishment must very speedily follow. 
 His first impulse was to oppose it ; and had he been the 
 Mr. Disraeli of Coninc/sby and Sybil he certainly would 
 have done so. As it was, he made the unfortunate decla- 
 ration that this was a Bill " to put down " Ritualism, 
 and that he intended to support it with that object. 
 These words were remembered against liim to the day of 
 his death, and made him enemies among the clergy, 
 who had only too many opportunities of influencing the 
 popular vote. In reality Mr. Disraeli meant no harm. 
 He was very careful to distinguish between the High 
 Church, of which he spoke in terms of high eulogy, 
 and the Ritualist party, which he conceived to be an 
 excresence from it, small in point of numbers and ability, 
 and deliberately adopting practices symbolical of those 
 Romish doctrines which the Church of England has 
 condemned. This is what he meant. That he did not 
 understand Ritualism is more than probable. But the 
 Ritualists did not choose to accept this hypothesis in 
 extenuation of the offence which he had given them ; 
 and remained his bitter enemies to the last. 
 
 It is neither necessary nor possible to discuss at any 
 length the series of domestic measures passed by Mr. 
 Disraeli's Adininistratiou during its six years' lease of 
 office. Wlien he laid down that one of the cardinal 
 doctrines of the Conservative policy was the improve- 
 ment of the condition of the people he was thoroughly 
 in earnest. In the speech at Manchester in 1872, to 
 which I have already referred, occurs the sanitas sanita- 
 tum Oiuniafianiias, which one of his oponents soon after 
 derided as "a policy of sewage." Mr. Disraeli retorted on 
 him in his speech at the Crystal Palace with merited 
 severity, pointing out how deeply intei-ested the working 
 classes were in this matter, and promising the honour- 
 
 9 *
 
 132 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 able gentleman that the laugh would soon be turned 
 against himself. Accordingly when he came into office 
 he lost no time in fulfilling the pledges which he had 
 given in Opposition ; and between 1874 and 1879 he 
 placed upon the Statute Book no less than fifteen Acts 
 of Parliament, all directed to the benefit of the public 
 health, the improvement of the condition of the poor, 
 and the removal of the special grievances under which 
 they believed themselves to be suffering. These are the 
 Factories Act and the Licensing Act (1874), the Con- 
 spiracy and Protection to Property Act, the Masters and 
 Workman's Act, the Artizans' Dwellings Act, the Public 
 Health Act, the Friendly Societies Act (1875), the 
 Commons Act, the Pollution of Eivers Act, the Mer- 
 caniile Shipping Act (1876), the Canal Boats Act, and 
 Poor Law Amendment Act (1877), the Factories and 
 Workshops Act, the Cattle Diseases Act (1878), and the 
 Artizans' Dwellings Act Amendment Act (1879). 
 
 To the farmers he gave the Agricultural Holdings 
 Act, which changed the presumption of law in favour 
 of the tenant, though it was forgotten in subsequent 
 discussions that Mr. Disraeli himself always spoke of 
 it as an experiment, which could be amended afterwards 
 if necessary. To the local ratepayers he afforded a 
 large instalment of that relief to which he had admitted 
 them to be entitled ; while our system of local admini- 
 stration was greatly improved by the Eating Act, 
 the Highways Act, and the Prisons Act, of which the 
 first seem to have given general satisfaction, 
 though it must be owned that some clauses of the last 
 interfere more than was desirable with that local 
 authority and jurisdiction which Mr. Disraeli himself 
 was always so anxious to maintain. 
 
 Two efforts were made to reform our whole system of
 
 DI8KA ELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 133 
 
 county government on a very much larger scale, by the 
 establishment of " County Boards," and two Bills were 
 brought in by Mr. Sclater Booth, the present Lord 
 Basing, with that object. Both, however, were with- 
 drawn, as the time was not ripe for a compromise 
 between the supporters of the existing system, and 
 those who would subvert it altogether ; and Mr. Dis- 
 raeli was not destined to add the settlement of this 
 very important question — more important than it 
 seems at first sight — to the list of his achievements. 
 But his Ministry, on the whole, can show a record of 
 social legislation which will contrast very favourably 
 with that of any other Government during the present 
 century. Many of these measures were warmly appre- 
 ciated by the working classes. Mr. Macdonald, the 
 working class member for Stafford, spoke to that effect, 
 and the prosy details of ordinary politics are lighted 
 up for the moment with a gleam of real poetic interest 
 as we think of the author of Sybil being publicly 
 thanked in the House of Commons by the representa- 
 tives of Labour. 
 
 In the field of education a measure was carried 
 through by Lord Sandon to amend some of those 
 provisions in the Act of 1870, which pressed unjustly 
 on denominational schools, and some educational 
 measures for Ireland can also be added to the list. 
 But the chief Bill of this description was the Universities 
 Bill, intended to meet the views of that class of Uni- 
 versity Eeformers who desired to see the restoration of 
 university teaching, as distinct from the collegiate or 
 tutorial system ; and likewise to encourage among 
 resident members the pursuit of learning and scholar- 
 ship for their own sakes. To make Oxford a centre 
 of learning, as well as a 'great seat of education, was
 
 134 LIFE OF LORD BEACON SFIELB. 
 
 the object of the new school, and they had the sym- 
 pathies of Mr. Disraeli, or, as we must now call him. 
 Lord Beaconsfieid, on their side. Opinions may differ 
 with regard to the operation of the new system, but 
 nobody can doubt that it was honestly intended to pro- 
 mote the interests of literature and culture, or that it 
 had the warm approval of a statesmen who used to 
 boast that he was born in a library. 
 
 The chief ecclesiastical questions with which the 
 Ministry of 1874-80 will be remembered, besides the 
 Public Worship Regulation Bill, are the Abolition of 
 Lay Patronage in Scotland in 1874, the Bishoprics 
 Bills of 1877 and 1878, and the attempt made by Lord 
 Salisbury in the House of Lords to settle the Burials 
 Question. The two Bishoprics Bills, in conformity with 
 which the six new sees of Truro, St. Albans, Liverpool, 
 Southwell, Newcastle, and Wakefield have been erected, 
 were described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as 
 the greatest ecclesiastical reform since the Reforma- 
 tion, and the Church of England may venerate the 
 memory of Lord Beaconsfieid for this good action, at 
 all events, if for no other. Here, too, he was only 
 pursuing when in oflBce the policy he had sketched in 
 opposition, an extension of the Episcopate having been 
 recommended by him fifteen years before the time when 
 he was actually able to undertake it. 
 
 The attempt to settle the Burials question in 1876 
 was unfortunately frustrated by the action of the late 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tait, who, by suddenly 
 accepting an amendment moved by Lord Harrowby, 
 compelled the Government to abandon the measure. 
 But we may fairly doubt whether, had it become law, 
 the agitation would have been permanently quelled. 
 
 Last but not least on our list is the Act of Parliament
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 135 
 
 by which Mr. Disraeli haslinlied his name for ever with 
 the style and dignity of the English monarchy. The 
 Royal Titles Act, enabling Her Mnjesty to assume the 
 title of Empress of India, was passed in the Session of 
 1876, and was resisted by the Opposition with a degree 
 of warmth which at this distance of time appears abso- 
 lutely childish. Mr. Lowe, the present Lord Sher- 
 brooke, made himself particularly conspicuous in 
 declaiming against it, and actually stated, in a speech 
 made at Retford during the Easter recess, that the 
 Queen had solicited two previous Prime Ministers for 
 the same title, and that both had refused to recommend 
 it; but that now, having found a more pliant instru- 
 ment, she had succeeded in her object. It can readily 
 be understood how Mr. Disraeli handled this atrocious 
 fiction, and a few days afterwards Mr. Lowe was com- 
 pelled to apologise, and to acknowledge that his reference 
 to the Queen was a breach of parliamentary decorum. 
 
 Before passing on to the foreign policy of Lord 
 Beaconsfield's Government, we must remind our readers 
 that on the 12th of August 1876 it became known to 
 the public that Mr. Disraeli's place in the House of 
 Commons, in which he had played so great a part 
 for nearly forty years, would know him no more. His 
 health and strength seemed no longer equal to the 
 daily-increasing labour of leading the popular as- 
 sembly, though high medical authorities have hazarded 
 the conjecture that by retiring from it when he did, he 
 rather shortened his life than prolonged it. Had he 
 retired ten years sooner, says the leading medical journal 
 of the day, he might have experienced great benefit from 
 the change. As it was, it came too late : when constant 
 excitement would, perhaps, have sustained his vital 
 energies longer than comparative repose.
 
 136 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 On the 11th of August he delivered his last speech 
 iu the House of Commons, under circumstances 
 which may, perhaps, have suggested to his mind a 
 striking contrast to his first. The House now hung 
 with rapt attention on every word that fell from him ; 
 and on this occasion they were, as it was fitting they 
 should be, words of no ordinary weight. " We are 
 always treated," he said, " as if we had some pecu- 
 liar alliance with the Turkish Government, as if we 
 were their peculiar friends, and expected to uphold 
 them in any enormity they might commit." There 
 was not one jot or one tittle of evidence to support such 
 an assumption. *' We are, it is true, the allies of the 
 Sultan of Turkey ; but so is Austria, so is Russia, so 
 is France. We are also their partners in a Tripartite 
 Treaty,"^ in which we not only generally but singly, 
 guarantee the integrity of Turkey. These are our en- 
 gagements, and engagements which we endeavour to 
 fulfil ; and if these engagements, renovated and repeated 
 only four years ago by the wisdom of Europe, are to 
 be treated by the honourable and learned gentleman t 
 as idle wind and chafl", and we are to be told that our 
 political duty is to expel the Turks by force to the other 
 side of the Bosphorus, then politics ceases to be an art, 
 statesmanship becomes a mere mockery, and the House 
 of Commons, instead of being faithful to its traditions, 
 had better resolve itself into one of those revolutionary 
 clubs which settle all political and social questions with 
 as much ease as the honourable and learned gentle- 
 man himself." 
 
 Next day the secret was out, and Mr. Disraeli ex- 
 changed the name by which he had been known to the 
 
 * 18oG. t Sir W. Harcoart.
 
 BI8BAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 137 
 
 public for nearly fifty years, and the place endeared to 
 him by a thousand interesting and elevating associations, 
 for the title of Lord Beaconsfield and the leadership of 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 The foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield will be 
 judged, of course, by his policy on the Eastern Ques- 
 tion. The Indian and African troubles which arose 
 during his administration were provincial and colonial, 
 not foreign ; and no other European question troubled 
 the horizon between 1874 and 1880. 
 
 It was a fixed idea, not only with Lord Beaconsfield, 
 but with a large portion of the British people, that 
 since the death of Lord Palmerston, England had lost 
 her old place among the nations of Europe, and that 
 the great Powers of the Continent were inclined to take 
 very little account of her in considering the forces with 
 which they liad to reckon in the execution of their own 
 plans. The paramount necessity of convincing them 
 that England was still the England of Palmerston, 
 Canning, and Pitt, weighed, perhaps, with Lord Beacons- 
 field almost as much as the duty of defending British 
 interests. But it may come to be suspected hereafter 
 that the demeanour of the Opposition was more to 
 blame for the encouragement which it gave to Russia; 
 than the policy of Lord Beaconsfield for the encourage- 
 ment which it gave to Turkey. 
 
 The Eastern Question, which Lord Beaconsfield's evil 
 genius called up to trouble him in his declining years, 
 occupied the attention of England and of Europe for 
 about three years — that is, from July 1H75 to July 
 1878. It was in the summer of the first-mentioned 
 year that disturbances had broken out in the Euro- 
 pean provinces of Turkey, but it was not till late in 
 the autumn that they seemed likely to lead to serious
 
 138 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 results. Lord Benconsfield, however, wns one of the first 
 to appreciate their importance On tlic Otli of November 
 he told his audience in the Guildhall that they might 
 be fraught with very critical consequences. And sa 
 they were. The first attempt on the part of the Powers 
 to aid in composing these disturbances was made through 
 Count Andrassy, the Austrian foreign minister, who 
 proposed a scheme of administrative reform to the 
 Porte which the revolted provinces might accept. This 
 came to nothing, chiefly, as Lord Beaconsfield said, 
 because it was "inopportune"; in other words, be- 
 cause a country plunged in bankruptcy, as Turkey then 
 was, and struggling with almost insuperable financial 
 difficulties, was not in a position to carry out a great 
 scheme of administrative reform. 
 
 England signed the Note, but expected very little from 
 it. The project fell through, and the insurrection con- 
 tinued wiih varying success ; till at length, in the follow- 
 ing May 1876, the Berlin Memorandum was drawn up, 
 calling on Turkey, more imperatively and menacingly 
 than in the Andrassy Note, to undertake these reforms. 
 To this Memorandum England refused to be a party, 
 because, as Lord Beaconsfield explained, in case these 
 reforms were not executed within a given time, it im- 
 plied the right of the Powers to enforce them by armed 
 intervention, a right which Lord Beaconsfield repudiated 
 as a violation of those treaty engagements which had 
 been solemnly renewed and sanctioned so recently as 
 1871. Lord Beaconsfield was treading exactly in the 
 footsteps of both Mr. Canning and the Duke of 
 Wellington. His language on the Berlin Memorandum 
 might have been taken direct from some of Canning's 
 despatches on the Greek Question in 1826 and 
 1827.
 
 DISBAELI AS LEADER OF THE PASTY. 139 
 
 In the meantime, however, reports had been brought 
 to this country, grossly exaggerated as they after- 
 wards turned out to be, of the cruellies and outrages 
 of the Turkish irregular troops in suppressing the 
 rebellion. " The Bulgarian Atrocities " were taken up 
 by the Leaders of the Opposition, and flaming speeches 
 delivered from one end of the kingdom to the other, 
 denouncing alike the rufiBans who committed them, the 
 Turks who connived at them, and our own Government 
 who were loudly accused of laughing at them. A speech 
 delivered by Mr. Disraeli on the 26th of June was 
 twisted into the most absurd perversion of its natural 
 meaning. Eeferrirg to the tortures alleged to have 
 been inflicted on Bulgarian prisoners, the Prime 
 Minister merely said he was inclined to doubt the truth 
 of these stories, because among the Turks *' a more ex- 
 peditious mode of business was generally adopted." 
 These words were instantly seized upon by a school of 
 writers and talkers in this country who have done more 
 to make earnestness ridiculous than a whole legion of 
 cynics, and held up to public execration as a specimen 
 of cold-blooded frivolity. The country rang with 
 furious denunciations of the savages in Turkey and 
 their sympathisers in Downing Street, which unques- 
 tionably had the effect of prolonging the resistance of 
 the insurgents, and especially of the Servians, who con- 
 tinued in arms till the following October. Then came 
 the Russian Ultimatum demanding an armistice, which 
 the Porte granted, and then the Conference of Constan- 
 tinople in December, which Lord Salisbury attended 
 as Plenipotentiary, but which proved abortive as all 
 foresaw, the Turks steadily refusing to accept a High 
 Commission nominated by foreigners to carry out 
 internal reforms in the Turkish Empire.
 
 140 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 The whole accouut of the negotiations and trans- 
 actions of tlie year 1876 is to be found in an admirably 
 clear and concise form in Lord Beaconsfield's Guildhall 
 speech on the 9tli of November, where we find stated 
 more plainly than elsewhere the real reason of his 
 refusal to accept the Berlin Memorandum. 
 
 So matters went on till the following March, when 
 finally a Protocol was drawn up and signed by the Great 
 Powers, expressing a hope that, peace now being restored, 
 Turkey would at length set about the business of reform 
 in good earnest. " The Powers," it was said, " propose 
 to watch carefully the manner in which the promises of 
 the Ottoman Government are carried into effect ; and if 
 their hopes should once more be disappointed . . . 
 they reserve to themselves to consider in common as to 
 the means which they may deem best fitted to secure 
 the well-being of the Christian population and the in- 
 terests of the general peace." These are nearly the 
 terms of the Treaty of London of 1827 ; and two things 
 things are clear from them : one that Turkey was to be 
 allowed some time for carrying out these reforms, which 
 in her then financial state could not be efi'ected in a 
 day ; the other, that should it ever become necessary 
 for the Powers to take further action, they must do so 
 " in common." This condition was in accordance with 
 the Treaties of 1856 and 1871. But what followed ? 
 
 Three weeks afterwards Russia declared war against 
 Turkey, of her own accord, without either consulting 
 her co-signatories, or giving any further notice to the 
 Porte. A more flagrant insult to the other Powers, or 
 a clearer violation of the law of nations, can scarcely 
 be imagined. Lord Derby, on the 1st of May, wrote 
 an indignant despatch to the Russian Government, 
 eharacterising its conduct as it deserved. But the
 
 DISBAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 141 
 
 English Government did not think it necessary to 
 treat it as a casus belli. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield always kept before his mind two 
 great principles of foreign policy ; first, that no 
 engagement by which all the members of an alliance 
 are equally bound can be set aside by one without the 
 consent of all the rest ; secondly, that every State must 
 be held to be the judge of its own interests, and has a 
 right to interfere between belligerents when those in- 
 terests are threatened. The violation of the first of 
 these principles justifies any one of the contracting 
 Powers in armed interference, but does not impose it 
 as a duty unless the others are prepared to join in 
 it. As regards the second, States as well as in- 
 dividuals are bound by the rule of law so to use 
 their own as not to injure what belongs to others ; 
 and accordingly Lord Beaconsfield informed Russia, 
 when the war broke out, that the neutrality of England 
 must be " conditional neutrality," dependent on the 
 observance of this rule by the belligerents. As soon 
 as it was set at defiance by the Treaty of San 
 Stephano, which became known in England at the 
 beginning of March 1878, he took immediate steps 
 for recalling Russia to the due observance of her 
 obligations. He insisted that the Treaty should be 
 laid before the other Powers, that, in the words of the 
 Protocol, they should consider it "in common," and 
 that the pacification of Eastern Europe should be the 
 work of all. 
 
 English interests being seriously menaced at the 
 same time. Lord Beaconsfield did not hesitate for a 
 moment to inform the Russian Government that, with 
 or without allies, England was resolved to go to war 
 unless these terms were immediately complied with.
 
 142 LIFE OF LORD BEACONS FIELD. 
 
 Russia paused in her path, and " stared with her foot 
 on the prey." Lord Beaconsfield called out the Reserves, 
 and a division of our Indian Army was ordered to the 
 Mediterranean. Then Russia saw we were in earnest, 
 and loosened her grip upon the victim. By our 
 steady and determined attitude, the rights of Europe 
 had been vindicated, and the interests of England se- 
 cured ; and since the first heat of factious opposition 
 has subsided, the wisdom and courage displayed by 
 Lord Beaconsfield at this particular crisis has been 
 uuiversally acknowledged. It cost him the services 
 of two of his most able colleagues, Lord Derby and 
 Lord Carnarvon, who thought that the object to 
 be gained was not worth the risk we ran of being plunged 
 into a war with Russia. Lord Beaconsfield probably did 
 not think the risk so great. England, he said, at the 
 Lord Mayor's dinner to which I have already referred, 
 if compelled to go to war, will not be obliged to ask 
 herself whether she can bear a second or a third cam- 
 paign. He knew at the same time that this was a 
 question which Russia would be obliged to ask herself. 
 And it is more than probable that after the Shipka Pass 
 and the siege of Plevna had told their tale on the in- 
 vaders, the first redcoat that set foot in Bulgaria would 
 have been the signal for Russia to recross the Danube. 
 
 Of course there were other contingencies to be 
 taken into consideration, but so there always will 
 be in every dispute in which we may be entangled 
 with Russia. And, at all events. Lord Beacons- 
 field's policy succeeded. Russia was compelled to 
 give way, Constantinople was again saved, and the 
 Turkish Empire in Europe, though shorn of its ori- 
 ginal proportions, was still a fact. The " calm pride 
 of England," which Mr. Matthew Arnold notices in
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 143 
 
 the despatches of Lord Grenville, had again done its 
 work. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield complained that the doctrine of 
 English interests had heen siigraatised as selfish. It is, 
 he said, *' as selfish as patriotism," and I may here 
 perhaps be allowed to introduce a letter of Mr. Can- 
 ning's on the same subject which on the 5th of Novem- 
 ber 1822 he wrote to Sir Charles Bagot, our ambassador 
 at Constantinople, " You know my politics well enough 
 to know whatlmean when I say that for Europe I shall 
 be desirous now and then to read England^ 
 
 As soon as Russia had agreed to submit the Treaty 
 of San Stephano to a European Council — a conces- 
 sion, be it remembered, extorted from her exclusively 
 by Lord Beaconsfield — it was arranged that a Con- 
 gress should assemble at Berlin, whither accordingly 
 Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury repaired about 
 the middle of the month of June 1878. Of the 
 Treaty of San Stephano, and of the Treaty of Berlin 
 ■which superseded it, I can only say in other words 
 what has already been said so often that the world, 
 I fear, is weary of the subject. By the first of 
 these treaties, extorted from the Turk with a halter 
 round his neck, Turkey in Europe was virtually 
 annihilated, and a new and independent province of 
 Bulgaria (the "big Bulgaria^') was constituted, ex- 
 tending from the Danube to the ^gean, and stretching 
 inland to the western boundaries of Macedonia. It left 
 only a narrow strip of coast-line to Turkey, Constanti- 
 nople being thus completely cut off from the outly- 
 ing provinces of Bosnia and the Herzegovina ; and as 
 the new province was to be placed entirely under the 
 control of Russia, it was clear that from the moment 
 this Treaty became law, Russia would be mistress of the
 
 144 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Balkan provinces and the Biack Sea, with a firm hold 
 on the JEgean at the same time, the Sultan being left 
 only, as a writer of the day expressed himself, with a 
 palace and a garden. 
 
 There were other provisions in the Treaty of a 
 very mischievous and mcDacing tendency. But the 
 "big Bulgaria" was the real giant to be slain, and 
 it was soon found, when boldly confronted, that if his 
 head was of brass his feet were only of clay. The 
 Congress of Berlin simply tore the Treaty up; and 
 whoever wishes to understand the magnitude of the 
 change which it effected should consult two speeches of 
 Lord Beaconsfield's : one delivered soon after his return 
 from Germany, on the 18th of July 1878, and another 
 in reply to the Duke of Argyll, on the 16th of May 
 1879. The general results may be briefly summarized 
 as follows: — The Bulgaria of San Stephano extended 
 from Widdin to Salonica, from Mangalia to Mount 
 Grammos. It completely cut off, as we have pointed 
 out, the seat of Governmeut in Turkey from the out- 
 lying provinces. It handed over large populations of 
 Greeks and Mussulmans to Sclav rule, it strangled the 
 small districts left to the Turks about Constantinople in 
 its embraces. It contained 50,000 square miles, and a 
 population of four millions. Its definitive frontiers 
 were to be traced by a Russo-Turkish Commission, 
 before the evacuation of Roumelia by the Russian army» 
 The Bulgaria constituted by the Treaty of Berlin 
 embraces an area of but 20,000 square miles, and a 
 population of about a million and a half. It is thrust 
 back more than a hundred miles from the .^gean, it 
 loses the valuable port of Bourgas on the Black Sea — the 
 only safe port in that sea — and is separated from 
 Turkey by the Balkans ; a line of defence which is
 
 mSBAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 145 
 
 left to the Turks, and which they may make impreg- 
 nable. 
 
 The Treaty, of course, was severely criticised at the 
 time ; that was only to be expected. I can only refer 
 my readers to the Parliamentary debates on the subject ; 
 and then remind them, as Lord Beaconsfield continually 
 did remind the public, that its results, if not all that 
 could be wished for, had been gained without the cost 
 of war. They were the fruits of skilful and coura- 
 geous diplomacy. But, of course, they were not all 
 which might have been extorted at the point of the 
 sword, after a long and sanguinary struggle. The only 
 question to be answered is whether the lesser advantages 
 which we were able to secure with peace were not to 
 be preferred to the larger ones which might have been 
 obtained by war? Two answers may be given to this 
 question, and it is difficult to say which of them Lord 
 Beaconsfield would have given had he spoken from the 
 bottom of his heart. But the fact remains that the 
 Treaty of Berlin cost us nothing ; and whatever secu- 
 rities it provided against the terrible scenes that must 
 ensue if ever the dismemberment of Turkey shall be- 
 come the avowed object of any European Power, were so 
 much clear gain. 
 
 On the familiar question of the ** integrity of the 
 Ottoman Empire," Lord Beaconsfield's views were 
 traditional, but not suptrunnuated. His primary object 
 was to bar the advance of Russia to the Mediterranean, 
 and to ensure that when the day comes, 
 
 As come it inuat, 
 When Troy's proud temples shall he laid in dust, 
 
 the Power to step in and occupy the vacant place 
 shall not be the Muscovite. The best means to that 
 
 10
 
 146 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 end lay in the creation of a powerful independent 
 State between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. But 
 such a State could not be established in a day. It 
 must be really, as well as nominally, independent ; a 
 free Power, and not a Russian province. Lord Bea- 
 cousfield fully recognised the superiority of such a 
 barrier over any other that could be created against 
 Muscovite aggression. But in 1878 no materials 
 existed for such an edifice. If we turn back to what 
 Mr. Canning told the Greeks in 1826, and the condi- 
 tions on which he was prepared to acknowledge their 
 independence, we shall see that he, at all events, would 
 have recognised the futility of attempting in 1878 to 
 erect an independent kingdom out of the ruins of the 
 Turkish Empire in Europe. With reference to the 
 possible establishment of commercial relations with 
 Greece, and other steps preliminary to a recognition of 
 her independence, he distinctly asserted that this could 
 ^not be done till Greece showed herself capable of 
 maintaining an independent, existence, of carrying on a 
 Government of her own, and of controlling her own 
 military and naval forces.* 
 
 But Lord Beaconsfield's policy was distinctly shaped 
 with a view to the realisation of this idea at some future 
 time. For this purpose the grasp of Russia must at 
 once be loosened from these provinces, and leisure 
 must be secured for them to develop their internal 
 resources, and gradually fit themselves for the indepen- 
 dence which it was hoped would one day be their por- 
 tion. To this end precise instructions were given to 
 our ambassador at Constantinople, and to Mr. Michel, 
 our representative at Sofia, to nurse the spirit of na- 
 
 * Mr. Canning to Prince Lieven, Nov. 21, 1826.
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 147 
 
 tionality wherever they found it among the inhabitants 
 of these countries, and to encourage them by 'every 
 ineans in their power to acquire the faculty of self- 
 government. In carrying out these instructions, they 
 naturally gave umbrage to the many Russian officers 
 who still lingered on the spot, and as soon as Lord 
 Beaconsfield was driven from office, and the complaints 
 of Russia readied the ears of Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry 
 Layard and Mr. Michel were recalled. 
 
 As an independent State could not at that time be 
 formed, it was necessary, in the meantime, to take other 
 steps for providing against Russian conquest, and the 
 only alternative was to persevere in the support of 
 Turkey, and to strengthen the hands of Austria. Should 
 it eventually turn out that no new State could be con- 
 structed, and that the territory in question must be 
 absorbed mto one or other of the adjoining empires, it 
 was better that it should not be Russia. An Austrian 
 empire, stretching from Ragusa to Varna and from the 
 Carpathians to the Balkans, or possibly farther still, 
 should keep the Cossack from the Mediterranean for as 
 many generations as statesmen are called on to fore- 
 cast.* 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield, in the speech already quoted 
 (Nov. 9th, 1877), explained the nature and origin of the 
 Anglo-Turkish Convention, which was simply a precau- 
 tion adopted by this country for the security of the Eu- 
 phrates Valley. She had given the Sultan her guarantee 
 for the integrity of his Eastern possessions in Asia 
 Minor, and had occupied Cyprus to enable her the 
 more readily to carry out the engagement. She also 
 undertook to urge on Turkey those administrative reforms 
 
 * History of Toryism, p. 386. 
 
 10 *
 
 148 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 in her Asiatic provinces, which should take away all 
 cause for Russian interference in future. The Anglo- 
 Turkish Convention was, in fact, an Indian rather 
 than a Turkish affair, and must stand or fall by its ex- 
 pediency as a safeguard to our Indian Empire. The 
 other Powers would co-operate with us in all the other 
 branches of the Eastern Question, because they were 
 interested in them themselves ; but not in this one, in 
 which England, accordingly, must look to " her own 
 resources only." It did not increase our responsibilities. 
 It only lightened them by anticipating them. 
 
 The meeting of Lord Beaconsfield with the other 
 European statesmen who assembled at the Congress of 
 Berlin, must have been a deeply interesting event to 
 almost all of them. His fame, of course, had gone 
 before him, and it seems that the reality rather ex- 
 ceeded than fell short of their expectations. Lord Bea- 
 consfield always addressed the Congress in English, 
 and the combination of dignity and power which 
 marked his best style of speaking seems to have made a 
 profound impression on the group of continental states- 
 men. Whenever he mingled in Berlin society, what 
 struck the company most deeply was the well-known 
 characteristics so familiar to us all in England, namely, 
 his imperturbable demeanour. But he does not seem to 
 have left behind him any specimens of his colloquial 
 powers, such as made him famous among his country- 
 men, for the few repartees which rumour attributes to 
 him are too poor to have been really his. As soon, 
 however, as he touched the shores of England on his 
 return journey, the peculiar rhetoric of which he was so 
 fond again came into play, and " Peace with Honour," 
 which he told the people of Dover he had brought back 
 with him, soon became a household word.
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 149 
 
 His return to London was one long ovation. At 
 Charing Cross he was met by the Lord Mayor in his 
 robes of office, and an assemblage of all that was most 
 brilliant in the worlds of politics, of beauty, and of 
 fiishion. Dense crowds of working men thronged every 
 inch of the way from the station to Downing Street to 
 pay their tribute of homage to the hero of the hour. 
 Banners waved, and triumphant arches stretched from 
 bouse to house to greet the great statesman who had 
 raised aloft again the name of England and re- 
 burnished her bedimmed escutcheon. 
 
 He made his entry into London on the 16th of July, 
 and on the 27th he and Lord Salisbury were entertained 
 at a great banquet by the members of the Conservative 
 party in the Riding School at Kensington. A few days 
 afterwards the freedom of the City was conferred upon 
 tliem both by the London Corporation, and another 
 grand banquet in their honour was held at the Guildhall, 
 The speeches of both plenipotentiaries on both these 
 occasions threw additional light on the settlement 
 effected by Lord Beaconsfield. And it must not be 
 forgotten that in the second of these two speeches Lord 
 Beaconsfield confessed his belief that a more resolute 
 altitude on the part of England in 1876 would have 
 prevented the war altogether, as a similar display of 
 firmness in 1853 would have prevented the Crimean 
 war. He said, very generously, that he accepted his full 
 share of the responsibility; but it was an open secret 
 that the responsibility did not rest with him, unless it is 
 thought that he ought to have resigned office rather than 
 continue to sanction a policy of which he disapproved. 
 But the public dwelt more, perhaps, on the humour and 
 the sarcasm with which the Prime Minister retorted on his 
 assailants than on the facts and arguments which were
 
 150 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 set before them. One Opposition statesman was 
 described as " inebriate with the exuberance of his 
 own verbosity " ; to others was imputed " the hare- 
 brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity." The world 
 was contented to laugh without reflecting much on 
 either the propriety or the taste of these sallies, and 
 exultant ''jingoism," as it was the fashion to call the 
 warlike spirit of the day, carried everything before it, 
 and exalted Lord Beaconsfield to as high a pinnacle 
 of fame as has ever been reached perhaps by any English 
 minister since the days of Chatham. 
 
 Aspice ut insignis spoliis Marcellus opimis 
 Ingreditur, victorqiie viros supereininet omnes. 
 
 So said Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons in 
 reference to the crowning moment in Lord Beacons- 
 field's career; and though the gale of popular favour was 
 destined very soon to change, it needed but the dignity 
 of adversity to restore him to a still higher place in 
 public estimation than that which he had occupied before, 
 a place which he will now possess for ever. 
 
 His foreign policy must be considered as a whole, 
 and the occupation of Cyprus, the purchase of the 
 shares in the Suez Canal, and the ** scientific frontier " 
 of Affghanistan, were really all part and parcel of one 
 great scheme for the security of our Indian Empire. 
 It was indispensable that England should possess some 
 control over the new highway opened up to her Asiatic 
 provinces, and the nation was not less satisfied with 
 this stroke of policy on Lord Beaconsfield's part, than 
 with the Treaty of Berlin, or the Convention which 
 was its necessary supplement. 
 
 Of the policy of the Affghan war of 1878-9 the best 
 accounts are to be found in Lord Beaconsfield's speech in
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 151 
 
 the House of Lords on December 10th, 1878, the speech 
 at the Lord Mayor's dinner in the previous November, 
 and in his speech on the evacuation of Candahar on the 
 4th of March 1881. It was to this last speech that 
 Lord Granville referred a few months afterwards,* when 
 he said that he had known him swallow drugs in order 
 to allay for a time the pangs of neuralgia, which would 
 otherwise have prevented him from addressing the 
 House of Lords with the necessary clearness and 
 animation. In the speech at Guildhall he described 
 " the scientific frontier," which had now been secured 
 for us ; and in the House of Lords he explained the 
 difference between a scientific frontier and a haphazard 
 frontier very pithily by saying that the former was one 
 which could be defended by five thousand men, while 
 the other would require a hundred thousand. But in a 
 volume like the present we can take account only of 
 general principles, and perhaps the following remarks 
 will place Lord Beaconsfield's ideas before the public 
 as clearly as anything else. They are taken from the 
 December speech : — 
 
 My Lords, you have an old policy -witli regard to the relations of 
 this country, India, and Afj^hanistan, which has been approved by all 
 public men. Lord Lawrence, whom we all speak of with great 
 respect, though the Lord Privy Seal says we systematically insulted 
 him, was most decided in his policy that there should bo an English 
 interest in Afghanistan, and that Russian influence in it should not for 
 a moment be tolerated. Well, what is your policy now ? Where will 
 EngUsh interests be when you have evacuated Afghanistan ? What 
 will be the state of Afghanistan ? It will be a state of anarchy. 
 We have always announced, as a reason for interfering in Afghanistan, 
 that we cannot tolerate a state of anarchy on our frontiers. Is not 
 that an argument as good for Russia as for us ? Will not the Rus- 
 sians say, " Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy, and we cannot go on 
 civilising Turkestan when Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy " ? 
 
 * House of Lords, May 9th, 1881.
 
 152 JAFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Therofoi'e you are furuLsbiug Russia with an occasion for advancing. 
 Whou I speak of this policy of Russia, I do not speak of it in a hos- 
 tile spirit. Russia has a right to its policy as well as England, 
 Russia has as good a right to create an empire in Tartary as we have 
 in India. She nrust take the consequences if the creation of her 
 empire endangers our power. I see nothing in that feeling on the 
 part of England which should occasion any want of friendliness 
 between this country and Russia. We must guard against what must 
 be looked upon as the inevitable designs of a very great Power 
 When Lord Palmerston carried one of the greatest measures of his 
 life — the fortification of the Channel, which was of much more im- 
 portance than the retaining of Candahar — was that looked upon as a 
 s\Tnbol of hostility to the French people ? Everyone knows that 
 Lord Palmerston was very friendly to the French alliance, and yet 
 that was an operation directed immediately against France, for the 
 pui-pose of putting an end to the continual fluctuations of bluster and 
 fear which such a situation as England was in at that time must 
 necessarily entail. 
 
 What I see in the amendment is not an assertion of great principles, 
 which no man honours more than myself. What is at the bottom of it 
 is rather that principle of peace at any price which a certain partj' in 
 this country upholds. It is that dangerous dogma which, I believe, 
 animates the ranks before me at this moment, although many of them 
 may be unconscious of it. That deleterious doctrine haunts the 
 people of this country in every form. Sometimes it is a committee : 
 sometimes it is a letter ; sometimes it is an amendment to the 
 Address ; sometimes it is a proposition to stop the supplies. The 
 doctrine has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have 
 been afloat in this centuiy. It has occasioned more wars than the 
 most inithless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that 
 political equiUbrium so necessary to the liberties of nations and the 
 welfare of the world. It has dimmed occasionally for a moment even 
 the majesty of England. And, my lords, to-night you have an oppor- 
 tunity, which I trust you will not lose, of branding these opinions, 
 these deleterious dogmas, with the reprobation of the Peers of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 In a passage in Coningshy the author says of Mr. 
 Righy that he had persuaded the world that he was 
 not only clever, but also tliat he was always in luck, a 
 quality which many people appreciate even more than 
 ciipacity. Now one rnay surely assert that the result of
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 163 
 
 a long course of events bad been to produce tbe contrary 
 impression with regard to Lord Beaconsfield and the 
 Tories. Many instances could be produced in support of 
 this assertion. But it will be enough to remark on 
 the very unfortunate conjunction of adverse circum- 
 stances which closed round the last years of Lord 
 Beaconsfield's Administration. The Zulu War, which 
 ought to have been no more than one of those petty 
 expeditions such as are almost inseparable from the 
 possession of a great colonial empire, was swelled by 
 mismanagement into an affair of the first magnitude, 
 and all the disgrace and all the grief occasioned by 
 Isandula were visited on the head of Lord Bea- 
 consfield. At the same time, the favourable condition 
 of trade and agriculture, which had lasted almost 
 without intermission from the repeal of the Corn 
 Laws to the resignation of Mr. Gladstone, rapidly 
 declined from that date ; and an unparalleled series of 
 bad seasons and miserable harvests, combined with an 
 ever-growiag foreign competition, helped to generate 
 wide-spread distress among the agricultural classes, with 
 its natural concomitants of discontent, irritability, and 
 a blind belief that any change must be for the better. 
 But three very favourable elections occurring about 
 the same time at SheflQeid, Liverpool, and South- 
 wark, shed a delusive ray of popularity over the 
 Conservative Government, and persuaded Lord Bea- 
 consfield's colleagues that now or never was the time to 
 appeal to the people. Just before the dissolution he 
 addressed a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, the 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, dwelling on the dangerous 
 condition of that country, which was much censured at 
 the time, but the truth of which was speedily acknow- 
 ledged. However, the people were bent upon a change.
 
 154 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 The Conservative Party lost one hundred and eleven seats» 
 And Lord Beaconsfield, who had never been sanguine 
 of the result, retired once more to his old position with- 
 out any external signs of chagrin or disappointment. 
 
 He was now in his seventy-sixth year, and time and toil 
 and trouble had done their work upon him. But the 
 dignity with which he bore his change of fortune, and 
 the wise and moderate counsels by which, for the 
 brief period still left to him, he regulated the counsels 
 of his party, were the theme of general remark. To 
 distract his own attention, as much perhaps as for any 
 other purpose, he went back to literature, and as he 
 had solaced himself after the great reverse of 1868 
 with the composition of Lolhair, so did he now with 
 the composition of Etidymion, which was published in 
 November 1880, and of which what I have to say will be 
 found in a subsequent chapter. But at the opening of 
 Parliament in January 1881 he appeared in his place, 
 apparently in his usual health, and spoke both on the 
 Address (January 6th), and on Lord Lytton's policy in 
 India as effectively as ever. This, however, was his 
 last great speech in Parliament, and it is interesting to 
 know that his last words were uttered in defence of the 
 great Empire, and the great principles of government^ 
 of which he had all his life been the faithful soldier 
 and servant. 
 
 I saw him for the last time at a London party one 
 evening in March, and he then seemed to be quite as 
 strong and well as a man of his age could be ex- 
 pected to be. But on the 23rd it became known 
 that he was suffering from an attack of bronchitis, and 
 as the symptoms grew more serious, the sympathy and 
 anxiety of the public became general and profounds 
 Of the four weeks that followed, during which Lord
 
 DISRAELI AS LUADEB OF THE PARTY. 155 
 
 Beaconsfield's conditiou was in every heart and on 
 every tongue, a detailed account is to be found in the 
 newspapers of the period, and need not be repeated 
 here. His illness fluctuated with the changes of the 
 weather, which was generally, however, unfavourable 
 to his complaint, and the complication of gout and 
 bronchitis made the treatment of it proportion ably , 
 difficult. All day long his door in Curzon Street was 
 besieged by a succession of visitors eager to see the 
 latest medical report, or to testify their respect and 
 affection for the illustrious patient. The Queen and the 
 Prince of Wales were constant in their inquiries, and 
 groups of working men assembled every morning irl 
 Curzon Street, deeply interested in the life of one 
 whom they recognised not less as the benefactor of 
 their own order than as the vindicator of their country's 
 honour. 
 
 During the progress of his illness Lord Beaconsfield 
 retained his cheerfulness, and conversed occasionally 
 upon public affairs with his usual spirit. The only 
 friends, however, who were admitted to his bedside were 
 Lord Rowton, Lord Barrington, and Sir Philip Rose, 
 who were sometimes surprised at the apparent strength 
 and vivacity which he exhibited. Towards the end 
 of the second week in April the weather grew com- 
 paratively mild, and hopes were entertained that the 
 strength of Lord Beaconsfield's constitution might still 
 enable him to rally. On the 17th, however, the wind 
 turned to the north-east, and the cold once more became 
 severe. On the 18th, Easter Sunday, the effect of it on 
 the patient was very visible, and towards night became 
 alarming. About midnight he sank into a stupor, and 
 at half-past four on the morning of Tuesday the 19th 
 he died, his right hand in the clasp of his dear
 
 156 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FTELD. 
 
 friends Lord Barrington and Lord Rowton, and his left 
 in that of Dr. Kidd. 
 
 So passed away one of those extraordinary characters 
 who appear only at intervals of centuries. No such 
 public grief has been witnessed in England since the 
 the death of Mr. Pitt, and even that was confined to a 
 narrower circle, and chiefly to the people of Great Bri- 
 tain. But the death of Lord Beaconsfield affected all 
 classes and all countries. The peasant and the artizan, 
 the middle classes, the aristocracy, and the Court were 
 stirred by a common sorrow, while some of the most 
 touching tributes to Lord Beaconsfield's character and 
 genius, and most accurate estimates of the great loss 
 which England had sustained, are to be found in the 
 columns of Continenal journals, the conductors of 
 ■which well knew that it was not England alone on whom 
 the blow had fallen. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield was buried on Monday the 28th of 
 April in the vault of Hughenden Church, by the side 
 of Lady Beaconsfield, and not far from one who had 
 left her fortune to the great statesman whom she vene- 
 rated, on the romantic condition that in death at least 
 they should not be divided. The day will long be re- 
 membered by Hughenden, by Buckinghamshire, and by 
 England. The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Con- 
 naught, and Prince Leopold saw his coffin lowered into 
 the grave ; and the surrounding circle included the 
 Marquis of Salisbury, the Marquis of Exeter, Count 
 Munster, Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord John Manners, 
 Lord Beauchamp, Lord Lytton, Sir Frederick Leighton, 
 Lord Henry Lennox, Mr. Cecil Piaikes, Lord Laming- 
 ton — " peers of every degree, the representatives of the 
 greatest sovereigns of the world, and men whose names 
 are part of the history of England." Lord Rowton
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 157 
 
 and Lord Barrington stood on the right hand of the 
 clergyman, and next to them Mr. Ralph Disraeli with 
 his son Coningshy Disraeli, then a boy of twelve years 
 old, and the future owner of Hughenden. But not the 
 least interesting feature of this interesting and melan- 
 choly day was the assembly gathered together on the 
 road outside the church, consisting of the statesman's 
 humbler friends and neighbours in his Buckinghamshire 
 home, farmers and labourers and tradesmen, women and 
 children, all, if not in black, at least with some token 
 of mourning displayed upon their persons. It may 
 be said that till the day of his death England hardly 
 knew how much she had loved the deceased states- 
 man, and that she might almost have exclaimed, with 
 the child mourning for his brother, that while he was 
 still spared to her she could have wished that she had 
 loved him more. 
 
 On the 30th of April Her Majesty and the Princess 
 Beatrice paid a visit to Hughenden, when the Queen, 
 having descended into the vault, and placed another 
 wreath of white camelias on Lord Beaconsfield's coffin, 
 took a last farewell of the loyal and trusted Minister, 
 who, whatever his faults and errors, had always been 
 true to herself, and to all that he believed most condu- 
 cive to the glory of the English monarchy. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield was very fond of flowers, and of 
 them his favourite was the primrose. After his death 
 it became the emblem of the principles which he repre- 
 sented, and the badge of all those who wished to be 
 considered his disciples. A Primrose League was esta- 
 blished for the propagation of " that new creed which is 
 the old," the Toryism which he had cleared of its ex- 
 crescences, and restored to its pristine popularity ; and 
 Primrose Clubs sprang up in abundance with the same
 
 158 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 object in view. The day of his death is still observed 
 as Primrose Day, and it has now long been evident 
 that the love and admiration with which he had 
 inspired the English people was no fickle or evanescent 
 passion excited by a showy and meretricious policy, and 
 ending with the phenomena that produced it, but a 
 deep and lasting sentiment, founded on a firm belief in 
 the greatness of his character, the power of his intel- 
 lect, and the important services which he had rendered 
 to the Constitution and the Empire. 
 
 In both Houses of Parliament graceful and eloquent 
 tributes to his memory were paid by the Leaders of 
 both parties. Lord Granville said, " My Lords, it is 
 impossible for anyone to deny that Lord Beaconsfield 
 played a great part in English history. No one can 
 deny his rare and splendid gifts, and how continuous 
 have been his services with regard to the Crown and 
 Parliament." The Marquis of Salisbury said: — 
 
 That his friends and colleagues should mouni his loss and revere 
 his memory is only too natiu'al. I have not the same title to speak on 
 this subject as naany of those beside me, because my close politicarl 
 connection with him was comparatively recent. But it lasted through 
 anxious and difficult times, when the character of men may be plainly 
 seen by those who work with them. And to me, as I believe to all 
 others who have worked with him, his patience, his gentleness, his 
 unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and fellow- 
 labourers, have made an impression which will never leave me so long 
 as life endures. But these feelings could only affect a limited circle 
 of his immediate adherents. The impression which his career and 
 character have made on the vast mass of his countrymen must be 
 sought elsewhere. To a great extent, no doubt, it is due to the pecu- 
 liar character of his genius, to its varied nature, to the wonderful 
 combination of qualities he possessed, and which rarely reside in the 
 same brain. To some extent, also, there is no doubt that the circum- 
 stances to which the aoble Earl has so eloquently alluded — that is, the 
 social difiBculties which opposed themselves to his early rise, and the 
 splendid perseverance by which they were overcome — impressed his 
 countrymen, who love to see exemplified that career open to all
 
 DISRAELI AS LEADER OF THE PARTY. 159 
 
 jjersons, whatever their initial difficulties may be, which is one of the 
 characteristics of the institutions of which they are most proud. 
 
 Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of his mind. 
 Opinions might, and did, differ deeply as to the measures and steps 
 by which expression was given to the dominant feelings, and more 
 and more, as life drew near its close, as the heat and turmoil of con- 
 troversy were left behind, as the gratification of every possible ambi- 
 tion negatived the suggestion of any inferior motives, and brought out 
 into greater prominence the purity and strength of this one intense 
 feeling, the people of this country recognised the force with which 
 this desire dominated his actions. 
 
 In the questions of interior policy which divided classes he had to 
 -consider them, he had to judge them, and to take his course accord- 
 ingly. It seemed to me that he treated them always as of secondary 
 interest, compared to this one great question — how the country t« 
 which he belonged might be made united and strong. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said : — 
 
 The career of Lord Beaconslield is, in many respects, the most 
 remarkable one in Parliamentary history. For my own part, I know 
 but one that can fairly be compared to it in regard to the emotion of 
 surprise, and when viewed as a whole, an emotion, I might almost 
 say, of wonder ; and that is the career, and especially the earlier career, 
 of Mr. Pitt. 
 
 There were certain great qualities of the deceased statesmen on 
 which I think it right to touch. His extraordinary intellectual 
 powers are as well understood by others as by me, and they are not 
 proper subjects for our present commendation. But there were other 
 great qualities — qualities not merely intellectual, in the sense of being 
 dissociated from conduct, but qualities immediately connected with 
 conduct, with regard to which I should say, were I a younger man, 
 that I should like to stamja the recollection of them on myself for my 
 own future guidance, and with regard to which I will confidently say 
 to those who are younger than myself, that I would strongly recom- 
 mend them for notice and imitation. They were qualities not only 
 written in a marked manner on his career, but possessed by him in a 
 degree undoubtedly extraordinary. I speak, for example, of such ae 
 these — his strength of will, his long-sighted persistency of purpose, 
 reaching from the first entrance on the avenue of life to its very close 
 his remarkable powers of self-government ; and last, but not least, of 
 all, his great parliamentary courage, a quality in which I, who have 
 been associated in the course of my life with some scores of ministers 
 have never known but two who could be pronounced his equal.
 
 160 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 These two were possibly Lord John Russell and the 
 late Lord Derby. With this record of opinion from 
 his great antagonist, the narrative of Lord Beacons- 
 field's public life may be appropriately closed. It 
 remains to speak of his general position as a statesman, 
 an orator, and a man of letters.
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 
 
 Estimates of Lord Beaconsfield's statesmanship — His foreign policj' — 
 His domestic policy — Theory of popular government — One 
 opinion of the duties of Conservatism — Lord Beaconsfield's 
 opinion — Changes in his views — Distrust of the middle class — 
 Our territorial constitution— The Irish question — Lord Beacons- 
 field's ecclesiastical views — The monarchichal revival — Idealism 
 of Lord Beaconsfield — Increased power of the minister — Lord 
 Beaconsfield's position as an orator — Specimens of his eloquence 
 — His use of rhetoric — His vein of irony — Famous sarcasms. 
 
 Of Lord Beaconsfield's statesmanship various estimates 
 have been formed. That he was one of the greatest 
 Party Leaders which our system of government has 
 produced will be generally admitted. But a man may 
 be a great Party Leader without being a great states- 
 man ; and to determine whether his claims to this higher 
 dignity are well founded or not, we must consider how 
 far he comprehends the character of his own age, 
 whether in his dealings with the contingencies and 
 emergencies which it thrusts upon him he displays the 
 qualities of foresight, sagacity, and the power of taking 
 broad views of political affairs, or whether, so to speak, 
 he only lives from hand to mouth, and is sntisfied 
 
 11
 
 162 LIFE OF LOUD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 with so adjusting public questions as to suit the tem- 
 porary exigencies or prejudices of his own party without 
 looking farther ahead. Lord Beacousfield has been 
 accused of doing this ; of sacrificing Conservative prin- 
 ciples for the sake of place and power, and of inflicting 
 deep wounds on the Constitution for selfish and am- 
 bitious objects. It may be permitted us on the present 
 occasion to examine the validity of this charge with 
 some little attention, since it is doubtful even now 
 whether the delusion in which it had its origin has 
 ever been properly exposed. 
 
 Of Lord Beaconsfield's statesmanship in the depart- 
 ment of Foreign Affairs, it is sufiBcient to say that he 
 followed the traditional policy of Chatham, Pitt, Gren- 
 ville, Canning, and Palmerston, as distinguished from 
 those theories on the subject which a later school of 
 Radical politicians have more recently introduced. 
 That England, though a small island, is the head of 
 a vast empire, which through its commerce and its 
 colonies is connected by a thousand links with the 
 European system, as firmly and as closely as if it had 
 been conterminous with France, Germany, or Russia; 
 consequently that our interests are more or less affected 
 by every continental complication, and that alliances 
 and interventions are as much a necessity to ourselves 
 as to any of the great military Powers ; that a policy 
 of isolation is in principle like a policy of disarma- 
 ment, founded on the belief that it is better to run the 
 risk of ruin than to pay the cost of insurance — such 
 are the few cardinal maxims which have ruled the 
 foreign policy of all our greatest modern statesmen. 
 They lie upon the surface, and require neither defence 
 nor explanation. But that is not the case with the 
 domestic policy of Lord Beacousfield, which was based
 
 STATESMAN AND OBATOB. 163 
 
 €n considerations not, indeed, very abstruse or recondite, 
 but requiring, nevertheless, a little more thought than 
 the Tadpoles and Tapers of the day are generally 
 willing to bestow on them. 
 
 In the course of the debates on the Eeform Bill of 
 1867, Lord Beaconsfield pointed out that the objections 
 brought against his measure were fatal in reality to all 
 popular government, since all popular government in- 
 volved the periodical extension of political privileges. 
 These might, of course, be abused, and made subservient 
 to revolutionary agitators. But that could not be 
 helped. Nobody will maintain at the present day that 
 it would have been possible for any Government, after 
 1832, to continue to hold power on the avowed principle 
 of resisting all popular innovations. Even the Con- 
 servatives of 1867 would hardly have said that. What 
 they did say was this, that it was not for the Conservative 
 Party to undertake such changes, without apparently 
 perceiving that such a doctrine was tantamount to con- 
 demning the Conservative Party to perpetual exclusion 
 from office, on any honourable or independent terms. 
 If they come into power on such an understanding, they 
 can only retain it till their opponents have determined 
 what is the next great change that can most ad- 
 vantageously be announced, and what the most popular 
 cry to raise throughout the country. A session is enough 
 for this, and in the meantime a Conservative Govern- 
 ment must necessarily be a Government upon sufferance, 
 and therefore an object of contempt. Lord Beaconsfield 
 knew what it was to hold office on sufferance, and the 
 iron had entered into his soul. 
 
 There were not wanting Conservatives in 1867 who 
 were willing to face this position and accept the logical 
 result. Let the Conservative Party they said, be hence- 
 
 11 »
 
 164 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 forth recognised as the Constitutional Opposition^ whose 
 business it is to temper, modify, and restrain the Radical 
 tendencies of Liberalism, but never to assume the 
 Government. If popular progress is the order of the 
 day, the proper regime is a Liberal Government to intro- 
 duce organic changes, and a Conservative Opposition to 
 prevent them from going too far. Thus each party 
 will be in its right place, and both perhaps equally 
 useful. The Conservative Party will occupy an in- 
 telligible and honourable position, and always be able 
 to act up to its original principles. Unfortunately, 
 however, this theory of Parliamentary Government, if 
 carried a step farther will be found to destroy itself. An 
 Opposition, to discharge the functions here assigned to 
 it, must be powerful, and an Opposition to be power- 
 ful must be formidable. But an Opposition which 
 abjured office would have no terrors for any Ministry. 
 It could only fire blank cartridges, and, make as 
 much noise as it would, nobody would be really hurt. 
 In other words, an Opposition which acted on this 
 principle would cease to be an Opposition at all in the 
 Parliamentary sense of the term, and could exercise little 
 or no control over the policy of the Government. What 
 becomes, then, of its pretensions to keep in check 
 Eadical proclivities ? 
 
 But this is not all. Such an Opposition as this, while 
 it would have no weight with the Ministry, would have 
 no attractions for the public. Clever young men would 
 cease to throw in their lot with a party which made a 
 virtue of renouncing all the prizes of public life. The 
 leaders of the Bar who look to a Parliamentary career as 
 the surest road to professional advancement, would no 
 longer be found on the Opposition benches, and the 
 party would be robbed of a tributary which is now one
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 165 
 
 of its chief elements of strength. Ceasing to be con- 
 tinually reinforced by the best brains in the country, 
 find the fresh energies of the rising generation, the 
 Opposition, would dwindle to a shadow, and become 
 totally incapable of exercising that conservative influence 
 for the sake of which alone it had adopted this self-deny- 
 ing ordinance. For the Conservative Party to fulfil its 
 mission, it must retain the power of attracting into its 
 Tanks the young, able, and ambitious men of each suc- 
 ceeding generation, and of holding over the ministers of 
 the day the constant possibility of a change. To do 
 this they must be in a position not only to take office, 
 but to keep it. And to place themselves in this position 
 tliey must be ready to move with the times, and show 
 themselves capable of satisfying the wants of the nation. 
 Lord Beaconsfield saw that this rule of action, so far 
 from being a sacrifice of Conservative principles, was 
 really the only way of giving effect to them. Changes 
 which cannot be prevented may be rendered less destruc- 
 tive in Conservative hands than they would be in 
 Eadical hands; and Conservatives are acting just as 
 honourable and dignified a part in adopting a policy 
 of which they disapprove in the abstract, that they may 
 render it less mischievous in the concrete, as they would 
 (be in resisting it altogether when their resistance is 
 certain to be useless. This was the conviction on 
 which Lord Beaconsfield acted ; and it was surely a 
 statesman-like conviction. He knew that we lived in 
 revolutionary times, and he saw that the only way in 
 such times of securing any share of influence to Con- 
 servative ideas was that which I have described. With 
 many Conservative Members of Parliament it is simply 
 enough that they dislike a thing, that it seems to them 
 intrinsically undesirable, to make them think it must be
 
 166 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 doggedly resisted without looking to the right or to th& 
 left. They do not consider that, in an age like the pre- 
 sent, politics, from the Conservative point of view, are 
 often but a choice of evils. They did not see this in times 
 past, even if they see it now. But Lord Beaconsfield 
 saw it, and proved his statesmanship by acting on it. 
 
 It ought to be unnecessary at the present day to 
 argue such a point as this. Parties are always in a 
 state of change. It is the law of their nature. Whigs and 
 Tories, Conservatives and Radicals are always, to borrow 
 a metaphor from Mr. Gladstone, going through the pro- 
 cess analogous to that which is constantly taking place 
 in our bodily system. To recognise the truth where 
 others fail to see it, and to act upon it when all around 
 us are resisting it, is one test of statesmanship, as well as 
 of political philosophy, from which Lord Beaconsfield 
 certainly need not shrink. What his Conservative critics 
 would have had him do was a practical impossibility. 
 
 In his conception of the English Constitution, and 
 of the relations of parties to each other, Lord Beacons- 
 field shifted his standpoint, as he gained more practical 
 experience. In the Li/e of Lord Georrje Bentinch, he 
 describes the Whigs as the leaders of the English aris- 
 tocracy. When he wrote these words he must have 
 meant by the aristocracy the nobility, and have been 
 comparing them with the Tory country gentlemen who 
 did undoubtedly at one time represent popular feeling 
 more accurately than the Whigs. He loved to dwell 
 on the popular character and functions of " the 
 knightly order'' and the great part which it had played 
 in history. He himself has told us that between 
 1783 and 1815 the positions of English parties were 
 reversed. But he seems for a long time to have dwelt 
 on the possibility of their returning to their original
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 167 
 
 positions, and though it is clear that by the year 1873, 
 when he made the speech which is quoted at page 57, 
 he was alive to the fact that both classes of the aris- 
 tocracy were in the same boat at last, and that the 
 nobility and country gentlemen had no longer any sepa- 
 rate interests, but must stand or fall together. 
 
 The fact is that Lord Beaconsfield in his library, 
 giving the rein to his imagination, and tracing all 
 kinds of analogies between the past and present state 
 of politics, and Lord Beaconsfield in the House of 
 Commons, dealing with actual circumstances and edu- 
 cating his party npon questions calling for imme- 
 diate settlement, were two distinct men, leading two 
 lives almost as different from each other as were the two 
 lives led, according to Lockhart, by Sir Walter Scott. 
 In the one he was a Wyndham, a Shippen or a Brom- 
 ley fighting for the Church, the landed interest, and 
 the poor, against the Whigs, the Dissenters, the moneyed 
 interest, and the mob, deploring the degradation of the 
 Crown and the predominance of a crafty oligarchy. In 
 the other he was the keen and ready-witted leader of 
 the modern Tory Party, including in its ranks the 
 greater part of that very oligarchy, which history taught 
 him to be the natural enemy of Toryism, engaged in 
 the defence of principles never called in question by our 
 ancestors, and responding to watchwords which, to 
 them, would have been wholly unintelligible. 
 
 In the one capacity he was as speculative as Hobbes 
 or Harrington ; in the other, as practical as the Con- 
 servative attorneys who " nibbed their pens and whis- 
 pered there was nothing like reaction.^' He lived these 
 two lives separately and alternately till his last hour ; 
 but, unlike what might have been expected, they rarely 
 interfered with each other. For the popular Toryism
 
 168 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 with wliicli be is associated was founded on an acute 
 perception of tbe character of his own times, and of the 
 only means by which Conservatism could become a real 
 power in the country. 
 
 In one respect, and in one only, does be seem to have 
 been always the same, and that was in his distrust of 
 the middle classes as an element of political stability. 
 In his speech on the Chartist petition in 1839 he gave 
 utterance to this sentiment. It is to be found again in 
 a very remarkable speech which he delivered on the 20tli 
 of February 1846, and every page of Coningfihy and 
 ^yhil is rife with it. He believed that permanent and 
 powerful governments might be founded on either 
 monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy. But he had no 
 faith in a houryeoise constitution. 
 
 In his views regarding the peasantry and the arti- 
 sans, the commercial capitalists, and the rural aristo- 
 cracy, we may trace the influence of Cobbett. Cobbett 
 believed in our " territorial constitution " as much as 
 Lord Beaconsfield, but he wished to see it rescued from 
 the predominance of dukes, marquises, and nabobs, with 
 their overgrown estates, and sighed for the days when 
 the balls and manor houses, inhabited by country gentle- 
 men of ancient birth and moderate estate, had not yet 
 been bought up by the Tritons and turned into farm- 
 houses. Mr. Disraeli was obliged to handle this part of 
 the question somewhat delicately. But what he thought 
 upon the subject is plainly discernible in Sybil, where 
 the very words of Cobbett are occasionally to be dis- 
 covered. 
 
 While, however, we may entirely agree with Lord 
 Beaconsfield in his estimate of our territorial constitu- 
 tion, a conjecture may be hazarded that if, on any 
 point, his statesmanship was the dupe of his imagination,
 
 STATESMAN AND BATOR. 169 
 
 it was on this. Tn the speech on the threshold of the 
 great Corn Law struggles of 1846, he said : — 
 
 I have now nearly concluded the observations which I shall address 
 to the House. I have omitted a great deal which I wished to urge 
 upon the House, and I sincerely wish that what I have said had been 
 urged with more ability, but I have endeavoured not to make a mere 
 Corn Law speech. I have only taken corn as an illustration ; but I 
 don't like my friends here to enter upon that Corn Law debate, which 
 I suppose is imjoending, under a mistaken notion of the position in 
 ■which they stand. I never did rest my defence of the Corn Laws on 
 the burdens to which land is subject. I believe that there are burdens, 
 heavy burdens, on the land; but the land has great honours, and he 
 ■who has great honom-s must have great burdens. But I wish them to 
 bear in mind that their cause must be sustained by great principles. 
 I venture feebly and slightly to indicate those principles, principles of 
 high policy, on which their system ought to be sustained. First, 
 without reference to England, looking at all countries, I say that it is 
 the first duty of the Minister, and the first interest of the State, to 
 maintain a balance between the two great branches of national indus- 
 try. I repeat what I have said before, that in this country there are 
 special reasons why we should give a preponderance — I do not say a 
 predominance — why we should give a preponderance, for that is the 
 proper and constitutional word, to the agricultural branch ; and the 
 reason is, because in England we have a territorial constitution. We 
 have thrown upon the land the revenues of the Church, the admini- 
 etration of justice, and the estate of the poor ; and this has been done, 
 not to gratify the pride or pamper the luxury of the proprietors of the 
 land, but because in a territorial constitution you, and those whom 
 you have succeeded, have found the only security for self-government, 
 the only bari-ier against that centralising system which has taken 
 root in other countries. I have always maintained these opinions. 
 My constituents are not landlords ; they are not aristocrats ; they are 
 not great capitalists ; they ai'e the children of industrj'' and toil ; and 
 they believe, first, that their material interests are involved in a 
 system which favour's native industry by insuring at the same time 
 real competition ; but they believe also that their social and political 
 interests are involved in a system by which their rights and liberties 
 have been guaranteed ; and I agree with them — I have the same old- 
 fashioned notions. 
 
 At page 30 of this little volume will be found a much 
 earlier speech, giving expression to the same opinions 
 in more rhetorical and glowing colours. But at all
 
 170 LIFJ^ OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 periods of liis life he was fond of reverting to them, 
 and of speaking of the country gentlemen of England 
 as the natural leaders of the people : and I cannot 
 help thinking that he must have sometimes shut his 
 eyes to the effect of recent changes in our political 
 and social system, which have certainly weakened, 
 though they may not have finally destroyed, the foun- 
 dations of the ancient rcf/ime. Our territorial con- 
 stitution grew up at a time when all property and all 
 powers were territorial, and though of all the forms in 
 which property and power can be embodied, this is pro- 
 bably on the whole the most beneficial to society, yet 
 with the development of trade and commerce, rival in- 
 terests and rival aspirations are certain to spring up, jea- 
 lous of the privileges attaching to the ownership of land, 
 and severely critical on the working of " a territorial 
 constitution." In England this last has long been de- 
 clining in importance. Public offices and public duties 
 once inseparably connected with landed property, have 
 now been severed from it. The House of Commons is 
 no longer led by members of the territorial class, and 
 though forty years ago it still presented, as it does stilly 
 an imposing exterior, the shock given to feudal ideas by 
 the French Bevolution, the reduction of aristocratic in- 
 fluence by the Reform Bill of 1832, and the enormous 
 concurrent development of the manufacturing interests, 
 have all been working for the degradation of that great 
 system, the merits of which Lord Beaconsfield did not 
 over-estimate, and which has found one of its warmest 
 eulogists in Mr. Gladstone himself.* 
 
 It is open to doubt whether Lord Beaconsfield fully 
 understood this. He was loth to part with the belief 
 that the country gentlemen of England represented "the 
 * Cf. p. 65.
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 171 
 
 popular political confederacy " of this country, and still 
 retained their ancient place in the hearts of the labour- 
 ing classes. He knew that evil tongues had come between 
 them, but it is uncertain if he appreciated the full ex- 
 tent of the mischief; and perhaps we ought to hope 
 that he died in the faith in which he lived, namely, that 
 the extension of popular privileges could never be inju- 
 rious to those who deserved well of the people. We 
 have not seen the end yet, and Lord Beaconsfield may 
 have been quite right. His prescience was rarely at 
 fault. He stood alone in his belief in the Conservative 
 working man. His belief in a Conservative peasantry 
 may prove equally well founded. But the circumstances 
 are not analogous, and one need not be an alarmist to 
 think that on this point he may possibly have been 
 over sanguine. 
 
 But though he may have miscalculated the force of 
 those hostile agencies which the nineteenth century has 
 developed, it does not follow that his admiration of " the 
 territorial constitution '^ was not well worthy of a states- 
 man. Lord Beaconsfield believed that the persons most 
 proper to be entrusted with the exercise of local autho- 
 rity and local administration should naturally be looked 
 for in the more conservative elements of society, which 
 have been supposed since the days of Aristotle to 
 reside in the proprietors of the soil. He thought that 
 the administration of justice and the interests of the 
 poor were alike benefited by being confided to the 
 hands of men who had hereditary claims on the respect 
 and affection of the people. Such a system, it is said, 
 lightens the pressure of authority by the influence of 
 immemorial prescription, and dignifies the receipt of 
 charity by imparting to it some flavour of the kindness 
 which springs from a family relationship.
 
 172 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 Finally, without underrating the patriotism and self- 
 devotion of the manufacturing and commercial classes, 
 which they have proved on many memorable occasions, 
 Lord Beaconsfield was of opinion that the possession of 
 land intensified the love of country, and invested it 
 with a concrete form which commerce alone could not 
 supply. He thought that in times of trouble more 
 fortitude, resolution, and patience were to be expected 
 from a territorial than from a commercial aristocracy ; 
 and it was the avowed intention of the Anti-Corn 
 Law Leaders to substitute the one for the other in 
 this country, which more than anything else made 
 Lord Beaconsfield a Protectionist. These views may 
 be unfashionable. They may be mistaken. But they 
 have a recognised locus standi in political philosophy, 
 and well become an English statesman. 
 
 On what is now the great question of the day Lord 
 Beaconsfield's opinions varied with the course of events ; 
 but there is no doubt that had the settlement of the Irish 
 Question lain with himself from forty to fifty years ago he 
 would have arranged it on broad and equitable principles, 
 which would have saved us all our present difficulties. 
 Let us never forget his memorable words spoken in 1843 : 
 *' An alien Church, an absentee aristocracy, and a 
 starving people — that is the Irish Question.*' To estab- 
 lish the Church of the people in Ireland, as we have 
 established the Church of the people in Scotland, was 
 his remedy for the first grievance which lay at the 
 root of the evil. How he would have dealt with the 
 second it is impossible to say. But it is clear enough 
 that a resident Irish aristocracy, such as the wealthy 
 landed proprietors who lived almost entirely in England, 
 ■would have gone a long way towards improving the con- 
 dition of Irish agriculture, so as to make starvation, at
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 173 
 
 all events, impossible. But when the Irish Question was 
 at length taken up by Mr. Gladstone it was too late. 
 The Fenian agitation had begun. And although, in 
 Mr. Disraeli's opinion, it was very nearly stamped out 
 when Mr. Gladstone blew up the embers, it practically 
 made it impossible for English statesmen to recur to 
 any such remedies as might have been effective at an 
 earlier period. Mr. Disraeli then said. Leave Ireland 
 alone. Between 1848 and 1865 she had been ad- 
 vancing steadily along the path of social progress. The 
 Fenian movement was essentially a foreign one, fanned 
 by bad management into something much more for- 
 midable, but capable at one time of being crushed 
 without any difficulty. Natural causes had removed 
 some of Ireland's difficulties. Time, patience, and 
 perseverance would have done the rest. Mr. Glad- 
 stone's Irish measures of 1869 and 1870 seemed to 
 Lord Beaconsfield not to be the cure of an old agita- 
 tion so much as the creation of a new one. 
 
 It was on ecclesiastical subjects that Lord Beaconsfield 
 was seen to least advantage. Of the recent history of the 
 Church of England, and of the true nature of the ques- 
 tions which separate her from Rome and from Geneva, 
 his knowledge was imperfect ; and his ideas, in con- 
 sequence, unlike those which he had formed on politics 
 and society, were not original. He took them from 
 those whom he believed to be well informed upon the 
 subject, and was sometimes deceived by appearances, 
 sometimes converted by clamour, and sometimes made 
 the tool of party. Yet all the time it is difficult to 
 doubt on which side lay his real sympathies. The 
 natural bent of his mind was to see in the Catholic 
 Church only a continuation of the Jewish, and to re- 
 cognise in her rites and ceremonies the legitimate fulfil-
 
 174 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 ment of those wliich God had ordained in the Old 
 Testament. He tells us that the Romish Church 
 possesses "the old learning as well as the new." When 
 he refers to the Papacy it is not to condemn the Pope, 
 but to suggest that the visible head of the Church 
 should have been seated, not at Rome, but at Jeru- 
 salem. Both on the Monarchy and the Church of Eng- 
 land the sentiments which he puts into the mouths of 
 Coningsby and Henry Sidney are those of Hurrell 
 Fronde. 
 
 I believe that these, his earliest expressed opinions, 
 were the most congenial to his mind, as they were cer- 
 tainly most in harmony with the political creed, the pri- 
 mitive Toryism, which he had adopted. But they were 
 not founded on independent study ; they were not 
 built upon a rock, and were liable to be shaken by any 
 gust of popular passion which assailed them. No one 
 would ever have thought it likely that the author of 
 S^bil could support a Bill " to put down Ritualism " ; 
 and we know that Mr. Disraeli's first impulse was to 
 oppose it. But he yielded to representations with 
 which his own information did not enable him to cope, 
 and made one of the greatest mistakes of his life in 
 consequence. 
 
 Again, when he said with reference to Essays and 
 Reviews that he, too, was for free enquiry, but that it 
 must be by free enquirers, he was not en rapport 
 with the general tone and temper of the better 
 class of English clergy. Notwithstanding the truth 
 which the words undoubtedly contain, they jarred 
 on the ears of many men who were as orthodox as 
 Lord Eldon and as firm believers in the literal inspi- 
 ration of the Bible as Luther. The fact is, the one 
 thing which he did not thoroughly understand in Eng-
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 175 
 
 land was the Church. And the clergy, on the other 
 hand, did not understand him. This, unfortunately, 
 was the source of woes unnumbered to the Conserva- 
 tive Party, for which a large share of the responsi- 
 bility must undoubtedly rest with Lord Beaconsfield. 
 He allowed himself to fall into the hands of a party 
 with whom at the outset of his career he had no sym- 
 pathy whatever. But had he been told that the Public 
 Worship Kegulation Bill was not in accordance with 
 the principles which "the descendants of the cavaliers" 
 might be expected to espouse,* he would have replied, 
 perhaps, that since he last appealed to those principles 
 " many things had happened,^' and that it was useless 
 to galvanize a corpse. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield, while Prime Minister, between 
 187-4 and 1880, was frequently accused of attempting 
 "to revive personal government." The charge was 
 absurd enough, but it was eagerly taken up in certain 
 quarters, and men said it was only what was to be ex- 
 pected from the author of Goningshy. Now what the 
 author of Co7iingshy had glanced at merely as one mode 
 of escape from the difficulties created by the Reform 
 Bill — difficulties summed up in the Duke^s well-known 
 question, How is the King's Government to be car- 
 ried on ? — was undoubtedly something more than the 
 revival of those monarchical functions which, since the 
 death of William the Third had, with the exception of 
 one brief interval, been practically in abeyance. It 
 was nothing less than the termination of Parliamentary 
 supremacy altogether in favour of a genuine mo- 
 narchy, controlled by journalism, and assisted in the 
 work of administration by "a vast pile of municipal 
 and local government.'' 
 
 * See Speech in House of Commons, Aug. 9, 1843.
 
 17(5 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Tliis, we must remember, is a mere speculation, not 
 meant for a moment as a really practical suggestion. 
 
 Representation is not necessarilj', or even in a principal sense, Par- 
 liamentary. Parliament is not sitting at this moment, and yet the 
 nation is represented in its highest as well as in its most minute 
 interests. Not a grievance escapes notice and redress. We must not for- 
 get that a principle of government is reserved for our days that we shall 
 not find in our Aristotles, or even in the forests of Tacitus, nor in our 
 Saxon Wittenagemotes, nor in our Plantagenet parliaments. Opinion 
 now is supreme, and Opinion speaks in print. The representation of 
 the Press is far more complete than the representation of Parliament. 
 Parliamentary representation was the happy device of a ruder age, to 
 which it was admirably adapted ; an age of semi-civilization, when 
 there was a leading class in the community ; but it exhibits many 
 symptoms of desuetude. It is controlled by a system of representa- 
 tion more vigorous and comprehensive ; which absorbs its duties and 
 fulfils them more efficiently, and in which discussion is pui-sued on. 
 fairer terms, and often with more depth and information. 
 
 He did not think that the settlement of 1832 was 
 likely to be permanent, and if we were *' forced to revo- 
 lution,'^ he preferred a monarchical to a democratic 
 revolution. But he was never wild enough to imagine 
 tliat personal government could co-e.\ist with a reformed 
 House of Commons, and before 1874 the question raised 
 in Coningshij had beeu answered in another way. 
 
 If the charge formally brought against him in 1879 
 was not absolutely meaningless, it implied that Lord 
 Beaconsfield was suggesting to Her Majesty that she 
 should act upon her own views of foreign and domestic 
 policy without regard to the opinion of Parliament. 
 Unless it meant as much as this, it meant nothing at 
 all. But personal government of this kind, either by 
 the Sovereign or the Minister, as Parliament is at 
 present constituted, is simply impossible, unless the 
 Sovereign is prepared to try conclusions with the ma- 
 jority, and establish a system under which the defeat
 
 STATESMAN AND OEATOE. 177 
 
 of the Government shall not involve its resignation. 
 If Lord Beaconsfield had any such scheme as this in 
 contemplation, it is odd that no trace of it should 
 exist in the history of one who was three times leader of 
 the House of Commons at the head of a minority, and 
 once Prime Minister. That a minister in a minority 
 has a right of appealing to the people before he resigns 
 oflBce, is of course a truism, and Mr. Disraeli held 
 office in 1852, in 1859, and in 1867 on that under- 
 standing. In 1868 and 1880 he resigned before the 
 elections were over. But tliis is not the point at issue. 
 The only Prime Minister who has ever seriously tried 
 to conduct the Government of this country in the face 
 of a hostile majority after, and not before, the appeal 
 to the people has been made, was not Lord Beaconsfield, 
 but Sir Eobert Peel. 
 
 That Lord Beaconsfield was in some respects the 
 slave of his own fancies may perhaps be granted; and 
 he may have believed he saw materials for a monar- 
 chical revival where none existed. But that he had any 
 formed design as late as 1874 for attempting to carry 
 it out, is to my mind a ridiculous supposition. That 
 the mere charge should have been made, however, un- 
 doubtedly points to what was his chief defect as a 
 statesman. He was too much under the dominion of 
 ideas, and allowed too little for the force of circum- 
 stances, which he strove vainly to reconcile with his 
 theories. The Times once referred to the difficulty of 
 reconciling Lord Beaconsfield's language with the 
 world in which we live ; and the explanation is what I 
 have already given, namely, that he lived in two 
 worlds, and that he sometimes allowed himself, in 
 talking to the denizens of one, to use the language of 
 the other. We see the influence of this tendency to 
 
 12
 
 178 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 idealism iu the teuacity with wliich he clung to his 
 belief in tlie stability of our old rural system, after its 
 foundations had been so severely shaken by the 
 severance of old ties, by prolonged agricultural dis- 
 tress, and by the indefatigable efforts of a sordid social 
 democracy to sow dissension in its ranks. We see it 
 in his failure, with all his marvellous foresight and 
 insight, to comprehend the moral change which had 
 come over the English people during half a century of 
 democratic education, with its pseudo-philanthropy, its 
 maudlin sensibility, and its Pharisaical hypocrisy. He 
 knew what the English people once were, and he would 
 not believe it possible that they should suddenly behave 
 like women and children. He forgot that democracies 
 are very like women in their nature; generous, but im- 
 pulsive, passionate, and intolerant, easily stirred by 
 emotion, but seldom accessible to argument; and the 
 clamour against the Bulgarian atrocities for the moment 
 seems to have confounded him. 
 
 In the region of Foreign Affairs we see the same 
 defect. In much that he wrote about the French Al- 
 liance, on the occasions when he still insisted on 
 it as a practical article of our policy, he forgot 
 that since the days when the French Alliance was a 
 reality, a hundred and twenty years of almost con- 
 stant hostility had intervened ; that the system 
 under which France came to be regarded as the natural 
 enemy of England, had been rivetted on this country 
 by the Whigs, and clinched by the Revolutionary war. 
 He forgot that the Bourbons could never forgive us after 
 the war of the Spanish Succession, or the loss of India, 
 or the loss of Canada. He forgot that with the 
 decline of Spain and Holland, France succeeded to their 
 place as the great maritime rival of Great Britain,
 
 STATESMAN AND OBATOB. 179 
 
 while in the meantime our connection with Germany 
 had been relieved of its old burdens and strengthened by 
 many new ties. 
 
 I have already said that these beliefs and specu- 
 lations had but little influence on his practical policy, 
 and it may be thought, therefore, that they had 
 no result at all, and that it is unnecessary to say 
 anything about them. But that is not exactly true, 
 for they flavoured Lord Beaconsfield's language when 
 they did not affect his conduct, and imparted a some- 
 what fanciful character to what, stripped of these gar- 
 ments, was often very plain common-sense. Tliis, to 
 some extent retarded his rise in life, and made those 
 " sober politicians," whose voice in the long run is 
 always in this country decisive, distrust and underrate 
 him. This peculiarity in a statesman whose lot is cast 
 in a country governed by popular institutions, is certainly 
 a defect, which all Lord Beaconsfield's marvellous power 
 of keeping his imagination under the control of his 
 reason in the practical conduct of affairs was unable to 
 completely neutralise. 
 
 It may be added, in conclusion, that Lord Beacons- 
 field was, perhaps, tlie first to perceive that one result 
 of the overtnrow of the old constitution must be to throw 
 great additional power into the hands of individuals. 
 He had hoped, no doubt, that the individual to profit 
 by the tendency would be the Sovereign. Events have 
 given the power to the Minister, who, with a House 
 of Commons' majority, at the present day approaches 
 far more nearly to the position of a dictator than 
 ever he did under the old system. Then both the 
 Sovereign, and the aristocracy through their nominees, 
 possessed some control over him. But now they ca)i 
 exercise none ; and Members of Parliament returned to 
 
 12 *
 
 180 LIFE OF LOKD BEACON SFIELB. 
 
 support him by numerous popular constituencies, even 
 if popular opinion runs against him at a particular 
 moment, will scarcely give a hostile vote, because the 
 fickleness of a purely democratic electorate is so great 
 that they can never tell how soon the wind may change, 
 and the majority veer round again to their former 
 unqualified allegiance. When a great noble saw cause 
 to withdraw his support from the Government of the 
 day it was not till after due consideration, and his 
 resolution was probably permanent. But that is not the 
 case with a great popular constituency ; and, though on 
 occasions of exceptional magnitude and rare occurrence 
 members will still, as ever, act for themselves in spite of 
 all party obligation ; still in ordinary times there is 
 nothing now behind the House of Commons which a 
 minister has to fear during his seven years of office, 
 compared with what there was formerly, and, in this 
 sense of the word, personal government has resulted 
 from what was supposed to be a great measure for the 
 extension of popular power. 
 
 As an orator. Lord Beaconsfield stands high, but not 
 perhaps in the first class. If he does it is in the class 
 to which Pitt and Grenville belonged; not to that 
 which is peopled by Chatham, Fox and Canning. If 
 to the highest level of oratory a certain fire and im- 
 petuosity is indispensable — that white heat which is 
 sometimes perceptible in Mr. Gladstone, that boiling 
 torrent of words which his contemporaries admired in 
 Mr. Fox — then to this level Lord Beaconsfield did not 
 attain. But if we consider not inferior to this the more 
 stately and measured eloquence, calm and proud, and 
 over-mastering us with the sense of power, which tradition 
 ascribes to the first two statesmen I have named, did Lord 
 Beaconsfield attain to this? Nearer certainly than to the
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 181 
 
 other. In some of the speeches especially which he de- 
 livered after his retirement from office in 1880, there is 
 11 tone of mingled gravity and dignity, well befitting the 
 political veteran, which is deeply impressive, and often 
 recalls to us what we have heard of the manner of Mr. 
 Pitt. A good specimen is the close of his speech on 
 the Address in January 1881, when the Government 
 which had abandoned tiie Peace Preservation Act, to 
 mark their sense of Lord Beaconsfield's mis-government, 
 ^arae down to Parliament and asked for similar power 
 fv)r themselves. Lord Beaconsfield, after commenting 
 severely on their conduct, proceeded as follows : — 
 
 It may be said, If these are your views, why do you not call upon 
 Parliament to express them ? Well, I do not know anything which 
 would be more justifiable than an amendment to the Address ex- 
 pressing our deep regret that measures for maintaining peace and 
 order, for guarding life and property, and, let me add, liberty, which, 
 I think, is equally in danger in Ireland, were not taken in time, and 
 pointing out that if such measures had been taken in time, an enormous 
 number of terrible incidents might have been averted ; that men would 
 now have been alive who have been murdered ; that houses would now 
 have been in existence that have been burned ; that cases of torture to 
 man and beast would never have happened — for these things, as your 
 Lordships are aware, have mainly occurred within the past two months. 
 But, my Lord, there are occasions when even party considerations must 
 be given up. There are occasions when it may not be wise, even for 
 your Lordships, to place yourselves, as it were, at the head of public 
 opinion in indignant remonstrance at the action of the Ministry. The 
 great dangers and disasters which have been impending, or have hap- 
 pened in tliis country during the past nine months, have arisen from 
 the abuse of party feeling ; and for that reason alone, if there were 
 no other, I would recommend your Lordships to pause before taking 
 any step which would weaken the movements of the Administration at 
 this moment. I conclude that the Government have come to their 
 determination in a bond jide spirit. I expect that their Bills when 
 introduced will be found adequate to the occasion, for I am convinced 
 that only ridicule will result if they are not conceived in a compre- 
 hensive spirit. I conclude, also, that it is now their intention to pro- 
 ceed with these Bills de die in diem, in order that some hope, some
 
 182 LIFE OF LORD BEACON SFIELl). 
 
 cowVA^o, may be given to our loyal ami long-.sufl'criny subjects in Ire- 
 land. When those Bills have been passed, wo shall bo ready to con- 
 sider any other measures which Her Majostj^'s Governmout may bring 
 before Parliament. Bui I think it utter mockery to discuss any ques- 
 tions connected with Ireland now, except tho restoration of poaco and 
 order, the re-establishment of the sovereignty of the Queen, and a 
 policy that will announce to Europe that tho spirit of England has not 
 ceased, and that, great as are the changes that now environ Ministers, 
 the Parliament of England will he equal to the occasion. 
 
 Another example may be quoted from his speech on 
 
 the evacuation of Candahar in the following March, 
 
 only six weeks before his death : — 
 
 My opinion is that, though such places may not be osseutial to us, 
 yet that I should regret to see any great military Power in possession 
 of them. I should look upon such an event with regret, and perhaps 
 with some degree of apprehension; but if the great military Power 
 were there, I trust we might still be able to maintain our Empire. 
 But, my Lords, the key of India is not Herat or Candahar. The key 
 of India is in London. The majesty and sovereignty, the spirit and 
 vigour of your Parliament, the inexhaustible resources, tho ingenuity, 
 and determination of your people — these are the keys of India. 
 
 But a better example still, perhaps, may be found in a 
 
 much earlier speech, one delivered in May 1865, on the 
 
 Borough Franchise; and it is perhaps the best example 
 
 of his graver style of eloquence that can be cited. 
 
 Between the scheme we brought forward (i.e. 1859) and the measure 
 now brought forward by the honourable member for Leeds, and the 
 inevitable conclusion which its principal supporters acknowledge it 
 must load to, it is a qiiestion between an aristocratic government, in 
 the proper sense of the term — that is, a goveriunent by tho best 
 men of all classes — and a democracy. I doubt very much whether 
 a democracy is a government that would suit this country ; and it 
 is just as well that the House, when coming to a vote on this 
 question, should really consider if that be the issue — and it is the 
 real issue, between retaining the present Constitution, not the present 
 constituent body, but between the present Constitution and a demo- 
 cracy — it is just as well for the House to recollect that the stake is 
 not mean, that what is at issue is of some price. You must remem- 
 ber, not to use the epithet profanely, that we are dealing really with 
 a peculiar people. There is no country at the present moment that
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 183 
 
 exists under the circumstances and under the same conditiona as the 
 people of this realm. You have, for example, an ancient, powerful, 
 richly-endowed Church and perfect religious liberty. You have un- 
 lirokon order and complete freedom. You have landed estates as 
 larg-e as the Romans, combined with commercial enterprise such as 
 Carthage and Venice united never equalled. And you must remember 
 that this peculiar country, with these strong contrasts, is not governed 
 by force ; it is not governed by standing armies, it is governed bj- a most 
 singular series of traditionary influences which, generation after gene- 
 ration, cherishes and preserves, because it knows that they embalm 
 custom and represent law. And, with this, what have you done ? 
 You have created the greatest Empire of modern time. You have 
 amassed a capital of fabulous amount, you have devised and sustained 
 a system of credit still more marvellous, and, above all, you have 
 established and maintained a scheme of labour and industry so vast 
 and complicated that the history of the world has no parallel to it. 
 And all these mighty creations are out of all proportion to the essen- 
 tial and indigenous elements and resources of the country. If you de- 
 stroy that state of societj-, remember this — England cannot begin again. 
 There are countries which have been in great danger, and gone 
 through great suffering — the United States, for example, whose for- 
 tunes are now so perilous, and who, in oiu* own immediate day, have 
 had great trials ; you have had — perhaps even now in the United 
 States of America you have— a protracted and fratricidal civil war, 
 which has lasted for four years ; but if it lasted for four years more, 
 vast as would be the disaster and desolation, when ended the United 
 States might begin again, because the United States then would only 
 be in the same condition that England was at the end of the War of 
 the Roses, when probably she had not even 3,000,000 of population, 
 with vast tracts of virgin soil and mineral treasures, not only unde- 
 veloped, but undreamt of. Then j'ou have France. France had a 
 real revohition in this centui'y — a real revolution, not only a political, 
 but a social revolution, the institutions of the country were uprooted, 
 the orders of society were abolished — even the landmarks and local 
 names removed and erased. But France could begin again. France 
 had the greatest spread of the most exuberant soil in Europe, and a 
 climate not less genial. She had, and always had, comparatively, a 
 limited population, living in the most simple manner. Franco, there- 
 fore, could begin again. But England — the England wo know, the 
 England we live in, the England of which we are proud — could not 
 begin again." 
 
 These, find other passages which might be quoted, 
 
 flash out great truths, and elevated sentiments in tlie
 
 184 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 language most appropriate to tliem, the language of 
 perfect simplicity. But Lord Beaconsfield at the same 
 time was a great master of rhetoric, and some of his 
 greatest effects were produced by the dexterous employ- 
 ment of it. His description of the landed interest in 
 1849, which has been already quoted,* is a good illustra- 
 tion of his powers. 
 
 Another iiighly-wrought passage is the peroration to 
 that speech of 1848 which, as stated above,t secured 
 him the leadership of his party in the House of Com- 
 mons. The subject is the failure of legislative power 
 in that Assembly, which the orator attributes to the 
 absence of authority in the Government, and the break- 
 ing up of the House into a number of small cliques. 
 
 After all their deliberations, after all their foresight, after all their 
 observation of the times, after all their study of the public interest, 
 when their measures are launched from the Cabinet into this House, 
 they are not received here by a confiding majority — confiding, I mean, 
 iu their faith in the statesmanlike qualifications of their authors, and 
 in their sympatliy with the great political principles professed by the 
 members of the administration. On the contrary, the success of their 
 measures in this House depends on a variety of small parties, who, in 
 their aggregate, exceed in number and influence the party of the 
 ministers. The temper of one leader has to be watched ; the indica- 
 tion of the opinion of another has to be observed ; the disposition of a 
 third has to be suited; so that a measure is so altered, remoulded, 
 remodelled, patched, cobbled, painted, veneered, and varnished, that 
 at last no trace is loft of the original scope and scheme ; or it is with- 
 drawn in disgust by its originators, after having been subjected to 
 prolonged and elaborate discussions in this House. 
 
 Men in their situation will naturally say, " What is the use of taking 
 all these pains, of bestowing all this care, study, and foresight on the 
 preparation of a measure, when the moment it is out of our hands it 
 ceases to be the measure of the Cabinet, and becomes essentially the 
 measure of the House of Commons ? " And, therefore, measures are 
 thrown before us with the foregone conclusion that we are to save the 
 Administration much care and trouble in preparing the means of 
 govei'ning the country. Thus it happens that the House of Commons, 
 
 * P. 71. t P- cy.
 
 STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 185 
 
 instead of being a purely legislative body, is every day becoming a 
 mere administrative assembly. The House of Commons, as now con- 
 ducted, is a great committee, sitting on public affairs, in which every 
 man speaks with the same right, and most of us with the same 
 weight: no more the disciplined array of traditional influences and 
 hereditary opinions — the realised experience of ancient society and of 
 a race that for generations has lived and flourished in the high prac- 
 tice of a noble system of self-government — that is all past. For these 
 the future is to provide us with a compensatory alternative in the 
 conceits of the illiterate, the crotchets of the whimsical, the violent 
 courses of a vulgar ambition, that acknowledges no gratitude to anti- 
 quity, to posterity no duty ; until at last this free and famous Parlia- 
 ment of England is to subside to the low-water mark of those national 
 assemblies and those provisional conventions that are at the same 
 time the terror and the derision of the world. 
 
 But undoubtedly when we think of Lord Beaconsfield 
 as an orator, we think rather of his wit, his humour, 
 and his sarcasms, than of his higher and more serious 
 flights of eloquence. On the lower ground he has no 
 superior, and it may be doubted if he ever had an equal. 
 But it is impossible to preserve the spirit and flavour of 
 eloquence of this description when the circumstances 
 which gave it point and purpose have either lost interest 
 or are totally forgotten. Even Townsend's *' champagne 
 speech," now that the cork has been drawn so long, would 
 probably read very flat could we have it restored in its 
 integrity. And so it is with some of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 most celebrated witticisms, and still more with that 
 matchless vein of irony in which he loved to address the 
 members of the hated " coalition." To give any fair 
 idea of its quality we should have to quote whole speeches, 
 since the effect is often not produced by felicitous 
 images or pungent epigrams, but by one continuous 
 flow of elaborate mockery, which does not admit of 
 being broken up, and which cannot be appreciated even 
 as it stands without a minute acquaintance with the 
 political and Parliamentary circumstances to which it is
 
 18(5 LIFE OF LOIW BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 addressed. For such as wish to judge for themselves, I 
 mav mention his speech of February 18th, 1853, as 
 perhaps tlie most perfect specimen of the kind I have 
 already mentioned. 
 
 I have quoted, at p. 61, perhaps the finest of all his 
 sarcasms levelled at Sir Kobert Peel. But one more 
 must still be added : — 
 
 Sir, I must say that such a Minister may be conscientious, but that 
 he is unfortunate. I will say, also, that he ought to be the last man 
 in the world to turn round and upbraid his jiarty in a tone of menace. 
 Sir, there is a difficulty in finding a parallel to the position of the 
 right honourable gentleman in any part of history. The only 
 parallel "which I can find is an incident* in the late war in the 
 Levant, which was terminated by the policy of the noble lord 
 opposite. I remember when that great struggle was taking 
 place, when the existence of the Turkish empire was at stake, 
 the late Saltan, a man of great energy and fertile in resources, 
 was determined to fit out an immense fleet to maintain hia 
 empire. Accordingly a vast annament was collected. It consisted of 
 some of the finest ships that were ever built. The crews were picked 
 men, the officers were the ablest that could be found, and both officers 
 and men were rewarded before they fought. There never was an 
 armament which left the Dardanelles similarly appointed since the 
 days of Solyman the Great. The Sultan personally witnessed the 
 departure of the fleet ; all the muftis prayed for the success of the 
 expedition, as all the muftis here prayed for the success of the last 
 General Election. Away went the fleet, but what was the Sultan's 
 consternation, when the Lord High Admiral steered at once into the 
 enemy's port ! Now, Sir, the Lord High Admiral on that occasion 
 was very much misrepresented. He, too, was called a traitor, and he, 
 too, vindicated himself. " True it is," he said, " I did place myself at 
 the head of this valiant armada : true it is that my Sovereign em- 
 braced me : true it is that all the muftis in the empire offered up 
 prayers for my success : but I have an objection to war. I see no use 
 in prolonging the struggle, and the only reason I had for accepting the 
 command was that I might terminate the contest by betraying my 
 master.'" 
 
 * The deliverv of the Turkish Fleet to Mehemet Ali by Achmet 
 Pasha, the Turkish High Admiral. June 30th 1839
 
 STATESMAN AND OBATOB. 187 
 
 With one more quotation I must hasten to con- 
 clude this chapter. It is from a speech delivered 
 at Edinburgh in October 1867, which was an ex- 
 haustive presentation of his case on Parliamentary- 
 Reform : — 
 
 I see many gentlemen here who have been, no doubt, inspectors like 
 myself, aa magistrates, of peculiar asylums, who meet there some 
 cases which I have thought at the same time the most absurd and the 
 most distressing ; it is when the lunatic believes all the world is mad, 
 and that he himself is sane. But to pass from such gloomy imagery, 
 really these " Edinburgh " and " Quarterly " Reviews, no man admires 
 them more than myself. But I admire them as I do first-rate, first- 
 class posting-houses, which in old days for half a century or so — to use 
 Manchester phrase — carried on a roaring trade. Then there comes 
 some revolution or progress which no person can ever have contem- 
 plated. They find things are altered. They do not understand them, 
 and instead of that intense competition and mvitual vindictivenesa 
 which before distinguished them, they suddenly quite agree. The 
 "boots" of the "Blue Boar" and the chamber-maid of the "Red 
 Lion " embrace, and are quite in accord in this — in denouncing the 
 infamy of railroads. 
 
 Between the effect of this raillery, when delivered by 
 the orator himself with all the advantages of voice, eye, 
 and gesture, when the subject-matter of it was a topic 
 of daily conversation, and the effect of it reproduced in 
 print twenty years afterwards, the difference is almost 
 ns great as between a living man and his portrait. 
 Quid si ipsum tottatHem andivisses. The difference 
 is peculiarly marked in passages of wit and humour 
 arising out of temporary incidents, and dependent for 
 their flavour on their freshness.
 
 188 LIFE OF LORD BEACON SFIELB. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield's works — His earlier novels — Plots of Coningshy 
 and Sybil — Tancrecl, Lotkair and Endymion — Three prose bur- 
 lesques — Political writings — Lord Beaconslield's style. 
 
 IjORD Beaconsfield was the author of eleven novels, 
 namely, Vivian Grey published in 1826, the Yoiimj 
 Duke in 1831, Contarini Fleming in 1832, The Won- 
 drous Tale of Alroy in 1833, Henrietta Temple in 1836, 
 Venetia in 1837, Conin;/sby in 1844, Sybil in 1845, 
 Tancred in 1847, Lothair in 1870, and Endymion in 
 1880. Besides these he published the Rise of Iskander 
 in 1833, the Revolutionary Epic in 1834, and Count 
 Alarcos, a tragedy, in 1839. His three burlesques, 
 namely, Topanilla, Ixion in Heaven, and the Infernal 
 Marriage, were given to the world between 1828 and 
 1833. The political pamphlets which bear his name 
 appeared in the following order : — What is He? in 1833, 
 The Crisis Examined in 1834, The Vindication of 
 ike British Constitution in 1835, and the Letters of 
 Runnytnede and the Sjjirit of Whiygism in 1836. In 
 1852 appeared his Life of Lord George Bentinck. 
 
 Vivian Grey as the production of a youth of one and 
 twenty, has been deservedly extolled, and at the time of 
 its publication its originality and its audacity took the 
 world by storm. But we have got used to Lord Bea-
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 189 
 
 consfield since then, and Vivian Grey, which amazed 
 his contemporaries, is not so entertaining to ourselves. 
 It has no plot deserving of the name, and the political 
 intrigues described in it betray the age and inexperience 
 of the writer, and are almost unreadable at the present 
 day. What remains is a dashing smartness and neat- 
 ness in the dialogue, and some brilliant bits of social 
 satire, derived, however, more from books than from 
 nature, and only showing by their popularity the low 
 ebb to which fashionable fiction must have fallen sixty 
 years ago. Mrs. Felix Lorraine and Cleveland, the 
 wicked intriguante and the disappointed, half-maddened 
 politician, are the two best characters in the book. To 
 one who is not depicted in the brightest colours he, 
 curiously enough, assigns the title of Lord Beaconsfield. 
 In the latter part of it, the scene is laid entirely abroad. 
 There are some amusing sketches of the gaming tables. 
 But the story is silently dropped, and the hero disappears 
 in a deluge. 
 
 The Young Duke is inferior to Vivian Grey in that 
 particular quality for which we can find no better name 
 than "rattle," and which carries off a multitude of errors. 
 But it is a better story and introduces us to more inte- 
 resting people. It is a specimen of what used to be called 
 the novel of high life — the noble young millionaire 
 who spends half his fortune in licentious dissipation, 
 and, when he is tired of it, settles down respectably on the 
 remainder, and marries a girl much too good for him. 
 
 Of his earlier novels, Contarini Fleming, I think, is 
 decidedly the best. JJenfant incompris is a character 
 of which, in most hands, one soon grows weary. But 
 in the analysis of passion and the development of 
 character presented to us in Contarini Fleming, there is 
 such a vivid reality, that it reads like a personal ex-
 
 190 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 perience, as, for what we know, it may be. In tlie in- 
 cidents and plot there is nothing incredible or fantastic. 
 The love scenes are natural and touching, and it seems 
 to afford much better evidence of the author's intellectual 
 power than either of its two predecessors. 
 
 The Wondrous Tale of Alroij is an Oriental fiction 
 founded on aHebrew tradition concerning the "Princes of 
 the Captivity " — rulers whom the Jews continued to elect 
 from among the descendants of the House of David even 
 after the dispersion. Alroy is one of them, who, after 
 a long interregnum, possessing himself, by supernatural 
 assistance, of the sceptre of Solomon, establishes the 
 Hebrew monarchy on the ruins of the Caliphate of Bag- 
 dad. His life is of course short, and his reign much 
 shorter. But his adventures are told with great spirit. 
 The whole narrative is brilliantly coloured ; and in tales 
 of this kind, in which heroes compel genii to do their 
 bidding, and we pass backwards and forwards from the 
 natural to the supernatural by such frequent and easy 
 transitions that we hardly know one from the other, 
 nothing, of course, can be called either monstrous or 
 extravagant. 
 
 The Rise of Iskander is a tale of the Turkish wars of 
 Amurath II., and on reading it through a second time, 
 I find I have nothing to say about it. It is short and 
 interesting enough for an ordinary magazine story. 
 
 An interval of four years separates Alroy from Lord 
 Beaconsneld's next work of fiction, which is a marked 
 advance on his more juvenile productions. Henrietta 
 Temple, indeed, is of his non-political novels by far the 
 best. The love passages remind one of Romeo and Juliet, 
 and the scene in the sponging-house might have been 
 written by Fielding. The picture of the ancient family, 
 proud in their decay, and clinging with desperate tena-
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 191 
 
 city to their mortgaged estates, is an interesting and 
 touching one. It has been said that Count Mirabel 
 was a bad portrait of Count D'Orsay. 
 
 Vetietia is chiefly remarkable as an attempt " to 
 shadow forth, though as in a glass darkly, two of the 
 most renowned and refined spirits that have adorned 
 these our latter days." The two are Byron and Shelley. 
 Had these been likenesses, the novel would have been 
 better known. But the attempt to reproduce literary 
 chai'acters in novels has rarely been successful. Kings, 
 statesmen, and soldiers are men of action, and lend 
 themselves readily to all tlie requirements of fiction. 
 But in the case of men of letters, it is what they thought, 
 not what they did, which requires to be reproduced if 
 the picture is to interest us. To describe such men 
 merely by their external characteristics or habits is to 
 trifle with the reader. The attempt to imitate their con- 
 versation betrays, generally speaking, only the inferiority 
 of the imitator. Byron's actions, no doubt, afford plenty 
 of materials for romance ; but then it is impossible to 
 separate the champion of the Greeks, from the satirist 
 of the English, or the practical philanthropist from the 
 literary misanthrope. Venetia, on the whole, is per- 
 haps, the least interesting of all Mr. Disraeli's fictions. 
 
 With Coningshij and ^yhil we turn over anew chapter 
 in Mr. Disraeli's literary career. He now reverts to 
 the political novel which he had essayed twenty years 
 before, and very wisely relinquished till he had ac- 
 quired some actual experience of the men and manners 
 to be depicted. His object in these celebrated works 
 was simply to reproduce, in the form of fiction, those 
 political and constitutional theories which he had origi- 
 nally touched in the letters and essays to which I shall 
 presently revert. What these were has already been
 
 192 LIFb] OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 sufficiently explained. We have now only to consider 
 the literary and dramatic merit with which they were in- 
 troduced to " the new generation." 
 
 The plot in Coningsby is, I think, Mr. Disraeli's best, 
 the secret being well kept, and the catastrophe and de- 
 7Wiiement botli skilfully contrived. The story has, in 
 part, been anticipated.* The hero is introduced to us 
 while he is still a boy at Eton, in that memorable 
 month of May 1832, when ]^ord Lyndlnirst and the 
 Duke of Wellington were engaged in tlie last expiring 
 effort of the Tory Party to defeat the Whig Reform 
 Bill. His grandfather, the Marquis of Monmouth, 
 returns to England as Coningsby is leaving Eton in 
 1836, and our young hero en route for Coningsby 
 Castle, pays a visit to his friend Lord H. Sidney at 
 Beauraanoir (Belvoir). On his way from Beaumanoir 
 to Coningsby, he visits Manchester and the factories of 
 Millbank senior, who invites him to dinner, and intro- 
 duces him to his daughter, a beautiful girl of sixteen. 
 
 To amuse his guests at Coningsby, among whom are 
 numbered the Prince and Princess Colonna and their 
 daughter Lucretia, the Marquis engages a company of 
 French actors, under the management of Villebecque, 
 whose daughter Flora makes her first appearance on 
 the castle stage. Flora is a pretty delicate girl, who 
 breaks down as an actress, but remains as a kind of 
 companion to the Princess Lucretia, and experiences 
 many little acts of kindness at the hands of Coningsby, 
 who often noticed, and endeavoured to relieve, the 
 somewhat awkward and forlorn position in which she 
 found herself. 
 
 Having introduced the principal persons, the re- 
 mainder of our sketch may be shortened. There is a 
 * p. 40.
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 193 
 
 long-standing feud between the Marquis and Mr. Mill- 
 bank, who beats Rigby for the Marquis's pocket 
 borough, steps in and buys an estate on which he had 
 set his heart, and thwarts and annoys him in every pos- 
 sible manner. Coningsby and MissMillbank, of course, 
 fall in love with each other, the result being that Mill- 
 bank forbids him his house and his grandfather disin- 
 herits him. The Marquis had married the Princess 
 Lucretia, who conspired with Rigby to do Coningsby 
 this injury by representing his connection with the Mill- 
 banks in the worst possible light : Coningsby having 
 previously offended the Marquis by refusing to stand 
 for Darlford against Edith's father. But they do notgain 
 much by their manoeuvres. When the Marquis's will is 
 openecl, it is found that he has left the bulk of his im- 
 mense property to Flora, who turns out to be his natural 
 daughter. Now Flora had been secretly in love with 
 Coningsby ever since they met at the Castle, and, when 
 she dies of consumption, leaves her whole immense pro- 
 perty to the hero, who, however, has been reconciled to 
 the Millbanks and engaged to Edith before the turn in 
 his fortunes. 
 
 This plot has always seemed to me a very good one, 
 better than that oi Sybil, because the events are brought 
 about more naturally and without any touch of melo- 
 drama, of which Sijhil, exquisite as the story is, presents 
 here and there a slight suspicion. In Sybil, however, 
 the plot is sufficiently ingenious^ while the story and the 
 character make it even more interesting than Coningsby. 
 Sybil herself is one of the most exquisite creations 
 which the hand of fiction ever drew. But the descrip- 
 tion of factory life and the cruelty and extortion to 
 which the working classes were exposed at the hands 
 of their employers, scenes described from personal 
 
 13
 
 194 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 observation, are the most striking portion of the book, 
 us well as the most humorous and graphic. 
 
 But apart from the story, we have both in Coninysbi/ 
 and Sybil a collection of political and social sketches, 
 to which we doubt if English literature contains any- 
 thing that is superior: Rigby himself; Mr. Ormsby, the 
 man of society who has " forty thousand a year paid 
 i[uarterly," and whose world is bounded by Mayfair, 
 St. James's, and Pall Mall ; Tadpole and Taper, the two 
 political underlings; Lord Marney, the thoroughly 
 selfish, able man, who believes he can go through 
 life on the principles of Helvetius — are beyond all 
 praise as types of the class they are intended to repre- 
 sent, with its mingled cynicism and good nature, its 
 common sense, its addiction to gossip, and its perfect 
 satisfaction with the little world in which it lives, out- 
 side of which it knows nothing. Of all these, perhaps 
 Lord Marney is the most original. I can think of 
 nothing like him in any other English novel ; and yet 
 we have all met such men, men in whom selfishness is so 
 complete and so candid as almost to excite our admira- 
 tion, and in whom the love of contradiction amounts to 
 monomania. " The great difficulty with Lord Marney," 
 says the author, " was to find a sufficient stock of 
 opposition ; but he lay in wait, and seized every oppor- 
 tunity with wonderful alacrity. Even Captain Grouse 
 could not escape him ; if driven to extremity, he would 
 even question his principles on fly-making." On these 
 two characters Mr. Ormsby and Lord Marney, Mr. 
 Disraeli may stake his reputation. Tadpole and Taper 
 have, of course, become household words ; but they are 
 interesting chiefly for the political satire of which they 
 are the vehicles. They are not finished ofi" with the 
 delicacy of Mr. Ormsby and Lord Marney, who are
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 195 
 
 interesting exclusively as specimens of human nature 
 •quite irrespective of politics. 
 
 The dialogue in which these various characters are 
 revealed to the reader is equally good. Mr. Ormsby's 
 remarks on Lord Monmouth's separation from his wife, 
 and Lord Marney's conversation with the clergyman, Mr. 
 St. Lys, in Si/hil, may be taken at random as examples 
 of the author's art in making his characters speak for 
 themselves. We might mention beside a host of minor 
 personages redolent of that humour which Mr. Disraeli 
 has borrowed from nobody. Mr. Cassilis, the elderly 
 dandy, who, upon hearing of Young England, and under- 
 standing that *' it requires a doosed deal of history and 
 all that sort of thing," gravely observes that " one must 
 brush up one's Goldsmith," Devilsdust, Stephen Morley, 
 Baptist Hattou, Lady St. Julian, Lady Deloraine, Lady 
 Firebrace, and last, not least, that finished portrait. 
 Lord Eskdale, form a gallery which would alone have 
 made the painter famous had he no other title to dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 Of Tancred the great merit lies in the description of 
 Syria, and of life in the mountain and the desprt, in 
 which it abounds. Tancred is a high-born youth dis- 
 satisfied with modern society, yearning for the restora- 
 tion of faith, and resolving to visit the land in which 
 the Creator had conversed with man as being the only 
 spot in which it is at all likely that illumination or 
 inspiration will be vouchsafed to him. The story of his 
 adventures is told with wonderful spirit and beauty. But 
 the vision of Tancred on Mount Sinai is the application 
 of fiction to purposes for which it never was intended, 
 and even of those who have no religious feelings to be 
 wounded by it, the taste is likely to be shocked. 
 
 Between the publication of Tancred in 1847, and 
 
 13 *
 
 196 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 tlie publication of Lof/iair, a much longer interval 
 occurred. Lothair was not written till the author was 
 sixty-five, and had already been Prime Minister. But 
 it shows no falling off in his humour and powers of 
 description. Lothair, like the young duke, is a noble 
 millionaire succeeding to an immense fortune after a 
 long minority, but whose character and career are very 
 different. The Roman Catholic Church antl the Revo- 
 lutionary Societies run a race against each other for 
 his money, which is won by the latter, chiefly through 
 the influence of an American lady who is the inspiring 
 spirit of the Italian patriots.'^ His adventures with 
 both parties, and his final escape to England, where he 
 recovers his senses, saves the remainder of his fortune, 
 and marries the Lady Corisande, need not be narrated 
 here. Many of the characters in the story are in the 
 author's best manner. Mr. Phoebus the painter, who 
 ** has always been of opinion that reading and writing 
 are very injurious to education "; Mr. Putney Giles, 
 the wealthy solicitor ; Lord St. Aldegonde, who de- 
 clares in the presence of two bishops that " he hates 
 Sunday," are inferior only to the characters already 
 singled out for praise in Coningsly and Sybil. 
 
 Endymion was published in 1880, and in this the 
 signs of advancing age are visible. It is an exclusively 
 political story, and it is odd that his first and his last 
 novel should in some respects be more like each 
 other than those which came between. Endymion's 
 father reminds one of Cleveland ; Endymion is very 
 unlike Vivian Grey in point of character and judgment, 
 and he does not rise in life by the same tactics which 
 caused Vivian Grey to fall ; but there is the same air 
 
 * Since the above was -written it has been stated by Mr. Fronde 
 that the " General " in Lothair was meant for General Cluseret.
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 197 
 
 of unreality about the incidents recorded, and the fact 
 that mors than one leading character is compounded of 
 several originals, without much care being taken in the 
 blending of the colours, helps still further to confuse 
 the reader. For all that, however, the book bears 
 unmistakable marks of its author's genius, and the 
 account of " the crisis" in 1834 and the bitter disap- 
 pointment of Travers, is as interesting and as powerful 
 as anything he has ever written. 
 
 It has been said that a common thought runs through 
 all Lord BeaconsSeld's novels from first to last ; the 
 struggles of some youth of genius, striving to emancipate 
 himself from the tryanny of custom, whether it be social 
 or political. That several of Lord Beaconsfield's heroes 
 are in some degree reflections of himself may be admitted, 
 and it follows, therefore, that what he was doing in life, 
 they seem to be doing also. But if this was a favourite 
 idea with Mr. Disraeli, it was not universally embodied 
 in the creations of his fancy, not in Alroy, not in 
 Henrietta Temple, not in Endymion. It is an idea 
 very likely to occur to any young man of great intellec- 
 tual power, who finds his station in life not equal to 
 his ambition. And that it should have had a great 
 fascination for Benjamin Disraeli is only what we 
 might expect. 
 
 The three prose burlesques deserve to be better known 
 than they are. The Infernal Marriage and the Voyage 
 of Popanilla are both political squibs, descriptive of the 
 state of parties at the time they were written. In the 
 first, Proserpine is taken to Elysium, that is, goes to 
 Court, and becomes a great lady and a leader of society. 
 The Gods and the Giants are the Liberals and the Tories 
 during the ministry of Mr.Canning, so that Mr. TroUope 
 was not original in his application of these names to them.
 
 1^8 LIFE OF LOBD BEAG0N8FIELB. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington is then Enceladus, and Sir 
 Robert Peel, Hyperion. But in VopaitiUa, when he 
 becomes Prime Minister, he is Chiron the Centaur, who 
 can use his heels as well as his head. Ixion in 
 Heaven is rather social than political ; a not ill-natured 
 satire on the Court and society. Jupiter is George the 
 Fourth, with " an immortal waist.'* Apollo is Byron, 
 calling for soda-water and biscuits, which they do not 
 keep in Olympus, and finally consoling himself with 
 something much more substantial. It is very amusing,, 
 the dialogue extremely clever, and sixty years ago, 
 when many of the minor characters and more obscure 
 allusions would have been appreciated, should hav& 
 attained some celebrity. By-the-by, when Ixion is 
 asked to write something in Minerva's Album, he 
 writes: "Adventures are to the adventurous," clearly 
 proving that the omniscient Sidoniawas acquainted with 
 th\%jeu d'esfrit. Popanilla is a professed imitation of 
 Gulliver's Travels, but is very fresh, sparkling, and 
 original, for all that. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield is the author of certainly two, 
 and possibly three works in verse, the Modern Dun- 
 ciad, of which enough has been already said ; the 
 Bevolutionary Epic, and Count Alarcos. The Revolu- 
 tionary Ej)ic contains some really fine passages. The 
 plan of the poem is simply this : Magros, the 
 genius of Feudalism, creates the Teutonic races, and 
 establishes that system in the world, and about one- 
 third of the poem is a description of its virtues. Then 
 arises iipon earth a destructive monster called 
 " Change," whose deeds pave the way for Lyridon, 
 the genius of Federation, who in his turn sings the 
 praises of liberty, fraternity, and equality. The con- 
 cluding portion of the piece is the conquest of Italy by
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 199 
 
 Napoleon. Productions much inferior to the Revo- 
 lutionary Epic have caused their authors to be enrolled 
 among English poets. But only the very best can 
 bear the blaze of Lord Beaconsfield's fame, and any- 
 thing less than that seems so totally unworthy of it 
 as to be consigned to a lower place in literature than 
 perhaps, on its merits, it deserves. 
 
 The tragedy of Alarcos is founded on the Spanish 
 ballad of the same name, said by Ticknor to be " one of 
 the most beautiful and touching in any language." It 
 has been translated by Lockhart, and no less than four 
 Spanish plays have been founded on it ; but as I have 
 not read them I cannot say how far, if at all, Lord 
 Beaconsfield was indebted to them. His own Play is 
 well written and contains some characteristic lines : — 
 Aye — ever pert is youth that baffles age. 
 
 And these still more so — 
 
 The Countess. 
 ^ Hast thou still foes ? 
 
 The Count. 
 
 I trust so : I should not be what I am, 
 Still less what I will be, if hate did not 
 Pursue me, as my shadow. 
 
 Of the four political compositions which I have already 
 enumerated the first in order of time is a short piece 
 entitled What is He ? written in 1833, shortly after his 
 first contest at High Wycombe, in order to explain 
 what Tory Kadicalism meant. In it he says that 
 as neither the Whigs'^ nor the Tories can carry on the 
 Government with the new machinery, a new party is 
 required. That must be either aristocratic or democratic. 
 
 * See Letters of Peel in Croker Papers.
 
 ■200 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 Aristocratic, however, it cannot be, for the aristocratic 
 principle perislied out of the Constitution when the Lords 
 gave way on the Reform Bill. It could not be restored 
 by force : nor yet for more than a very brief period by a 
 coalition between the Whigs and Tories, and it therefore 
 becomes the duty of the Tory party to coalesce with 
 Radicals. He says here what he repeats in Coningshy, 
 that " it was not the Reform Bill itself which has shaken 
 the aristocracy of the country, but the means by which 
 it was carried." The Crisis Examined is the substance 
 of a speech delivered by him at High Wycombe, Decem- 
 ber 16th, 1834, and is to be found at page 8. In 
 this we find that the views expressed in the previous 
 pamphlet had already undergone some modification. In 
 Wliat is He '!■ he told us that the Whigs have succeeded 
 in overpowering the House of Lords, and the aristo- 
 ratic principle is destroyed. He now speaks of what 
 might have happened if they had done so. The rally 
 of the Tory party under Peel and Wellington seems to 
 have shaken his convictions and led him to suspect 
 that his prophecies had been premature. 
 
 It was in the following year, 1835, after the resigna- 
 tion of Sir Robert Peel's short-lived but able adminis- 
 tration, that Mr. Disraeli published his Vindication 
 of the English Constitution, wherein are laid down 
 in a more formal manner the majority of those poli- 
 tical precepts, which were afterwards reproduced in a 
 more popular shape in the dialogues between Coningshy 
 and Sidonia. The rise and progress of the English 
 Parliament, the nature of the Plantagenet Monarchy, 
 its alteration by the Tudors and Stuarts, and its 
 attempted revival by the aristocracy in the reign of 
 Charles the First; the origin of the "Venetian" 
 Constitution, the refusal of William to submit to it.
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 201 
 
 and the struggles of the Georges to escape from it ; 
 the democratic or popular Toryism which was always 
 opposed to the oligarchy, and which enabled George 
 the Third to bridle it ; the distortion of English history 
 which the Whigs have so sedulously fostered, and 
 which the Tories have been too indolent to combat ; 
 all these, with many auxiliary speculations which did 
 not so readily fall in with the plan of a novel, are to 
 be found in the Vindication, drawn out with great clear- 
 ness and ingenuity, and expressed in language at once 
 vigorous, precise, and elegant, qualities for which Mr. 
 Disraeli's English prose is not invariably conspicuous. 
 It is needless to defend its accuracy at every point, 
 and against all comers. The question is whether this 
 epitome of our Constitutional history is true in the spirit. 
 It is remarkable, indeed, that we do not find in 
 •Coningshy the same construction placed on the resist- 
 ance to Charles the First which we find in the Vindi- 
 cation. In the latter the author's sympathies are with 
 the Parliament, in the former they are with the King. 
 But the discrepancy, perhaps, is more apparent than 
 real. For of the entire struggle which lasted from 
 1627 to 1714, though Lord Beaconsfield may have 
 varied in his opinion of it at particular stages, the 
 ultimate result is condemned alike both by the essay 
 and the novel. The following extract from the Sjnrit 
 of WJiiggism shows, perhaps, the real harmony which 
 underlay this seeming inconsistency : — 
 
 When Charles the First, after a series of great concessions, which 
 ultimately obtained for him the support of the most illustrious of his 
 early opponents, raised the royal standard, the constitution of the 
 Plantagenets, and more than the constitution of the Plantagenets, 
 had been restored and secured. But a portion of the able party 
 which had succeeded in effecting such a vast and beneficial 
 revolution was not content to part with the extraordinary powers
 
 202 LIFE OF LOBB BEACON SFIELD. 
 
 ■which thoy had ohtainorl in this mcninrahlo .itrn<:fglp. This section of 
 the aristocracy wore the origin of the Enj^lish Wliigs, though that title 
 >vas not inveiitctl until the next reign. 
 
 That is to say, one section of the Parliamentary 
 party, seeing more power within their reach than they 
 had originally aimed at, resolved to make a spring at it, 
 and their descendants, in 1714, pretty nearly succeeded 
 in securing it. 
 
 The Letters of Runnytnede, published also in 1836, 
 are nineteen in number, and are dedicated to Sir Robert 
 Peel. They appeared at intervals between the 18th of 
 January and the 15th of May, and were addressed 
 chiefly to the leading members of the Government. 
 One, however, was addressed to Sir Robert Peel, one to 
 Lord Stanley, one to " the People," and two to the 
 House of Lords. They all relate to the politics of the 
 day, and though witty and occasionally wise, are less 
 able and less dignified than the Vindication of the 
 British Constitutiott. The invective and the satire 
 are too laboured ; and, though part of what seems 
 far-fetched to ourselves probably did not seem so to 
 contemporaries well acquainted with every incident 
 referred to, they cannot be considered on the whole 
 a favourable specimen of Lord Beaconsfield's literary 
 powers. 
 
 Lord George Bentinck : a Political Biography, was 
 published in 1852, and of all his works, not being 
 works of imagination, it is the one most likely to be 
 known and admired by posterity. I say nothing of 
 the economical opinions expressed in it, though the 
 wheel of time and the course of events may again 
 bring them into fashion. But that wonderful study of 
 Sir Robert Peel, which the greatest masters of lite- 
 rary portraiture have never surpassed, those glowing
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 203 
 
 and graphic scenes of Parliamentary warfare, where 
 every combatant stands out in bold relief, and every 
 change of fortune is as visible as to spectators in the 
 gallery, will surely live for ever, or as long as men con- 
 tinue to take an interest in the history of senates 
 and the romance of politics. We have also in the same 
 work two most interesting dissertations, one on the 
 growth of English Parties since the end of the Revo- 
 lutionary war; the other on his own people and his 
 father's house, in which he gives in a more connected 
 form the same account of the Jewish race as first sur- 
 prised the world in Cu?iinffshy. 
 
 It cannot be said that Lord Beaconsfield's prose 
 style is conspicuous for elegance or purity. Exceptions 
 may be named, no doubt. I think the letter to the Times, 
 quoted at page 14, is one such. The Vindication is 
 another. But he is not, as a general rule, sufficiently 
 cai'eful to confine words in their proper signification ; his 
 constructions are often harsh, and he does not always 
 display the art or skill we might have expected from 
 him in the disposition of his sentences. That the writer 
 whose natural bent is towards warmth, brilliancy, and 
 richness, should sometimes be guilty of the excess to 
 which these qualities are prone, and become florid or 
 fantastic, is by no means wonderful ; and Lord Beacons- 
 field's taste for all that is bright, glowing, and gor- 
 geous, both in nature and art, was well known. He 
 used to say that he never wondered at the sun-wor- 
 shippers. But I think that, for splendour of style, 
 unblemished by a word that is either tawdry or meretri- 
 cious, the description of Jerusalem in Tancred, and of 
 the Queen's first Council in Sybil, may be mentioned 
 with some confidence that the critical judgment of pos- 
 terity will not disallow their claims.
 
 204 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 The council of England is summoned for the first time within her 
 bowers. There are assemhled the prelates and captains and chief 
 men of her realm : the priests of the religion that consoled, the heroes 
 of the sword that has conquered, the votaries of the craft that has 
 decided the fate of empires ; men grey with thought, and fame, and 
 age, who are the stewards of divine mysteries, who have toiled in 
 secret cabinets, who have encountered in battle the hosts of Europe, 
 who have straggled in the less merciful strife of aspiring senates ; 
 men too, some of them, lords of a thousand vassals and chief proprie- 
 tors of provinces, yet not one of them whose heart does not at this 
 moment tremble as he awaits the first presence of the maiden who 
 must now ascend her throne. 
 
 A hum of half-suppressed conversation which would attempt to 
 conceal the excitement, which some of the greatest of them have since 
 acknowledged, fills that brilliant assemblage ; that sea of plumes, and 
 glittering stars, and gorgeous dresses. Hush ! the portals open : she 
 comes; the silence is as deep as that of a noontide forest. Attended 
 for a moment by her royal mother and the ladies of her court, who 
 bow and then retire, Victoria ascends her throne ; a girl, alone, and 
 for the first time, amid an assemblage of men. 
 
 In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien, which 
 indicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence 
 of emotion, The Queen announces her accession to the throne of her 
 ancestors, and her humble hope that divine Providence wQl guard 
 over the fulfilment of her lofty trust. 
 
 The prelates and captains and chief men of her realm then advance 
 to the throne, and kneeling before her, pledge their troth, and take 
 the sacred oaths of allegiance and supremacy. 
 
 Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great Macedonian 
 oould not conquer ; and over a continent of which even Columbus 
 never dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every 
 zone. 
 
 It is not of these that I would speak ; but of a nation nearer her 
 footstool, and which at this moment looks to her with anxiety, with 
 affection, perhajjs with hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood and 
 beauty of the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to bear 
 relief to suffering millions, and, with that soft hand which might 
 inspire troubadours and guerdon knights, break the last link in the 
 chain of Saxon thraldom ? 
 
 The materials for the picture were supplied to the 
 artist by Lord Lyndhurst, who took Mr. Disraeli with 
 him in his carriage to Keusington Gardens, and on
 
 AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 205 
 
 their return journey gave him a full account of the im- 
 I^ressive scene which he had witnessed. 
 
 For the passage in Tancred, I must refer my readers 
 to the work itself. But, before quitting the subject, 
 I shall give one specimen of his more highly-decorative 
 style, which has been supposed to violate the laws of 
 taste, but which, though it belongs to the arabesque, 
 can scarcely be called vicious : — 
 
 The summei- twilight had faded into sweet night ; the young and 
 star-attended moon glittered like a sickle in the deep purple sky ; of 
 all the luminous host Hesperus alone was visible ; and a breeze, that 
 bore the last embrace of the flowers by the sun, moved languidly and 
 fitfully over the still and odorous earth. 
 
 The moonbeam fell upon the roof and garden of Gerard. It suf- 
 fused the cottage with its brilliant light, except where the dark depth 
 of the embowered porch defied its entry. All around the beds of 
 flowers and herbs spread sparkling and defined. You could trace the 
 minutest walk ; almost distinguish every leaf. Now and then there 
 came a breath, and the sweet jDeas murmured in their sleep ; or the 
 roses rustled, as if they were afraid they were about to te roused 
 from their lightsome dreams. Farther on the fruit trees caught the 
 splendour of the night ; and looked like a troop of sultanas taking 
 their garden air, when the eye of man could not profane them, and 
 laden with jewels. There were apples that rivalled rubies ; pears of 
 topaz tint ; a whole paraphernalia of plums, some purjale as the ame- 
 thyst, others blue and brilliant as the sapphire ; an emerald here, and 
 now a golden drop that gleamed like the j-ellow diamond of Gengis 
 Khan. 
 
 It is, however, in his colloquial style, that I think he 
 shows to most advantage. As with his speeches, so 
 with his novels, his humour is superior to his eloquence ; 
 and of the language of society, the language of clubs, 
 lobbies, and drawing-rooms, he was a perfect master.
 
 206 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 His Public and Private Charactei" — Not an Adventurer — ^Devotioii 
 to Politics — Love of Nature, and of Animals, and of Children — 
 Stories of his early Eccentricities — Life at Hughenden — Popu- 
 larity in the Neighbourhood — His Seholarship — His Library — 
 Lady John Manuers's Reminiscences. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield has been called a " political adven- 
 turer/' and if, to be a political adventurer, is to enter 
 public life without patrimony or connections, and to 
 rise only by the force of merit, he may have deserved 
 he name. But, at that rate, many eminent men whose 
 memory is still cherished must answer to the charge as 
 well. Burke, Canning, Cobbett, must all be styled 
 political adventurers. While, if we glance at the ranks 
 of living statesmen, we shall see one among them 
 who, while answering to this description more closely 
 than any we have named, is yet conspicuous for honesty, 
 frankness, and singleness of purpose above his fellows: 
 need I name Mr. John Morley. Surely a political 
 adventurer, like a military adventurer, is one who makes 
 his principles subservient to his interests, and transfers 
 his allegiance from side to side as advantage or con- 
 venience dictates, indifferent to the cause which he is
 
 CONCLUSION. 207 
 
 required to defend, and concerned only with the fulfil- 
 ment of his duties and the receipt of his stipulated fee. 
 English history is no stranger to such men, though they 
 have usually played a secondary part. But there is no 
 definition of the term " adventurer" which will embrace 
 at once Lord Beaconsfield and such men as these. Lord 
 Beaconsfield never changed either his principles or his 
 party. He was a Tory of the type which I have de- 
 scribed, from the first address which he issued to the 
 electors of High Wycombe to the last speech which he 
 delivered in the House of Lords half a century after- 
 wards. Insulted, distrusted, and calumniated by the 
 very men who should have been the first to welcome 
 him, he never swerved for a moment in his attachment 
 to the cause which he and they had at heart. He 
 served the Tory party as no man except the younger 
 Pitt had ever served it. He served it through poverty, 
 adversity, and unpopularity, without ever losing heart 
 or hope, or allowing his own private circumstances to 
 affect his political conduct. 
 
 And he had his reward at last. In the life of Lord 
 George Bentinck there is a passage * which I have 
 always thought a very interesting one, as it applied 
 prophetically to himself : *' An aristocracy hesitates 
 before it yields its confidence, but never does so 
 grudgingly." In his own case it hesitated long, and 
 with additional circumstances not wholly creditable to 
 itself. But it ended by trusting him completely. Lord 
 Derby set a noble example. He, too, had hesitated. 
 But if asked at any later period why nobody trusted 
 Mr. Disraeli, he would indignantly declare that it 
 was false, adding, proudly, "/ trust him." The Eng- 
 lish aristocracy seeing this, laid aside their prejudices 
 * Already tjuoted at p. 85.
 
 208 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 by degrees. His character became better understoocL 
 A younger generation grew up familiar with his writings, 
 and with those views of the English Constitution and 
 English Parties, which reconciled so many of the seem- 
 ing contradictions of his life : and long before he 
 became Prime Minister with real power, his political 
 integrity and his party loyalty were as fully and as 
 freely recognized as that of any living statesman. 
 
 Of Lord Beaconsfield's private life there is compara- 
 tively little to tell, and of that little so much has been 
 already told, that I cannot hope to impart any fresh- 
 ness or novelty to these concluding pages. Lord 
 Beaconsfield lives in Hansard. It is there that we 
 must look for his portrait ; and it is evident that, 
 with all his fondness for rural pleasures, he carried his 
 political interests with him wherever he went. This 
 is strikingly illustrated by an anecdote to be found 
 in Lord Malmesbury's Diary, which must be well 
 known to most of my readers. When the late Lord 
 Derby was staying at Heron Court, and absorbed in 
 the delights of wild-fowl shooting, his countenance 
 was observed to fall when he heard that Disraeli 
 was expected, and he exclaimed in a tone of annoy- 
 ance, " Ah ! now we shall be obliged to talk politics.^' 
 Lord Beaconsfield, indeed, was unaffectedly fond of 
 the country, and birds, trees, and flowers retained 
 their charm for him to the last. He was sincerely 
 grieved when a wintry gale blew down a favourite ash ; 
 and once, when a half-witted peasant who was allowed 
 to wander about the park showed him a dead bird which 
 he had picked up, he said, ** Take it away, I cannot 
 bear the sight of it." He • was not without domestic 
 pets either, for he had a dog to which he was warmly at- 
 tached ; and one can fancy him well with a grave Persian
 
 GONOLUSION. 209 
 
 cat, such as he describes in Baptist Hatton's chambers, 
 sitting at his elbow or climbing on to his shoulders. His 
 peacocks, which were a present from Sir Philip Rose, 
 were after his death taken charge of by the Queen. 
 But for all that his heart was in the House of Com- 
 mons ; and I suspect that his love of the country was 
 rather love of her external beauty than the deeper 
 sympathy of Wordsworth or Scott, who found the 
 charm which enthralled them rather in the heart than 
 in the face of nature. 
 
 He was a very good-natured and a very kincl- 
 hearted man, fond of children, and always ready to 
 assist struggling merit. He was proud of his connec- 
 tion with literature, and was a good friend to many 
 working brothers of the Press. In his own neigh- 
 bourhood he was extremely popular with the peasantry 
 and the farmers. He was most anxious to make the 
 cottagers on his small estate comfortable ; and was quite 
 able to enjoy a chat with the mothers and grandmothers 
 of the hamlet over their afternoon tea. He contrived, 
 when at Hughenden, to get all his official business com- 
 pleted by four o'clock in the afternoon, so as to leave 
 himself time for his walk or drive before dinner. He was 
 never tired of the Chiltern Hills, or of talking of the in- 
 teresting historical events of which they were the cradle. 
 
 Of his life in London in his younger days we might 
 construct a picture to ourselves out of his letters to his 
 sister. But of his personal appearance, his coats and his 
 trousers, his cuffs and his cravats, his ringlets and his 
 jewellery, the world, I think, has heard enough. It would 
 not differ materially from the life of any other young 
 ,man about town when the present century was young. 
 Quite recently an addition has been made to the his- 
 tory of bis social peculiarities by the Duke of Coburg 
 
 14
 
 210 LIFE OF LORD BEAC0N8FIELD. 
 
 who says that he used to go out to dinner with his arm 
 in a sling, though there was nothing the matter with 
 him, to make himself look interesting. The story we 
 think, may he consigned to the same limho as the story of 
 the black satin shirt and the green velvet trousers. We 
 are all more interested in knowing how he lived and 
 talked and amused himself during the last thirty years 
 of his life, when he was before the public and a leading 
 actor on the stage. 
 
 But of such information there is but little to be 
 had, He was no sportsman ; he was no former. He 
 was neither the head of a family, nor the lord of a large 
 estate, interested in the fortunes of sons and daughters, 
 or busied with large schemes of local improvement. He 
 was no leader of religious or philanthropical societies ; 
 he seems to have cared little for travelling, and of mere 
 social excitement he had probably drunk his fill in early 
 youth. He was a good classical scholar, his favourite 
 ancient authors being Sophocles and Horace, but in his 
 intervals of leisure he seems to have found employment 
 rather in composition than in study. I should think it 
 is doubtful whether he even read much contemporary 
 literature. 
 
 It was a pleasure to see him in his library, and to 
 hear him discourse of books. If circumstance had at 
 any time diverted his attention from politics, he would 
 probably have drunk deep of " those pellucid streams " 
 to which he referred with unaffected enthusiasm in a 
 speech at the Literary Fund banquet,^ and have 
 rivalled as an author the fame which awaited him as a 
 statesman. But his choice was made in youth, and he 
 never for one single instant appears to have regr^jtted it, 
 
 * 1868.
 
 CONCLUSION. 211 
 
 At Hughenden Lady Beaconsfield during her lifetime 
 w^s the brightest of hostesses ; and to walk with her 
 in the surrounding woods, and hear her discourse about 
 her husband — it is needless to say, her favourite topic — 
 was a treat not soon to be forgotten. She was particu- 
 larly fond of telling how, after a capital division in the 
 House of Commons in 1867, he refused an invitation to 
 supper at the Carlton, that he might carry the good news 
 to Grosvenor Gate without delay. " Dizzy came home 
 to me," she used to say, with a triumphant air. 
 
 His domestic life, there is every reason to suppose, 
 was one of unclouded happiness, and, due in great part 
 to Lady Beaconsfield's exertions, of general cheerful- 
 ness. His wife was devoted to him, and he returned her 
 affection with sincerity. This aspect of Lord Beacons- 
 field's hfe was touched upon in feeling tones by Mr. 
 Gladstone in the speech from which I have already 
 quoted : — 
 
 There was also another feeling, Sir, lying nearer to the very centre 
 of his existence, which, though a domestic feeling, may now be re- 
 ferred to without indelicacy. I moan his profound, devoted, tender, 
 and grateful affection for his wife which, if, as may be the case, it 
 deprived him of the honour of public obsequies, has nevertheless left 
 for him a more permanent title as one who knew, amid the calls and 
 temptations of political life, what was due to the sanctity and strength 
 of the domestic affections, and made him in that respect an example 
 to the country in which ho lived. 
 
 Lady John Manners has given us an interesting ac° 
 count of his private life after the death of Lady Bea- 
 consfield, interesting, however, not so much from what 
 she tells, as from the character which they serve to 
 illustrate. He had long ceased to care for society on a 
 large scale, even if he ever did, but enjoyed very much 
 the company of a few chosen friends, " not more than
 
 212 LIFE OF LORD BEACONSFIELB. 
 
 the Muses nor less than the Graces," with whom he 
 would converse freely and without any apparent reserve, 
 about his own literary and political career. But except 
 on such occasions he was rather a silent host, and liked 
 others to talk. I have heard, however, that he was no 
 foe to merriment, and, like his own Marquis of Mon- 
 mouth, rather liked " boisterous gaiety," in which he 
 was not called upon to take a part. 
 
 The world has no doubt a good deal more to learn of 
 Lord Beaconsfield behind the scenes. Both of his 
 public and his private life the recesses have still to be 
 explored. Of his early political trials after he entered 
 the House of Commons little is known that is 
 authentic ; while of his private affairs, and the pecuniary 
 troubles with which for years he was condemned to 
 struggle, most people are entirely ignorant. When the 
 whole drama of his life shall be displayed to view ; 
 when his relations with his colleagues and his oppo- 
 nents, with the Crown and the aristocracy, with friends 
 and enemies, shall stand fully revealed to us ; when all 
 the difficulties and all the jealousies which impeded him 
 on the threshold of his career shall be clearly under- 
 stood : then, indeed, we think that the life of Benjamin 
 Disraeli will be recognised as one of the most " won- 
 drous tales ^' which sober truth has ever told. 
 
 THE END.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Franchise Clauses '6 to 1 of Reform Bill of 1867, as 
 orif/inally introduced to the House of Commons. 
 
 3. Every Man shall be entitled to be registered as a 
 Voter, and, when registered, to vote for a Member or 
 Members to serve in Parliament for a Borough, who is 
 qualified as follows ; that is to say : 
 
 1. Is of full age, and not subject to any legal Inca- 
 
 pacity ; and 
 
 2. Is on the last Day of July in any Year and has 
 
 during the whole of the preceding Tivo Years been 
 an Inhabitant Occupier, as Owner or Tenant, of 
 any Dwelling House within the Borough ; and 
 
 3. Has during the Time of such Occupation been rated 
 
 in respect of the Premises so occupied by him 
 within the Borough to all Rates (if any) made for 
 the Relief of the Poor in resj^ect of such Pre- 
 mises ; and 
 
 4. Has before the Twentieth Bay of July in the same 
 
 Year paid all Poor Rates that have become pay- 
 able by him in respect of the said Premises up to 
 the preceding Fifth Day of January. 
 4. Every Man shall be entitled to be registered as a 
 Voter, and, when registered, to vote for a Member or 
 Members to serve in Parliament for a County, who is 
 qualified as follows ; that is to say : 
 
 1 . Is of full Age, and not subject to any legal Inca- 
 
 pacity ; and 
 
 2. Is on the last Day of July in any Year and has 
 
 during the Twelve Months immediately preceding 
 been the Occupier, as Owner or Tenant, of Pre-
 
 214 LIFE OF LORD BEAGONSFIELD. 
 
 mises of auy Touure within the Couuty of the 
 rateable Value of Fifteen Pounds or upwards ; 
 and 
 
 3. Has during the Time of such Occupation been rated 
 
 in respect to the Premises so occupied by him to 
 all Rates (if any) made for the Relief of the Poor 
 in respect of the said Premises ; and 
 
 4. Has before the Twentieth Day of July in the same 
 
 Year paid all Poor Rates that have become pay- 
 able by him in respect of the said Premises up to 
 the preceding Fifth Day of January. 
 
 5. Every Man shall be entitled to be registered, and, 
 when registered, to vote at the Election of a Member 
 or Members to serve in Parliament for a County or 
 Borough, who is of full Age, and not subject to any legal 
 Incapacity, and is on the last Day of July in any Year 
 and has during the Year immediately preceding been 
 resident in such County or Borough, and is possessed of 
 any One or more of the Qualifications following ; that is 
 to say : 
 
 1. Is, and has been during the Period of such Resi- 
 
 dence, a Graduate or Associate in Arts of any 
 University of the United Kingdom ; or a Male 
 Person who has passed at any Senior Middle Class 
 Examination of any University of the United 
 Kingdom : 
 
 2. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, an 
 
 ordained Priest or Deacon of the Church of Eng- 
 land; or 
 
 3. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a Mini- 
 
 ster of any other Religious Denomination appointed 
 either alone or with not moi'e than One Colleague 
 to the Charge of any registered Chapel or Place 
 of Worship, and is, and has been during such 
 Period, officiating as the Minister thereof ; or 
 
 4. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a 
 
 Serjeant-at-Law or Barrister-at-Law in any of the 
 Inns of Court in England, or a Certificated 
 Pleader or Certificated Conveyancer ; or 
 
 5. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a Cer- 
 
 tificated Attorney or Solicitor or Pi'octor in Eng- 
 land or Wales : or
 
 APPENDIX. 215 
 
 6. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a duly 
 
 qualified Medical Practitioner registered under the 
 Medical Act, 1858 ; or 
 
 7. Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a 
 
 Schoolmaster holding a Certificate from the Com- 
 mittee of Her Majesty's Council on Education : 
 Provided that no Person shall be entitled to be registered 
 as a Voter or to vote in respect of any of the Qualifica- 
 tions mentioned in this Section in more than one Place. 
 
 6. Every Man shall be entitled to be registered, and, 
 when registered, to vote at the Election of a Member or 
 Members to serve in Parliament for a County or Borough, 
 who is of full A-ge, and not subject to any legal Incapa- 
 city, and is on the First Day of July in any Year and has 
 during the Tivo Years immediately preceding been resi- 
 dent in such County or Borough, and is possessed of any 
 One or more of the Qualifications following ; that is to 
 say: 
 
 1. Has on the First Day of July in any Year, and has 
 
 had during the Ttvo Years immediately preceding, 
 a Balance of not less than Fifty Pounds deposited 
 in some Savings Bank in his own sole Name, and 
 for his own Use ; or 
 
 2. Holds on the First Day of July in any Year, and 
 
 has held dui'ing the Tivo Years immediately pre- 
 ceding, in the Books of the Governor and Company 
 of the Bank of England or Ireland in his own 
 sole Name and for his own Use any Parliamentary 
 Stocks or Funds of the United Kingdom to the 
 Amount of not less than Fifty Pounds ; or 
 
 3. Has during the Twelve Months immediately prece- 
 
 ding the Fifth Day of April in any Year been 
 
 charged with a Sum of not less than Twenty Shil- 
 
 litujs in the whole of the Year for Assessed Taxes 
 
 and Income Tax, or either of such Taxes, and has 
 
 before the Twentieth Day of July in that Year 
 
 paid all such Taxes due from him up to the 
 
 preceding Fifth Day of January: 
 
 Provided, first, that every Person entitled to vote in 
 
 respect of any of the Qualifications mentioned in this 
 
 Section shall on or before the Twentieth Day of July in 
 
 each Year claim to be registered as a Voter; secondly.
 
 216 LIFE OF LOJiT) BEACON 8FIELD. 
 
 that 110 Person shall be entitled to be registered as a 
 Voter or to vote in respect of any of the Qualifications 
 mentioned in this Section for more than One Place. 
 
 7. A Person registered as a Voter for a Borough by 
 reason of his having been charged with and paid the 
 requisite Amount of Assessed Taxes and Income Tax, or 
 either of such Taxes, shall not by reason of being so 
 registered lose any right to which he may be entitled (if 
 otherwise duly qualified) to be registered as a Voter for 
 the same Borough in respect of any Franchise involving 
 Occupation of Premises and Payment of Rates, and 
 when so registered in respect of such double Qualification 
 he shall be entitled to give Two Votes for the Member, 
 or (if there be more than One) for each Member to be 
 returned to serve in Parliament for the said Borough.
 
 1 N J) E X. 
 
 c. 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, becomes Pre- 
 mier, 84 ; resigns, 90. 
 
 Abyssinian war, the, 117. 
 
 •' Adullam, tlio Cave of," 101). 
 
 Affghan war, 150-152. 
 
 Agricultural distress, speeches 
 on, 61, {;2, 71-73. 
 
 Agricultural Holdings Act, 132. 
 
 Alarcos, 198. 
 
 Alroy, WondrouK Tale of, 188, 
 190. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bnth Letter, the, 125, note. 
 
 Beaconefield, Lord. See Disraeli, 
 Benjamin. 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lady. See Disraeli, 
 Mary Ann. 
 
 Bedchamber Plot, 25. 
 
 Bentinck, Lord George, 69, 70 ; 
 Life of, 63, 67, 75-77, 202. 
 
 Berlin Memorandum, 138; Con- 
 gress of, 143-149. 
 
 Buckinghamshire, Disraeli re-^ 
 turned for, 69. 
 
 Budgets. Ste inf Disraeli. 
 
 Bulgarian atrocities, 139. 
 
 Bulv^er, Lytton, 7, %. 
 
 Carnarvoti, Lord. 110, 111, 129, 
 
 142. 
 Chartists, the, 25, 53, 73. 
 Church, position of the, 46, 56, 
 
 103-108, 130, 134, 173-175. 
 Church and Queen, 103. 
 Cobden, Richai-d, 31, 94. 
 Coningshy, 22, 33,37; plot of, 40 
 
 -46, 193-93; doctrines of, 41- 
 
 46 ; characters in, 48, 194-95. 
 Conservatism, 22. 35, 44, 163- 
 
 172. 
 Contarini Fleming, 5, 189. 
 Cranborno, Lord. See .Salisbury, 
 Crimean war, 88-91, 
 Crisis Examined, the, 11, 200. 
 Croker, J. W., 48, 75. 
 Cyprus, acquisitioi} of, 150. 
 
 D. 
 
 Derby, Earl of, and Disraeli, 70; 
 
 declines office, 73; first minis - 
 tj y, 78-84 ; again declines 
 ofiice. 91 ; second ministry, 95- 
 101 ; third ministry, 110-114. 
 
 Derby, Earl of (son of jibove), 95, 
 109, no, 129, 142. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, birth-place of, 
 1 ; ('du<;ation. 2 ; fir.st appear- 
 
 16
 
 218 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 auco ill print, 3 ; travels, 4, 5 ; 
 outers society, fi, 7 ; candidate 
 for Parliament, 8-17 ; elected 
 at Maidstone, 18; maiden 
 speech, 22-24 ; marriage, 27 ; 
 visits the continent, 63 ; leader 
 of the Opposition, 70 ; Chan- 
 cellor of Exchequer, 78; his 
 first Budget, 80-81 ; second 
 Budget, 83 ; again leads Oppo- 
 sition, 86 ; Chancellor of Exche- 
 quer (1857), 95; first Reform 
 Bill. 97-100: political isola- 
 tion, 103 ; again Chancellor, 
 110; second Reform Bill, 111- 
 113 and Appendix; Prime Mi- 
 nister, 114 ; again in Opposi- 
 tion, 119-129; Lord Rector of 
 Glasgow, 125; second Ministry, 
 129-154; domestic measures, 
 131-135 ; becomes Lord Bea- 
 consfield, 135 ; foreign policy, 
 136-152, and 162 ; resignation, 
 154 ; last illness, 155 ; death, 
 156 ; funeral, 156 ; as a states- 
 man and orator, 161-187 ; as a 
 man of letters, 189-205 ; per- 
 sonal characteristics, 206-212. 
 
 Disraeli, Isaac, 1, 2. 
 
 Disraeli, Mary Ami, 7 ; marriage, 
 27 ; becomes Lady Beacons- 
 field, 123 ; death of, 123; at 
 Hughenden, 211. 
 
 Disraeli. Sarah, 1 ; letters to, 
 4-5, 6. 8, 11. 18, 23, 27, 37. 49. 
 03, 68. 70. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eilenborough, Lord, 96. 
 Endymion, 154, 196. 
 Exchequer, Chancellor of, Dis- 
 raeli as. See Disraeli. 
 
 F. 
 
 Free Trade, 59-85. 
 
 G, 
 
 Gladstone, Mr. 22, 31,40, 72,79. 
 
 93; his Irish Resolutions, 116 ; 
 
 first Ministry, 119-129; second 
 
 Ministry, 154 ; on Lord Bea- 
 
 consfield, 159, 211. 
 Globe, the, Disraeli and, 13-16. 
 Granby, Marquis of, 69. 
 
 H. 
 
 Henley, Mr., 78, 79, 96. 
 Henrietta Temple, 18, 188, 190. 
 Hope, Henry, 37. 
 Hughenden, 28. 75, 156, 157, 208. 
 
 211. 
 Hume, Joseph, 8-9, 13, 16-17. 
 
 I. 
 
 Infernal Marriage, the 197. 
 Ireland, Disraeli on, 59, 172, 182. 
 Italian War. the, 101. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jew Bill, 97. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lewis, Mrs. Wyudliam. See Dis- 
 raeli, Mary Ann. 
 
 Liverpool Cabinet, the. Disraeli 
 on, 42-43. 
 
 Lothair, 154, 196. 
 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 10, 17.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 219 
 
 M. 
 
 Maidstone, elected at, 18. 
 Malmesburv, Lord, 78, 95, 110, 
 
 129 ; his'Memoirs, 78, 92, 208. 
 Manchester, Disraeli at, 49, 121. 
 Manners, Lord John, 37, 48, 96, 
 
 129, 156. 
 Mai-Iborough, letter to the Duke 
 
 of, 153. 
 Marylebone, candidature at, 11. 
 Maynooth Grant, the, 60. 
 Melbourne, Lord, 7, 13, 25. 
 Militia Bills, 79, 80. 
 Monarchy, position of the. 46, 56, 
 
 175-180. 
 
 N. 
 
 Northcote, Sir S., 110, 129, 156. 
 
 O. 
 O'Connell, 8, 13, 22. 
 
 Pakington, Sir John, 78, 79, 96, 
 110. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 77, 79, 88 ; be- 
 comes Premier, 91 ; defeated, 
 95 ; again Premier, 102 ; death 
 of, 108. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 21, 22, and the 
 Bed-Chamber Plot, 24; be- 
 comes Premier (1841), 28 ; 
 attacked by Disraeli, 36, 60-66, 
 and 186 ; defeated, 67-68. 
 
 Popanilla, The Voyage of, 197. 
 
 Post Office scandal, the, 60. 
 
 Press, the power of the, 46. 
 
 Press, newspaper, 86. 
 
 Protection, Disraeli on, 30-33. 
 
 62. 
 Public Worship Regulation Bill. 
 
 130. 
 
 E. 
 
 Reform Bills. See inf. Disraeli. 
 Rise of Iskander, 188, 190. 
 Royal Titles Bill, 135. 
 Runnyinede, Letters of. 202. 
 Russell, Lord John," 77, 79, 82, 
 
 88 ; as Foreign Secretary, 103 
 
 Prime Minister, 108. 
 Russo-Turkish War, 140-143. 
 
 S. 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, 110, 111, 
 129, 139, 156, 158. 
 
 Sanitas sanitatum, 131-32. 
 
 San Stephano, Treaty of, 141, 
 143. 
 
 Shrewsbury, elected at, 28 
 speech at, 30-34. 
 
 Slough speech, the, 96. 
 
 Smythe, Hon. George, 37, 48. 
 
 Spii-it of Whiggism, 
 
 Stanley, Lord. See Derby. 
 
 Star Chamber, the, 3. 
 
 Suez Canal Shares, 150. 
 
 Sybil, 22, 25, 26, 202 ; theme of 
 51-55 ; plot of, 193 ; charac- 
 ters in. 194-195. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tancred, 75, 195. 
 
 Taunton, candidature at, 12. 
 
 " Territorial constitution," our. 
 
 65, 168-172. 
 Toryism popular, 9, 15-16, 37 ^
 
 220 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Venctm, 18, 188, It)]. 
 Vindication of the British Consti- 
 tution, the 10, 200. 
 Vivtan Grey,Z, 188. 
 
 w. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, Disraeli's 
 
 speech on, 88. 
 Westmeath Committee, 121. 
 What is He 'i 199. 
 
 Whigs, the, Disraeli on. 11. 41 
 
 45-46, 166. 
 Wycombe, candidatures at, 8, 10 
 
 Youny Duke, 3, 18a 
 
 " Young England," 34 58. 
 
 Znlu war, 153. 
 
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