diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/53917-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53917-0.txt | 13888 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 13888 deletions
diff --git a/old/53917-0.txt b/old/53917-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1bfb417..0000000 --- a/old/53917-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13888 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Disraeli, by Walter Sydney Sichel - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Disraeli - A Study in Personality and Ideas - - -Author: Walter Sydney Sichel - - - -Release Date: January 7, 2017 [eBook #53917] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISRAELI*** - - -E-text prepared by Clarity, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 53917-h.htm or 53917-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53917/53917-h/53917-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53917/53917-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/disraelistudyinp00sichrich - - - - - -[Illustration: - - _Kenneth Macleay_ - -_The Young Disraeli._] - - -DISRAELI - -A Study in Personality and Ideas - -by - -WALTER SICHEL - -Author of “Bolingbroke and His Times” - -With Three Illustrations - - - - - - - -New York -Funk & Wagnalls Company -London: Methuen & Co. -1904 - - - - -ERRATUM - - - Page 22, line 2 note, _for_ “called to the bar” _read_ “entered at - Lincoln’s Inn” - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - INTRODUCTION. ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY 1 - - CHAPTER I - - DISRAELI’S PERSONALITY 21 - - CHAPTER II - - DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION 53 - - CHAPTER III - - LABOUR--“YOUNG ENGLAND”--“FREE TRADE” 112 - - CHAPTER IV - CHURCH AND THEOCRACY 145 - - CHAPTER V - - MONARCHY 180 - - CHAPTER VI - - COLONIES--EMPIRE--FOREIGN POLICY 199 - - CHAPTER VII - - AMERICA--IRELAND 246 - - CHAPTER VIII - - SOCIETY 268 - - CHAPTER IX - - LITERATURE: WIT, HUMOUR, ROMANCE 289 - - CHAPTER X - - CAREER 316 - - INDEX 327 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - TO FACE PAGE - - PORTRAIT OF THE YOUNG DISRAELI. FROM THE MINIATURE BY - KENNETH MACLEAY IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY - _Frontispiece_ - - PORTRAIT OF DISRAELI THE YOUNGER. AFTER A WATER COLOUR - BY A. E. CHALON 23 - - PORTRAIT OF DISRAELI IN 1852. AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR - FRANCIS GRANT, P.R.A. 289 - - - - - “TIME IS REPRESENTED WITH A SCYTHE AS WELL AS WITH AN - HOUR-GLASS. WITH THE ONE HE MOWS DOWN, WITH THE OTHER HE - RECONSTRUCTS.”--DISRAELI, _in The Press_, 1853. - - “GREAT MINDS MUST TRUST TO GREAT TRUTHS AND GREAT TALENTS FOR THEIR - RISE, AND NOTHING ELSE.” - - “TRUE WISDOM LIES IN THE POLICY THAT WOULD EFFECT ITS AIMS BY THE - INFLUENCE OF OPINION, AND YET BY THE MEANS OF EXISTING FORMS.” - - “... THE PAST IS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF OUR POWER.”--_Speech on Mr. - Cobden’s death, April 3, 1865._ - - - - -DISRAELI - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY - - -The power of imagination is essential to supreme statesmanship. Indeed, -no really originative genius in any domain of the mind can succeed -without it. In literature it reigns paramount. Of art it is the soul. -Without it the historian is a mere registrar of sequence, and no -interpreter of characters. In science it decides the end towards which -the daring of a Verulam, a Newton, a Herschel, a Darwin, can travel. On -the battle-field, in both elements, it enabled Marlborough, Nelson, and -Napoleon to revolutionise tactics. In the law its influence is perhaps -less evident; but even here a masterful insight into the spirit of -precedent marks the creative judge. By lasting imagination, far more -than by the colder weapon of shifting reason, the world is governed. -“Even Mormon,” wrote Disraeli, “counts more votaries than Bentham.” For -imagination is a vivid, intellectual, half-spiritual sympathy, which -diverts the flood of human passion into fresh channels to fertilise the -soil; just as fancy again is the play of intellectual emotion. Whereas -reason, the measure of which varies from age to age, can only at best -dam or curb the deluge for a time. Reason educates and criticises, but -Imagination inspires and creates. The magnetic force which is felt is -really the spell of personal influence and the key of public opinion. -It solves problems by visualising them, and kindles enthusiasm from -its own fascinating fires. And more: Imagination is in the truest -sense prophetic. Could one only grasp with a perfect view the myriad -provinces of suffering, enterprise, and aspiration with which the -Leader is called upon to grapple, not only would the expedients to meet -them suggest themselves as by a divine flash, but their inevitable -relations and meanings would start into vision. For what the herd call -the Present, is only the _literal_ fact, the shell, of environment. -Its _spirit_ is the Future; and the highest imagination in seeing it -foresees. Imagination, once more, is the mainspring of spontaneity. Its -vigour enables the will to beget circumstance, instead of being the -creature of surroundings; “for Imagination ever precedeth voluntary -motion,” says Bacon. It empowers the will of one to sway and mould the -wills of many. And it is the very source of that capacity for idealism -which alone distinguishes man from the brute. Viewing in 1870 the -general purport of his message, Disraeli wrote with truth that it “... -ran counter to the views which had long been prevalent in England, and -which may be popularly, though not altogether accurately, described -as utilitarian;” that it “recognised imagination in the government -of nations as a quality not less important than reason;” that it -“trusted to a popular sentiment which rested on an heroic tradition, -and was sustained by the high spirit of a free aristocracy;” that its -“economical principles were not unsound,” but that it “looked upon -the health and knowledge of the multitude as not the least precious -part of the wealth of nations;” that “in asserting the doctrine of -race,” it “was entirely opposed to the equality of man, and similar -abstract dogmas, which have destroyed ancient society without creating -a satisfactory substitute;” that “resting on popular sympathies and -popular privileges,” it “held that no society could be durable unless -it was built upon the principles of loyalty and religious reverence.” - -How comes it, then, that, in the art of governing a free people, this -imaginative fellowship with unseen ideas, this power which men call -Genius, “to make the passing shadow serve thy will,” is so constantly -suspected and mistrusted; that _un_common sense, until it triumphs, -is a stone of stumbling to the common sense of the average man? -That Cromwell was called a self-seeking maniac for his vision of -Theocracy; William of Orange, a cold-blooded monster for his quest -after union and empire; Bolingbroke, a charlatan for his fight against -class-preponderance, and on behalf of united nationality; Chatham, an -actor for his dramatic disdain of shams; Canning, by turns a charlatan -and buffoon, for preferring the traditions of a popular crown to the -innovations of a crowned democracy, and at the same time seeking to -break the charmed circle of a patrician syndicate; that Burke was -hounded out by jealous oligarchs for refusing to confound the “nation” -with the “people,” and cosmopolitan opinions with national principles? -The main answer is simple. What is above the moment is feared by it, -and malice is the armour of fear: “It is the abject property of most -that being parcel of the common mass, and destitute of means to raise -themselves, they sink and settle lower than they need. They know not -what it is to feel within a comprehensive faculty that grasps great -purposes with ease, that turns and wields almost without an effort -plans too vast for their conception, which they cannot move;” and there -are always the jealous who-- - - “... If they find - Some stain or blemish in a name of note, - Not grieving that their greatest are so small, - Inflate themselves with some insane delight, - And judge all Nature from her feet of clay.” - -There are the puzzled whom novelty bewilders, and there are the -cautious who suspect it. And there is the wholesome instinct of -the plain majority to pin itself to immediate “measures” without -recognising that a “principle” may change expedients for bringing its -idea into effect. Again, there are many--especially in England--who, in -their genuine scorn of pinchbeck, mistake the great for the grandiose, -and certain that nothing which glitters can be gold, invest imaginative -brilliance with the tinsel spangles of Harlequin. There are, too, the -second-rate and the second-hand, whose life is one long quotation, and -who doubt every coin unissued from the nearest mint; and there is, -moreover, a sort of stolid crassness readily dignified into sterling -solidity. All this is natural. Institutions and traditions themselves -have been aliens until naturalised in and by the community. Imagination -gave them birth, national needs accept them; and the contemporary sneer -is often succeeded by the posthumous statue. - -Perhaps the most curious feature of the prosaic and imperceptive man is -his ready confusion of the dramatic with the theatrical, of attitude -with posture, of pointed effects for a big purpose with affectations -for a small. Flirtation might just as well be confounded with love, or -foppery with breeding. And yet these same unimaginative censors have -often contradicted their protests by their actions, and squandered -great opportunities by futile strokes of the theatre. - -So early as 1837, Sheil, who from the first admired the young Disraeli -(then Bulwer’s intimate and the meteor of three seasons), whom Disraeli -praised in one of his earliest election speeches, and who was surely -no mean judge of intellectual eloquence, warned him after his _début_ -that “the House will not allow a man to be a wit and an orator, -unless they have the credit of finding it out.... You have shown 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 imperfectly, 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.” Seventeen years -afterwards, when the dashing _littérateur_ had become Chancellor of the -Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, Mr. Walpole thus defended -him against his enemies on the Budget. “... Whence is it that these -extraordinary attacks are made against my right honourable friend? What -is the reason, what is the cause, that he is to be assailed at every -point, when he has made two financial statements in one year, which -have both met with the approbation of this House, and I believe also -with the approbation of the country? Is it because he has laboured -hard and long, contending with genius against rank and power and the -ablest statesmen, until he has attained the highest eminence which an -honourable ambition may ever aspire to--the leadership and guidance -of the Commons of England? Is it because he has verified in himself -the dignified description of a great philosophical poet of antiquity, -portraying equally his past career and his present position-- - - ‘Certare ingenio; contendere nobilitate; - Noctes atque dies niti præstante labore - Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri’?” - -Yes! This is the sort of barrier piled in the path of the brilliant -by the “practical” man--“the man who practises the blunders of his -predecessors,” the “prophet of the past.” Still greater, because -deeper laid, are the obstacles which confront him when he has mastered -the drudgery of office and the strategy of debate; when, from the -vantage-ground of political pre-eminence and public approval, he dares -to look over the heads of his compeers and prepare strong foundations -for the future of his country. Then that becomes true which Bolingbroke -has so splendidly expressed: “The ocean which environs us is an emblem -of our government, and the pilot and the minister are in similar -circumstances. It seldom happens that either of them can steer a direct -course, and they both arrive at their port by means which frequently -seem to carry them from it. But as the work advances, the conduct -of him who leads it on with real abilities clears up, the appearing -inconsistencies are reconciled, and when it is once consummated, the -whole shows itself so uniform, so plain, and so natural, that every -dabbler in politics will be apt to think that he could have done the -same.” - -It is this that Disraeli effected by reverting to fundamental elements -and substituting the generous, inclusive, and “national” Toryism of -Bolingbroke, Wyndham, and Pitt, for the perverted Toryism of Eldon; -the “party without principles,” the “Tory men and Whig measures,” the -“organised hypocrisy” that followed on the “Tamworth Manifesto;” the -Conservatism that “preserved” institutions as men “preserve” game, -only to kill them; and the outworn Whiggism that excluded all but a -few governing families from power; and, after its great achievement -of religious liberty, exploited the extension of civil privileges -as the mere muniment of its own title. He ended the confederacies -and revived the creed.[1] He repudiated the system under which “the -Crown had become a cipher, the Church a sect, the nobility drones, -and the people drudges.” “... But we forget,” he urges in _Sybil_, -“Sir Robert Peel is not the leader of the Tory party--the party that -resisted the ruinous mystification that metamorphosed direct taxation -by the Crown into indirect taxation by the Commons; that denounced -the system which mortgaged industry to protect property;[2] the party -that ruled Ireland by a scheme which reconciled both Churches, and by -a series of parliaments which counted among them lords and commons -of both religions; that has maintained at all times the territorial -constitution of England as the only basis and security for local -government, and which nevertheless once laid on the table of the House -of Commons a commercial tariff negotiated at Utrecht, which is the -most rational that was ever devised by statesmen; a party that has -prevented the Church from being the salaried agent of the State, and -has supported the parochial polity of the country which secures to -every labourer a home. In a parliamentary sense that great party has -ceased to exist; but I will believe that it still lives in the thought -and sentiment ... of the English nation. It has its origin in great -principles and noble instincts; it sympathises with the lowly, it looks -up to the Most High; it can count its heroes and its martyrs.... Even -now, ... in an age of political materialism, of confused purposes and -perplexed intelligence, that aspires only to wealth because it has -faith in no other accomplishment;[3] as men rifle cargoes on the verge -of shipwreck, Toryism will yet rise from the tomb ... _to bring back -strength to the Crown, liberty to the subject, and to announce that -power has only one duty--to secure the social welfare of the people_.” - -And, again, this from the close of _Coningsby_: “... he looked upon a -government without distinct principles of policy as only a stop-gap -to a widespread and demoralising anarchy; ... he for one could not -comprehend how a free government could endure without national -opinions to uphold it.... As for Conservative government, the natural -question was, ‘What do you mean to conserve?... Things or only names, -realities or merely appearances? Do you mean to continue the system -commenced in 1834, and with a hypocritical reverence for the principles -and a superstitious adherence to the forms of the old _exclusive_ -constitution, carry on your policy by latitudinarian practice?’” - -His lifelong purpose as a statesman was to refresh institutions with -reality, and to show by practice, as well as by precept, that, in -all classes, an aristocracy without inherent superiority is doomed. -De Tocqueville, in his famous treatise on “The Old Régime and the -Revolution,” does the same. - -Eighteenth-century Toryism, a smitten cause espousing popular -privileges, taught that unless the Crown ruled for the people as well -as reigned over them, unless the nobles led them independently to high -issues, unless the people themselves recognised that they were the -privileged order in a nation, and that their representatives should -form “a senate supported by the sympathy of millions,” the traditional -principles of England had dwindled into a sham. - -“No one,” says Disraeli in _Coningsby_, again adverting to the critical -issues of 1834, “had arisen either in Parliament, the Universities, or -the Press, to lead the public mind to the investigation of principles; -and not to mistake in their reformations the corruption of practice -for fundamental ideas. It was this perplexed, ill-informed, jaded, -shallow generation, repeating cries which they did not comprehend, and -wearied with the endless ebullitions of their own barren conceit, that -Sir Robert Peel was summoned to govern. It was from such materials, -ample in quantity, but in all spiritual qualities most deficient; with -great numbers, largely acred, consoled up to their chins, but without -knowledge, genius, thought, truth, or faith, that Sir Robert Peel was -to form ‘a great Conservative party on a comprehensive basis....’” Even -Sir Robert’s single-mindedness and supremacy over Parliament failed to -secure strength of Government. By universal consent, including his own -avowal, he wrecked a great party in a country where great parties form -the main pledge for the due representation of political opinion, and -under a system where they remain the chief preventive against public -corruption. - -The first two Georges had reigned over the towns, but not over the -country. After the Reform Bill it seemed as though the great cities -themselves would swamp the land. How was Sir Robert to save the -situation in 1834? Speaking with respect for Sir Robert, but with -contempt for his “Tamworth Manifesto,” Disraeli, in his discussion -of that famous document, repeats his message once more: “... There -was indeed considerable shouting about what they called Conservative -principles; but the awkward question naturally arose, ‘What will -you conserve?’ The prerogatives of a Crown, provided they are not -exercised; the independence of the House of Lords, provided it is not -asserted; the ecclesiastical estate, provided it is regulated by a -commission of laymen. Everything, in short, that is established, as -long as it is a phrase and not a fact.”[4] - -It is thus that the man of ideas is, in the long run, eminently -practical; and it is thus, too, that in the realm of art ideas are the -surest realities. But here also the immediate appeal constantly falls -to the lot of what is called “realism,” and few feel what they cannot -touch until the popular voice tells them that it is “real.” “Madame,” -says Heine in his “Buch Legrand,” “have you the ghost of an idea what -an idea is? ‘I have put my best ideas into this coat,’ says my tailor. -My washerwoman says the parson has filled her daughter’s head with -ideas, and unfitted her for anything sensible; and coachman Pattensen -mumbles on every occasion, ‘That is an idea.’ But yesterday, when I -inquired what he meant, he snarled out, ‘An idea is just an idea; it is -any silly stuff that comes into one’s head.’” - -No memorial of Disraeli’s magical career can be adequate without access -to the papers confided to the late Lord Rowton, as well as to much -private and unpublished correspondence. It is no slur on the “Lives” -that have already appeared to say that they lack the materials for a -complete picture. The best of these beyond question is Mr. Froude’s; -but not only is it tinged with considerable prejudice, but it is -very faulty in its facts; and, moreover, in common with Mr. Bryce’s -cursory essay and Herr Brandes’s minuter study, it has perhaps fallen -into the error of misreading Disraeli’s mature character and career -from isolated and indiscriminate use of such sidelights as they are -pleased to discover in his earliest novels. To trace Disraeli’s -development, it is necessary to follow the long and continuous thread -of his words and actions, to consider the changes experienced during -the fifty years of his political outlook in England and in Europe, and -to ascertain how many of these tendencies were foreseen, produced, or -modified by him. The criticisms current are either those of men (often -partisans) who lack this length of view, and interpret the latter -manifestations of Disraeli’s genius, with which alone they are even -outwardly acquainted, in the light of preconceived notions, or the -few circulated comparatively early in his career, before its eventual -drift was revealed, and while the full blaze of hostile bitterness was -raging. There exists, it is true, a most able, a most appreciative, a -most detailed account of his political career, compiled by Mr. Ewald -shortly after Lord Beaconsfield’s death, but this is mainly a long -parliamentary chronicle. Mr. Kebbel’s enlightening edition of selected -speeches is illustrative though limited. To both of these, among many -other sources, direct and indirect, I here gratefully acknowledge my -obligation. - -A real biography, therefore, is at present impossible. Disraeli’s -acknowledged debt to his darling sister and devoted wife (“Women,” he -has said, “are the priestesses of pre-destination”); his correspondence -and commerce with many eminent men, including both Louis Philippe and -Napoleon III.; his letters to our late Queen; his notes of policy; -the rough drafts for compositions, both literary and parliamentary; -his State papers and official memoranda; his relations to many men of -letters and leading; such known, though unpublished, correspondence as -even that with Mrs. Williams; the glimpses of him as a youth through -Mrs. Austin, Bulwer, Lord Strangford, the Sheridans, with many others; -in his age, through a privileged circle of distinguished and devoted -associates--all these, and many more, must be pressed into service -if even the rudiments are to be portrayed. And none of these are yet -available. - -I have therefore thought that, pending such an enterprise, some -account, however imperfect, of the ideas that governed him -throughout--a slight biography, as it were, of his mind--might prove -acceptable. It will endeavour to depict the spirit of his attitude to -the world in which he moved and for which he worked. It will aim at -representing the temperature of his opinions immanent alike in his -writings and speeches. His utterance was never bounded by the mere -occasion, and light and guidance may be found in it for the problems of -to-day. In most that he wrote or said, a certain swell of soul, a sweep -and stretch of mind are strikingly manifest. - -“How very seldom,” he has written, “do you encounter in the world a -man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his -mind, _unbutton his brains_, and pour forth in careless and picturesque -phrase all the results of his studies and observations, his knowledge -of men, books, and nature!” - -Such a contribution is anyhow feasible, and is fraught with more than -even the glamour linked with the person by whom these ideas were -clothed in words and deeds. For principles are applied ideas; habits -are applied principles. Disraeli’s ideas have, to some extent, become -ruling principles, several of them are at this moment national habits; -while some of them, unachieved during his lifetime, seem in process -of accomplishment. Disraeli was a poet--one of those “unacknowledged -legislators of the world” described by “Herbert” in _Venetia_; but his -imaginative fancy was allied to a very strong character. It is a rare -combination. To Bolingbroke’s youthful genius he united that force of -will and purpose for which Bolingbroke had long to wait, and which, -perhaps, he never fully attained. This analogy was pressed on Disraeli -on the threshold of his career by a distinguished friend. - -Above all things Disraeli was a personality. Personality is independent -of training, except in the rare cases where education accords with -predisposition. It is the will. And in authorship, when expression -chimes with intention, it is the style. Personality is the clue to -history, for events proceed from character, more than character from -events. Commenting on the adoption of the “Charter” by non-chartists -groaning under the injustice of industrial slavery, Disraeli observes -most truly: “... But all this had been brought about, as most of the -great events of history, by the unexpected and unobserved influence -of individual character.” Personality is the salt of politics; it is -the spirit of our party system; and woe betide every era in England -when figure-heads replace head-figures. It is an atmosphere enchanting -the landscape. “... It is the personal that interests mankind, that -fires their imagination and wins their hearts. A cause is a great -abstraction, and fit only for students: embodied in a party, it -stirs men to action; but place at the head of that party a leader -who can inspire enthusiasm, he commands the world....” Association, -groups, co-operative principles, these are the mechanisms invented -by the brain, and guided by the hand of individuality, the fuel that -individuality gathers and enkindles. Without it they remain dead -lumber, and can never of themselves prove originative forces. What -men crave is, once more in Disraeli’s parlance, “... A primordial and -creative mind; one that will say to his fellows, ‘Behold, God has -given me thought, I have discovered truth, and you _shall_ believe.’” -Personality is the contradiction of the mechanical and of the dead -level; it is the soul of influence. How depressing is the reverse side -of the medal!--“Duncan Macmorrogh” (the utilitarian in _The Young -Duke_), “cut up the Creation and got a name. His attack upon mountains -was most violent, and proved, by its personality that he had come -from the lowlands. He demonstrated the inability of all elevation, and -declared that the Andes were the aristocracy of the globe. Rivers he -rather patronised, but flowers he quite pulled to pieces, and proved -them to be the most useless of existences.... He informed us that -we were quite wrong in supposing ourselves to be the miracle of the -Creation. On the contrary, he avowed that already there were various -pieces of machinery of far more importance than man; and he had no -doubt in time that a superior race would arise, got by a steam-engine -on a spinning-jenny....” - -To impress his ideas through his will on his generation, was Disraeli’s -ruling purpose from the first; but to attain the position which would -entitle him to do so he never regarded as more than a ladder towards -his main ambition. Ambition[5] spurred him from the first. But, as -the present Duke of Devonshire generously owned in the heat of party -contest, Disraeli was never prompted by mean or unworthy motives; -and--added the speaker--it would be the merest cant to pretend that -honourable and honest ambition is not a main incitement to public life. -At the outset he was convinced of a mission, and the visions over which -he had long brooded in silent solitude became realised in the world of -action. Both reverie and energy alternated even in his boyish being. “I -fully believed myself the object of an omnipotent Destiny over which -I had no control”--and yet “Destiny bears us to our lot, and Destiny -is perhaps our own will.” “... There arose in my mind a desire to -create things beautiful as that golden star;” and yet “... Nor could -I conceive that anything could tempt me from my solitude ... but the -strong conviction that the fortunes of my race depended on my effort, -or that I could materially forward that great amelioration, ... in the -practicability of which I devoutly believe.” As a boy he dreamed of -“shaking thrones and founding empires;” and yet, he felt that he must -not “pass” his “days like a ghost gliding in a vision.” These are -among the echoes and glimpses afforded by his earliest fiction of his -earliest self, and to this topic I shall recur in my last chapter. I -mention them here for a material reason. In treating his thoughts we -must distinguish between those notions which merely concern success -or career, and those ideas which assured victory was to achieve. -Nor should we omit the very vital distinction between personality -and egotism, for confusion in this regard constantly obscures our -estimates. Individuality with the forces that make for it is not -“individualism;” yet the two are often confused. - -The essential egotist is a sort of buccaneer. He roams the seas to -rifle cargoes, and his conquests are the spoils of a freebooter. -He seeks to exploit society for his own benefit--to burn down his -neighbour’s roof-tree that he may boil his egg. He gives nothing -that he can keep, and takes all he can grasp by whatever methods may -advantage him. He leaves the world poorer when he goes, and as he -leaves it, he wishes it. In Cowper’s words-- - - “Cruel is all he does. ’Tis quenchless thirst - Of ruinous ebriety that prompts - His every action, and imbrutes the man.” - -The man, on the other hand, of overwhelming personality, aspires -honourably to power, the very condition of which in his eyes is -to guide and elevate the country which entrusts him with it. The -responsibility of privilege, great position on the tenure of great -duties, ambition not as a right but as the sole means of enforcing -his ideals--these are his characteristics. He never covets place -without power, and never power without influence; whereas some kind of -covetousness is essential to the egotist. “He who has great honours,” -Disraeli has urged, “must have great burdens.” And again: “... My -conception,” he said, in a signal speech during 1846, “of a great -statesman is of one who represents a great idea; an idea which he may -and can impress on the mind and conscience of a nation.... That is a -grand, that is indeed an heroic position. But I care not what may be -the position of a man who never originates an idea--a watcher of the -atmosphere, a man who ... takes his observations, and when he finds -the wind in a certain quarter trims to suit it. Such a person may be -a powerful Minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man -who gets up behind a carriage is a great whip. Both are disciples of -progress; both perhaps may get a good place. But how far the original -momentum is indebted to their powers, and how far their guiding -prudence regulates the lash or the rein, it is not necessary for me to -notice.” - -Disraeli never stooped to trim; he always aspired to steer. When he -started as a brilliant author, electric with ideas derided but since -accepted--as an imaginative originator, “full of deep passions and -deep thoughts”--it would have been easy for him to have followed the -triumphal car of the Whigs who invited him.[6] It would have been easy -for him to have suited himself to Sir Robert Peel’s vicissitudes of -private, and desertion of public opinion, embodied in a great party -which had raised him to power. In obeying again the central ideas which -quickened him from the first, Disraeli broke up the “Young England” -party, which looked up to and cheered him, whose main objects he -inspired, and eventually realised. And in 1867, as we shall see, so -far from “dishing” the Liberals with their own measure of Reform, he -carried, in the teeth of his own supporters, one on lines peculiar to -his own perpetual view of the subject, and at length achieved what he -had urged in the ’thirties, the ’forties, and the ’fifties. - -In the stubborn pursuit of his aims Disraeli even courted unpopularity. -On every occasion when the object of the Jew bill was involved with -other measures which he considered prejudical to its due interests, he -risked misconstruction by withholding his vote. During the long spell -of 1859-66, when a dispirited, and sometimes disloyal following often -left him alone in his seat, he continued the pronouncements alike and -the reticence which they disrelished. During the six years previous -he dared to offend them equally by hammering the Government’s foreign -policy, and insisting on his own convictions. Nobody, again, more -regretted the precipitancy of Lord Derby in 1852, although his rash -assumption of office afforded Disraeli his first hard-won opportunity -of leadership. During three separate sets of discreditable intrigues -to dethrone him, he kept place, counsel, and temper without wheedling -concessions or recriminating revenges, though none could strike home -harder when he chose. - -“... Ah, why should such enthusiasm ever die? Life is too short to be -little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and -expresses himself with frankness and with fervour.” - -The fact that both the mere egotist, and the man of intense -personality, must, from the need of their respectively low and lofty -concentrations, be self-centred, and infuse their temperaments into the -objects of their energy, favours, it is true, the mistake to which I -have referred. But the one is pettily fixed on self, the other intent -on ideals. He leads a life of ideas which form his atmosphere, and -which emanate from it. He mounts the chariot to drive it to a distant -goal, while the other borrows or pilfers it for his own immediate -convenience. Egoism--if I may coin a distinction--is one thing, egotism -another. Goethe was an egoist--he is full of a radiating self; but such -egoism is, if we reflect, the very opposite of the egotist, who is full -of a shrivelled selfishness. Such were the later phases of Napoleon, -who changed from a generous imparter into an absorbing monopolist. -That was egotism. All genius, however, has been egoist, and ever will -be; for genius is at once the ear, sensitive to the subtlest appeals -of existence, and the voice which constrains others to enter the realm -of its ideas. Its sensitiveness is part of its strength, and in this -respect it shares the self-consciousness of the artist. It is in the -real sense auto-suggestive; it implants ideas which its will generates -into events. It is in some degree that-- - - “... which many people take for want of heart. - They err.--’Tis merely what is called mobility, - A thing of temperament, and not of art, - Though seeming so from its supposed facility; - And false though true; for surely they’re sincerest - Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.” - -And its faults, as I shall show in my closing chapter, are associated -with its very qualities. - -Genius is both light and heat; it combines enthusiasm with insight. -Such a genius was Disraeli. He was eminently a man of ideas, and not -merely of abnormal perceptions. This distinction again is material, and -too often ignored. - -The eminently perceptive man is at root a critic, while the man of -ideas is by prerogative a creator; and yet the quick perceiver is often -mistaken for a creative genius, and keenness confused with originality. -In politics, for instance, this was the case with such different -beings as Peel and Gambetta; in literature, with Addison and Arnold; -in art, with Kneller and Lawrence. Disraeli’s ideas were at once his -creations and companions, and he moved in their inner circle with a -sort of extravagant intensity. They were no shadows. He was convinced -of their substance almost to fatalism, and his immense will-power -forced and projected them into movement. In his extreme youth, before -his character had matured, these ideas flickered as fantasies. The -restlessness of a volition felt, but not yet freed or directed, caused -some masquerade of guise, and a perpetual strain on the intuition that -sought to forestall experience. Realisation alone, with power and -experience, brought repose. But at all periods an idea that had once -seized him tinged his whole being. Its reality haunted him till he -had given it place and shape.[7] An inward and ideal energy possessed -him. Ideas were for him far more tangible, even far more sociable, -than the outward and fleeting phantasms around him, as is evidenced -in his fiction by his constant habit of transferring environment and -transplanting personalities to accentuate their ideal essence. Thus, in -_Venetia_, the soul of Lady Byron animates the form of Shelley’s wife, -while the very date is put back some thirty years, that Shelley himself -might be enabled to have braved in action what he mused in poetry. -So, again, in _Contarini_, the hero’s development blends something of -his own with something of his father’s character; while Baron Fleming -is his grandfather reincarnated as a noble.[8] About the ironies of -these, the arabesques of his playful fancy flickered. For him they were -mostly the pretexts of things, but ideas were the causes, and he loved -to contrast “the pretext with the cause;” but even here romance blent -with irony, and invested the seemingly trivial with wonder. Some, too, -of his ideas hovered, as it were, over the present scene, in a flight -bound other-whither and beyond. In a word, Disraeli was an artist, -conscious and confident of an over-mastering call. As he has written in -a striking passage from the work of his youth, _Contarini Fleming_: “I -never labour to delude myself; and never gloss over my own faults. I -exaggerate them; for I can afford to face truth, because I feel capable -of improvement.... I am never satisfied.... The very exercise of power -teaches me that it may be wielded for a greater purpose.... No one -could be influenced by a greater desire of knowledge, a greater passion -for the beautiful, or a deeper regard for his fellow-creatures.... -I want no false fame. It would be no delight to me to be considered -a prophet, were I conscious of being an impostor. I ever wish to be -undeceived; but if I possess the organisation of a poet, no one can -prevent me from exercising my faculty, any more than he can rob the -courser of his fleetness, or the nightingale of her song.” - -The “ill-regulated will,” “the undercurrent of feelings he was then -unable to express,” portrayed in _Vivian Grey_, developed into -the higher and more elevating purposes of which his transforming -imagination was all along capable. That very book contained the germs -of what its composition revealed to his own mind--that out of a young -adventurer with purpose and genius, the school of life forms a strong -character and a great man. In _Contarini Fleming_ the irresistible -power of predisposition, the hollowness of a nurture which ignores it -and substitutes “words” for “ideas,” the interactions of imagination -and experience, the fatuity of contradicting or overstraining Nature, -are pursued; nor, as regards this novel, should it be forgotten that in -some portions of its analysis there are traces in allusive undertone -to the fatalities of the great and stricken Dean of St. Patrick’s.[9] - -In Disraeli’s case, as so often before him, “the dreaming part of -mankind” has “prevailed over the waking.” His flouted dreams came -true. They still hold sway. To give effectual substance to these -higher and abiding dreams, those other dreams of ascendency, through -which alone his will could realise his ideas, were also verified. “It -is the will”--he speaks by the lips of the young “Alroy”--“that is -father to the deed, and he who broods over some long idea, however -wild, will find his dream was but the prophecy of coming fate.” “All is -ordained,” he had said as a stripling, “yet man is master of his own -actions.”[10] Disraeli’s career was itself a romance--a romance of the -will that defies circumstance, and moulds the soil where ideas are to -flourish. An inward, personal energy is the parent of faith, and faith -in oneself is the sole security for the issue of faith among others. -He lived to triumph, but not in order to triumph; and he remains a -standing protest against those who believe in cliques and disbelieve -in personal influence. The former are only compact in appearance; they -are unsympathetic associations, welded together by interest alone. -Joint-stock enterprise is not fellowship, and the test of direction is -liability. Nor is it without significance that “Fortune,” even in the -ancient world a real though blind goddess, has come, in the modern, to -mean little more than cash; so that capital leans away from labour, -plutocracy is cemented, solidarity declines, and worth too often is -resolved by the question, “Worth how much?” - -It is this idea of personality that lies at the very root of united -nationality; for a nation is an idealised individual, no aggregate -of atoms. Still less is it the experimenting room of doctrinaires -or the dumping-ground of the Tapers and Tadpoles, the Paul Prys of -politics, who “whisper nothings that sound like somethings;” or of -those “Marneys,” “Fitz-Aquitaines,” and “Mowbrays” who deem that the -end of an administration is “two garters to begin with;” or again of -“the good old gentlemanlike times, when Members of Parliament had -nobody to please, and Ministers of State nothing to do;” of those who, -like “Rigby,” mistake peddling with constituencies for representing -the country; or of those petty placemen to whom, as he has said, party -means the machinery for receiving “£1200” a year, career the pursuit of -it, and success its attainment. - -“... I prefer” (the passage is from _Sybil_) “association to -gregariousness.... It is a community of purpose that constitutes -society ... without that men may be drawn into contiguity, but they -will continue virtually isolated....” What does this imply but the -sympathetic power of personality? The more individual societies become, -the greater their efficacy. The less individual they are the more they -display the tameness and unfruitfulness that enfeeble a copy. - -“But what is an individual,” exclaimed “Coningsby,” “against a vast -public opinion?” - -“Divine,” said the stranger. “God made man in His own image; but the -Public is made by newspapers, Members of Parliament, excise officers, -Poor Law guardians. Would Philip have succeeded, if Epaminondas had -not been slain? And if Philip had not succeeded? Would Prussia have -existed, had Frederick not been born? And if Frederick had not been -born? What would have been the fate of the Stuarts, if Prince Henry -had not died, and Charles I., as was intended, had been Archbishop of -Canterbury?” - -This was written in 1844. Since then, would Germany have been united -if Bismarck had not been born? And if Bismarck had not been born? In -1865 a powerful party, promising success, reinforced by commanding -talent, and concerting an intelligible plan with immense vigour, began -to demand the disintegration of Great Britain. And if Disraeli had not -been born?---- - - * * * * * - -Nothing is more striking in modern parliamentary life than the growing -neglect of the past. Great issues are mooted by men ignorant of, or -ignoring, their historical origin. Young members discuss weighty -problems with no study save that of omniscience. The ancestry of -events is disregarded. Development is relegated to musty students and -mouldy volumes. The fact that statesmanship is able to look forward -because it has already looked back, is flouted or forgotten. Public -interest is gradually being withdrawn from debate, just because it is -getting out of touch with the organic changes of national life. The -genius which transfigures facts with imagination has been replaced by -the opportunism which invests emptiness with solemnity; and this, in a -country where national growth depends on continuous tradition. - -The utterances of Disraeli from the early ’twenties to the latest -’seventies display a wonderful harmony of coherence in progress. They -form one long suite of variations on the central _motif_ of persistent -and consistent ideas. To understand them aright one must view them -successively, both in his books and his speeches, which illustrate each -other; nor in so doing should the contexts of personal development, -events private as well as public, be lost from sight. - -This I have endeavoured to accomplish in the following chapters. I have -classified their themes in groups broad enough to admit of kindred -topics. After a fresh portrait of Disraeli’s personality, I treat first -of his constitutional ideas, because these are at the root of his -political standpoint; they underlie, too, his conception of the State. -Then follows his attitude towards Labour and the causes it involved. -Next come his distinctive views on Church and Christianity; his views, -equally distinctive, on Monarchy occupy a separate chapter. Colonies, -Empire, and Foreign Policy are then grouped together; and it may excite -surprise to mark the earliness and the correctness of his prophecies. -Under this head I also consider his thoughts on India. America and -Ireland succeed; and here again his justified originality is most -remarkable. Perhaps the light chapters on _Society_, _Literature_, -_Wit_, _Humour_, and _Romance_, with the closing study of _Career_, -may be considered not the least suggestive. I have not drawn on Mr. -Meynell’s delightful “Disraeliana” (the pleasure of reading which I -purposely postponed), because I wished this portraiture of the man and -his mind to be wholly original. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -DISRAELI’S PERSONALITY - - -“A great mind that thinks and feels is never inconsistent and never -insincere.... Insincerity is the vice of a fool, and inconsistency -the blunder of a knave.... Let us not forget an influence too much -underrated in this age of bustling mediocrity--the influence of -individual character. Great spirits may yet arise to guide the groaning -helm through the world of troubled waters--spirits whose proud destiny -it may still be at the same time to maintain the glory of the Empire -and to secure the happiness of the people.” - -So wrote “Disraeli the Younger” during the perplexed crisis of 1833 -in his rare pamphlet, _What is he?_[11] which embodies his own large -attitude. The sentence is characteristic and prophetic. Its last -words were repeated more than forty years afterwards in the message -of farewell to his constituents, when he quitted the lively scene of -his triumphs for that grave assemblage, of which he once said that its -aptitudes were best rehearsed among the tombstones. - -In my last three chapters I shall touch on some unique phases of his -boyhood, and outline several of his relations to his home, to society, -to literature, to character, and to career. But here I shall attempt a -less detailed account of his individuality and of the main ideas which -flowed from it. - -And first let me venture on two glimpses--one of his youth, the other -of his age. - -It is not difficult to collect from many scattered presentments some -likeness of - - “The wondrous boy - That wrote _Alroy_.” - -Imagine, then, a romantic figure, a Southern shape in a Northern -setting, a kind of Mediterranean Byron; for the stock of the Disraelis -hailed from the _Sephardim_--Semites who had never quitted the midland -coasts, and were powerful in Spain before the Goths. The form is lithe -and slender, with an air of repressed alertness. The stature, above -middle height. The head, long and compact; its curls, fantastic. The -oval face, pale rather than pallid, with dark almond eyes of unusual -depth, size, and lustre under a veil of drooping lashes. The chin, -pointed with decision. The expression holds one, by turns keen and -pensive; about it hovers a strange sense of inner watchfulness and -ambushed irony, half mocking in defiance, half eager with conscious -power. A languid reserve marks his bearing; it conceals a smouldering -vehemence; its observant silence prepares amazement directly interest -excites intercourse. Then indeed the scimitar, as it were, flashes -forth unsheathed, and dazzles by its breathless fence of words with -ideas. This ardour is not always pleasant; it breathes of storm; it -speaks out elemental passions and grates against the smooth edges of -civilisation. In the London medley he, like his friend Bulwer, studies -a purposed posture. Dandyism and listlessness mask unsleeping energy. -But at Bradenham, his constant retreat, the “Hurstley” of his last -novel, all is natural and unconstrained. Here at least he is free. -Here he “drives the quill” with his famous father, reads and rides, -meditates and is mirthful. Here, with that gifted sister “Sa”--“Sa,” a -name soon afterwards doubly endeared to him through Lord Lyndhurst’s -daughter; “Sa,” who, while others doubt or twit, ever believes in and -heartens him--he dreams, improvises, discourses. The rest may treat him -as a moonstruck Bombastes,[12] but his lofty visions are real to -the gentle insight of affection. In the language of Shakespeare’s fine -colloquy:-- - - “‘Say what thou art that talk’st of Kings and Queens?’-- - ‘More than I seem, and less than I was born to.’-- - ‘Aye, but thou talk’st as if thou wert a King!’-- - ‘Why, so I am in mind, and that’s enough.’” - -[Illustration: DISRAELI THE YOUNGER - -_After a water colour by A. E. Chalon_] - -Already, like one of those his biting pen had satirised, he too, it -must be owned, teems with “confidence in the nation--and himself.” -There was a daredevilry about him, and in those days a romantic -melancholy, akin to that of the Spanish artist Goya. Far behind have -faded those consuming pangs of boyish restlessness, when fevered -imagination played vaguely on inexperience. Far behind, those schools -of “words” which never slaked his thirst for ideas, and where he -ran wild as rebel ringleader.[13] Far away now, those boxing bouts -witnessed by Layard’s mother. Past, that earliest and unpublished -novel of _Aylmer Papillon_,[14] which Murray praised but would not -print. Past, that fugitive satire of the “New Dunciad,” which does not -deserve to remain waste-paper.[15] Past, that abortive journal, which -in transforming an old periodical while adopting its name was to have -revolutionised opinion.[16] Vanished, too, those first outbursts of -unchastened brilliance under the favouring auspices of the Layards’ -fair kinswoman, Mrs. Austin. And the vista of his two long journeys -have receded; the alternate spells of Venice, the Rhine and Rome, -and afterwards of Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem. Past, also, the -strange malady for which his Eastern travels proved the stranger cure. -As he muses, the ball is at his feet. Yet, when the daydream fades, is -he, perhaps, after all, only Alnaschar of the broken glass, bemoaning -vain reveries amid the ruined litter of his overturned basket in the -jeering market-place? The seed-time of reflection is over: he pants for -action. No more for him the beaten tracks. Hitherto he had fed on books -and dreams. The former had led him to a pondered plan, with Bolingbroke -for clue and Pitt as example. The latter fired his ambition--his -presumption--to realise them by restoring vanished life to a now -mouldering party--by suiting old forms to new phases and heading them. - -Next morning the secluded scholar, so friendly a contrast with his -daring son, is bound for Oxford to receive his long delayed honours. -This very day that son’s earliest election-procession starts from the -doorway of the tranquil manor house.[17] Already the budding genius has -descried the dim future of his country, which he has proclaimed must be -governed for and through the nation; of which, too, he has already sung -in halting verse:-- - - “... ceased the voice - Of Great Britannia; vanished as it ceased - Her glance imperial.” - -What matter now the debts, the duns, the embarrassments for which he -blushes?[18] What matter the heartless allurements of siren fashion? -His course is clear before him. He must win. He “has begun several -times many things, and has often succeeded at last.” As for the taunt -of “adventurer,” what are all original spirits that “burst their -birth’s invidious bar” but adventurers? Such were Chatham,[19] and -Burke, and Canning, and Peel himself. But when the “adventurer” is -one by temperament as well as occasion, how miraculous becomes his -progress! “Adventures are to the adventurous.” - - “The man who with undaunted toils - Sails unknown seas to unknown soils, - With various wonders feasts his sight: - What stranger wonders does he write!” - -Many of us remember Disraeli in his age as he sauntered dreamily and -slowly with the late Lord Rowton, and none who ever heard one of his -last orations in the House of Lords can forget how, even when he was -in pain, he sprang from his seat with the quick step of youth. The -physical charm had disappeared. Few who gazed on that drawn countenance -could have discerned in it the poetry and enthusiasm of his prime; -only the unworn eyes preserved their piercing fires, and the sunken -jaw was still masterful. A long discipline of iron self-control, much -disillusion, growing disappointments with crowning triumphs, and -latterly a great desolation, had subdued the fiercer force and the -elastic buoyancy of his hey-day. Yet the intellectual charm, and the -spell of mind and spirit had deepened their outward traces. Fastidious -discernment, dispassionate will, penetrating insight, courage,[20] -patience, a certain winning gentleness underneath the scorn of shams, -stamp every lineament. Below habitual _insouciance_, intensity, -bigness of soul and purpose are prominent. The arch of the noble brow -retains its height and curve. Surrounded though he be by friends and -flatterers, he looks lonelier than of old. “I do not feel solitude,” he -said, “it gives one repose.” Interested in every movement, and even in -every trifle that engages thought, his gaze appears more turned within. - -We know from Lady John Manners,[21] and from other sources, how he -loved flowers, and forestry, and study during the dinner-hour, more -than all the social glitter; how he communed with the unseen; how -far-reaching were his sympathies; what interest and curiosity he -displayed in every form of career and purpose; how often to all the -splendour which he had conquered he preferred converse with the weak, -the lowly, the suffering; how his wise counsel and inexhaustible -resource were sought and coveted by cottagers, by the toilers whose -cause he made his own, by princes; how delicately considerate he was -in his appointments, and for all in contact with him, how he would -sacrifice a keen personal wish rather than disturb a pleasure or -abridge a holiday; and yet how his playfulness of fancy mixed in pithy -ironies with his very considerateness. A familiar instance--that of the -attached servant who was to enjoy “the pleasures of memory”--occurred -as he lay dying from the illness long and bravely concealed even from -his intimates. He was truly unselfish, and he was never known to blame -a subordinate. If things went wrong, he took the whole burden on his -own shoulders. He exerted infinite pains to understand the conditions -of and the organisations affecting labour.[22] The Buckinghamshire -peasants still cherish his memory; and it may be said with truth that -the deepest affections of this extraordinary man, whom vapid worldlings -sneered at as a callous cynic, were reserved for his country, his -county, his home, and his friends, for effort and for distress. Many -a young aspirant to fame, moreover, in literature or public life, has -owed much to his generous encouragement. He liked to dwell on the -vicissitudes of things,[23] and his own motto, “Forti nihil difficile,” -represents his conviction. In private, when he was not entertaining, -his habits were of the simplest. In two things only he was profuse; -books and light. He loved to see every room of Hughenden illuminated -with candles. He was utterly careless of money. It is related, that -when he accepted the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, he sent for the -celebrated Mr. Padwick, and asked for a necessary advance. “On what -security?” inquired the sporting speculator. “That of my name and my -career,” was the answer. And the money was at once forthcoming, and -punctually repaid. As is well known, he would often make his greatest -efforts half dinnerless; and his delight was, after the strain and -the plaudits had ceased, to betake himself in the dim hours of dawn -to the supper which his devoted wife, who spared him every detail of -management, had prepared, and there to recount to her the excitements -of the debate. The pair would certainly have endorsed those verses of -Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, of which Byron was so fond-- - - “But when the long hours of public are past, - And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last, - May every fond pleasure that moment endear, - Be banished afar both discretion and fear! - Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, - He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, - Till lost in the joy, we confess that we live, - And he may be rude, and yet I may forgive.” - -His public and touching tribute to Mrs. Disraeli deserves repetition -here; nor will the reader forget, among many hackneyed stories, -that stern rebuke to the triflers overheard discussing the reasons -for his marriage--“Because of a feeling to which such as you are -strangers--gratitude.” - -It was at Edinburgh, in 1867, when his old ally, Baillie Cochrane (Lord -Lamington), toasted Mrs. Disraeli as her illustrious husband’s helper -and his own dear friend for many years before Disraeli met her.[24] -Disraeli opened with the characteristic remark that their mutual -intimate “certainly had every opportunity of studying the subject to -which he has drawn attention.” And he went on to say, “I do owe to -that lady all I think that I have ever accomplished, because she has -supported me with her counsel, and consoled me by the sweetness of her -mind and disposition.” Six years after his marriage, he had dedicated -the three volumes of his _Sybil_, “To one whose noble spirit and gentle -nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the suffering; to one whose -sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment have -ever guided their pages; the most severe of critics, but--a perfect -wife.” - -Several of his nice things were said in Scotland, and one of the nicest -was his compliment when he was installed Rector of Glasgow University. -He described his visit to Abbotsford, whither he had repaired in -his extreme youth with an enthusiastic letter from John Murray the -First, his father’s old friend, to Sir Walter Scott, that father’s -old acquaintance. “He showed me,” he said of the laird, “his demesne, -and he treated me, not as if I was an obscure youth, but as if I were -already Lord Rector of Glasgow University.”[25] - -Disraeli’s marriage was the happiest turning-point in his career; -and that which had begun partly in interest, soon developed into the -warmest, the most entire and the most mutual affection. Mrs. Disraeli, -at a great country house, always used to commence conversation by -the query, “Do you like my Dizzy? Because, if you don’t----” From -another, on a visit most advantageous to him, Disraeli departed, -despite pressing remonstrance, on the plea that the “air” disagreed -with Mrs. Disraeli--because she had complained of their host’s -rudeness. It will one day be found that to this gifted and selfless -woman, English history owed much at several serious conjunctures. I -cannot resist relating a good story in another vein. Shortly after -Disraeli’s marriage, a guest at Grosvenor Gate, pointing to a portrait -of the late Mr. Wyndham Lewis, Mrs. Disraeli’s first husband and with -Disraeli member for Maidstone, asked him whom it represented. “Our -former colleague,” was the rejoinder. At a much later date Mr. Frith -was painting a group in which Disraeli figured. As her husband was -going, Mrs. Disraeli whispered to the artist, “Remember one thing, if -you don’t mind, his pallor is his beauty.” She was afraid that his -complexion would be coloured. To the last she would say, as she did -during his interrupted speech at Aylesbury in 1847:--“_He_ mind them! -Not a bit of it. He’s a match for them all.” Sir Horace Rumbold has -just told us how, at the scene of Disraeli’s investiture as Earl, a -sob was heard from the crowd. It was the grief of an old and faithful -servant sighing, “Ah! If only _she_ had lived to see him now!” - -Like childless men in general, he was devoted to children. More than -one still living remembers his happy words of playful intimacy. To -women from the days of his pet Sheridans to those of the present Lady -Currie, he appealed with magnetism throughout his career, and there are -few more romantic episodes than his meetings, after hesitation, with -the elderly Mrs. Bridges Williams at the fountain in the Exhibition of -1862, the existing correspondence which ensued, and the thumping legacy -which crowned it. One who has read that correspondence has assured me -that its gentle chivalry is most striking. In the midst of engrossing -occupation he never ceased to cheer the old lady with gossip of his -doings, and even to argue with her, as on an affair of state, regarding -the advisability of Struve’s seltzer water as a remedy. - -Of Queen Victoria’s affection for him I will only say that it was -because he treated her as a woman. She grew to lean on his wisdom and -his judgment. On more than one occasion he acted as mediator in her -family. He was sincerely attached to her. His witticism, when asked for -a reason of her favour, will bear repetition: “I never argue, I never -contradict, but I sometimes forget.” - -His influence over the late Queen was more remarkable even than has -hitherto been disclosed. And in this regard I am able to state that, -while out of office, he negotiated with extreme tact, under delicate -circumstances, the peerage conferred on a most amiable prince, now -no more; and further, that at each stage of all its bearings Queen -Victoria consulted and deferred to his counsel, kindness, and resource. -I may add that he also devised a means of providing the same lamented -prince with an absorbing occupation. - -He was a firm friend; loyalty he always extolled as a sovereign -virtue. Not many have the faculty for friendship in old age as Lord -Beaconsfield had it. His passion for mastery, his addiction to mystery -were rivalled by his immense faithfulness. If he was always “the man -of destiny,” he was also ever “faithful unto death.” And his real -friendships were warm as well as constant. While he was at Glasgow to -be inaugurated Lord Rector of its University, he heard good tidings of -an old associate. “Mrs. Disraeli and I,” he wrote, “were over-joyed, -and we danced a Highland fling in our nightgowns.” The picture raises a -smile,[26] but it also strikes an unexpected chord. - -Of music and of art in general he was a devotee, as many passages -in his novels attest. He had his own theories of their influence on -composition and on literature. Murillo was his favourite painter, -Mozart his favourite composer. He ever deplored the insensibility -of the Government to the duty of elevating taste for the beautiful. -When the Blacas collection of gems was in the market at the price of -£70,000, the Administration of the day at first refused to entertain -the purchase, but Disraeli persuaded them by offering to find the money -himself, if they persisted. In this case, as in so many others (notably -that of the Suez Canal shares), imagination forwarded the public -interest; for this collection is now worth some threefold of what was -expended. When a great work by Raphael was offered to the Government, -and Disraeli’s colleagues were in doubt, Disraeli sent for the leading -dealer, in whose hands the commission had been placed, inspected the -picture himself, discoursed charmingly and critically of its merits, -with the result that it is now in the National Gallery. Since even -trifles about the eminent possess interest, I may add the following -story of his old age. He was showing a distinguished visitor (still -living) his family portraits at Hughenden. He paused before a pastel -of a lovely child wafted by seraphs through the skies. “That,” he -exclaimed, “is a pet picture; observe how exquisitely the draperies of -the angels are arranged. _The baby’s me!_” His fondness for beautiful -form extended to his own handwriting. - -In matters of courtesy he was old-fashioned and punctilious. To the -last he resented that grotesque disfigurement which was beginning to -make manners ugly before he died. Even at an earlier date, “Manners are -easy,” said “Coningsby,” “and life is hard.” “And I wish to see things -exactly the reverse,” said “Lord Henry,” “the modes of subsistence less -difficult, the conduct of life more ceremonious.” - -In his fiction it was often objected that he over-depicted great -splendour and supreme beauty; that it was thronged with “daughters” and -mansions “of the gods.” But, if he erred in these respects, it was from -familiarity and not from ostentation, as Lady John Manners has pointed -out at some length. “It must be recollected,” she wrote, thinking of -_Lothair_, “that many of those who most appreciated him, and whose -friendship he warmly reciprocated, are surrounded in daily life by -a certain amount of state which employs their dependants.” So, too, -with regard to the peaceful and prosperous marriages of those homes of -forty years ago on which he delighted to dwell. He loved the gentle -Buckinghamshire landscape, with its treasures of association in every -cranny, more than all the remembered luxuriance of the South and glare -of the East. And it should also be remembered that his works abound in -sympathetic descriptions of all kinds and conditions of men, including -the strangest and humblest. They were taken from personal observation, -and he himself would penetrate the queerest haunts to gain the most -curious insight. The common and the uncommon people fascinated him, for -in them he found ideas; the middling charmed him less. He delighted to -invest the seemingly commonplace with significance, and also to strip -the pretentiously important of its wonder. Not even Dickens, as I shall -hint hereafter, knew or loved his London better. I shall also, in the -proper place, touch on the exotic element in his style and accent. -Mr. John Morley has aptly compared it to Goethe’s dictum about St. -Peter’s, that, though it is _baroque_; it is always the expression of -something great and not merely grandiose. His big words are never for -little things. Undoubtedly some of his earliest works are deficient in -taste; and there is a certain fierce hardness in their abrupt violence. -Mrs. Austin advised him in omissions from the original manuscript -of _Vivian Grey_; it was to women that he owed his training in these -directions. His knowledge was vast and profound, and he exercised the -habit of pursuing long trains of thought in reflection. He seldom -worked at night, preferring that season for brooding over his ideas. -But at all times, contrary to the superficial opinion, he worked long -and hard, sometimes over ten hours a day. His gift of divination never -dimmed his passion for study, until old age and ill-health warned -him that it must pause. He never ceased to deplore the want of “that -boundless leisure which we literary men need.” To the last, as Lord -Iddesleigh has pointed out, he studied the Bible in the earliest hours. -In church attendance he was what Mr. Gladstone used to call a “oncer.” -He was a regular communicant. - -By success he was never inflated, by reversals never depressed, -although by nature elastic.[27] It was not until 1874 that his -power became wholly unfettered, and then foreign crisis claimed the -attention that he longed to bestow on social improvements and Colonial -Confederation. His three previous spans of office had been equally -brief. For some twenty years he headed, at intervals, a despairing -Opposition, whose mistrustful murmurs had to be stilled, whose doubts -had to be dispelled, and the immense difficulties of whose management -he has graphically portrayed in a notable passage from his _Life of -Lord George Bentinck_. To the printed diatribes which assailed him he -was indifferent. In parliamentary generalship, demanding an infinite -insight and management, an instant recognition of movements in the -mass, and “creation of opportunity,” he was unsurpassed even by Peel, -who played on Parliament “as on an old fiddle.” To his urgent control -even so early as 1854, and when out of office, the correspondence with -Spencer Walpole affords a striking insight. “My dear Walpole,” he -writes on November 29 of that year, “remember to write to the Queen -if anything of interest happens to-night. Tell somebody, Harry Lennox -or another, to send me a bulletin by this messenger of what is taking -place, but not later than ten o’clock, as I shall retire early, that -being my only chance. Be positive that the financial statement will be -made on Friday.”[28] - -What he really valued in power was its faculty of influence. Otherwise -it was bitter-sweet. He once told a high aspirant for high office, that -as for its _pleasures_, they lay chiefly in contrasting the knowledge -it afforded of what was really being done with the ridiculous chatter -about affairs in the circles that one frequented. - -His wit, his brightness of humour, and lightness of touch, long -prevented many of his contemporaries from taking him seriously. -Literary statesmen are often belittled by their generation; imaginative -statesmen, always. They have usually to await a career after death. The -stereotyped character imposed on him till his pluck and power appealed -to the nation at large was largely due to the old Whigs (“oligarchy is -ever hostile to genius”[29]), who for years refused to regard him with -anything but amusement, yet whose drawing-rooms had been the readiest -to applaud those sparkling sallies of 1845 and 1846 that demolished the -premier whom they too wished to destroy; that coterie so long trained -to make popular causes preserve their exclusive power, and of whom he -wrote in 1833, “A Tory, a Radical, I understand; a Whig, a democratic -aristocrat, I cannot comprehend.” It was not due to the Peelites, who -frankly hated him as an open foe. Even the Liberals (many of whom he -counted as personal friends), when he warned them of the underground -rumblings, ominous of social earthquake in Ireland, shrugged their -shoulders; and when he was reported, glass in eye, to have answered a -duchess inquisitive about the exact date of the dissolution with “You -darling,” they split their sides, and guffawed, “There he is again!” -They agreed with his old family acquaintance, Bernal Osborne (if it -was he), to whom the heartlessness was attributed of saying, when Lord -Beaconsfield was stricken with his lingering illness, “Overdoing it, as -usual.” - -And yet how interesting it is to find Disraeli in the Grant-Duff -diaries discoursing eagerly in the faint dawn on Westminster Bridge of -Lord John Russell. Perhaps Disraeli’s greatest admirer among opponents -was Cobden, and that admiration was warmly returned. Both of them -had one great virtue in common, and a rare one, especially in public -life--gratitude; and both could afford to be generous. Read the letter -now first disclosed by Mr. John Morley, whose literary appreciation of -Disraeli is manifest, in which Disraeli sought to win Gladstone with -“deign to be magnanimous.” - -Disraeli’s own magnanimity--frankly owned by Mr. Gladstone--was -conspicuous though it is unfamiliar. During the decade of the ’fifties, -on at least four occasions[30] he offered to sacrifice his personal -position to Graham, Palmerston, and Gladstone successively for the -interests of his country and his party. In 1868 and 1869 he indignantly -defended the last against the carping “tail” of his supporters, -rebuking alike the “frothy spouters of sedition,” and those who -preferred remembrance of “accidental errors” to gratitude for “splendid -gifts and signal services.” His unstinted praise of worthy foes, his -conduct even towards the ostracised Dr. Kenealy, are constant proofs of -a leading _trait_. He always forebore to strike an opponent to please -the whim or the passion of the popular breeze. - -_À propos_ of Mr. Gladstone, who himself paid a tribute to the absence -of rancour in his rival, I may be permitted to recall an anecdote -told me by the late Sir John Millais. When Disraeli stood (though -then suffering, he refused to _sit_) for his last portrait, his “dear -Apelles” noticed his gaze riveted on an engraving of the artist’s -fine portrait of the great premier. “Would you care to have it?” he -inquired. “I was rather shy of offering it to you.” “I should be -delighted to have it,” was the reply. “Don’t imagine that I have ever -disliked Mr. Gladstone; on the contrary, my only difficulty with him -has been _that I could never understand him_.” And Carlyle himself -thawed when Disraeli, whom he had so long hysterically abused, but -many of whose ideas, as I shall prove, he shared, offered him public -recognition in a letter which gave as a reason for uninheritable -honours, “I have remembered that you too, like myself, are childless.” -But Carlyle, who had aspersed him, never denied that he looked facts -in the face without mistaking phantoms for them. Even from the first -he owned length of view. In his old age a certain far-awayness of -expression was very noticeable. - -I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone. It was well for England that two great -attitudes towards great questions should have been thrown into sharp -relief for nearly a score of years by the duel between two great -personalities; and it was also well for Disraeli that “England does -not love coalitions.” We know from Mr. Gladstone’s own lips that much -in his rival had won his respect, while from Mr. Morley we glean that -Mr. Gladstone even struggled with a sort of subacid liking for one whom -he too could “never comprehend.”[31] The letters of both after Lady -Beaconsfield’s death are refreshing instances of how sworn enemies of -the arena may grasp hands under the softening solemnity of bereavement, -and for a moment forget the hard words which, under irritation, they -certainly used of each other. - -Disraeli was older than Gladstone, and had been early acquainted with -him. In the ’thirties he sat next to “young Gladstone” at the Academy -dinner, and regretted that he had been relegated from “the wits,” with -whom he had been ranged in the year previous, to “the politicians.” -In the ’forties Disraeli made one of his few mistakes in prognostic, -when he wrote to his sister, “I doubt if he has an ‘avenir’;” but the -significance of Gladstone’s resignation at this juncture on “Maynooth,” -and the peculiar circumstances of the Peelites must be borne in mind. -Disraeli could scarcely then divine the surprises of oscillation in -store. - -Except in vigour of undaunted character, and in a sort of inward -loneliness, their qualities were opposed. The intensity of the one was -austere, imperious, imposing, and didactic; of the other, buoyant, -lively, and poignant. Frequently the flippancy of certain leaders -provoked his gravity; more frequently the solemnity of others upset -his own. Gladstone moved by violent reaction and hasty rebound; -Disraeli, by a spring of step, it is true, but of a step measured, -wary, and equal. Disraeli stamped himself on his age; it was often -the “Time-Spirit” that impressed itself on Mr. Gladstone, a list of -whose changeful “convictions”[32] from 1836 to 1896 might fill a small -volume. Again, Disraeli’s utterance left a stronger sense of reserve -power, of something serious behind the veil. Mr. Gladstone’s phases, -always sincere, in the main struck more the conscience of certain -sections; Disraeli’s ideas, the national feelings. Mr. Gladstone’s -subtleties were those of a theologian; they did not quicken the lay -mind. Disraeli’s were the subtleties of an artist; they put things in -new perspectives. It might be said that by nature and unconscious bent, -the one hid simplicity under the form of subtlety, while with the other -the process was the converse. In oratory, Mr. Gladstone convinced by -height and redundance of enthusiasm, by depth of feeling and weight or -wealth of words and gestures; Disraeli, more by grasp, incisiveness, -and point; his imagination played all round many sides of his subject. -Gladstone’s eloquence resembled the storminess and the mist of the -North Sea; Disraeli’s, the strange lights and shadows, the subtle and -tideless lustre of the Mediterranean. As Mr. Gladstone warmed to his -theme, he increased in eloquence; his perorations are always great. -It was in peroration that Disraeli sometimes failed, except in his -after-dinner speeches, which never missed fire from start to finish. - -Mr. Gladstone was saturated, Disraeli tinctured, with the classics. -Mr. Gladstone was essentially the scholar, and he was Homeric, while -Disraeli was Horatian and Tacitean. His ready acquaintance with Latin -masterpieces was shown when he first took the oaths as Chancellor -of the Exchequer, and hit off a most happy quotation on the spur of -the moment; nor will it be forgotten that once, when he was citing a -classic in the House, he added, “Which, for the sake of the successful -capitalists around me, I will now try to translate.” - -Again, despite Mr. Gladstone’s immense versatility, there was always -something cloistral about him. He himself confessed that till he was -fifty he did not “know the world.” I venture to doubt if he ever knew -it, and it was just this academic simplicity that so often led his huge -brain-power to deal with unsubstantial material. - -Mr. Gladstone will not live through his books. He was far more a -writer than an author, though he was always distinguished in all his -undertakings. But he was doctrinaire; and he was almost devoid of any -real sense of humour. On the appearance of “Nicholas Nickleby” he -owned its merit, but singled out its pathos with the criticism that -he was grieved by the absence from it of the religious sentiment--“No -Church!” In this respect Disraeli and Gladstone were brought into -amusing contrast during the Bulgarian atrocity campaign. Mr. Gladstone -had characterised the Premier’s attitude as “diabolical.” Disraeli, -in a speech, referred to Mr. Gladstone’s having called him “a devil.” -Mr. Gladstone denied the impeachment, and asked for verse and chapter. -Disraeli rejoined by writing that “the gentlemen who so kindly assist -me in the conduct of public affairs” had used their best endeavours to -ascertain the precise time and place when the Prince of Darkness had -been named, but hitherto without success. - -A famous bookseller, with whom both statesmen frequently conversed, -used to recount that Disraeli once inquired, as was his wont, what -of new interest was forthcoming. He mentioned one of Mr. Gladstone’s -Vatican pamphlets. “No,” was the answer; “please not that. Mr. -Gladstone is a powerful writer, but nothing that he writes is -literature.” - -In the House of Commons Disraeli had schooled himself from the first -to conceal the emotions of a nature naturally quick and sensitive. -He early lit on two mechanical devices for this purpose: the one was -to stroke his knees regularly with his hand, the other to scan the -clock. When he was much angered it was only by a change of colour that -his agitation was ever betrayed. It must be confessed that he loved to -“draw” Mr. Gladstone, and those who remember how, when Disraeli sat -down and relapsed into impassivity, Mr. Gladstone jumped up with a look -of rage and a voice of thunder, will admit that both performances were -perfect. But the audience expected the scene which became habitual, -and even supreme actors are influenced by the expectation of their -audience. Neither Gladstone nor Disraeli ever stooped to ill-nature. -Great men are not petty. But the moral indignation of the one, and -the intellectual indignation of the other, which sometimes exchanged -places, lent the semblance of pique or of quarrel. Disraeli’s dislike -of spleen is well displayed by what he once said of Abraham Hayward, -the caustic reviewer: “If that man were to be run over in the streets, -you would see his venom swimming in the gutters.” - -In debate, Disraeli’s characteristics were a quick readiness and an -inexhaustible power of diverting discussion to new channels and of -defeating expectation. The occasion when, in reply to Mr. Whalley -concerning the Jesuits, he answered that one of their pet devices was -to send over Jesuits in disguise to decry the Jesuits, will recur -to the memory. His power of literary illustration needs no comment. -Two brilliant instances are that of the boots of the Lion embracing -the chambermaid of the Boar in connection with the _Edinburgh_ and -_Quarterly Reviews_, and that charming one about the Abyssinian -expedition, where he reminded us that the standard of St. George was -flying over the mountains of Rasselas.[33] In retort he was supreme. -Two of the best instances are to be noted in the rejoinder to Peel -about “candid friends” and Canning, and in the pause he made when in -a much later speech he said, “I have never attacked any one” (cries -of “Peel”) “unless I was first assailed.” I shall relate some others -hereafter. His self-imposed impassiveness of demeanour in the House was -that of a sentinel on bivouac; it became exaggerated by the contrast -of his illustrious compeer’s extreme excitability. Disraeli was very -zealous for the honour of the House in which he passed the greater -portion of his life. On one occasion a young and violent adversary -insinuated that Disraeli had told a lie. Disraeli calmly cleared -himself to the general satisfaction, and his denouncer began to feel -uncomfortable; still more so when he was sent for to the great man’s -private room. What was his surprise when he was shaken warmly by the -hand. “We all make mistakes,” said Disraeli, “when we are young. But -please to remember all your life that the House of Commons is a house -of gentlemen.” - -For sheer insight into the march of ideas and reach of vision there is -no comparison between the two. Even in the ’forties Disraeli perceived -that the coming choice lay between absolute democracy and a monarchical -democracy. Afterwards--in the early ’fifties, while monarchy in England -was still far from popular--he laid his plans--as is apparent from -his contributions to his organ, _The Press_, in 1853--to popularise -monarchy and educate democracy before enfranchising it; and, not -till that was accomplished, to re-imperialise Great Britain. “He has -not,” he wrote in 1853 of Lord John Russell, “comprehended that for -the last twenty years the choice is between the maintenance of those -institutions and habits of thought which preserve monarchy, and that -gradual change into absolute democracy to which Tocqueville somewhere -rashly considered all the tendencies of our age impel the destinies -of Europe.... The Whigs should have been conservative of the reformed -constitution, and have developed it....”[34] While Gladstone was -refining a rather tortuous conscience into making the forlorn Peelites -alternate between the Conservatives and the Whigs, Disraeli was -reconstructing and developing a national party. While Gladstone and -Sidney Herbert, in righteous indignation at Peel’s memory, were enraged -at the delinquency of not struggling for absolute protection when the -Derby Ministry assumed office, Disraeli showed that the _principle_ of -his struggle (continued as regarded the sugar repeal) had been land -and labour. He must now benefit these by alleviations, rather than, as -a responsible Minister, attempt an upheaval of what the nation had -finally endorsed, and set private opinion as to particular measures at -variance with the possibility of government at all. Had he done so he -would have been doing what Fox himself had not attempted with regard -to Catholic emancipation, what Lord John Russell had not thought of -in 1847, what no responsible Minister could have compassed, and what, -Lord John Russell added, the Whigs could not do in 1835. And yet, out -of sheer honest hatred, he was vilified by those “high and stubborn -spirits who, with the severity peculiar to those censors who cannot -aspire to be consuls, refuse to acknowledge that there could be any -virtue of necessity, ... and could not enlarge their comprehension of -the requisites of a statesman beyond quotations from ‘Hansard.’ There -were surely some juster thinkers in the House of Commons who must have -trembled at the doctrine that men in office are rigidly to carry out -the opinions they proposed in opposition.”[35] That, he points out, is -the function of opposition, and the duty of supporting opinions which a -nation has cancelled never arises unless those opinions have sent you -to office. As he puts it, “Themis is the goddess of opposition, but -Nemesis sits in Downing Street.” In the overthrow of Peel lay a very -different moral, and by that overthrow he wished to lay bare the choice -between “Liberal opinions” and “popular principles,” between Peel’s -sudden adoption of the “physical enjoyment” theory of regeneration and -his own. By that destruction he eventually ended the Whigs and Peelites -alike, and set before the country the true choice that awaited it, -instead of the perplexity of parties[36] which, joined to detestation -of himself, caused the coalition of 1853 and prevented the contrast of -the ideas which really divided the minds of men from being prominent in -true proportions. - -As a practical statesman, Disraeli thought more of those moral elements -by which the State can square private duty with public interest; -Gladstone, more of those elements above and beyond conduct. Gladstone -was perhaps more of an apostle, Disraeli of a seer. Gladstone owned a -noble heart with lofty spiritual standards, and an enormous quality of -moral resentment; but his Church views coloured his life as much as -his religious convictions, while his minute and perplexing scruples -too often changed the forms of his enthusiasms, led zeal to chime with -prejudice, and sometimes sent him astray altogether into self-deception. - -Gladstone was a strange compound of diverse elements--of Highlander and -Lowlander, of Scotland, Liverpool, Oxford, and Italy. In some respects -he might even be termed the Dante of politics; but in others he was -occasionally deemed its Ignatius Loyala. Disraeli, on the other hand, -depended on his singular force of independence and of native sight -and foresight. Those who admired the early Gladstone as Sir Galahad -never wished him to sit on the seat of Merlin; nay, Gladstone himself -perpetually deemed Disraeli, Machiavelli, or even Cagliostro. In -relation to Disraeli, Gladstone would have perhaps addressed England -with “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” while Disraeli -might have retorted by the witticism of Sarah, Duchess of Marborough, -on the eagerness of James the Second to drag his country to heaven with -him. It was just Disraeli’s originality and length of view that caused -him to be maligned as well as misunderstood, though by some his conduct -towards Peel was not unnaturally eyed askance. And yet, in Mr. Morley’s -“Life,” Lord John Russell is to be found vindicating his own share -in that transaction,[37] and Sir James Graham himself admitting that -Peel provoked what he suffered.[38] In the eyes of many, Gladstone -was Homer’s “old man of the sea” trying to hold Proteus, and yet none -proved more Protean through enlarging aspirations than “the old man” -himself. Perhaps Gladstone regarded the world more as the “Pilgrim’s -Progress,” Disraeli more as “Vanity Fair.” Gladstone had more sail,[39] -Disraeli more ballast. The one floated on waves of agitation, the other -desired a strong government by steadying the people and attaching them -to institutions. Moreover, Gladstone constantly viewed the State from -the standpoint of his particular Church opinions. Disraeli believed -that the principle of the Revolution had never been perfected by the -due development of popular institutions. He agreed with Pym that “the -best form of government is that which doth dispose and actuate _every_ -part and member of a State to the common good.” - -Disraeli owned, of course, his foibles, though he was too proud ever -to be very vain. As we shall find later on, when I come to his faults -of temperament, his grasp of ideas occasionally pressed them too -literally both on life and letters. He tended to overstrain his lights -and shadows. His imagination sometimes ran riot in its colours, and -throughout tended to exaggerate the forms of events, though hardly -ever their significance, which he was often the first to divine. He is -said to have cherished some superstitions about lucky days and unlucky -colours, but for these I cannot vouch. I can, however, for the fact -that he was once seen by intimates to wear a green velvet smoking-coat, -though one of the few occasions on which he troubled the newspapers -was to refute the slander of having, when young, appeared in green -trousers.[40] And here I may perhaps be pardoned for inserting a -slight story about Mrs. Disraeli, which comes from the same source as -the last. Dr. Guthrie was once staying at Grosvenor Gate, and invited -his hostess to visit him at Glasgow. “I will,” she smiled, “if you -will promise to wear your kilt in the streets.” “Perhaps I will,” -he replied, with hesitation. “You had better be careful, Guthrie,” -interposed Disraeli, “for that woman, I assure you, means what she -says.” - -In taste and in phrase he was naturally extravagant, but his epigrams -were never for the sake of paradox, and were always the summaries -of wisdom and reflection. They were light, not frivolous; they -were imaginative proverbs. There never was a wittier man, and his -wit lent itself to his ironic humour. He loved effects that struck -imagination, but ever for a crucial purpose. It was said of him by -an intimate that one of his sentences--and in conversation he was -sparing--left more behind than a long talk with others of consummate -talent. As for the scathing sarcasm--his weapon of self-defence during -his earlier stages--at times over-savage and belying his normal -cheeriness--sobriety of judgment is compatible with-- - - “The stinging of a heart the world hath stung.” - -But, undoubtedly, the too quick transitions of a susceptible fancy -from-- - - “Grave to gay, from lively to severe,” - -often irritated and even offended not only the dull, but the serious. -And yet in life, as in literature, is there more than one step in the -descent from the sublime to the ridiculous? - -Like all celebrated wits, he suffered both from the ascription of his -own _bons mots_ to others, and from those of others being fathered -upon him. Thus the “without a redeeming vice” (about Lord Hatherley) -was his, not Westbury’s, while the “dinner all cold except the ices,” -was said not by him, but by Sir David Dundas. His pithy sentences were -simply one manifestation of his naturally laconic turn of mind. - -He was occasionally over-adroit, especially in his desire to gain -distinguished recruits for his party; and he sometimes, perhaps, -magnified the machinations of secret conspiracies, although their -hidden tyranny was gauged by him with unerring instinct. His -predilection both in art and nature was for extremes. Full of -atmosphere himself, he owned the social nerves which suffer overmuch -from lack of it in others. He detested bores, those masterpieces of -nature’s bad art. One of them (if I may say so without disrespect to -his kindness and amiability, since departed) has told with artless -humour how at one of the last dinner-parties that Lord Beaconsfield -attended, he engaged him in conversation, but was pained to notice -how ill and absent he seemed. Suddenly, however, on the arrival of a -distinguished guest, a Russian diplomatist, the great man brightened -and grew young again, as if by miracle! - -After his elevation to the peerage,[41] when he would often revisit the -“glimpses of the moon,” and watch new members with rapt interest, on -one occasion he listened patiently to a long speech of ideal dreariness -from the lips of one unknown to him. He inquired, as usual, who the -speaker was, and learned that Mr. ---- had no other peculiarity but -deafness. “Poor fellow!” he sighed, “and yet he seems unaware of his -natural advantages. He cannot hear himself speak.” - -Of Disraeli’s attitude towards fashionable society, as well as towards -that which really fascinated him, I shall say more in my eighth -chapter; but one incident of his old age must be presented here. I -can vouch for it, since it was told me by an eye-witness--a political -opponent. - -It was after “Peace with honour”[42]--after he had “descended from -the Teutonic chariot,” after the congress where he discovered the -alternative Russian map of Bulgaria, concealed by diplomacy, where -he earned Bismarck’s undying praise and admiration. The scene was a -magnificent reunion in an historic mansion. All the fine flower of -society was gathered in a galaxy of splendour and of grandeur. In one -of the saloons a brilliant crowd was awaiting Lord Beaconsfield’s -entry. As the big doors opened, a thrill went through them. Haughty -ladies in the feeling of the moment made obeisance as if to royalty, -while that pale figure with the inscrutable smile passed along their -serried ranks. Unmoved and immovable, he went straight forward, his -eyes fixed on the future, scarcely conscious of their presence, except -for his recognition of their homage. - -Such are some of his leading features. They combine and reconcile the -seeming contradictions of a nature at once calm and impetuous, deep -and light, astute and far-seeing in affairs of importance; in trifles, -careless. These contrasts, united by genius, pursue the forms of his -mind--his ideas. He was, of course, no monster of consistency, but the -ideas that animated his actions and utterance sprang from a singularly -consistent outlook and a most definite personality. In every case they -were the outcome on the one hand of his race, on the other of his -nationality. The antithesis between nationality and mere race is most -important, and too often ignored. There is no such thing as a nation -of a single strain. The national idea is the fusion of reconcilable -races, the creation of an artificial and ideal individuality, of a -consolidating pattern; the absorption of discordant races and their -replacement by a central idea which subordinates instinct to society. -Later civilisation means little else, if we reflect, than a gradual -process of this description; and it is not a little curious that the -distinctive greatness of English literature is largely due to the -admission and naturalisation of foreign influences--to England’s free -trade in ideas, to the openness of her literary ports. What would it -have proved had it remained purely insular; if Italy, France, and -Germany had not infused both form and spirit; above all, if it had not -been inspired by the noble rhythm of the Englished Bible and by the -supreme models of Greece and Rome? Disraeli’s wit, which is to find a -due consideration hereafter, is half eighteenth century in form, half -talmudic. The shape of his ideas was also partly determined by the time -of his birth and by the circumstances of his home. - -He was born at the parting of the ways. His early reading, and, -indeed, his cast of mind, were steeped in the style of the eighteenth -century; but the movements of the nineteenth, the significance of -the French Revolution and of Napoleon, who had made all things new, -simmered in him from the first, and his earliest reflections were how -to attune the democratic idea to the vital institutions of an ancient -empire. As regards his home, he was truly, as he has put it, “born in -a library;” and this circumstance contributed as much as others to -a certain detachment of thought which in politics afforded him the -clue to the character of movements, and, above all, to the movements -of character; in fiction, as will be apparent from my ninth chapter, -it led him to regard things as they appeared of themselves, and not -always as they seemed to others; while under the play of fancy he -transposed their outward environments to accentuate their essence. Of -his father, himself a most interesting study, I shall have more to say -in my eighth chapter. Here, I only wish to draw attention to the fact -that Isaac Disraeli’s influence on his son’s ideas was twofold. On -the one hand, his views on “predisposition,” on the use of solitude, -on the true meaning of education, on historical “cause and pretext,” -on the hollowness of “joint-stock felicity,” on the self-recognition -of creative minds before their late acknowledgment by contemporaries, -with others glanced at in my later chapters, were directly derived by -Disraeli from his father. From him, too, he inherited his fondness for -Burke. On the other hand, Disraeli’s native leanings reacted against -many of that peripatetic philosopher’s opinions. His interpretation -of the Bible was, if not at variance with, at any rate different -from his father’s,[43] and was, I fancy, shared by his sister. His -admiration for Bolingbroke, as genius and constitutional interpreter, -was in direct opposition, just as that father’s own dispassionate -outlook remained independent and often the reverse of his own early -associations. Byron, however, entered Disraeli’s mental being through -his father; and of three main influences on his boyhood--the Bible, -Bolingbroke, and Byron (strange conjunction!), the last was not the -least. - -Outside politics, the contradictions combined in Disraeli’s mind are -patent throughout his fiction, and they were reconciled by his leading -idea that everything great in the world springs from individuality -alone. Thus, for example, as regards Destiny, he was both for free -will and fatalism--the individual will was for him the universal fate. -If a man, he has said, is ready to die for an object, he must attain -it unless he has utterly miscalculated his powers. Then again, the -twin sympathies of his mind, both with antique authority and modern -revolution, its bias towards the Chartism of _Sybil_, the chivalry of -her aristocratic deliverer, and the discipline of her time-honoured -creed, towards the noble personality of “Theodora” in _Lothair_ (his -finest heroine),[44] and the noble ideals of “Coningsby”--these are -reconciled by the national idea, the idea that sets earned privilege -and reciprocal duties above and against illimitable and irresponsible -“rights.” “Conspiracies are for aristocrats, not for nations.” - -In this regard it is most interesting to observe the influence of -Shelley on Disraeli--a subject which has been treated by Dr. Richard -Garnett in a masterly monograph.[45] From many of his conclusions I -dissent, but his facts are most enlightening, and form an entrancing -comment on the character of “Herbert” in _Venetia_. He shows that -probably through Trelawny, whom he met often at Lady Blessington’s, -Disraeli gleaned many recollections and even thoughts and words, -unpublished till the Shelley Papers were given to the world some -years afterwards; that his description too of the ethereal poet as -“a golden phantom” is probably Trelawny’s own; that subtle shades of -admiring appreciation are to be traced throughout; that Disraeli was -undoubtedly influenced by Shelley’s thoughts. The discovery of these -in some portions of the _Revolutionary Epick_ (where “Demogorgon” -is introduced) does not seem to me conclusive; nor are the verbal -resemblances singled out for comparison very striking. I cannot close -this branch of my subject without noticing a fact almost unknown. -In 1825, when Disraeli was a stripling, he published an anonymous -pamphlet, which may be found in the British Museum, on the restrictions -enforced by the Government upon the British working of American mines. -The tract is boldly dedicated “by a sincere admirer” to Canning,[46] -as “one who has reformed without bravery or scandal of former times or -persons; asking counsel of both times; _of the ancient times that which -is best, of the modern times, that which is fittest_;” and it further -contains this remarkable passage, if we remember its date, about -America-- - -“... The prosperity of England mainly depends upon its relations with -America, and in proportion as the energies of America are developed and -her resources strengthened, will the power and prosperity of England be -confirmed and increased.” - -In the domain of politics Disraeli, as I shall show at length, divined -in the national institutions the chief engine for the revival of unity -and for social regeneration. When he denounced the Conservatism of the -early ’forties as an “organised hypocrisy,” he did so just because, as -it seemed to his eyes, the hopes once centred on Peel as the restorer -of a truly “national” party were being shattered by his failure, under -ordeal, to govern, to develop the institutions which he was called -on to preserve, by his erection of “registration” into a party idol, -by his policy of polls, by his cold indifference and suspicion of -the youthful regenerators, who confronted the middle classes with -the middle ages. “Whenever,” indignantly urged Disraeli in 1845, -“whenever the young men of England allude to any great principle of -political or parliamentary conduct, are they to be recommended to go -to a railway committee?” And he found in his once chief’s temperament -of discouraging formality and timorous desire for “fixity of tenure,” -for _staying_ power, a reason for the stultification of the House of -Lords: “... It is not Radicalism; it is not the revolutionary spirit -of the nineteenth century which has consigned ‘another place’ to -illustrious insignificance; it is ‘Conservatism’ and a Conservative -dictator.” - -Disraeli was one born with aristocratic perceptions, yet with a bent -“popular” rather than “democratic” in the strict sense of those -terms. “Democracy” in the concrete he considered as the unsettlement -of compact nationality through the undue preponderance of a single -class; democracy in the abstract he considered as a lever for ambitious -tribunes. But the welfare of the people was ever his chief concern, -and he knew full well that it is constantly foiled by the side-aims -of those vociferous on its behalf. When he first appeared on the -political horizon, neither of the great historical parties owned -popular sympathies. The Tories dreaded “Radicalism” because they were -blind to the possibilities of its adoption into the order of the -State. Of the Whigs, democratic enthusiasms were at once the tools and -the abhorrence. Disraeli determined to infuse them into those free -yet settled institutions of which the Tories were the natural but -forgetful guardians. His main purpose from the outset was to implant -the new ideas of freedom on the ancient soil of order; to engraft them -productively without uprooting the native undergrowth; to harmonise the -modern democratic idea with those English traditions which had always -harboured its older forms. His work was to accommodate federal to -feudal principles; to render democracy in England national and natural; -to popularise leadership; to make democracy aristocratic in the truest -sense of the term; to undo the closed aristocracy of caste and to -revive the open aristocracy of excellence wherever displayed. My next -two chapters investigate this idea; and it will be found afterwards, -when I discuss his notion of empire and his attitude towards our -colonies, that his ideals of Great Britain’s destiny and responsibility -flow straight from this ruling outlook. The same consideration applies -to the many other problems which I shall discuss in the light of -Disraeli’s relations to them. Throughout, in one form or another, and -in many applications, the free play of responsible individuality forms -the keynote. He constantly opposes it alike to the barren uniformity -of republican models, and to the centralising dictatorship whether of -groups or of tyrants. He contrasts the personal with the mechanical. -The State in his eyes should prove the sympathetic expression of the -whole community. These aspects will find ample exposition hereafter. In -this place I wish only to quote their bold and broad emphasis in the -unfamiliar pamphlet of _What is he?_ with one citation from which I -opened this chapter. It will explain those passages in his _Runnymede -Letters_ and _The Spirit of Whiggism_, where he expects and adjures -Peel to head a “national party” and to replace confederacies by a -creed. It will also illustrate that passage in the election address to -High Wycombe during 1832, which preludes his mission as the renewer of -a popular Conservatism. “... Englishmen, behold the unparalleled empire -raised by the heroic energies of your fathers, rouse yourselves in this -hour of doubt and danger, rid yourselves of all that political jargon -and factious slang of Whig and Tory, two names with one meaning, used -only to delude you, and unite in forming a great national party....” - -“The first object of a statesman,” he says (and he was then barely -twenty-nine years of age), “is a _strong Government_, without which -there can be no security. Of all countries in the world, England most -requires one, since the prosperity of no society so much depends upon -public confidence as that of the British nation.” - -He then declares that the old principle of exclusion (common alike to -the Whig oligarchs and the debased Toryism of Eldon) is dead. - -“... The moment the Lords passed the Reform Bill from menace instead -of conviction, the aristocratic principle of government in this -country, in my opinion, expired for ever.” The democratic principle -becomes necessary to maintain a Government at all. “If the Tories,” he -continues, “indeed despair of restoring the aristocratic principle, and -are sincere in their avowal that the State cannot be governed with the -present machinery, it is their duty to coalesce with the Radicals,[47] -and permit both political nicknames to merge into the common, the -intelligible, and the dignified title of a national party.”[48] - -He proceeds to prove in a few decisive strokes that the towns are now -the safeguards against any military invasion of rights, and that a -coalition between the then Whigs and the then Tories is impossible; -the only alternative, therefore, is the inclusion of the democratic -principle. - -“Without being a system-monger,” he resumes, repeating the refrain -of his previous _Revolutionary Epick_, “I cannot but perceive that -the history of Europe for three hundred years has been a transition -from feudal to federal principles.” If not their origin, these -contending principles have blended with all the struggles that have -occurred.--“The revolt of the Netherlands impelled, if it did not -produce, our revolution against Charles I. That of the Anglo-American -colonies impelled, if it did not produce, the Revolution in France.” -“This,” he says, “is not a party pamphlet, and appeals to the passions -of no order of the State.” “It is wise,” he concludes, “to be sanguine -in public as well as in private life; yet the sagacious statesman -must view the present portents with anxiety, if not with terror. It -would sometimes appear that the loss of our colonial empire must be -the necessary consequence of our prolonged domestic discussions. Hope, -however, lingers to the last. In the sedate but vigorous character of -the British nation we may place great confidence.” The very pressing -unsettlement of those days will afterwards claim a mention; nor should -I now omit Disraeli’s sentence in his _Crisis Examined_, to the effect -that “Lord Grey refusing the Privy Seal and Lord Brougham soliciting -the Chief Barony” were “two epigrammatic episodes in the history of -reform that never can be forgotten.” - -Mr. John Morley has well observed that about all Disraeli’s utterance -there was something spacious. The ideas that I am about to examine -are not to be brushed away by the sneers of triflers. Whatever may -be thought of them, and however they may fairly be encountered by -criticism, dissented from or condemned by judgment, they are still -alive. Disraeli bathed the political landscape in a large and luminous -atmosphere. To literature, as I shall hope to show, he lent a fresh and -original charm. Over existence he never ceased to spread the glow of -endeavour, of aspiration, and of purpose. His heart was with the youth -and the labour of England. He made for the strength and union of every -divergent class. He struck and stirred the national imagination. - -Disraeli’s sincerity was that of a master in the world’s studio, -imbuing the fainter shapes around him with the vivid colours of the -true pictures in his own brain. It was that, also, of a great man of -action who translates dreams into deeds. It is not often that the -literary mind is allied to a practical bent. He himself has reminded us -that such an union--“as in the case of Caius Julius”--is irresistible. -He was always himself, and never under “the dangerous sympathy with the -creations of others.” He believed that “every man performs his office, -and there is a Power, greater than ourselves, that disposes of all -this.”[49] - -Disraeli’s European prominence is evidenced through the space occupied -by the polyglot literature relating to him in the book catalogue alone -of the British Museum. It extends to eleven of those huge pages. His -importance at home before he became pre-eminent is shown by a shower of -virulent abuse. - -Science assures us that the difference between life and death is -that the former holds the powers of growth and reproduction, while -inanimateness is incapable of either. A great man is surely one who -possesses and imparts these qualities of life. Disraeli, without -question, powerfully affected the thought of his generation and the -destinies of the future. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION - - -I wish to head this chapter by a most striking passage hitherto -unquoted. It occurs in the fourth of Disraeli’s Letters to the Whigs, -published in the first numbers of _The Press_--an organ founded by him -in 1853 for the exposition of his views.[50] It unites the brilliance -of his youth to the ripeness of his prime. It is a wonderful forecast -of the future, and it embodies his ideas at a time when the “Coalition” -alliance of Peelites, Whigs, and Manchester Radicals--one of “suspended -opinions”--was entering on the career which closed so disastrously. In -1833, the “aristocratic” principle had been crippled. The problem now -was how to bring the new democracy into line with an old monarchy-- - -“... I see before me a numerous and powerful party, animated by chiefs -whose opinions in favour of all that can advance the cause of pure -democracy have been openly proclaimed. Amongst that party no doubt -there are some more moderate than others, some who march blindfold -towards the goal which those of bolder vision see clear through the -mists of faction. But all unite in the march of the caravan towards -the heart of the desert; and if there be those who then discover that -the fountain which allures them on is but the mirage, it will be too -late to return, and it will be destruction to pause.... If England -is to retain that empire which she owes to no natural resources, but -to the various influences of a most complicated and artificial, but -most admirable and effective social system, _she must gather into one -united phalanx all who hold the doctrine that England, to be safe, -must be great_. To continue free, _she must rest upon the intermediate -institutions that fence round monarchy, as the symbol of executive -force, from that suffrage of unalloyed democracy_ which represents the -invading agencies of legislative change. Our system of policy must be -opposed to all those who by rules of arithmetic would reduce the empire -on which the sun never sets to the isle of the Anglo-Saxon, and leave -our shores without defence against a yet craftier Norman. Our measures -of reform must be so framed as to gain all the purposes of good -government, yet to admit under the name of reform no agency that tends -by its own inevitable laws to the explosion of the machinery whose -operations you pretend it will economise and quicken. - -“By what plausible arguments were the dwellers in the Piræus admitted -to vote in the Athenian assembly?... Hence from that moment arose the -dictator and the demagogue, ... the flatterer and the tyrant of mobs; -hence, the rapid fluctuations, the greedy enterprises, the dominion -of the have-nots, the ruin of the fleet, the loss of the colonies, -the thirty tyrants, the vain restoration of a hollow freedom ... -licence--corruption--servitude--dissolution. Give the popular assembly -of Great Britain up to the _controlling_ influence of the _lowest_ -voters in large towns, and you have brought again a Piræus to destroy -your Athens.” - -We shall see ere the close how he foiled the schemes for representing -the refuse of opinion. - - * * * * * - -A great statesman is a man inspired by great ideas; and, since all -history is the visible and particular development of unseen and -universal ideas, it must happen that a great statesman versed in -experience and intuition forecasts and foreknows. For the prophet is -the inverted historian or philosopher: he descries the currents ahead -which the other analyses in retrospect. “To be wise before the event,” -urged Disraeli more than once, “is statesmanship of the highest order.” - -Throughout the preceding century two broad aspects of politics, that -is to say of applied national energy, present themselves in England. -They were and remain divergent, but they are and remain mutually -instructive and indispensable. - -The one regards our kingdom as an elastic society, the outcome of -native habits expressing national temperament; as a soil of distinctive -character and capacity, to which new plants, if destined to flourish, -must be acclimatised, but on to which, or against which, they must -never be forced. - -The other--the “philosophic” school--regards the soil as a mere medium -to be exhaustively manured by chemical processes for the introduction -of growths of every origin, as a sort of “subtropical garden.” It -perceives an idea suitable to other communities or other conjunctures, -and immediately hastens to transplant it. In like manner it perceives -an institution suitable to the race and temper of England, but -unsuitable to some alien race and temper. It is at once for forcible -adoption. It prefers the rigid logic of abstract notions to the -flexibilities of human nature. Its attitude is mechanical instead of -being sympathetic. - -The one is in its essence national; the other, if we reflect, -international. The aim of the one is the evolution of individuality -embodied in a nation; that of the other, the ultimate effacement of -nations, and their replacement by cosmopolitanism. - -These are the logical issues of each system. With the former Burke -identified himself, when he recoiled from following his party into -the anti-national abstractions of the French Revolution. With the -latter Mr. Gladstone identified himself, when he broke loose from the -national idea, and advocated the “right” of every small community -to “govern” itself. The one depends on popular privileges and class -responsibilities evenly distributed--the outcome of national treaty -and compromise, the tact born of struggle, not of upheaval. The other -hinges on inherent “rights,” which are infinite, ubiquitous, abstract, -and indefinite. - -Of the former, from first to last, Disraeli, like Canning before him, -was a fearless exponent. “Change,” he said in his famous Edinburgh -speech of 1867, “is inevitable, but the point is whether that change -shall be caused only in deference to the manners, the customs, the -laws, the traditions of the people, or whether it shall be carried -in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general -doctrines.... The national system, although it may occasionally -represent the prejudices of a nation, never injures the national -character, while the philosophic system, though it may occasionally -improve ... the condition of the country, precipitates progress, may -occasion revolution and destroy states....” His attitude to the repeal -of the Corn Laws depended, as I shall prove in another chapter, on this -dominant idea. It is in close connection with that idea of personality -which I have already characterised, for nationality is itself the -ideal personality which combines races in communion. It is also in -close connection with that mode of government which seeks salvation -from society and not from the State; and it is bound up with all the -characteristics that distinguish a “nation” from a “people.” Disraeli’s -achievement was to adjust the spirit of England to the spirit of the -age. - -Our two parties are, after all, only the strategical forces in the -big campaign of ideas. Without great generals they constantly tend to -forget the issues which nominally enlist them. - -At the period when Disraeli first stood on the hustings, “Reform” had -been forced on the Whigs by the “Radicals,” just as “Repeal” was to be -forced some twelve years later on the Conservatives by the Cobdenites. -To be a “Radical” committed one to neither of the legitimate camps. -The Whigs had entered on their kingdom after long years of hopeless -exclusion. They were bent on engrossing office, and none detested the -new-fangled doctrines more than Lord Grey. Disraeli’s purpose from the -very first was to widen and popularise Toryism, but never to maintain -the exclusive system of the Whigs in power by the popular machinery to -which they so often resorted. In a purged and quickened Conservatism -lurked irresistible possibilities, true benefit to the nation and -empire at large, and a golden occasion for himself. - -I think that if the oil could have blent with the vinegar, if Peel -could ever have coalesced with Lord John Russell, Disraeli would -have had less chance in politics, and must have been thrown back on -literature. - -His consistency stands out prominent in review. It is one of ideas. -It is only by dint of long retrospect over a whole career that we can -decide in the case of any statesman whether he has controlled his -phases, or drifted with them. - -From the first Disraeli compassed his reconciliation of new ideas -with ancient institutions on definite principles, at once national -and constructive, as opposed to destructive and international -theories. He desired it through engraftment, not uprootal; through -the defence and development of a constitution which is, in fact, the -British _character_ expressed by the modulations of the national -voice, and not by the shouts of mechanical majorities. He wished in -every case to preserve its efficiency by strengthening its tone and -enlarging its vents; while, in the process, he displayed an insight -into the instincts of classes which the conversance of genius with -ideas can alone empower. Of modern, of cosmopolitan “Liberalism,” he -said, as late as 1872, that its drift and spirit were “to attack the -institutions of the country under the name of reform, and to make war -on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the -pretext of progress.” - -What then were the “new ideas” and the “old institutions”? - -That form of government which is most national will be best, because -the least liable to sudden and social revolutions; and that form will -be most national which is most genuinely representative; while true -representation is one of power distributed, not centred. It follows -that any Government that does not mirror the nation will break down. -This was the real meaning of the French Revolution. - -“... ‘You will observe one curious trait,’ said Sidonia to Coningsby, -‘in the history of this country--the depository of power is always -unpopular. As we see that the Barons, the Church, and the King have in -turn devoured each other, and that the Parliament, the last devourer, -remains, it is impossible to resist the impression that this body also -is doomed to be destroyed.’--‘Where then would you look for hope?’--‘In -what is more powerful than laws and institutions, and without which -the best laws and the most skilful institutions may be a dead letter -and the very means of tyranny, in the national character. It is not -in the increased feebleness of its institutions that I see the peril -of England; it is in the decline of its character as a community.... -You may have a corrupt Government and a pure community; you may -have a corrupt community and a pure Administration. Which would you -elect?’--‘Neither,’ said Coningsby, ‘I wish to see a people full of -faith, and a Government full of duty.’” - -Are the modern ideas of untempered democracy--Carlyle’s “despair of -finding any heroes to govern you”--compatible with real representation, -as contrasted with the mechanism of elective systems or the shams of -paper constitutions? Can these ideas ever prove expressive of true -nationality--the _character_ of a united people--as opposed to the -conflicting instincts of unreconciled races, or the factious claims of -divergent groups? Is not the mechanical subordination to the “State” -of Socialism hostile to an individual “nationality”? How, in the -ferment of modern progress, can the new wine be prevented from bursting -the old bottles? How can government and free action, independence -and inter-dependence, be allied in living reality? How can opinion -be organised into allegiance to leadership? How can traditions be -rendered less formal? How can discipline and development, authority -and elasticity, combine? How can the machinery of national custom be -brought into real accord with popular aspirations, and the mainstay of -character with the modern speed of movement? “Certainly,” as Carlyle -insisted, “it is the hugest question ever heretofore propounded to -mankind.” - -In the proem to the _Revolutionary Epick_, Disraeli says that the -French Revolution marks the greatest political crisis since the Siege -of Troy. The paroxysm of that Revolution produced two hollow fictions, -the “Rights of Man” and “the Sovereignty of the People.” - -Before illustrating the train of Disraeli’s ideas, let me touch on -these two doctrines. - -_The Rights of Man._ What is the real meaning of a dogma which -annihilates the duties of citizens in declaring the licence of their -“rights;” in affirming personal claims as distinguished from popular -or legal privileges; in destroying the community by exalting the person? - -It was based on Rousseau’s figment of a “Return to Nature.” - -All “Returns to Nature” are, if we reflect, a harking back to chaos, -a denial of the whole self-developing social state which God has -ordained for man. They are the protests of instinct against order, of -“the People” against “the Nation,” of isolation against fusion, of -“naturalism” against “spiritualism.” One way or the other, they signify -relapses into brute force and animal conflict. - -Rousseau’s “Return” was a _sentimental_ one, for sentimentality -often attends materialism. The best side of Rousseau was that he -did undoubtedly leaven the irreverence of his generation with some -feeling for God. But Rousseau invented a past on which he founded his -hopefulness of sensibility--an inverted optimism. He cried aloud in -hysterics, “Man is born free; everywhere he is in chains.” To what -freedom was man born? The freedom of confusion. The order that he -evolves is the parent of his true freedom--the freedom to work and -serve, and to receive justice. The real “Rights of Man” are the rights -to justice that order creates. And if that order belies its name, -and injustice, disorder, masquerade as divine government, why then -Fifth-Monarchy men, French Revolutions, ruining cataclysm, witness -to the heavenly destinies, and order is born once more. Rousseau’s -sobs resembled those of the hero of French melodrama, who under stage -moonshine and stage misfortune, always ejaculates, “Ma mère!” His mere -emotion worked on nerves of sterner fibre and facts of harder quality. - -Since Disraeli’s death, Nietzsche has propounded a physical “Return to -Nature,” which, however, excludes the humanitarian side of the French -“Equality.” He has sighed for a gigantic brood of antediluvian anarchs. -He has tried to make anarchy heroic. But a monster is not even a man, -still less a hero. - -All such systems must fail, because, as Disraeli has finely said, “Man -is born to adore and to obey.” They contradict the spiritual facts -of our structure. For the true Right of Man is to lead wisely and be -led loyally in public affairs; neither to steal nor be stolen from -in private. These are what Carlyle terms his “correctly articulated -_mights_.” Leadership, loyalty, and social honesty belong to no “state -of nature” of which record or even guess is possible. And Disraeli -agreed with Carlyle when the latter wrote, after the former had in -effect said the same: “... ‘Supply and demand’ we will honour also; and -yet how many ‘demands’ are there, entirely indispensable, which have to -go elsewhere than to the shops!” - -But Nietzsche’s theories are luckily untranslatable into action, and -inconsistent with any form of the “state.” Rousseau’s theories, on -the other hand, are the more dangerous because they are feasible. The -“Rights of Man” is a doctrine absolutely at issue with the “Rights of -Nations.” The abstract notion of universal “rights” is also at variance -with the pressing impulses of physical “wants.” Low wages and long -hours are not redressed by the apparatus of ballot-boxes or the cant -of independence. Physical needs due to economical causes, which can be -modified only by the earnest statesmanship of leaders rising to their -responsibilities, are not to be dismissed by the vague generalities of -“moral force.” This aspect is powerfully emphasised in _Sybil_. - -“... Add to all these causes of suffering and discontent among the -workmen the apprehension of still greater evils, and the tyranny of -the ’butties,’ or middlemen, and it will with little difficulty be -felt that the public mind of this district was well prepared for the -excitement of the political agitator, especially if he were discreet -enough rather to descant on their physical sufferings and personal -injuries, than to attempt the propagation of abstract political -principles with which it was impossible for them to sympathise.... It -generally happens, however, that where a mere physical impulse urges -the people to insurrection, though it is often an influence of slow -growth and movement, the effects are more violent and sometimes more -obstinate than when they move under the blended authority of moral and -physical necessity, and mix up together the rights and the wants of -man.” - -The pendant to the “rights” is the “_equality_” of man. Here, again, -nothing is more self-evident than man’s natural inequality. The whole -development of societies, which we call civilisation, is for the very -purpose of redressing or relieving these inequalities of occasion, -of equipment. By nature man, like the brute, starts without equality -and without rights. By his “mights” he has created these ideas, and -acquired something of their substance by his superior faculties, by -the spiritual energy which differentiates him. His “rights” spring -from the “law” which he has propagated. The political equality which -he has founded more than compensates him for the personal inequality -of his beginnings. The “personal equation,” indeed, would imply -the reversal both of his nature and of his craftsmanship; of all -conditions, moreover, compatible with variety of character and freedom -of action. It means, in fact, a denial of the existence of that natural -aristocracy which we find in every class and every order, and which -decides that everywhere the game of “follow my leader” must be played. -What is wanted is a real aristocracy which “claims great privileges for -great purposes.” What is always dangerous is the monopoly of action -by an aristocracy that shirks its duties, that plays at government, -that is dilettante in leadership or sybarite in life; or that, as -in the three decades preceding the French Revolution, revenges its -exclusion from influence by multiplying sinecures. It is such a class, -as contrasted with individuals--wherever found--of genuine capacities, -that so often evoked Disraeli’s irony, and has lately been satirised -by Mr. Barrie in a whimsy accentuating the natural inequality of man. -Speaking through the lips of “Egremont,” in that fine passage where he -cheers “Sybil”--the noble daughter of the people, disappointed by the -Charter and the Chartists--with a vista of the future, Disraeli says: -“The mind of England is the mind ever of the rising race. Trust me it -is with the People.... Predominant opinions are generally the opinions -of the generation that is vanishing.... It will be a product hostile to -the oligarchical system. The future principle of English politics will -not be a levelling principle; not a principle adverse to privileges, -but favourable to their extension. _It will seek to ensure equality, -not by levelling the few, but by elevating the many._” And again, the -great manufacturer, “Millbank,” in _Coningsby_, is made to remark -(after giving distinction as the basis of aristocracy), “that ‘natural -aristocracy’ ought to be found ... among those men whom a nation -recognises as the most eminent for virtue, talents, and property, and, -if you please, birth and standing in the land. They guide opinion, and -therefore they govern. I am no leveller. I look upon an artificial -equality as equally pernicious with a factitious aristocracy; both -depressing and checking the enterprise of a nation. I like man to be -free--really free; free in his industry as well as his body....” As -Carlyle puts it: “... I say you did not make the land of England; -and by the possession of it you are bound to furnish guidance and -government to England....”--“A high class without duties to do is like -a tree planted on precipices.”[51] - -It should not be forgotten, and I shall afterwards illustrate, that -in these and many other respects Carlyle’s teaching chimes with -Disraeli’s. “... That speciosities which are not realities can no -longer be.... What is an aristocracy? A corporation of the best, of the -bravest.... Whatsoever aristocracy does not even attempt to be that, -but only to wear the clothes of that, is not safe; neither is the land -it rules in safe.... We must find a real aristocracy....” And so with -priesthood. - -In “Angela Pisani”--a dazzling dream-picture of three generations -in France--by Disraeli’s early intimate, Lord Strangford, occurs a -striking outburst against natural equality, that solecism in ideas, -that remainder biscuit of the French Revolution. - -“... Go and preach equality to the deep seas, ... that the oyster is -equal to the whale or the starfish to the shark; you will succeed there -sooner than you will be able to alter the relative grades of the five -races of humanity. It is a _law_ which man must unmake himself, ere -he can change, that the Caucasian will aspire as the highest, and the -negro will grovel as the basest.” Disraeli’s attitude was the same in -_Contarini Fleming_:-- - -“... The law that regulates man must be founded on a knowledge of his -nature, or that law leads him to ruin. What is the nature of man? In -every clime and every creed we shall find a new definition.... What -then? Is the German a different animal from the Italian? Let me inquire -in turn whether you conceive the negro of the Gold Coast to be the same -being as the Esquimaux who tracks his way over the Polar snows? The -most successful legislators are those who have consulted the genius -of the people.... One thing is quite certain, that the system we have -pursued to attain a knowledge of man has entirely failed....” - -Although “Equality” ignores alike the instinct and the clue of “race,” -it asserts in practice the pandemonium of race-warfare; because in -imagining that man is born equipped, it ignores his great acquirement -of “nationality,” which blends the reconcilables of “race” into -one ideal whole--a league of common traditions, language, habits, -institutions, duties, and privileges--of “solidarity”--without the bond -of blood or the necessity for bloodshed. Nationality thus brings the -specific qualities of races into the common stock. Disraeli has often -harped on the theme that a “nation” is no “aggregate of atoms,” but a -corporate individuality; and indeed the force of individuality lies -at the root of all his conceptions. But in truth the whole fiction of -“natural equality” springs from a sort of native envy. As Goethe sings-- - - “Men stick at reaching what is great, - Yet only grudge an equal state. - To deem your equals all you know-- - No envy worse the world can show.” - -Crises, according to him in 1833, were determined by causes far other -than these figments of “natural” laws-- - -“... When I examine the state of European society with the -unimpassioned spirit which the philosopher can alone command, I -perceive that it is in a state of transition--one from feudal to -federal principles. This I conceive to be the sole and secret cause of -all the convulsions that have occurred and are to occur.”[52] - -All this has proved, and is proving true. The civil and legal -“equality” of united nationality and of unifying empire is replacing -the material “equality” of classes or of individuals. - -“Natural” equality means “physical” equality, which was the true gist -of the many cries of the French Revolution. But its hurricane swept -away classes and privilege alone; the “equality” it created, that is -to say, was social and civil. Of civil “equality” Disraeli was always -the spokesman; for in England, civil equality means abolition of -monopolies. Privilege, as the ennobling boon of merit, stands open to -all, and the limits of the political orders or social classes to which -it is attached, are corrected by the wide freedom of public opinion -and discussion. “I hold that civil equality,” said Disraeli at Glasgow -in 1873, “the equality of all subjects before the law, and a law which -recognises the personal rights of all subjects, is the only foundation -of a perfect commonwealth.” His most striking utterances in _The Press_ -from 1853 to 1859, and this Glasgow address, are perhaps his most -notable commentaries on this theme. - -These are no mere subtleties. “Physical equality” has exercised a -very practical bearing on the doctrines of the Manchester School and -their relations to Sir Robert Peel’s double reform, above all to -those interests of Labour which both affected. I shall show this in -my next chapter.[53] Suffice it now to say that Disraeli descried -that in adopting the “Right to physical happiness” doctrine of -Manchester, at the very moment when he unshackled commerce and undid -the Corn Laws, Peel had adopted a principle which logically demands an -“unlimited employment of labour”--a thing inconsistent at once with his -restriction of Labour by removing the restraints on competition, and, -as Disraeli thought, with the very existence of states and of nations. -Peel thus became unconsciously _cosmopolitan_, at the very juncture -when he settled commerce and unsettled labour-- - -“The leading principle of this new school,” explained Disraeli, -treating of “equality” in 1873, “is that there is no happiness which -is not material, and that every living being has a right to share in -that physical welfare. The first obstacle to their purpose is found in -the rights of private property. Therefore these must be abolished. But -the social system must be established on some principle, and therefore -for the rights of property they would _substitute_ the rights of -Labour. Now these cannot fully be enjoyed, _if there be any limit to -employment. The great limit to employment, to the rights of Labour, and -to the physical and material equality of man is found in the division -of the world into states and nations._ Thus, as civil equality would -abolish privilege, social equality would destroy classes, so material -and physical equality strikes at the principle of patriotism, and is -prepared to abrogate countries.” - -It was just this perception that enabled Disraeli nearly thirty years -earlier to predict--as we shall see--so much that has come and is -coming to pass. - -The third cry of the French Revolution was _Human Brotherhood_. The -Christian ideal of inter-nationality, which, it is to be hoped, may -ultimately be realised through the Brotherhood of Nations, is the -Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. But the fraternity -of revolution eliminated both the Brotherhood of Nations and the -Fatherhood of God. The result was a murderous anarchy--a Brotherhood of -Cain. - -Such disorders compelled their own cure in their own country. Although -they flooded Europe with opinions at war with beliefs, and upheld a -cosmopolitan model, they brought the French a deliverer who declined -into a despot. Personality avenged herself. And the eventual remedy for -Napoleonism has in its turn been found in a Republic which, discarding -the sovereignty of man, has also discarded the sovereignty of God. - -The effects of such a government are best perceived in two recent -and remarkable books, M. Demolin’s “À quoi tient la Supériorité des -Anglo-Saxons,” and M. Cerfberr’s “Essai sur le Mouvement Social et -Intellectuel en France depuis 1789.” The perpetual preponderance of the -bourgeoisie has raised a bureaucracy. The Charter of the Revolution -has culminated in middle-class officialism. The over-centralisation of -government by a few groups, who do not represent the varied elements -of a great nation, has caused a dearth of individual initiative, -a lack of personal self-reliance and social free-play, a tendency -towards the withering dictatorship of state-socialism, which underlies -the unfitness of France for colonisation, and which both these acute -thinkers depict and deplore; while the late Professor Mommsen, -commenting on Cæsar’s union of Democracy with Empire, employs the same -arguments. - -That state which best represents national character enjoys the freest -play of institutions, favours the finest shape of spirit, public -and private, will wield the most formative influence among nations, -expand the most easily, and propagate itself by expansion. And the -state which best embodies the national will, is where the legislature -is in keenest touch with the executive, where institutions are -organic, where representation is popular, and where centralisation -is foreign to the national genius. This has, unfortunately, never -been realised in France. She was centralised to an amazing degree -long before her memorable outburst; and De Tocqueville has well shown -that her attempts to unite judicial with legislative functions were -the surest signs of her lack of “solidarity.” Her great upheaval was -predicted by Bolingbroke more than forty years before it occurred, -just because he discerned that her ancient constitution ignored a -popular representation. De Tocqueville himself, too, only proves that -the aristocratic centralisation of old France has been replaced by the -collectivist centralisation of its new democracy. Both in spirit are -the same. Centralisation, whatever its forms, precludes the fair and -free distribution of activities. It hoards and absorbs the national -character. These are its original sins. But Disraeli has also pointed -out that, for many reasons, France remains the sole ancient country -that can afford to begin again. - -So much for the “Rights of Man.” One word still on “the Sovereignty of -the People.” - -“A people,” said Disraeli, as early as 1836, in his _Spirit of -Whiggism_, “is a species; a civilised community is a nation. Now a -nation is a work of art and a work of time. A nation is gradually -created by a variety of influences.... These influences create the -nation--these form the national mind.... If you destroy the political -institutions which these influences have called into force, and which -are the machinery by which they constantly act, you destroy the nation. -The nation, in a state of anarchy and dissolution, then becomes a -people; and after experiencing all the consequent misery, like a -company of bees spoiled of their queen and rifled of their hive, they -set to again and establish themselves into a society....” - -“The People” is a phrase of physiology, not of politics. It is an -abstruse name for a multitude; it ignores temperament and will. -Stripped of its high sound, its “Sovereignty” means government by -miscellany, the censorship of the census. Its political bearings are -as purely arithmetical as are the corresponding ethical bearings -of the Utilitarian creed; for they both disregard the many-sided -nature of man. Although derived from the speculations of some late -seventeenth-century republicans in England, the French application of -the theory--Burke’s “Wisdom told by the Head”--was entirely new. It -was not republicanism, the government by qualified members of ordered -classes: it was a despotism by the crowd as crowd. Such a “Democracy” -has never been the permanent scheme of government in any nation, -although “Liberal opinion” has relied too often on its simplicity. -“One man, one vote,” quantity instead of quality is in truth no -principle at all; and this attempt to confuse the Book of Wisdom with -the Book of Numbers is a feat reserved for modern periods alone. All -earlier systems of democracy were more or less discriminate, for no -indiscriminate state can cohere, and both freedom and order are based -on discrimination. The Attic Democracy demanded a degraded class of -unleisured, unemancipated slaves. The American Republic, which has -freed serfs and abolished leisure, possesses a peculiar stability, -which will outwear its occasional corruption because it exists through -a landed democracy--one impossible in overcrowded Europe--as we shall -find Disraeli emphasising in my American chapter. - -In a word, the logical outcome of the “Sovereignty of the People” -is the tyranny of plebiscite. But a “plebiscite” dispenses with the -very principle of representation, for where all decide equally, why -should any be represented? Political power exercisable by _all_ can -only arise when all are sufficiently qualified. But it is always the -_some_, never the _all_, who are competent. Even in their proper sphere -of merely personal choice, how false and fatal most plebiscites have -proved!--“Not this man, but Barabbas.” - -_Vox populi_ is only _vox Dei_ through the gradual institutions that -nations create; not through the wayward moods and momentary clamours of -“the people.” The whole problem is how at once to range and to raise -public opinion--the popular conscience; how to preserve moral, without -retarding material, progress; how to inspire “progress” itself with the -conviction that it consists in following the highest leadership; how, -again, to ensure such leadership by the constant association of duty -with privilege, and responsibility with power; how to recruit it by -every means that the spread of enlightenment can furnish. - - “On man alone the fate of man is placed,” - -sang Disraeli, in the _Revolutionary Epick_; and of “opinion”-- - - “Physical strength and moral were united, - And I, the pledge of their true love was born.” - -But for this purpose the national imagination must be reckoned with. -“... When that faculty is astir in a nation,” he has insisted, “it will -sacrifice even physical comfort to follow its impulses.” The struggle -will always continue for national unity, but it takes generations to -perceive that colonial federation, for example, is as requisite a -means to this idea as native institutions representing real elements. -“... A political institution is a machine; the motive power is the -national character,” says “Sidonia;” “Society in this country is -perplexed, almost paralysed. How are the elements of the nation to be -again blended together? In what spirit is that reorganisation to take -place?...” - -And again, so late as 1870, in the preface to _Lothair_, summarising -his works, Disraeli observes: “... National institutions were the -ramparts of the multitude against large estates exercising political -power derived from a limited class. The Church was in theory--and -once it had been in practice--the spiritual and intellectual trainer -of the people. The privileges of the multitude and the prerogatives -of the sovereign had grown up together, and together they had waned. -Under the plea of Liberalism, all the institutions which were the -bulwarks of the multitude had been sapped and weakened, and nothing -had been substituted for them. The people were without education, and, -relatively to the advance of science and the comfort of the superior -classes, their condition had deteriorated, and their physical quality -as a race was threatened....” - -On the other hand, the incongruity of modern political machinery was -never far from Disraeli’s thoughts. “... Whatever may have been the -faults of the ancient governments,” he muses in _Contarini Fleming_, -“they were in closer relation to the times, the countries, and to the -governed, than ours. The ancients invented their governments according -to their wants. The moderns have adopted foreign policies, and then -modelled their conduct upon this borrowed regulation. This circumstance -has occasioned our manners and our customs to be so confused and absurd -and unphilosophical.... He who profoundly meditates upon the situation -of modern Europe, will also discover how productive of misery has been -the senseless adoption of Oriental customs by Northern peoples....” And -Disraeli also distinguished between the direct democracy of multitude -and that of “popular” institutions. - -Nothing is less truly “popular” than “the people” as a “democracy,” -for the despotism of many is as odious as the arbitrary will of one, -and even more fatal than the government by groups of the few. This -is the distinction on which he expatiated in a famous speech of 1847 -at Aylesbury, where he contrasted “popular principles” with “Liberal -opinions”-- - -“As it is not the interest of the rich and the powerful to pursue -popular principles of government, the wisdom of great men and the -experience of ages have taken care that these principles should be -cherished and perpetuated in the form of institutions. Thus the majesty -that guards the multitude is embodied in a throne; the faith that -consoles them hovers round the altar of a national Church; the spirit -of discussion, which is the root of public liberty, flourishes in the -atmosphere of a free Parliament.” - -These, in the rough, are some of Disraeli’s ideas as to the new -democracy. From the first, as we shall see, he compassed the renewal -of the English democratic idea--that of democracy as an _element_--in -opposition alike to the State tutelage of the French, and to that -form of democracy which means the undue power of one _class_ in the -nation. His Reform Bill of 1867 was the accomplishment of his earliest -hopes, and the realisation of principles distinct from the spasms of -doctrinaire “Liberalism.” - -He regarded our Constitution--the quintessence of the English character -immanent in English institutions--as a real though limited monarchy, -tempered by a democracy which is in effect neither more nor less than -_a natural aristocracy_. - -“Aristocracy,” as a universal principle and not the badge of a -particular class, is the committal of political privilege far more -to representative influence than to powerful interests. A “natural” -aristocracy must comprehend and absorb the superiors of every class in -all their varieties. - -“The Monarchy of the Tories,” Disraeli exclaimed in his youth,[54] -“is more democratic than the Republic of the Whigs.” “The House of -Commons,” he exclaimed many years later, “is a more aristocratic -body than the House of Lords.” In each House, through all its -pronouncements, he recognised that the democratic element is -aristocratic, the aristocratic element democratic. That the -representative assembly of the Commons, which is elected, should -include all that is best from each class which by its qualities has -earned the boon of the franchise; that the representative assembly, -which is not elected, should include more and more not only those whose -aggrandisement stands for the interests of property, but those too -whose intellect and attainments entitle them to distinction. Nor, of -course, can the fact be ignored that through hereditary honours the -Estate of the Commons, which constantly reinforces the Estate of the -Peers, is, in its turn, as constantly refreshed from the Estate of -the Peers. And from first to last, in theory, as well as in action, he -upheld the land as the deepest foundation of England’s greatness of -character. I could quote passage after passage, both from books and -speeches, and regarding subjects the most various, in which he presses -home the substantial importance of a territorial constitution, and the -fact that the landed interest is in truth not only a safeguard for -freedom in peace and vigour in war, but also an industrial interest of -the highest order; and doubly so, because by sentiment, by tradition, -by its contribution to local government, to stability, to the social -scale of duties conditioning the tenure of property, to physique, its -influence is essential and exceptional. I shall content myself with -a citation from a speech of 1860, and it may be remembered that the -acute De Tocqueville singles out the self-seclusion of the official -bourgeoisie from the land as a chief contributory to the French -Revolution-- - -“... I look round upon Europe at the present moment, and I see no -country of any importance in which political liberty can be said to -exist. I attribute the creation and maintenance of our liberties to -the influence of the land, and to our tenure of land. In England -there are large properties round which men can rally, _and that in my -mind forms the only security in an old European country against that -centralised form of government which has prevailed, and must prevail, -in every European country where there is no such counterpoise_. It is -our tenure of land to which we are indebted for our public liberties, -because it is the tenure of land which makes local government a fact in -England, and which allows the great body of Englishmen to be ruled by -traditionary influence and by habit, instead of being governed, as in -other countries, by mere police.” - -Disraeli was always staunch to the land. After the Corn Law repeal, -he strove pertinaciously till he succeeded in removing those especial -burdens which unfairly hampered their free competition, and which were -originally the price of peculiar privileges then removed. But though -he always desired a preponderance of the various landed interests, he -never wished for their predominance. And to the last he refused to -allow any spurious cry for especial measures on their behalf to be -raised when a temporary depression due to the seasons arose, which -he always distinguished from permanent causes connected with social -revolutions.[55] - -To develop our ancient institutions was his lifelong specific. From -his earliest pronouncements, those in the _Letter to Lord Lyndhurst_, -those in _What is he?_ and in _Gallomania_, those in the _Spirit -of Whiggism_, those in his first election speeches, extending over -a period of five years before he was returned, in his three first -political novels, to his latest orations on Conservatism as a -“national” cause, he laid the greatest stress on the function and -origin of the three co-ordinate Estates of the Realm--“popular classes -established into political orders”[56]--which under monarchy form our -Constitution. And, while to the end he praised that mighty force of -public opinion which has in the person of the Press almost divested -Parliament of its ancestral office as “the grand inquest” of national -grievances, he still held the “organisation of opinion” to remain -the essence of the party system; while he increasingly desired the -presence in Parliament of elements at once various and choice,[57] and -the absence from its councils of any preponderant sects or sections. -Like Burke, he believed that Parliament should be under every changing -phase of national development “the express image of the feelings of -the nation;” like Bolingbroke, he deemed that it should be also the -collective assemblage of its wisdom. He regarded these “estates” as the -embodiment of great national interests organised on the principle of -distinct duties conditioning privilege; and he desired that, however -modified, they should never be altered so as to impair the great -national institutions as whose buttresses they were built to serve. - -Looking back historically, he discerned that some hundred and twenty -years before the birth of English Liberalism, a country and “Old -England” party, perplexed by dynastic and economic problems, confronted -too by the semi-scientific rationalism of a new age, had been first -schooled into comprehensive, generous, and “national” aspirations by -a great but lost leader, and had then been baffled by a set of great -families. Most of these began by professing Republican principles, -and all of them were branded in the literature of Queen Anne as the -“Venetian oligarchy.” These families aimed steadily for more than -a century at engrossing the whole power of the State. Their bias -from 1700 to Sunderland’s peerage bill in 1718, and from 1718 to the -Reform Bill of 1831 remained Republican. But so long as a king was -content to be a puppet dancing on their wires, and the nation to be -cowed into lethargy, they could dispense with theoretical forms, -mainly upheld as a ladder towards oligarchical power. From time to -time they assumed popular causes, but somehow they never succeeded -in themselves being popular, because their chief object as a party -organisation was “the establishment of an oligarchical government -by virtue of a Republican cry;”[58] because, as Disraeli has again -shown, English revolutions have always been in favour of privilege -traditionally distributed, while foreign revolutions have been against -all privilege whatever; because the “New Whigs” of Queen Anne and the -first two Georges sought a _tabula rasa_--a plain map, as opposed -to the picture with perspective of English institutions. They were -theoretically for “liberty and property”--the “_New_ Whig” catchword -of Queen Anne’s reign that replaced the old one of “Liberty” alone, in -which both Whigs and Tories joined at the revolution--but their bias -was always more for property than for liberty. They sought to amass -money and power through the amassing classes. They never studied the -varied interests of the whole nation. Walpole usurped their place, but -retained their influence, and by his virtue George I. reigned rather -than ruled over the towns instead of over the country. At first these -oligarchs kicked against the growing management of a sole minister, -but the shrewd steadiness of a superior will overmastered them, and -Newcastle remained on Walpole’s side--the insignificant representative -of their tamed confederacy. Trade ceased to follow the land, but -tended more and more to acquire it by purchase, until a fresh moneyed -oligarchy, which acquired fresh titles, was formed. The great Chatham -broke it for a time; and afterwards George III. obstinately mutinied -against its shackles. The French overthrow transformed the Whig cry of -Republicanism to the Whig cry of Jacobinism. “... Between the advent of -Mr. Pitt and the resurrection of Lord Grey, ... ever on the watch for a -cry to carry them into power, they mistook the yell of Jacobinism for -the chorus of an emancipated people, and fancied, in order to take the -throne by storm, that nothing was wanting but to hoist the tricolour -and to cover their haughty brows with a red cap. This fatal blunder -clipped the wings of Whiggism; nor is it possible to conceive a party -that had effected so many revolutions and governed a great country for -so long a period more broken, sunk, and shattered, more desolate and -disheartened, than these same Whigs at the Peace of Paris.” But all -proved fruitless, until at last the vast body of the nation--the real -“people”--reasserted themselves, and, by emphasising Parliamentary -reform, compelled oligarchs, mistrustful of them at heart,[59] to “do -something.” What they “did” was to aggrandise the middle classes, on -whom they had always relied; and a new revolution was the consequence. -Throughout more than a century and a half, despite noble and national -intervals, they constantly betrayed themselves as a “faction who headed -a revolution with which they did not sympathise, in order to possess -themselves of a power which they cannot wield.” In 1718 they “sought -to govern the country by swamping the House of Commons.” In 1836 they -were for “swamping” the House of Lords. Their drift was continued -against the national institutions, the conjoined independence and -inter-dependence of which thwarted their inveteracy. Their plan in the -end became avowedly cosmopolitan; and when that occurred it became -doubly dangerous, for to “centralisation”--monopoly of power--was added -the no-principle of “_laissez-faire_,” the abandonment of leadership to -chaos. - -The great national struggle against Napoleon practically obliterated -party distinctions in England, although there was still a remnant -of those who are, in Burke’s words: “... the most pernicious of all -factions, one in the interest and under the direction of foreign -powers.” A lull ensued. Both Toryism and Whiggism withered; the first -from sheer inanition of those popular principles which Canning in -vain sought to rekindle; the second from the sheer impossibility of -withstanding the name of Wellington and the memories of Waterloo. -Toryism turned against freedom and Liberalism against order. Public -spirit waned with the decay of party opposition. The great warriors -dwindled into petty place-men until - - “Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as usual. Where - My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were;” - -until the “Marney” of _Sybil_ expired “in the full faith of dukeism and -babbling of strawberry leaves.” - -“From that period till 1830,” to resume my citations from his earliest -pamphlets, “the tactics of the Whigs consisted in gently and gradually -extricating themselves from their false position as the disciples of -Jacobinism, and assuming their ancient post as the hereditary guardians -of an hereditary monarchy.” To ease the transition, they invented -Liberalism, a bridge to regain the lost mainland, and recross on tiptoe -the chasm over which they had sprung with so much precipitation. “A -dozen years of ‘Liberal principles’ broke up the national party of -England--cemented by half a century of prosperity and glory, compared -with which all the annals of the realm are dim and lack-lustre. Yet -so weak intrinsically was the oligarchical faction, that their chief, -despairing to obtain a monopoly of power for his party, elaborately -announced himself as the champion of his patrician order, and attempted -to coalesce with the Liberalised leader of the Tories. Had that -negotiation not led to the result which was originally intended by -those interested, the Riots of Paris would not have occasioned the -Reform of London. It is a great delusion to believe that revolutions -are ever effected by a nation. It is a faction, and generally a -small one, that overthrows a dynasty or remodels a constitution. -A small party, strong by long exile from power, and desperate of -success except by desperate means, invariably has recourse to a -_coup d’état_.... The rights and liberties of a nation can only be -preserved by institutions.... Life is short, man is imaginative, our -passions high.... Let us suppose our ancient monarchy abolished, our -independent hierarchy reduced to a stipendiary sect, the gentlemen -of England deprived of their magisterial functions, and metropolitan -prefects and sub-prefects established in the counties and principal -towns commanding a vigorous and vigilant police, and backed by an army -under the immediate order of a single House of Parliament.... But -where then will be the liberties of England? Who will dare disobey -London?... When these merry times arrive--the times of extraordinary -tribunals and extraordinary taxes ... the phrase ‘Anti-Reformer’ will -serve as well as that of ‘Malignant,’ and be as valid a plea as the -former title for harassing and plundering those who venture to wince -under the crowning mercies of centralisation.... I would address -myself to the English Radicals. I do not mean those fine gentlemen or -those vulgar adventurers who, in this age of quackery, may sail into -Parliament by hoisting for the nonce the false colours of the movement; -but I mean that honest and considerable party ... who have a definite -object which they distinctly avow.... Not merely that which is just, -but that which is also practicable, should be the aim of a sagacious -politician. Let the Radicals well consider whether in attempting to -achieve their avowed object they are not, in fact, only assisting -_the secret views of a party whose scheme is infinitely more adverse -to their own than the existing system, whose genius I believe they -entirely misapprehend_.” And after commenting on the “preponderance -of a small class” under the new arrangement, the dangerous tendency -towards centralisation and the perils of the reformed municipal -corporations, he thus concludes: “If there be a slight probability of -ever establishing in this country a more democratic government than -the English Constitution, it will be as well, I conceive, for those -who love their rights, to maintain that constitution, and if the more -recent measures of the Whigs, however plausible their first aspect, -have in fact been a _departure from the democratic character of that -constitution_, it will be as well for the English nation to oppose ... -the spirit of Whiggism.” - -No student of the Croker Papers can deny that some of the leading Whigs -did in the period immediately succeeding the Reform Bill plot for a -Republican purpose. No historian will deny that the Reform Bill, by the -exclusion of “Labour” from the franchise, and its deprival at the same -time of the ancient rights which industry had possessed, left open a -rankling sore. In this tract of 1836 Disraeli exposes the machination -and probes the wound. Even thus early he feared the predominance of a -plutocracy, “the supreme triumph of cash” at an era when, in Carlyle’s -phrase also, “Cash Payment” is fast becoming “the universal sole -nexus of man to man;” while he determined, if ever he had the power, -to redress the balance by including the labouring classes. In 1848 -he had spoken in Parliament on these questions to the same effect -as he had spoken on the hustings in 1833, even favouring, as he had -then advocated, triennial parliaments, except that under the later -circumstances it might be an unnecessary change; and denouncing, as -he had then denounced, “universal suffrage,” and on the same grounds. -In this remarkable speech he forecasted that signal settlement which -nearly twenty years later he was to secure. I shall shortly connect -many utterances of his, ranging over more than thirty years; but there -are three passages from this declaration, made at a time before the -re-modelling of the reforms of 1832 had been agreed upon as an open -problem, which I ask leave to excerpt as a prelude, for they strike -the very keynotes of his domestic policy. Disraeli pointed out that -the Radical Hume was taking _property_ as the basis of suffrage fully -as much as the Whigs had done in 1832, and that the same _bourgeois_ -predominance would ensue. - -“... Now, sir, for one I think property is sufficiently represented -in this House. I am prepared to support the system of 1832 until I -see that the circumstances and necessities of the country require a -change; _but I am convinced that when that change comes, it will be -one that will have more regard for other sentiments, qualities, and -conditions than the mere possession of property as a qualification -for the exercise of the political franchise_.” And he then definitely -protested against being ranked among those who accepted finality in -that “wherein there has been, throughout the history of this ancient -country, frequent and continuous change--the construction of this -estate of the realm. I oppose this new scheme because it does not -appear to be adapted in any way to satisfy the wants of the age, or to -be conceived in the spirit of the times.” He opposed it also because -this Radical motion, like the great Whig measure, really implied the -undue ascendancy of the middle classes-- - -“... The House will not forget what that class has done in its -legislative enterprises. I do not use the term ‘middle class’ with -any disrespect; no one more than myself estimates what the urban -population has done for the liberty and civilisation of mankind; -but I speak of the middle class as of one which avowedly aims at -predominance, and therefore it is expedient to ascertain how far the -fact justifies a confidence in their political capacity. It was only -at the end of the last century that the middle class rose into any -considerable influence, chiefly through Mr. Pitt,[60] that minister -whom they are always abusing.” He proceeds to praise their abolition -of the slave trade: “... A noble and sublime act, but carried with an -entire ignorance of the subject, as the event has proved. How far it -has aggravated the horrors of slavery, I stop not now to inquire.... -The middle class emancipated the negroes, but they never proposed a -Ten Hour Bill.... The interests of the working classes of England were -not much considered in that arrangement. Having tried their hand at -Colonial reform, ... they next turned their hands to Parliamentary -reform, and carried the Reform Bill. But observe, in that operation -they destroyed, under the pretence of its corrupt exercise, the old -industrial franchise, and they never constructed a new one.... So that -whether we look to their Colonial, or their Parliamentary reform, they -entirely neglected the industrial classes. Having failed in Colonial -as well as Parliamentary reform, ... they next tried Commercial -reform, and introduced free imports under the specious name of free -trade. _How were the interests of the working classes considered in -this third movement?_ More than they were in their Colonial or their -Parliamentary reform? On the contrary, while the interests of capital -were unblushingly advocated, the displaced labour of the country was -offered neither consolation nor compensation, but was told that it must -submit to be absorbed in the mass. In their Colonial, Parliamentary, -and Commercial reforms there is no evidence of any sympathy with the -working classes; and every one of the measures so forced upon the -country has at the same time proved disastrous. Their Colonial reform -ruined the colonies, and increased slavery. Their Parliamentary reform, -according to their own account, was a delusion which has filled the -people with disappointment and disgust. If their Commercial reform -have not proved ruinous, then the picture ... presented to us of the -condition of England every day for the last four or five months must -be a gross misrepresentation. In this state of affairs, as a remedy -for half a century of failure, we are under their auspices to take -refuge in financial reform,[61] which I predict will prove their fourth -failure, _and one in which the interests of the working classes will be -as little considered and accomplished_.” - -The third passage concerns the symptoms of a need and the moment for -change. Leaders, he argues, should educate and prepare the people, and -not allow mere agitators to manufacture grievances, but rather prick -the educated and well-born to remember the duties by virtue of which -alone they hold their position. - -“... A new profession has been discovered which will supply the place -of obsolete ones. It is a profession which requires many votaries. - - “‘Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, - Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus.’ - -The business of this profession is to discover or invent great -questions. But the remarkable circumstance is this--that the present -movement has not in the slightest degree originated in any class of -the people.... The moral I draw from all this--from observing this -system of organised agitation--this playing and paltering with popular -passions for the _aggrandisement of one too ambitious class_--the moral -I draw is this: why are the people of England forced to find leaders -among these persons? The proper leaders of the people are the gentlemen -of England. If they are not the leaders of the people, I do not see -why there should be gentlemen. Yes, it is because the gentlemen of -England have been negligent of their duties, and unmindful of their -station, that the system of professional agitation, so ruinous to the -best interests of the country, has arisen in England. It was not always -so. My honourable friends around me call themselves the country party. -Why, that was the name once in England of a party who were the foremost -to vindicate popular rights--who were the natural leaders of the -people, and the champions of everything national and popular.... When -Sir William Wyndham was the leader of the country party, do you think -he would have allowed any chairman or deputy-chairman, any lecturer -or pamphleteer, to deprive him of his hold on the heart of the people -of this country? No, never! Do you think that when the question of -suffrage was brought before the House, he would have allowed any class -who had boldly avowed their determination to obtain predominance to -take up and settle that question?...” - -Nor let him be misconstrued in his views of the ancestral temperament -of the Whigs. Nothing is more remarkable in the chronicle of -combinations than the fact that for more than a century a party, the -most exclusive in its operation, was considered the least. The recent -publications of the Portland and Harley Papers establish beyond a -doubt that while the “New Whigs” of Queen Anne were in large measure a -commercial syndicate that “made a corner” in power, the old Whigs of -George III. were an aristocratic oligarchy that subverted rule, both -popular and personal, and monopolised government. - -“How an oligarchy,” says Disraeli, in the preface to _Lothair_, “had -been substituted for a kingdom, and a narrow-minded and bigoted -fanaticism flourished in the name of religious liberty, were problems -long to me insoluble, but which early interested me. But what most -attracted my musing, even as a boy, was the elements of our political -parties, and the strange mystification by which that which was national -in its constitution had become odious, and that which was exclusive was -presented as popular. What has mainly led to this confusion of public -thought, and this uneasiness of society, _is our habitual carelessness -in not distinguishing between the excellence of a principle and its -injurious or obsolete application_. The feudal system may have worn -out, but its main principle, that the tenure of property should be -the fulfilment of duty, is the essence of good government. The divine -right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine -right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it -government sinks into police and a nation is degraded into a mob.” -And he continues with reference to the Toryism of a later period: -“... Those who in theory were the national party, and who sheltered -themselves under the institutions of the country against the oligarchy, -had, both by a misconception and a neglect of their duties, become, and -justly become, odious; while the oligarchy ... had, by the patronage of -certain general principles which they only meagrely applied, assumed, -and to a certain degree acquired, the character of a popular party. -_But no party was national; one was exclusive and odious, and the other -liberal and cosmopolitan._” - -His history--I speak as a student of the reigns of Queen Anne and -the Georges--will bear scrutiny. Indeed, he carries the descent of -Whiggism some steps further, and traces its pedigree back to the -Roundhead Independents,[62] and even the favourites of Henry VIII., -enriched by the spoil of the plundered abbeys. But he never denied, -or wished to gainsay, the special and signal qualities of the Whigs’ -conspicuous service. They had reconciled religious liberty to the -consecration of the State, and had constantly proved themselves a -“national” party[63]--that solecism in words but truth in ideas. This -he repeatedly acknowledges. Neither did he ever spare the soulless, -cramped, hollow, and shrivelled Toryism of the period preceding -Bolingbroke’s and Wyndham’s struggle to recall it to its origins; or -again of the period after Pitt’s generous concessions were overwhelmed -by the Jacobin deluge, and neutralised by the impersonalities -of Addington and Perceval; by the Phariseeism of Liverpool’s -puzzle-headedness; by the pigheadedness of Eldon and Wetherell. Nor did -he ever deny that pseudo-Toryism had often nursed the very vices of the -Whig oligarchy.[64] What he did contend, from first to last, was that -any party which by its elements makes for national growth and union, -and favours the free play of custom in institutions, is “national;” -while any party encouraging class warfare, class preponderance, and -cosmopolitan theories repugnant to the genius of those institutions, -will be “anti-national;” that the democratic possibilities of our -constitution must be spread, as opportunities arise to enlarge the -“estate of the Commons;” yet that this must never mean the enthronement -of either Oligarchy or Democracy in place of our mixed government; -further, that in all such expansion influence is more important than -interest; that theorisers must never blind us to the distinction -between the “Rights of Man” and the duties of English citizens, between -private and public equality, between the “Sovereignty of the People” -and a national government; that over-government is a fatal evil, but -that individual leadership is a priceless privilege. - - * * * * * - -The Reform Act raised the whole question of Representation. Is its -aim monotony or variety? If it is necessarily elective, must it not -logically end in becoming a plebiscite? Will a vote open to all be -prized by any? And is suffrage any panacea for suffering? - -Before the Reform Bill of 1832, Disraeli wrote, musing on Athens, -and contrasting the strong simplicity of Greek literature with the -imitative splendour of Rome, “... A mighty era, prepared by the -blunders of long centuries, is at hand. Ardently I hope that the -necessary change in human existence may be effected by the voice of -philosophy alone; but I tremble and am silent. There is no bigotry so -terrible as the bigotry of a country that flatters itself that it is -philosophical.” In introducing the great Act of 1867, he observed: -“... The political rights of the working classes which existed before -the Act of 1832, and which not only existed, but were acknowledged, -were on that occasion disregarded and even abolished, and during -the whole period that has since elapsed in consequence of the great -vigour that has been given to the Government of this country, and of -the multiplicity of subjects commanding interest that have engaged -and engrossed attention, no great inconvenience has been experienced -from that cause. Still, during all that time there has been a feeling, -sometimes a very painful feeling, that questions have arisen which have -been treated in this House without that entire national sympathy which -is desirable.” - -The Reform Bill and its sequels transferred the immemorial franchise -of toilers to the middle classes, who were to be further aggrandised -by the repeal of the Corn Laws.[65] They raised the revolutionary -bitterness of Toil in England and Religion in Ireland, both of which -they provoked to physical force. The Act proved rather a measure -for the House of Commons than for the Commons themselves. It was -the makeshift and stop-gap of oligarchy in distress. Its immediate -effects were to wipe out that parliamentary opposition on which the -health of party government depends,[66] to encroach on the independent -influence of the House of Lords, to end, it is true unintentionally, -the “Venetian Constitution” of those who enfeebled their cause in 1837 -by resolving to continue as oligarchs when the weapon of oligarchy -had vanished; while none the less it left the monarch a doge, and the -multitude a cipher; a crown still “robbed of its prerogatives, a Church -controlled by a commission, and an aristocracy that does not lead.” -Such were the joint results of the two large and once great parties -that had lost principles in their search after organisation, the one by -thwarting, the other by tricking the popular voice. It sharpened the -warfare between rich and poor, afterwards aggravated by the acceptance -of the principle of unrestricted competition; it precipitated a -plutocracy, it helped to set class against class, and it became a prop -of that calculating materialism which exalted “utility.” On the other -hand, its indirect benefits were many. “It set men a-thinking” (I quote -from _Sybil_); “it enlarged the horizon of political experience; it led -the public mind to ponder somewhat on the circumstances of our national -history; to pry into the beginnings of some social anomalies which, -they found, were not so ancient as they had been led to believe, and -which had their origin in causes very different from what they had been -educated to credit; and insensibly it created and prepared a popular -intelligence to which one can appeal, no longer hopelessly, in an -attempt to dispel the mysteries with which for nearly three centuries -it has been the labour of party writers to involve a national history, -and without the dispersion of which no political position can be -understood and no social evil remedied.” This latter was an especial -province of Disraeli. Carlyle also, as a social regenerator appealing -to higher sanctions than the “useful,” was able to address the newly -awakened “popular intelligence.” - -Here again Disraeli is in curious accord with Carlyle, the difference -between them being that Disraeli, a doer as well as a seer, discerned -in the traditional “orders” or “estates” of the realm real curatives -of a sick body politic. Both protested against a state based on -statistics and a progress that was arithmetical. Both were quick to -discriminate, under the surface of parties, between the influences -which made for cementing and those which made for dissolving the -nation. Both saw in the conservatism and liberalism of the ’thirties, -on the one side a pretence of protecting the forms they enfeebled, -on the other a pretext and a sop for the universal suffrage which -their professions logically implied. Disraeli perceived that such -a French democracy was alien to England, and meant eventually some -sort of unenlightened despotism, and the aggravation of a government -by favouritism and through interference. He therefore resolved to -reinspire the three “estates”--and if possible the Crown--with reality; -and thus, in extending franchise, to extend it as the privilege of -an order, earned by thrift, education, and intelligence, while he -sought to found it on a basis so stable that leadership might never -sink into being the sport of a fluid and fickle ignorance. Like -Carlyle, he rejoiced that “opinion is now supreme, and opinion speaks -in print; the representation of the Press is far more complete than -the representation of Parliament;” he hailed the spread of knowledge -among the mass so early as in the _Revolutionary Epick_. But, unlike -Carlyle, he did not deem this increasing power fatal to parliamentary -institutions; indeed, he regarded Parliament as a body privileged to -lead and leaven “opinion,” and one that should never abandon its proper -functions of initiative. Both Parliament and the Press in his eyes were -vents for that free discussion inseparable from political health, but -the one ought to form a school for statesmen, the other an arena for -critics. And Disraeli also held and enforced that parties should never -be particularist, but should rest on some national principle instead -of on incoherent prejudices. Parties should represent broad attitudes -towards working institutions. Only thus can they escape debasement into -sets on the one hand, and shams on the other. If parties are split up -into intriguing factions, they are solvents; if they become merely the -masks of disregarded principles, they grow lifeless and hypocritical. -They are at once “humbug and humdrum.” - -In his fine speech of February, 1850, on Agricultural Distress (a -distress greatly due to the unrestricted competition of English land -with foreign acres,[67] and only to be met by what he then proposed and -long afterwards carried--the relief of its peculiar burdens), Disraeli -dwelt on the sad fact that the labourers of the land made no appeal to -Parliament. “Why, what is that,” he urged, “but a want of confidence -in the institutions of the country?” Cobden, who definitely and -avowedly sought the predominance of one portion alone, of middle-class -individual interest, gave an ironical cheer. Carlyle had already -published his philippic against Parliament. But Disraeli--and with -justice--continued-- - -“... The honourable gentleman cheers as if I sanctioned such doctrines: -I have never sanctioned the expression of such feelings; I never used -language elsewhere which I have not been ready to repeat in this House. -I never said one thing in one place, and another in another. I have -confidence in the justice and wisdom of the House of Commons, although -I sit with the minority; I have expressed that confidence in other -places.... I have expressed the conviction that I earnestly entertain, -that this House, instead of being an assembly with a deaf ear and a -callous heart to the sufferings of the agricultural body, would, on the -contrary, be found to be an assembly prompt to express sympathy, prompt -to repair, if it might be, even the injury, necessary in the main as -they might think it, which they had entailed on the agricultural -classes of the country.... I have that confidence in the good sense of -the English people that ... they will deem we are only doing our duty, -we are only consulting their interests in taking every opportunity -to alleviate their burdens, in trying to devise remedies for their -burdens; and, if we cannot accomplish immediately any great financial -result, at least achieving this great political purpose--that we may -teach them not to despair of the institutions of their country.” - -This purpose he had sought to accomplish two years before, when, in -1848, he proved by a speech which, it is said, won him the eventual -leadership of his party, that the breakdown which Carlyle was at that -time preparing to denounce, was due to an incapable ministry, and not -to an effete Parliament. He always held Parliament to be neither a -municipal vestry nor a chamber of commerce, but a national temple of -embodied opinion; nor can the wisdom of his view in those dark and -despondent times be better tested than by comparing, in the light of -what has since occurred, than by contrasting Carlyle’s fulminations in -this regard with Disraeli’s discernment. - -“... There is a phenomenon,” says Carlyle, in his “Chartism,” “which -one might call Paralytic Radicalism in these days, which gauges with -statistic measuring-reed, sounds with Philosophic Politico-Economic -plummet, the deep, dark sea of trouble, and, having taught us rightly -what an infinite sea of trouble it is, sums up with the practical -inference and use of consolation, That nothing whatever in it can be -done by man, who has simply to sit still and look wistfully to ‘Time -and General Laws;’ and thereupon, without so much as recommending -suicide, coldly takes its leave of us....” - -Disraeli, on the other hand-- - -“... ‘In this country,’ said ‘Sidonia,’ ‘since the peace, there has -been an attempt to advocate a reconstruction of society on a purely -rational basis. The principle of Utility has been powerfully developed. -I speak not with lightness of the labours of the disciples of that -school. I bow to intellect in every form; and we should be grateful to -any school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them.... There -has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis of material -motives and calculations. It has failed. It must ultimately have failed -under any circumstances; its failure in an ancient and densely peopled -kingdom was inevitable. How limited is human reason, the profoundest -inquirers are most conscious. We are not indebted to the reason of man -for any of the great achievements which are the landmarks of human -action and human progress. It was not Reason that besieged Troy; it was -not Reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the -world, that inspired the crusades, that instituted the monastic order; -it was not Reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not -Reason that created the French Revolution....” - -I may compare with this the light episode of the travelling Utilitarian -in the much earlier _Young Duke_-- - -“... ‘I think it is not very difficult to demonstrate the _use_ of an -aristocracy,’[68] mildly observed the Duke. - -“‘Pooh! nonsense, sir! I know what you are going to say, but we have -got beyond all that. Have you read this, sir? This article on the -aristocracy in _The Screw and Lever Review_?’ - -“‘I have not, sir.’ - -“‘Then I advise you to make yourself master of it, and you will talk no -more of the aristocracy. A few more articles like this, and a few more -noblemen like the man who has got this park, and people will open their -eyes at last.’ - -“‘I should think,’ said his Grace, ‘that the follies of the man who has -got this park have been productive of evil only to himself. In fact, -sir, according to your own system, a prodigal nobleman seems to be a -very desirable member of the commonwealth, and a complete leveller.’ - -“‘We shall get rid of them all soon, sir....’ - -“‘I have heard that he is very young, sir,’ remarked the widow. - -“‘Ah, youth is a very trying time! Let us hope the best. He may turn -out well yet, poor soul!’ - -“‘I hope not. Don’t talk to me of poor souls. There is a poor soul,’ -said the Utilitarian, pointing to an old man breaking stones on the -highway. ‘That is what I call a poor soul, not a young prodigal....’” - -No one who has followed the labour movement in England, or the -social-democrat organisations in Germany and France, can fail to -recognise the immense part that personality, imagination, and desire -of power plays in them, and how completely, in their instance, -utilitarianism has broken down. Utilitarianism, of course, ignores the -moral and imaginative aspects. It mistakes the moon for a cream-cheese. -It ignores personal influence. Above all, it confounds happiness with -prosperity. “Charcoal,” exclaims Ruskin (here in complete accord with -Disraeli), “may be cheap among your roof-timbers after a fire, and -bricks may be cheap in your streets after an earthquake; but fire and -earthquake may not therefore be national benefits.” Even in a concern -purely commercial, reserve must be weighed against dividends. - -Again, as regards this very Reform Bill of 1832, and the stagnant -formulæ of its pioneer, I will again invoke Carlyle-- - -“... An ultra-radical, not seemingly of the Benthamee species, is -forced to exclaim, ‘The people are at last wearied! They say, “Why -should we be ruined in our shops, thrown out of our farms, voting for -these men?” Ministerial majorities decline; this Ministry has become -impotent, had it even the will to do good. They have long called to us, -“We are a Reform Ministry; will ye not support _us_?” We have supported -them, borne them forward indignantly on our shoulders time after time, -fall after fall, when they had been hurled out into the street, and -lay prostrate, helpless, like dead luggage. It is the fact of a Reform -Ministry, not the name of one, that we would support.... The public -mind says at last, Why all this struggle for the _name_ of a Reform -Ministry? Let the Tories be a ministry, if they will; let, at least, -some living reality be a ministry!’...” - -Let me illustrate Carlyle by two further passages from Disraeli. The -first concerns parties in 1837, the second concerns the withered and -withering Toryism left to confront the hollow conventions of the Reform -Ministry. He is arguing that “the man who enters public life at this -epoch has to choose between political infidelity and a destructive -creed.” - -“... The principle of the _exclusive_ constitution of England having -been conceded by the Acts of 1827-28-32, ... a party has arisen in -the State who demand that the principle of political liberalism shall -consequently be carried to its extent, which it appears to them is -impossible without getting rid of the fragments of the old constitution -that remain. This is the destructive party--a party with distinct and -intelligible principles. They seek a specific for the evils of our -social system in the general suffrage of the population. They are -resisted by another party who, having given up exclusion, would only -embrace as much liberalism as is necessary for the moment; who, without -any embarrassing promulgation of principles, wish to keep things as -they find them as well as they can; but, as a party must have the -semblance of principles, they take the names of the things that they -have destroyed. Thus they are devoted to the prerogatives of the Crown, -although in truth the Crown has been stripped of every one of its -prerogatives; they affect a great veneration for the constitution in -Church and State, although every one knows that it no longer exists; -they are ready to stand or fall with the independence of the Upper -House of Parliament, although in practice they are perfectly well -aware that, with their sanction, the ‘Upper House’ has abdicated its -initiatory functions, and now serves only as a court of review of the -legislation of the House of Commons. Whenever public opinion, which -this party never attempts to form, to educate, or to lead, falls into -some violent perplexity, passion, or caprice, this party yields without -a struggle to the impulse, and, when the storm has passed, attempts -to obstruct and obviate the logical, and ultimately the inevitable -results of the very measures they have themselves originated, or to -which they have consented. This is the Conservative party. I care not -whether men are called Whigs or Tories, Radicals or Chartists, ... but -these two divisions comprehend at present the English nation.... With -regard to the first school, I for one have no faith in the remedial -qualities of a Government carried on by a neglected democracy, who -for three centuries have received no education. What prospect does it -offer us of those high principles of conduct with which we have fed our -imagination and strengthened our will? I perceive none of the elements -of government that should secure the happiness of a people and the -greatness of a realm.... Many men in this country ... are reconciled to -the contemplation of democracy, because they have accustomed themselves -to believe that it is the only power by which we can sweep away _those -sectional privileges and interests that impede the intelligence and -industry of the community_, ... and yet the only way ... to terminate -what, in the language of the present day, is called class legislation, -_is not to entrust power to classes_. You would find a ‘locofoco’[69] -majority as much addicted to class legislation as a factitious -aristocracy.... In a word, _true wisdom lies in a policy that would -effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of -existing forms_.” - -And the other-- - -“Mr. Rigby began by ascribing everything to the Reform Bill, and then -referred to several of his own speeches on Schedule A. Then he told -Coningsby that want of ‘religious faith’ was solely occasioned by want -of churches, and want of loyalty by George IV. having shut up himself -too much at the cottage in Windsor Park, entirely against the advice -of Mr. Rigby. He assured Coningsby that the Church Commission was -operating wonders.... The great question now was their architecture. -Had George IV. lived, all would have been right. They would have -been built on the model of the Buddhist pagoda. As for loyalty, if -the present king went regularly to Ascot races, he had no doubt all -would go right. Finally, Mr. Rigby impressed on Coningsby to read the -_Quarterly Review_ with great attention, and to make himself master of -Mr. Wordy’s “History of the Late War,” in twenty volumes--a capital -work which proves that Providence was on the side of the Tories.’...” - -As regards the principles and conduct of the Reform Ministers -themselves, years before he entered Parliament, in that brilliant -series of speeches on the hustings of High Wycombe and Taunton, which -preluded so many of his ideas, he denounced the incompleteness of the -measure and the inadequacy of the men. In 1832 he said-- - -“... If, instead of filling the humble position of a private -individual, I held a post near the person of my King, I should have -said to my sovereign, ‘Oppose all change, or allow that change which -will be full, satisfactory, and final.’ In the change produced by -the professing party now in power, there are omissions of immense -importance. These points they promised; these points they have not -given you; and now, after all their protestations, they turn round and -ask how the people can have the audacity to demand them.”[70] - -In 1834 he denounced “the Whig system of centralisation,” and their -organised attempt to “overpower” the House of Lords and to despotise -the House of Commons, while of their subsequent disorganisation from -within, because of the failure of concerted opposition from without, he -gave that surpassing simile of Ducrow’s Circus. In 1835 he pursued the -subject of constitutional opposition, and he expressed his dread, as -he did in 1881, that if the Whigs remained “our masters for life, the -dismemberment of the Empire” might follow. And all this in the teeth of -what was then considered a system installed for fifty years, and which -would have promised him a personal triumph had he appeared then to -have chosen to have endorsed it. - -But the views he always retained as to the first principles of -representation are best heard in a passage from _Coningsby_. - -“... In the protracted discussions to which this celebrated measure -gave rise, nothing is more remarkable than the perplexities into which -the speakers on both sides are thrown when they touch upon the nature -of the representative principle. On the one hand, it was maintained -that under the old system the people were virtually represented, while, -on the other, it was triumphantly urged that, if the principle was -conceded, the people should not be virtually, but actually represented. -But who are the people? And where are you to draw a line? And why -should there be any? It was urged that a contribution to the taxes was -the constitutional qualification for the suffrage.” Here is repeated -what he had urged in the ’thirties, and was to reiterate in the -’fifties, that indirect taxation is as much taxation as direct; that -“the beggar who chews his quid as he sweeps a crossing is contributing -to the imposts; ... he is one of the people, and he yields his quota -to the public burthens.” The logical inference of such a qualification -must be to convert the suffrage from being a privilege into being a -right. Manhood suffrage, in common with all privilege unearned, is -usually prized by none, and even disregarded by most. - -“Amid these conflicting statements,” he continues, “it is singular -that no member of either House should have recurred to the original -character of these popular assemblies which have always prevailed among -the northern nations.... When the crowned northman consulted on the -welfare of his kingdom, he assembled the estates of his realm. Now, an -estate is a class of the nation invested with political rights. Then -appeared the estate of the clergy, of the barons, of other classes. -In the Scandinavian kingdoms to this day the estate of the peasants -sends its representatives to the Diet. In England, under the Normans, -the Church and the Baronage were convoked together with the estate -of the Community, a term which then probably described the inferior -holders of land whose tenure was not immediate of the Crown. The Third -Estate was so numerous that convenience suggested its appearance by -representation, while the others, more limited, appeared, and still -appear, personally. The Third Estate was reconstructed as circumstances -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 privileged class, the Ministry -and Parliament of 1831 virtually conceded the principle of universal -suffrage. In this point of view, the ten-pound franchise was an -arbitrary, irrational, impolitic qualification. It had indeed the merit -of simplicity, and so had the constitution of Abbé Sièyes. But its -immediate and inevitable result was Chartism. - -“But 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, varying and various materials which would have neutralised -the painful predominance of any particular interest in the new scheme, -and prevented those banded jealousies which have been its consequence, -the nation would have found itself in a secure position. Another class, -not less numerous than the existing one, and invested with privileges -not less important, 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.” - - * * * * * - -The quality, then, of excellence, instead of the majorities of -multitude, the variety of every approved influence, and not the undue -weight of any overwhelming interest--these formed for him the true -bases of representation. He was ever for levelling up instead of down; -and, as we shall see, he was directly opposed to Mr. Hume’s fallacy -(still rampant) that by our traditions representation depends only on -taxation. - -These ideas animated him throughout, and he achieved them in 1867, -not, though it has been insinuated, by filching the proposals of -his predecessors, but on the opposed principles which he continued -to advocate from the ’thirties to the ’sixties. In 1835, two years -before he entered Parliament, he expressed the same convictions in his -_Spirit of Whiggism_. He showed that the two Houses were the “House -of the Nation,” not the “House of the People,” but that both alike -represent the “Nation.” He proceeded to prove by powerful illustration -that, under whatever assumed form, political power will follow the -distribution of property. He emphasised the “passion for industry” as -an instrument of wealth as an English characteristic hostile to any -future revolution in the distribution of property. He proved that in -England revolution is ever a struggle for privilege, in Europe one -against it; and he concluded, therefore, that “... If a new class -rises in the State, it becomes uneasy to take its place in the natural -aristocracy of the land.... _The Whigs in the present day have risen on -the power of the manufacturing interest. To secure themselves in their -posts, the Whigs have given the new interest an undue preponderance._ -But the new interest has obtained its object and is content.... The -manufacturer begins to lack in movement. Under Walpole the Whigs played -the same game with the commercial interest. A century has passed, and -the commercial interests are all as devoted to the Constitution as the -manufacturers soon will be.... The consequence of our wealth is an -aristocratic constitution, _founded on an equality of civil rights_. -And who can deny that an aristocratic constitution resting on such -a basis, where the legislative and even the executive office may be -obtained by every subject of the realm, _is in fact a noble democracy_?” - -These are no dry theories, but surely a true version of growing facts. -Our Constitution _is_ that of a natural aristocracy founded on popular -privilege depending on the mutual exercise of duties. This free -aristocracy distributes its power through the estates of the realm, -and these orders should accord with the institutions to which they -have given rise; for, as Disraeli said in 1852, they are “popular” -without being absolutely “democratic.” When any one of them degenerates -into undue monopoly, the whole body must suffer; and should such a -catastrophe attain any permanence, one of the great institutions -through which English nationality thrives would be shattered by the -very order to which it corresponds. What Disraeli observes of the -eventual reduction of each new ascendant interest to aristocratic -influence, is beyond question. But that influence must rest on the -due performance of civil and social responsibilities which empower -it. Stripped of historical verbiage, the “constitution” harmonises -classes through special privileges and reciprocal duties. Of the -“middle-middles” he always spoke with respect, of the “lower-middles” -with much sympathy, not least as victims of the income-tax;[71] but he -ever doubted their governing capacity as a class; and when Sir Robert -Peel’s “monarchy of the middle classes” came into swing, Disraeli -feared the plutocracy which has happened, and which, when financial, -is more easily freed from political responsibility. The choice offered -between wealth omnipotent and mob-despotism, is a choice between -Scylla and Charybdis. To obviate it, Disraeli created in 1867 an -artisan franchise, accorded as a boon at length earned by character -and intelligence, and based on the _rating_ principle, which affords -a pledge of permanence; at the same time, he strove to countervail -the growing irresponsibility of wealth by relieving unprotected land -of its burdens and unrepresented labour of its degradation. By the -first, he strove to retain that sap of the soil which underlies the -English character, the English health, the English order, through -local government, the English freedom, and the English steadiness; -for (and this was said in 1852), “... Laws which, by imposing unequal -taxes, discourage that investment (_i.e._ capital invested in land, the -return for which is rent) are, irrespective of their injustice, highly -impolitic; for nothing contributes more to the enduring prosperity -of a country than the natural deposit of its surplus capital in the -improvement of its soil....” By the last, he tried to redress that -social misery which the measures of 1846 had not removed and had even -increased: the overcrowding of the towns, the displacement of labour, -the subsidising of foreign agriculture to the decultivation of English -land, the enthronement of Mammon and materialism--all denounced -and foreseen by him with wonderful prescience. Very soon after the -repeal of the Corn Laws, discerning, as Disraeli did, its drift of -denationalising tendencies, its certainty of some social and physical -demoralisation, as well as the possible changes in European competition -which might necessitate another “commercial and social revolution,” he -inveighed against the inference that “we are to be rescued from the -alleged power of one class, only to fall under the avowed dominion of -another;” he believed that “the monarchy of England, its sovereign -power mitigated by the acknowledged authority of the estates of the -realm, has its root in the hearts of the people, and is capable of -securing the happiness of the nation and the power of the State.” His -peroration--some of which I shall give in the next chapter--is a noble -flight of hope. He discerned at once that the transformation scene -of 1846 would affect society more than politics, and that the next -extension of the franchise must consequently prove a social antidote as -well as a social sedative. - -In 1839, refuting Mr. Hume’s hobby already alluded to, he showed -that the theory is nowhere inherent in our Constitution, but is a -doctrinaire supplement of alien origin; that the “Commons” are a -political order invested with power for the performance of duties, -just as the Peers are a similar order, but needing no representation; -he re-urged that the House of Commons was the representative of -the “nation”--an organic whole, and not of the “people”--a vague -abstraction. He had even then already pointed out that, historically, -the delegates before the Restoration had perverted the national -traditions by announcing, more than a century before the French -Revolution, the sovereignty of the “people.” He once more stoutly -denied that “taxation and representation went hand-in-hand” according -to our constitution. There was representation without election, as -in the case of the Church in the Lords, for the Crown appointed the -bishops, not the clergy. And as regards taxation, it was indirect, as -well as, unfortunately, direct. In the same year, protesting against -Lord John Russell’s assumption of a “monarchy of the middle classes,” -Disraeli repeated that in this country “the exercise of political -power must be associated with great public duties,” just as in 1846, -when justifying the burdens on land so long as protection was accorded -it, he asserted that great honours demand great burdens. Again, in -1848, Disraeli, opposing Mr. Hume once more, and protesting against the -finality of the reconstruction of 1832, even before Lord John Russell -declared the question free for both parties in 1853 and 1856--strongly -condemned the radical scheme just because it did not “... enable the -labouring classes to take their place in the Constitution of the -country.” “If there be any mistake,” he said, “more striking than -another in the settlement of 1832, ... it is, in my opinion, that the -bill of 1832 took the qualification of _property_ in too hard and rigid -a sense, as the only qualification which should exist in this country -for the exercise of political rights.” In 1852, he again dinned into -unappreciative ears the necessity for a genuinely industrial franchise, -though he was not satisfied that Lord John Russell’s £5 franchise would -so operate. In 1859 and 1867, Disraeli tried hard to confer franchises -on education and thrift, but Mr. Bright sneered at them as “fancy -franchises,” Mr. Gladstone scoffed at them, and in forwarding the great -measure of labour suffrage by the compelled co-operation of both sides -of the House, Disraeli had to surrender safeguards he never ceased to -desire and to regret, for they are founded on the State recognition of -individual excellence, instead of on the State manipulation of mere -party mechanism. - -“Is the possession of the franchise,” demanded Disraeli in 1851, “to -be a privilege, the privilege of industry and public virtue, or is -it to be a right--the right of every one, however degraded, however -indolent, however unworthy?... I am for the system which maintains in -this country _a large and free Government, having confidence in the -energies and faculties of man_. Therefore I say, make the franchise -a privilege, but let it be the privilege of _the civic virtues_. -Honourable gentlemen opposite would degrade the franchise to the man, -instead of raising the man to the franchise. If you want to have a -free aristocratic country, free because aristocratic (I use the word -‘aristocratic’ in its noblest sense--_I mean that aristocratic freedom -which enables every man to achieve the best position in the State to -which his qualities entitle him_), I know not what we can do better -than adhere to the _mitigated monarchy of England, with power in the -Crown, order in one estate of the realm, and liberty in the other_. It -is from that happy combination that we have produced a state of society -that all other nations look upon with admiration and envy.” - -In all these considerations, the social results of measures and formulæ -were ever uppermost in his mind. What he had ever been resolute to -secure was, as he avowed even in 1850, “the industrial franchise,” -which the resettlement of 1832 had thrown to the winds. - -Again, in 1865, “... It appears to me,” urged Disraeli, “that the -primary plan of our ancient constitution, so rich in various wisdom, -indicates the course that we ought to pursue in this matter. It secured -our popular rights by entrusting power, not to an indiscriminate -multitude, but to the estate, or order, of the Commons. And a wise -government should be careful that the elements of that estate _should -bear a close relation to the moral and material development of the -country_. Public opinion may not yet, perhaps, be ripe enough to -legislate as to the subject, but it is sufficiently interested in -the question to ponder over it with advantage; so that, _when the -time comes for action_, we may legislate in the spirit of the English -Constitution, _which would absorb the best of every class_, and not -fall into a ‘democracy’ which is the tyranny of one class, and that -_one the least enlightened_.” - -Long before 1867, these continuous utterances culminated that typical -speech of 1859, which mooted a comprehensive plan of enlarged -representation of political power, yet undisturbed balance, and which -would have made “a representative assembly that is a mirror of the mind -as well as of the material interests of England.” - -I shall quote largely from this unfamiliar speech. It illustrates -how far his lifelong principles applied to a juncture before the -artisans were wholly free from agitation against monarchy, and those -institutions which fence it round. All Radical schemes, compassing -“manhood suffrage,” all Whig schemes, merely delaying its day by -seeking to reduce rental or property qualifications to an arbitrary -minimum, were his aversion. Set, as he always was, against including -whatever at the moment formed the dregs of ignorance, or the sediment -of an unentitled populace, he already favoured that “rating” basis -which Lord John Russell, always constitutional, had himself propounded -in his abortive plan of 1854, and which Disraeli was to carry out -in 1867 as a safeguard of stability in the boroughs. But in 1859 -Lord Derby did not consider its application feasible. Disraeli -had, therefore, now to forego it. Refusing to make any reductions -in the franchise, or yield an inch to “detached” democracy, he now -proposed to attain steadiness, to vary the vote, and to represent -enlightenment contrasted with mere property by recommending the -creation of the “compound householder” (“dwellers in a portion of -any house rented in the aggregate at £20”)[72]; by a new suffrage -for several small ownerships of property in the funds and savings -banks; and for education, by enfranchising graduates, ministers of -religion, physicians, barristers, and certain school-masters. He thus -both forecasted, so far as was then practicable, household suffrage -as against household democracy; and at the same time sought to -represent education and ensure variety. By his attendant scheme of -redistribution, he tried to prevent the counties from being “swamped” -by the towns, while at the same time he jealously guarded the local -independence of the boroughs. His purpose was to protect the country -districts against that invasion from the cities of agrarian demagogues -which, after his death, the stride forward of 1884 was to impel.[73] - -But “finality is not the word of politics.” Progress changes -possibilities. He had to wait till the pear was ripe; till the working -man had been really reconciled to monarchy and its institutions; till -the ground had been laid for a generous scheme of national education, -and cleared by the sharply defined position of parties, which at last -brought into relief the issues between democracy as a due element and -as a domineering class. Nor, if he were now alive, would he fail to -discern that the appeal of present imperialism to present democracy -will be dangerous if made to it as a deciding class before it has -acquired the governing faculty by long apprenticeship. Democracy as -a leaven, democracy as the lump, are obviously distinct. The one -is “popular and national,” the other despotic or cosmopolitan. Our -artisans are now intensely national and patriotic; but the “submerged -tenth” would soon show themselves tyrants over the community. - - * * * * * - -The pith of his argument is that mere numbers can never form the ground -of representation, which should rest on influence even more than -interest. - -“... It appears to me that those who are called parliamentary reformers -may be divided into two classes. The first are those ... who would -adapt the settlement of 1832 to the England of 1859, and would act in -the spirit and according to the genius of the existing constitution.... -But, sir, it would not be candid, and it would be impolitic not to -acknowledge that there is another school of reformers having objects -very different from those which I have named. The new school, if I -may so describe them, would avowedly effect a parliamentary reform on -principles different from those which have hitherto been acknowledged -as forming the proper foundations for this House. The new school of -reformers are of opinion that the chief, if not the sole, object of -representation is to realise the opinion of the numerical majority of -the country. Their standard is _population_, and I admit that their -views have been clearly and efficiently placed before the country. -Now, sir, there is no doubt that population is, and must always be, -one of the elements of our representative system. There is also such -a thing as property, and that too must be considered. I am ready to -admit that the new school have not on any occasion limited the elements -of their representative system solely to population. They have, with -a murmur, admitted that property has an equal claim to consideration; -but then, they have said that _property and population go together_. -Well, sir, population and property do go together--in statistics, but -in nothing else. Population and property do not go together in politics -and practice. I cannot agree with the principles of the new school, -either if population or property is their sole, or if both together -constitute their double, standard. I think the function of this House -is something more than merely to represent the population and property -of this country. _This House ought, in my opinion, to represent all -the interests of the country._ Now, those interests are sometimes -antagonistic, often competing, always independent and jealous; yet they -all demand a distinctive representation in this House, and how can that -be effected, under such circumstances, _by the simple representation -of the voice of the majority, or even by the mere preponderance of -property_? If the function of this House is to represent all the -interests of the country, you must, of course, have a representation -scattered over the country, because interests are necessarily local. An -illustration is always worth two arguments; permit me, therefore, so -to explain my meaning, if it requires explanation. Let me take the two -cases of the metropolis and that of the kingdom of Scotland.... Their -populations are at this time about equal. Their respective wealth is -very unequal.... There is between them the annual difference in the -amounts of income upon which the schedules are levied of that between -£44,000,000 and £30,000,000. Yet who would for a moment pretend that -the various classes and interests of Scotland could be adequately -represented by the same number of members as represent the metropolis? -So much for the population test. Let us now take the property test.... -The wealth of the city of London is more than equivalent to that of -twenty-five English and Welsh counties returning forty members, and -of 140 boroughs returning 232 members. The city of London, the city -proper, is richer than Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham put -together.... It is richer than Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, -Hull, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Brighton, Stoke-upon-Trent, Nottingham, -Greenwich, Preston, East Retford, Sunderland, York, and Salford -combined--towns which return among them no less than thirty-one -members. Yet the city of London has not asked me to insert it in the -bill, which I am asking leave to introduce, for thirty-one members.... -So much ... for the property test.... But the truth is, that _men are -sent to this House to represent the opinions of a place; and not its -power_.... - -“Why, sir, the power of the city of London or that of the city of -Manchester in this House is not to be measured by the honourable -and respectable individuals whom they send here to represent their -opinions. I will be bound to say that there is a score--nay, that -there are threescore--members in this House who are as much and more -interested, perhaps, in the city of Manchester than those who are in -this House its authoritative and authentic representatives.... Look at -the metropolis itself, not speaking merely of the city of London. Is -the influence of the metropolis in this House to be measured by the -sixteen honourable members who represent it?... ... So much for that -principle of population, or that principle of property, which has been -adopted by some; or that principle of population and property combined, -which seems to be the more favourite form.... There is one remarkable -circumstance connected with the new school, who would build up our -representation on the basis of a numerical majority, and who take -population as their standard. It is this--that none of their principles -apply _except in cases where population is concentrated_. The principle -of population is ... a very notorious doctrine at the present moment, -but it is not novel.... It was the favourite argument of the late Mr. -Hume.... The principle, in my opinion, is false, and would produce -results dangerous to the country and fatal to the House of Commons. But -if it be true, ... then I say you must arrive at conclusions entirely -different from those which the new school has adopted. If population is -to be the standard, and you choose to disfranchise small boroughs and -small constituencies, it is not to the great towns you can, according -to your own principles, transfer their members.... - -“Let us now see what will be the consequence if the population -principle is adopted. You would have a House, generally speaking, -formed partly of great landowners and partly of great manufacturers. -I have no doubt that, whether we look to their property or to their -character, there would be no country in the world which could rival in -respectability such an assembly. But would it be a House of Commons; -would it represent the country; would it represent the various -interests of England? Why, sir, after all, the suffrage and the seat -respecting which there is so much controversy and contest, _are only -means to an end.... You want in this House every element that obtains -the respect and engages the interest of the country.... You want a -body of men representing the vast variety of the English character; -men who would arbitrate between the claims of those great predominant -interests; who would temper the acerbity of their controversies. You -want a body of men to represent that considerable portion of the -community who cannot be ranked under any of those striking and powerful -heads to which I have referred, but who are in their aggregate equally -important and valuable, and perhaps as numerous._” - -He then adverted to the borough system as an indirect machinery for -this purpose, and contended that those who would sweep it away must -substitute “machinery as effective.” “... Now,” he continued, “there -is one remarkable feature in the agitation of the new school.... They -offer no substitute whatever.... I will tell you what must be the -natural consequence of such a state of things. The House will lose, as -a matter of course, its hold on the Executive. The House will assemble. -It will have men sent to it, no doubt, of character and wealth; and -having met here, they will be unable to carry on the Executive of the -country. Why? Because the experiment has been tried in every country, -and the same result has occurred; _because it is not in the power of -one or two classes to give that variety of character and acquirement -by which the administration of a country can be carried on_. Well, -then, what happens? _We fall back on a bureaucratic system_,[74] and -we should find ourselves, after all our struggles, in the very same -position from which, in 1640, we had to extricate ourselves. Your -administration would be carried on by a court minister, perhaps by a -court minion. It might not be in these times, but in some future time. -The result of such a system would be to create an assembly where the -members of Parliament, though chosen by great constituencies, would -be chosen from limited classes, and perhaps only from one class of -the community....” His own prescription for breaking monotony, he -described as “lateral,” not “vertical” extension. - -Disraeli determined to settle this question himself, and to settle -it by the admission to the franchise of the “working” classes of the -country, and not by lowering it to the “man in the street,” or the -submerged tenth. In these views he followed the Toryism of Cobbett -rather than the Radicalism of Hume. Discussing Lord John Russell’s -proposals of 1860 “for the representation of the people” (which, -though it adopted the principle of rateability, was, in fact, merely a -reduction of the borough franchise to £6, and of the county occupation -to £10), Disraeli labelled its “simplicity” as “of a mediæval -character, but without any of the inspiration of the feudal system, or -any of the genius of the middle ages.” It sought only to scale down -a property qualification. The “claims of intelligence, acquirement, -and education” were ignored. As regarded the borough franchise, not -fitness, but number was the principle; and the numerical addition -accrued to one class only. - -“... Let us now consider,” Disraeli continued, “whether the particular -class upon whom the noble lord is about to confer this great political -power, are a class who are incapable, or who are unlikely to exercise -it. Are they a class who have shown no inclination to combine? Are -they a class incapable of organisation? Quite the reverse. If we look -to the history of this country during the present century, we shall -find that the aristocracy, or upper classes, have on several very -startling occasions shown a great power of organisation. _I think -it cannot be denied that the working classes, especially since the -peace of 1815, have shown a remarkable talent for organisation, and -a power of discipline and combination inferior to none._ The same, I -believe, cannot be said of the middle classes. With the exception of -the Anti-Corn Law League, I cannot recall at this moment any great -successful political organisation of the middle classes; and living -in an age when everything is known, we now know that that great -confederation ... owed its success to a great and unforeseen calamity, -and was on the eve of dispersion and dissolution only a short time -before that terrible event occurred.” The upper and lower classes, he -argued, were capable of organisation and ideas, and the organisation of -the latter had been secret as well as disciplined. Their intelligence -and their discipline, then, were reasons for conferring the franchise, -but their traditional organisation was also a reason for care in -its bestowal, and such discrimination as would not give them a -_predominance_. “... What has been ... the object of our legislative -labours for many years, but to put an end to a class-legislation which -was much complained of? But you are now proposing to establish a class -legislation of a kind which may well be viewed with apprehension....” - -Disraeli discerned that what in England is discontent, on the Continent -is disaffection; and that revolution abroad corresponds to reform -at home. Chartism verged perilously on the uprisings which endanger -countries where government is out of touch with the governed. It was -a sign that institutions might be on their trial, and it demanded -that those institutions should resume reality, and win once more the -affections of the people. - -In his resolve to spread the franchise in his own manner, and to -neutralise the revolutionary bias of agitators and secret societies, -he never lost sight of the growing force of public opinion. He himself -was “a gentleman of the press;” in the improved and multiplied -newspapers he hailed the great safety-valve afforded to England by -that “publicity” on which “the great fabric of political freedom” has -been reared. “Free intercourse,” he exclaimed in the ’thirties, “is -the spirit of the age!” So late as 1872, he observed, “... That has -been the principle of the whole of our policy. First of all, we made -our courts of law public, and during the last forty years we have -completely emancipated the periodical press of England, which was -not literally free before, giving it such power that it throws light -upon the life of almost every class in this country, and I might say -upon the life of almost every individual.” In the press (the light of -which he perhaps valued more than the warmth), he welcomed an antidote -against hidden and perilous associations; and believed that if the -self-respecting hand-labourer received the vote (as he was entitled to -do), he would exercise it in the cause of freedom, of loyalty, and of -order. In 1862, he declared “parliamentary discipline founded on its -only sure basis, sympathising public opinion,” to be the watchword of -his propaganda. The passage summarises much that I have discussed. - -“... To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man -may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles which assert -equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the -country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of -the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular -outrage; equally to resist democracy” (as a form of government) “and -oligarchy, and to favour that principle of _free aristocracy_ which -is the only basis and security for constitutional government; ... -to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee of -public order; to defend local government, and to be as jealous of -the rights of the working man as of the prerogative of the Crown and -the privileges of the senate;--these were once the principles which -regulated Tory statesmen (_i.e._ Bolingbroke and Wyndham), and I for -one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless -they practise them.” - -In his great speech during the summer of the following year on “popular -principles” and “liberal opinions,” as well as on the introduction of -his actual Reform Bill, he gave expression once more to his distinction -between “popular privileges” and “democratic rights”-- - -“... If the measure bears some reference to the existing classes in -this country, why should we conceal from ourselves that _this country -is a country of classes, and a country of classes it will ever remain_? -What we desire to do is to give every one who is worthy of it a fair -share in the government of the country by means of the elective -franchise; but at the same time we have been equally anxious to -maintain the character of the House....” - -As a matter of tactics, Disraeli had of design framed the bill on -lines stricter than he was prepared to concede. He desired that the -re-settlement should be enduring, and he deliberately appealed to the -co-operation of both parties for this purpose. He had “leaped in the -dark,” he had “shot Niagara.” The storm of obloquy, desertion, and -censure broke over his head, but he was unmoved, because his proposals -were based on principles long held and patiently matured. Of the lodger -franchise he had long ago been the “father.” An unmitigated household -franchise he refused as too “democratic.” The “direct taxation” -franchise and the “dual vote,” which were intended as barriers for the -middle classes, he surrendered. That educational franchise which was -bound up with a cause that from boyhood had been dear to him; that -“savings-bank” franchise which established the right of industrial -thrift to representation, he was forced to abandon, by the clamour of -the very party that desired education without religion, and labour -as the mere instrument of capital. Looking back impartially, these -derided “fancy franchises” seem to me a deplorable loss, and even now -it would be well to recognise that the mind and the character should -have representative faculties wholly apart from the power of property. -Disraeli was forced to cast them overboard that he might preserve -the vessel itself during the party hurricane. But the essential -qualifications of residence and rateability he maintained in the teeth -of Mr. Gladstone, and under all the modifications of the principle -which ensued. His mind was fixed to steer between the extremes alike of -those who, under the mask of emancipation, purposed the despotism of a -single class, and of those who desired to form the government of this -country by the caprice of an irresponsible, an unintelligent, and an -indiscriminate multitude. And he proved his earnest sincerity by the -appeal which closed his speech on the second reading: “_Pass the bill, -and then change the ministry if you like_.” - -It is not within my province to track the maze of altercations which -attended every step of a bill on which Disraeli, contrary to his -wont, spoke more than three hundred times, or to raise the dust of -controversy this year revived. But, were it so, I could prove how -faithful Disraeli remained to the central ideas which had animated -him from his youth. So far from having passed a “liberal” measure, he -had passed under colossal difficulties, that for which he had long -striven, and in a manner which remedied the defects of 1832 without -endangering the repose of the State. Indeed, for the second time he -actually re-created the Conservative party, and, to the surprise of -some of his friends and all his enemies, discovered in the unknown -region of the toilers, with whom he had ever sympathised, whom he -had always trusted, but whom the Whigs had driven to revolt, and to -whom the “cheapest market” Radicals perpetually begrudged protection, -health, and alleviation--discovered, I say, in these elements--the -pawns of ignoble partisanship--his truest props of order and of -allegiance. The measure and the events of 1884 were to prove the -rightness alike of his confidence and of his caution. The counties with -a lowered franchise became a prey to agitators. The towns remained -staunch and steadfast. And this, though in 1867 Mr. Bright had sneered -at Disraeli for having “lugged” his “omnibus” of stupid squires up the -hill of democracy. - -In his speech of 1859, Disraeli protested against any “predominance of -household democracy.” He kept his word. Speaking at Edinburgh in the -autumn of 1867, he remarked on this very topic-- - -“... It may be said you have established a democratic government in -England, because you have established household suffrage, and you have -gone much further than the measures which you previously opposed.... -Now, I am not at all prepared to admit that household suffrage with the -constitutional conditions upon which we have established it--namely, -residence and rating--has established a democratic government. But it -is unnecessary to enter into that consideration, because we have not -established household suffrage in England. There are, I think I may -say, probably four million houses in England. Under our ancient laws, -and under the Act of Lord Grey, about one million of those householders -possessed the franchise. Under the Act of 1867, something more than -half a million will be added to that million. Well, then, I want to -know if there are four million householders, and one and a half million -in round numbers possess the suffrage, how can ‘household suffrage’ be -said to be established in England?” - -Thus the proper balance of power, which the bill of 1832 impaired -by the exclusion of labour and the enfeeblement of aristocracy, was -restored. The people were at last reconciled to their leaders. It -had been by accident that the Whigs found themselves arbiters of -the national fate in 1832, and it may be conceded that, according -to their lights, they honestly did their best. To Lord Grey and -his colleagues Disraeli was always just and respectful. But the -breach then made demanded the amends which Disraeli had meditated -for years. By cancelling qualifications arbitrary and irrational, -by conferring political power only in conjunction with social and -political responsibility, by regarding society more than the state, and -influence than interest, by persistent courage and purpose, this great -project succeeded and has endured. The day may come in the process -of generations when, as Disraeli has imagined elsewhere, industry -may cease to repose upon industrialism alone, and representation may -also cease to seem the sole machinery of politics; when enlightenment -and public opinion may form a real national conscience; and when -leadership may prove itself independent of artificial forms. But till -that day arrives, it will be madness in England to give each citizen, -irrespective of any qualification but existence, a voice in the -Legislature, or entrust them with the sway of an empire. His avowed aim -and his accomplished triumph were “to restore those rights which were -lost in 1832 to the labouring class of the country,” and to “bring back -again that fair partition of political power which the old Constitution -of the country recognised.” A year after its enactment, in his great -Irish speech he spoke of it as “a most beneficent and noble Act,” and -he added that he looked “with no apprehension whatever to the appeal -that will be made to the people under the provisions of the Act. I -believe you will have a Parliament full of patriotic and national -sentiment, whose decisions will add spirit to the community and -strength to the State.” “Time,” which was “Contarini Fleming’s” record -in the book of “Adam Besso,” has proved the fulness of his foresight -and the skill of the adjustment. - -The mistrust of this great measure at the time, even by men of -intelligence, may be justified by the objection that in the distant -future Labour may resume its war against authority in its coming -conflict with Capital; and that a rigid conservatism of defiance is -preferable to an adaptive conservatism of development. But whenever -that hour strikes, it will be seen that Disraeli’s statesmanship -has prevented the revolution which a conservatism of defiance must -have prepared and entailed. Disraeli will have helped to preserve -the English immunity from the violences which mark such upheavals -elsewhere. He sought with all his might to quicken Capital into duty, -and to hearten Labour by conferring privilege, not as a sop, but as a -reward, while, by alleviating misery through creative enactments, he -has conservatised Labour and kept it in touch with the national scheme. - -It may not, perhaps, have been wholly realised how harmonious -Disraeli’s utterances respecting the progressive principles of -representation in England have been. That is my excuse for treating -the subject with insistence, though by no means with completeness. To -have done so would risk the exhaustion of the reader as well as of the -subject. Disraeli prevented the raid of alien and disruptive democracy -from making England a home. Out of the common he extracted the choice. -He revived the democracy long inherent in the English Constitution; he -naturalised the democratic idea on the soil of tradition and order; and -thereby he cemented the solidarity of the State and the welfare of the -nation. He proved that “progress” is not synonymous with push, and that -in going forward it is wise also to look back, lest the goal should be -a precipice. Still, long as this disquisition has necessarily been, I -may hope that it is not dull, since, in Mrs. Malaprop’s aphorism, “I -don’t think there is a superstitious article in it.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -LABOUR--“YOUNG ENGLAND”--“FREE TRADE” - - -In _Vivian Grey_, Disraeli mocks at the attitude of the early political -economists towards Labour in the person of “Mr. Toad,” who defined it -as “that exertion of mind or body which is not the involuntary effect -of the influence of natural sensations.” In the second of his long -series of election addresses, he promised to “withhold his support -from every ministry which will not originate some great measure to -ameliorate the condition of the lower orders, ... to liberate our -shackled industry....” The subject is closely allied to much already -surveyed. Here, however, I shall for the most part leave politics -alone, and confine myself mainly to the social aspects of the question, -for from this standpoint he himself approached it. On Mr. Villiers’ -resolutions in 1852, he distinctly stated that he and his friends had -opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws on the main ground that it would -“prove injurious to the interests of Labour;” on the subsidiary ground -that it would injure “considerable interests in the country.” He had, -two years before, urged that it “was a question of labour, or it was -nothing.” Even in the _Revolutionary Epick_, fifteen years earlier, he -had sung, “The many labour, and the few enjoy.” - -The extracts given in the preceding chapter from Disraeli’s speech -on Mr. Hume’s motion in 1848, illustrate the central ideas which he -enforced with singular pertinacity in all his published works and -public utterances. - -They are mainly these. - -It was an age of emancipation, and Peel liberated commerce. In so -doing he disjointed Labour. His two great reforms--that of the Tariff -and that of the Corn Laws--designed as inter-remedial, were certainly -calculated to disturb and dislocate Labour, the one by unloosing the -full forces of straining competition; the other by revolutionising the -centres of industry, by transferring population from the country to the -city, by impairing the landed interests, both high and low, by shifting -the distribution of toil. At the very moment before his relaxation of -the Corn Laws, Peel, conscious that he would disorganise Labour,[75] -had been unconsciously converted to the “right to physical happiness” -system of Manchester--the dryest embodiment of the theory of the French -“physical” equalitarians, on which I touched in my last chapter. His -economics of “cheapness,” the results of which he feared in relation to -the distribution of employment, thus became associated with a principle -that, as I have shown, demands “unlimited employment of labour.” He -freed Commerce, but he unsettled Labour, already rebelling against -the harsh workings of the new Poor Laws. Disraeli asked himself if -reduced tariffs would augment purchasing power, if dethroned land -would be succeeded by any novel power for alleviating the Labour thus -unhinged. And, further, he asked whether the middle class of 1846 -would not reap the benefit without bearing the burden, just as it had -done in the Reform of 1832. What would be the effect of discontent on -the institutions of the country? The two great problems during the -whole decade of 1830-40, when there had occurred a real renaissance, -an awakening, had been Democracy and the Church. Was Democracy to -be detached from the order and orders of the State? was it to be an -anti-national solvent? And was the Church to realise its mission as -a society of believers instead of being perverted into a library of -assent? So far Chartism and Apostasy had been the answers. Were Sir -Robert Peel’s arithmetical measures, excellent as they were in theory, -any practical power for regeneration? Chartism’s inner causes had been -both the want of employment and the despair of the employed. In 1840, -he proclaimed, to his leader’s dismay, his deep sympathy, not with -Chartism, “but with the Chartists,” preyed on by ambitious leaders, -and victimised by official indifference. Throughout he regarded the -whole “condition of England” question from its moral and social -standpoints--to which economics should be subordinate--as touching -Labour at one end and Leadership at the other. - -The claims of Labour, he says, are paramount as those of property. -Property and Labour should be allies, and not foes; nay, Labour is -itself the property of the poor, out of which the property of the rich -is accumulated. The gentlemen of England should form the advanced guard -of Labour; and, moreover, the master-workmen themselves compose “a -powerful aristocracy.” So long as property was allied both to land and -manufacture, a feeling of public spirit and public duty in the main -characterised the large employers. But a financial oligarchy was bound -to arise, and has arisen, linked by no visible ties to the workers, -and generous more by gifts of “ransom” than by personal participation; -a system of commerce, too, without leaders, which now works in groups -and merely on “cheapest market” principles, has sprung into being. And, -moreover, the vast multiplication of machines tended all along, and -tends more and more with the huge increase of intercommunication, to -exalt mechanism into life and to degrade the labourer into a machine, -himself devoid alike of powers and of duties. Over and over again -Disraeli championed, not only the employment of the people, but variety -in their employments. He is never wearied of scathing any system which -might enhance the grinding monotony of mechanical toil. And all this, -while the clamour for material enjoyment rises higher hour by hour; and -the labourer is driven, in his hard quest after squalid enjoyments, -more into the dark corners of organisations for coercing a State -expected to pauperise him, than to philanthropists eager to raise his -condition by preaching over his head, before the roof that covers it is -decent. - -To combat the latter evils--among others--Disraeli started the “Young -England Movement,” and afterwards protested that the old system -of trade reciprocity, with tariffs as levers, had proved a better -guarantee for _social_ happiness than the retail wealth system of “free -imports.” At the same time, as I shall notice, after the repeal of -the Corn Laws had cheapened commodities, he was decidedly of opinion -that to go back would be too violent an upheaval, unless sanctioned -by the deliberate voice of an instructed nation under absolutely new -conditions. To forestall the dangers of financial and commercial -plutocracy,[76] he planned and supported the many alleviative measures -with which his name and Lord Shaftesbury’s are connected, in the teeth, -be it remembered, of the Radical and Utilitarian opposition; while -he proclaimed in the ’seventies, as he had before proclaimed in the -’fifties, his programme of _Sanitas sanitatum_--Health before Wealth. -He foresaw, too, the overcrowding of huge cities through the waste of -the soil, with all its attendant miseries; even so early as 1846 he had -urged that “nothing is so expensive as a vicious population;” and he -felt, also, that if life without toil is “a sorry sort of lot,” toil -without life is an infinitely worse one. Above all, he looked in this -matter, as throughout, far more to the regeneration of society than -to State interference, so easily evaded and so devitalising. And he -lamented the colossal enlargement of the towns, which isolates while it -excites. - -“... In cities,” he protests in _Sybil_, “that condition is aggravated. -A density of population implies a severer struggle for existence, and -a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too close contact. In -great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are -not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making -of fortunes; and for all the rest, they are careless of neighbours. -Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours as ourself; modern -society acknowledges no neighbour.” But he descried already a rift in -the gloom. “Society, still in its infancy, is beginning to feel its -way.” - -The late ’thirties and early ’forties, with their agitations against -middle-class apathy and aristocratic neglect, witnessed to the -reality of the disease which was known as the “condition-of-England -question.” Many of the nobles were not noble; never had been “so many -gentlemen, and so little gentleness.”[77] Exclusion from the suffrage -prevented the natural representation of injuries, and compelled -Labour to band itself covertly, and often under leaders embittered -and embittering with personal and clashing ambitions. The Reform Act, -contended Disraeli, had not reposed the government in abler hands, -nor elevated the head or enlarged the heart of Parliament. “... On -the contrary, one House of Parliament” (he is writing in 1845) “has -been irremediably degraded into the decaying position of a mere court -of registry, possessing great privileges, on condition that it never -exercises them; while the other Chamber, that at the first blush and -to the superficial exhibits symptoms of almost unnatural vitality, ... -assumes on a more studious inspection somewhat of the character of a -select vestry fulfilling municipal rather than imperial offices, and -beleaguered by critical and clamorous millions who cannot comprehend -why a privileged and exclusive senate is requisite to perform functions -which immediately concern _all_....” - -Undoubtedly Labour is far better situated in 1904 than it was in -1844, and undoubtedly this improvement is partly due to Disraeli’s -influence and action. The ideals of “Young England” have borne fruit. -Our “Toynbee Halls” and university settlements, the recognition of -_noblesse oblige_, the trained public opinion that superior light and -leading are in duty bound to lead and enlighten as well as help the -poor; that the poor are their _tenants_; that-- - - “Not what we give, but what we share: - The gift without the giver is bare;” - ---these and their tone are its outcome. His policies of health and -humanisation, of wholesome housing before technical teaching, for -first emancipating Labour from carking cares and then entrusting it -with public duties, have prospered. Chartism and its allied mutinies -have subsided into citizenship. The artisans of to-day are princes -in comparison with what they were. The contracted sloth of the -utilitarian middle class has been shaken to follow what emanated from -the universities. In his Guildhall speeches of 1874 and 1875 Disraeli -could point with pride to Capital at one with Labour, and to operatives -in sympathy with privileges which they shared. At this moment they -are catered as well as cared for; and yet their independence is far -completer than when it was aggressive because it was cowed. - -But none the less, the fatal overcrowding which he foresaw, the -self-divestment by Mammon of direct and immediate responsibilities, -has produced a fresh class of the “sweated” and rookeried masses, -multiplying the unemployed and--what is worse--the unemployable in -compound ratio, and still menacing the physique of the nation. The -pressure of poverty is ever with us; of its wretchedness research -has indeed called forth a science. As what we deemed the lowest -ascends, a fresh depth of distress is always bared to our shame. The -democratisation of local government through the county councils has -indeed done much, and will do more, for the proletariate; but their -lack, with notable exceptions, of high leadership, their tendency to -municipal centralisation, their careless and inexperienced prodigality -with the public purse, their bias towards pauperisation, their tendency -to promote the feverish political ambitions of a class, and sometimes -to confuse the cause of industry with that of its captains, remain a -danger, though, I believe, a vanishing danger, to the State. - - * * * * * - -Disraeli’s earliest novel--one of the books “written by boys,” vague in -its restlessness and untamed in its dazzling extravagance, contains in -its episode of “Poor John Conyers” the germ of that genuine sympathy -with Labour which he afterwards more seriously developed. Apart from -his human instincts and from his desire for a real national unity, it -was founded on his contempt for the merely mechanical or formal in -society; and in 1845, on that tour of experience in Lancashire which -brought home to him anew the terrible gulf between “the two nations” -of rich and poor, and which the pathos, the humour, the wit and the -thought of _Sybil_ have immortalised. - -Few that have read _Coningsby_ will forget the vivid impressions of -Manchester machinery in its pages. They are, perhaps, too familiar for -quotation, and I prefer here to cite some sentences from _Sybil_. - -“... Twelve hours of daily labour at the rate of one penny each hour; -and even this labour is mortgaged,” groans the loom-worker. “... Then -why am I here?... It is that the capitalist has found a slave that has -supplanted the labour and ingenuity of man. Once he was an artisan; at -the best he only now watches machines; and even that occupation slips -from his grasp to the woman and the child. The capitalist flourishes, -he amasses wealth; we sink, lower and lower; lower than the beasts of -burthen; for they are fed better than we are, cared for more. And it -is just, for according to the present system they are more precious. -And yet they tell us that the interests of Capital and of Labour are -identical. _If a society that has been created by labour suddenly -becomes independent of it, that society is bound to maintain the race -whose only property is labour, out of the proceeds of that other -property which has not ceased to be productive._... We sink among no -sighs except our own. And if they give us sympathy--what then? Sympathy -is the solace of the Poor; but for the Rich there is Compensation. - -“You (the nobles) govern us still with absolute authority, and you -govern the most miserable people on the face of the globe. ‘And is this -a fair description of the people of England?’ said Lord Valentine. ‘A -flash of rhetoric, I presume, that would place them lower than ... the -serfs of Russia or the lazzaroni of Naples.’ - -“‘Infinitely lower,’ said the delegate, ‘for they are not only -degraded, but conscious of their degradation. _They no longer believe -in any difference between the governing and the governed classes of -this country._ They are sufficiently enlightened to feel they are -victims. Compared with the privileged of their own land, they are in -a lower state than any other population compared with its privileged -classes.’ - -“‘The people must have leaders,’ said Lord Valentine. - -“‘And they have found them,’ said the delegate. - -“‘When it comes to a push, they will follow their nobility,’ said Lord -Valentine. - -“‘Will their nobility lead them?’ said the other delegate.... - -“‘We have an aristocracy of wealth,’ said the delegate who had chiefly -spoken. ‘In a progressive civilisation wealth is the only means of -class distinction; but a new disposition of wealth may remove even -this.’ - -“‘Ah! You want to get at our estates,’ said Lord Valentine, smiling, -‘but the effort on your part may resolve society into its original -elements, and the old sources of distinction may again develop -themselves.’ - -“‘Tall barons will not stand against Paixhans’ rockets,’ said the -delegate. ‘Modern science has vindicated the natural equality of man.’ - -“‘And I must say I am very sorry for it,’ said the other delegate; -‘for human strength always seems to me the natural process of settling -affairs.’” - -To cherish national unison as a higher form of human harmony than -the discordant bond of automatic groups; to force the governing to -sympathise with the governed; to establish that “Labour requires -regulation as much as Property;” to raise, train, improve and establish -labour “rather,” as he wrote in 1870, “by the use of ancient forms and -the restoration of the past than by political revolutions founded on -abstract ideas,” were Disraeli’s aims. In all except the important one -of the last, the means for accomplishing them, Carlyle’s message is the -same. There is a passage in _Coningsby_ where Disraeli dreams that a -day may come when industry will cease to obey mere industrialism. There -is another in Carlyle’s “Past and Present”[78] to the same effect. -For both, the nobility of labour was a central idea; for both, the -conviction that the cavaliers of England should prove its captains; for -both, _Sanitas sanitatum_ was a practical ideal. “Deliver me,” cries -Carlyle, “these rickety perishing souls of infants, and let your cotton -trade take its chance.” Disraeli and Carlyle alike abominated the -doctrine that national happiness consists merely in material wealth. A -shared or common wealth of endeavour and influence was a goal for each; -for each, too, the main problem remained, “_How, in conjunction with -inevitable democracy, indispensable sovereignty is to exist._” - -“... If there be a change,” said Sybil, “it is because in some degree -the People have learnt their strength.” - -“Ah! Dismiss from your mind those fallacious fancies,” said Egremont. -“The People are not strong; the People never can be strong. Their -attempts at self-vindication will end only in their suffering and -confusion. It is civilisation that has effected, that is effecting, -this change. It is that increased knowledge of themselves that teaches -the educated their social duties. _There is a day-spring in the history -of this nation which perhaps those only who are on the mountaintops -can as yet recognise. You deem you are in darkness, and I see a dawn._ -The new generation of the aristocracy of England are not tyrants, not -oppressors, Sybil.... Their intelligence, better than that, their -hearts, are open to the responsibility of their situation. But the -work that lies before them is no holiday work. It is not the fever -of superficial impulse that can remove the deep-fixed barriers of -centuries of ignorance and crime. Enough that their sympathies are -awakened; time and thought will bring the rest. They are the natural -leaders of the People, Sybil....” - -I may be permitted to point out a likeness and a contrast. The seething -ferment on the Continent was pricking Labour into an insurgent -materialism which, in the dearth of ancient and active institutions -fraught with the balm of healing, leagued itself to attack all forms of -authority, kingship and capital alike. - -“Ah, the People, this poor King in tatters,” wrote Heine from Paris -in 1848, “has fallen on flatterers far more shameless, as they swing -their censers around his head, than the courtiers of Byzantium or -Versailles. These court lackeys of the People incessantly vaunt its -virtues and excellences, crying aloud: ‘How beautiful is the People! -how good is the People! how intelligent is the People!’ No, you lie. -The People is not beautiful; on the contrary, it is very ugly. But its -ugliness is due to its dirt, and will vanish with public baths for the -free ablutions of his Majesty. A piece of soap, too, will do no harm; -and we shall then see a People in the beauty of cleanliness--a washen -People. The People whose goodness is thus magnified is not good at all. -It is often as bad as other potentates. But its baseness flows from -hunger. When once it has well eaten and drunk, it will smile, gracious -and well-favoured as the rest. Nor is his Majesty over-intelligent. He -is possibly stupider than the others--stupid with the bestiality of his -minions; he will only love or heed the speakers, or howlers, of the -jargon of his passions: he hates every brave soul that converses in the -speech of reason, and that would ennoble and enlighten him.” - -Heine was leading “Young Germany.” A few years earlier, Disraeli was -leading “Young England.” The contrast between the atmosphere of the -two countries deserves a passing comment. “Young England” aimed at -betterment in that very feudal spirit which the poet--the “unfrocked -Romantic”--by turns breathed and spurned. In Germany the weird medley -of the “Romantic School” had for fifty years been striving to rewaken -the myths, the chivalry, the wistfulness of the past. But its direct -influences were merely æsthetic, and mainly sentimental; while they -eventually became actually anæmic--a vague reverie of mediæval -moonlight and pallid ghosts. The uprooting French Revolution had swept -away both castle and cobwebs, and in Germany the “folk-song” was the -sole antiquity to which this Romantic attachment could cling, and by -which it could touch the patriotism of a disunited people. But in -England, Scott’s “buff-jerkin” revival, at which Carlyle so unjustly -scoffed, was more than a literary sport; it had already braced the -nation with the fresh breeze of an invigorating tradition. It brought -back and home the inheritance of a real throne and a real nobility, -of chivalry, of daring, and of prowess; it reminded the people that -the humblest was once protected by the highest; and though it perhaps -burked or omitted much that disgraced the age of the tournament, the -foray, and the cloister, it quickened its best, its most hopeful and -most cheerful elements. It took the dry bones from their mouldering -tomb and put the breath of life, the wholesome laughter of humour, -and the brightness of beauty into and about their scattered fragments; -whereas in Germany the Romantics rather embalmed and buried the living -energies of the present in a Gothic mausoleum, weird with wan emblems, -and chill and solemn as a cathedral vault. - -Disraeli recognised that our country thrives by adaptation and -adjustment; that it is the region of natural growth, and not of sudden -blossom; of the oak, not the aloe. In inter-dependence, even more than -independence, in the mutual ties of classes, Disraeli discerned the -English root for democratic ideas which had all along lurked in the -soil. England is great because of that same insular inaccessibility to -ideas which repelled Heine. Her slowness of insight vanishes gradually, -and not by leaps and bounds--through growth and conduct rather than -through universal theories. An idea knocks at our gates for generations -before it wins admittance; but when it once enters, it becomes -naturalised and ceases to be alien; it becomes actualised; it dwells -and walks and votes, and has commerce at large. It becomes part of the -popular life and parcel of the national behaviour. - -“Young England” prepared the ground for social regeneration. It sought -to raise the conditions of labour. It was no rose-water club, but, -short-lived as it proved, was a real forerunner of measures. A word, -therefore, upon it may be pardoned in this connection. Many in the -past century have played the part of “saviours of society.” Robert -Owen, Ferdinand Lassalle, Napoleon III., Karl Marx, and the eccentric -Mr. Urquhart, who furnished some of the _traits_ for Disraeli’s -“Sidonia.”[79] But none in this country have been at once so genuine -and effective as this association of “Young England;” for, enlisting -the enthusiasm of the high and the young, it struck into the roots of -national character, without which no development is feasible. Young -England aimed further, at rendering leadership sympathetic with labour. -It wanted to revive in the lowly a sense of privilege, and in the -noble to quicken higher standards of obligation; it wished to recall -the heroic; and this it tried to accomplish, not by social disturbance, -but by seeking to arouse ancient ideals still slumbering in national -traditions. For this purpose it appealed to youth--“the trustees of -posterity;”[80] to the power of personal influence and example; and -above all, it hoped, as I have already noticed, to counteract the -soullessness of utilitarianism. - -“Ah, yes!” (Disraeli makes Gerard observe in _Sybil_); “I know that -style of speculation.... Your gentlemen who remind you that a working -man now has a pair of cotton stockings, and that Harry the Eighth was -not so well off. At any rate, the condition of classes must be judged -of by the age and by their relations with each other.” - -It was also a vigorous protest against that retort of the Liberal on -the Radical--the sluggish doctrine of _laissez-faire_, the principle -of “stew-in-your-own-juice,” “devil take the hindmost,” “muddling -through,” and “let _ill_ alone.” Disraeli had combated it from the -first:-- - -“In Vraibleusia” (I quote from his early satire of _Popanilla_) “we -have so much to do that we have no time to think--a habit which only -becomes nations who are not employed. You are now fast approaching the -great shell question; a question which, I confess, affects the interest -of every man in this island more than any other.... No one, however, -can deny that the system works well; and if anything at any time go -wrong, why, really Mr. Secretary Periwinkle is a wonderful man, and our -most eminent conchologist--he no doubt will set it right; and if by any -chance things are past even his management, why, then, I suppose, to -use our national motto, _something will turn up_.” - -It further served as antidote to the self-complacence and retail -outlook of the _bourgeoisie_. The “Middle-Middles,” healthfully and -powerfully as they symbolise decency, order, and common sense, too -often lack, even in their educated varieties, perception and sympathy. -At present they pervade Parliament, while the Press--which since 1867 -appeals more and more to the gallery--controls opinion. Hence the -dearth of accord between the prate of Parliament and a nation that -realises its unity. Hence springs the momentary decay of Parliament -itself--not from party spirit, but from the inanition of parties -representing principles, without which party sinks into faction. - -Of the anti-middle class attitude of “Young England,” a notable -instance occurs in “Angela Pisani,” the brilliant fiction of George -Smythe, afterwards seventh Lord Strangford (in Disraeli’s words), -“a man of brilliant gifts; of dazzling wit, infinite culture and -fascinating manners,” who “could promulgate a new faith with graceful -enthusiasm.” The tirade is placed on the lips of Napoleon, denouncing -the “puddle-blooded” whom he had “made great men, but could not make -gentlemen,” and its reproaches--certainly not characteristic of -Disraeli--apply, of course, in an infinitely less degree to England. - -The nucleus of “Young England” had begun in a close association of -university friends. The Cambridge “Apostles” comprised Tennyson and -Hallam, Monteith and Doyle, and “Cool-of-the-evening” Monckton-Milnes. -Disraeli, Lord Strangford, and Lord John Manners reinforced this -nucleus with Faber, Hope, Baillie Cochrane (afterwards Lord Lamington), -and others; they gave them an ampler scope and a longer view, but not -without murmuring jealousies. They taught that the spirit of reform -transcended its letter, and that the English “romantic school”--just -as later on the English pre-Raphaelites in Art--must reseek the -fountainhead of original principles. Milnes wrote in 1844: “You must -have been amused at the name of ‘Young England,’ which we started -so long ago, being usurped by opinions so different and so inferior -a tone of thought. It is, however, a good phenomenon in its way, -and one of its products--Lord John Manners--a very fine, promising -fellow. The worst of them is that they are going about the country -talking education and liberality, and getting immense honour for the -very things for which the Radicals have been called all possible -blackguards and atheists a few years ago.” - -The newer Radical reforms, however, were based on “the greatest -happiness” principle of utility; whereas the league of “Young England” -was founded on the expansion of traditions, and more especially on -the immemorial rights of Labour. What “Young England” really effected -was to infuse enthusiasm into institutions. In 1838 this same “Mr. -Vavasour” of _Tancred_, and “Mr. Tremaine Bertie” of _Endymion_, had -also written: “We have set agoing a new dining club which promises -well. Twenty of the most charming men in the universe met last Tuesday. -They won’t call it ‘Young England,’ however.” It is no disrespect to -the memory of the late Lord Houghton to say that the vague eclecticism -of his youth scarcely fostered a robust energy or a keen insight. His -“remarks” on _Coningsby_ in _Hood’s Magazine_ under the name of “Real -England” were a sympathetic commentary; but, a born _dilettante_, he -“lionised” ideas as he “lionised” genius. He patted intuition on the -back. He was the Mrs. Leo Hunter of politics; and he played admirably -the part of “Bennet Langton” to Carlyle’s “Dr. Johnson.” He somewhat -prattled of “silences” and “eternities.” Well does Disraeli make -“Waldershare” in _Endymion_ exclaim of him: “... What I do like in him -... is this revival of the Pythagorean system, and heading a party of -silence. That is rich.” - -Lord Lamington--the “Buckhurst” of _Coningsby_--who in his pleasant -glimpse of the movement has supplemented its muster-roll by the names -of Borthwick and Stafford, quotes Serjeant Murphy’s pasquinade of “Jack -Sheppard.” Its last verse runs as follows:-- - - “_We have Smythe and Hope with his opera-hat, - But they cannot get Dicky Milnes, that’s flat-- - He is not yet tinctured with Puseyite leavening, - But he may drop in in the ‘cool of the evening.’_” - -The “Puseyite leavening” recalls the strictures of Carlyle on the High -Church proclivities of a portion of the movement. Coleridge’s great -book on the Church had undoubtedly stirred both thought and enthusiasm. -Disraeli, as I shall show hereafter, wished to make the Church a -living social regenerator of the “national spirit,” to see it at once -disciplined and enthusiastic, to restore its original functions, to -render it really “Anglican;” and in his old age--strenuously opposed as -he ever was to the “mass in masquerade,” firmly resolved as he remained -to uphold orderly Protestantism--he has outlined at once a portrait and -a type of his permanent meaning in the person of “Nigel Penruddock;” -just as he has drawn a picture of “Young England” Anglicanism in the -“St. Lys” of _Sybil_, the prototype of whom was Faber. - -In the spring of 1844, Carlyle thus characteristically addresses -Monckton-Milnes-- - -“... _On the whole, if ‘Young England’ would altogether fling its -shovel-hat into the lumber-room, much more cast its purple stockings to -the nettles, and honestly recognising what was dead, ... address itself -frankly to the magnificent but as yet chaotic Future, ... telling men -at every turn that it knew and saw for ever clearly the body of the -Past to be dead (and even to be damnable, if it pretended to be still -alive and to go about in a galvanic state), what achievement might -not ‘Young England’ manage for us!_” Carlyle was ever a free-thinking -Puritan, a creedless Calvinist. “What was dead,” “what pretended still -to be alive,” was the Church of England.... It is easy to deride that -youthful display of poor metre, but fine enthusiasm, “England’s Trust,” -by Lord John Manners. - - “_With Roncesvalles upon his banners - Comes prancing along my Lord John Manners._” - -Carlyle misliked in him what he disliked in Scott, the “properties” of -Romanticism. But the earnestness of Manners’s little volume is beyond -question. In the Church it recognises the national recuperative force -and salve for anarchy. “We laugh at all commandment save our own,” -sighs the boyish devotee-- - - “_Yes, through the Church must come the healing power - To bind our wounds in this tumultuous hour._” - -And Labour had ever been the sacred trust of the Church. Divorce Labour -from religion, and the State falls. It had been the fault of the -Church herself that Labour had gone out of history, as it were, and -crossed over to a more primitive form of true religious fervour under -the Methodist revival; but the Church alone, as a national growth, -could hope, if true to its high destinies, for the preservation of the -great mass of the populace from the disruptive elements of unbelief. -The Church, too, was the natural educator of the people. True, -Manners’s Anglicanism was that of Laud; true, also, to that name he -rhymes “adored.” But it is also true that the whole brotherhood felt -that if the Church, and through it the State, was to be quickened, it -must revert, like the State, to its origin; it must no more be regarded -merely as an endowed official or as a consecrated police, but as a -divine institution. Moreover, Disraeli also regarded the English Church -as the special protectress of popular liberties. I shall return to this -subject in its proper place hereafter; but I may here add that these -convictions of “Young England” were vehemently advocated by Disraeli -in his speeches on the Irish Church more than twenty years after the -“Young England” brotherhood came to an end. - -Disraeli always urged the immense importance of parochial life as even -greater than political. Had the higher classes understood “the order -of the peasantry,” ricks and dwellings would not have been burned down -in the ’thirties. In advocating the claims of ancient country-side -customs, he raised the plea of humanising ceremony--one certainly -cherished by the upper classes for themselves. The people would not, it -is true, be “fed” by morris revelries, and they starved equally without -them. - -It was not to be expected that such a cause, with such a leader, -followed by aristocratic youth and attended by the revival of -maypole dances and tournaments, should escape ridicule and even -suspicion. Grey-headed noblemen, who resented any efforts to render -institutions real, and for whom enthusiasm meant vulgarity, shook -their heads over the follies of their sons, seduced by the wiles -of a designing adventurer. But to such as still doubt Disraeli’s -sincerity in these matters, and refuse to be convinced by a long chain -of after-utterances, I would simply suggest the following fact. -Disraeli’s speech of April 11, 1845, on the Maynooth grant[81] broke -up the “Young England” association, and terminated his leadership of -it. What was the main principle of that speech? It was this: “... You -find your Erastian system crumbling from under your feet.... I have -unfaltering confidence in the stability of our Church, but I think that -the real source of the danger which threatens it is its connection with -the State, which places it under the control of the House of Commons -that is not necessarily of its communion.” He denied that the State -had ever “endowed” the Church. The Church owned property which was the -patrimony of the poor. He argued that since 1829 the State’s relation -to the Church had altered. He implied, as he often afterwards asserted, -that the union of Church and State was for the benefit of the State far -more than for that of the Church. Now, this attitude was eminently that -of his “Young England” professions. And yet its fearless expression -dissolved a gathering which his detractors maintained was used merely -as a step to personal advancement. - -Carlyle, in the passage above cited, evinced the same irritable -impatience that he exhibited in 1849, when he cursed parliamentary -institutions because a particular Parliament had over-talked itself. -He was an iconoclast who, however, often confused the symbol with the -faith that underlies it, and in dethroning the image would have dashed -the glamour of its shrine. In 1848--the year of anarchy--Disraeli made -a famous speech (the speech which procured him his future leadership of -the House). He upheld these institutions while he denounced that very -Parliament which moved Carlyle’s indignation. The future has proved him -right, and the sage wrong. The practical fruits of the future, too, -have vindicated the peculiar tinge that Disraeli himself lent to the -“Young England” brotherhood. - -One closing word on the social aims of “Young England.” I may summarise -them by the phrase “Health and Home.” They compassed the relief of -industry, and they implied the effort to shame the knights of industry -into some chivalry towards it. - -“Pitt,” wisely comments Mr. Kebbel, “ended the quarrel between the King -and the aristocracy, and reconciled the Whig doctrine of monarchy with -the Whig doctrine of Parliament. Peel accommodated Toryism to the new -_régime_ established by the Reform Bill, and his name will always be -identified with the progress of middle-class reform. _Lord Beaconsfield -carried Toryism into the next stage, and made it the business of his -life to close up the gap in our social system which ... had been -gradually widening, and to reconcile the working classes to the Throne, -the Church, and the Aristocracy._” - -To those who object that beyond Foreign Policy and the last Reform -Bill, Disraeli effected little that is lasting, this is the answer. -He was prouder of his many social reforms than of his Berlin Treaty. -He was a born conciliator. He put a new and powerful leaven into the -social lump, and he inspired the generous youth of the country. What -he especially sought to mitigate was irresponsible Plutocracy, with a -shifting stock of vagrant and unrelated Labour bought in the cheapest -market, sold in the dearest; without stability, without ties, without -allegiance. - -“‘I am not against Capital’ (he makes “Enoch Craggs” declaim in -_Endymion_), ‘what I am against is Capitalists.’ - -“‘But if we get rid of capitalists, we shall soon get rid of capital.’ - -“‘No, no,’ said Enoch, with his broad accent, shaking his head and with -a laughing eye. ‘Master Thornberry (the Radical) has been telling you -that. He is the most inveterate capitalist of the whole lot.... Master -Thornberry is against the capitalists in land; but there are other -capitalists nearer home, and I know more about them. I was reading a -book the other day about King Charles--Charles I., whose head they cut -off--I am very liking to that time, and read a good deal about it; and -there was Lord Falkland, a great gentleman of those days, and he said -when Archbishop Laud was trying on some of his priestly tricks, that -“If he were to have a Pope, he would rather the Pope were at Rome than -Lambeth.” So I sometimes think, if we are to be ruled by capitalists, I -would sooner, perhaps, be ruled by gentlemen of estate, who have been -long among us, than by persons who build big mills, who come from God -knows where, and, when they have worked their millions out of our flesh -and bone, go God knows where....’” - -The two river bills carried at Disraeli’s instigation in 1852; the -twenty-nine bills for ameliorating the position of factory operatives, -passed despite those Radicals who predicted ruin for the manufacturer; -the Employers and Workmen Acts, the Conspiracy and Protection of -Property Act, the Poor Law Amendment Act, the Commons Act, the -Artisans’ Dwellings Acts, the Public Health Act, the Rating Act, -the Employers’ Liability Acts, the Agricultural Holdings Act, among -many others, attest the victory of “popular Toryism” over “class -Liberalism,” and the protection of suffering against selfishness. -“Young England,” like all Utopian propaganda, was a romantic vision, -and exceeded actuality. But in essence it has been eminently practical. -Classes (of which England is made) are infinitely more in communion -than they were in 1840. The effort to set them by the ears and to -oppose the “masses” to the “classes” has ignominiously failed. The -Church of England has roused itself to the national needs beyond all -comparison with those days. The appeals of _Sybil_, _Coningsby_, and -_Tancred_, ridiculed as rodomontade and branded as a charlatan’s -dodge, have been rendered into action, and stand confessed as the -deeply felt and pondered schemes of a poet and a statesman. “When,” -says Bolingbroke, “great coolness of judgment is united to great -warmth of imagination, we see that happy combination which we call a -genius.” Such has proved Disraeli, and his inmost soul is embodied in -that “Young England” which he organised and encouraged in a freezing -atmosphere. Over fifty years ago he exhorted youth, at the Manchester -Athenæum, as “the trustees of posterity.” “The man,” he then said, “who -did not look up would look down, and he who did not aspire was destined -perhaps to grovel.” The youth of to-day is far more conscious of its -burden than was the youth of any class in the ’forties. - -It was mainly on these social grounds that Disraeli resisted that -system of free imports which has gone down to history as “Free Trade.” -He never denied that it was calculated to enrich manufacturers -and manufacturing centres; he grew to admit its benefits to the -consumer, although these were by no means wholly due to its action; -but he deprecated its “economic frenzy.” He held that it injured the -producer[82] and played havoc both with land and distribution of -labour. He thought it would eventually impair morale and physique, -and sacrifice the general welfare to the material interests of a -class; and, before it was nationally adopted, he considered that all -ends would have been better served by the adoption of that system -of reciprocal treaties[83]--on a principle called by him “at once -national and cosmopolitan”--which was termed “Free Trade” in the days -of Pitt, and had been inaugurated in 1713 by the abortive tariff of -the great Utrecht Treaty; nor will it now be doubted that if in 1846 a -comprehensive scheme of technical education had been set on foot, many -of the evils engendered by over-competition would have been avoided, -whatever fiscal system this country had chosen. - -Writing so early as 1832 to the Wycombe electors, he even then -declared: “... With regard to the Corn Laws, I will support any change, -the basis of which is _to relieve the consumer without injuring the -farmer_.” This was not the “Radical” doctrine of those days. - -Disraeli has shown conclusively that in English history such a -principle as absolute “protection” never existed. The original -principle up to the time of Anne was to feed and supply a population -then small enough so to be supported at home, and to encourage the -wealth and power of trade. He has shown that Walpole, in this respect -imitating the rival whom he destroyed, wisely followed this principle -in its colonial applications; though he unwisely divorced productive -trade from the land, and set the moneyed against the landed classes, -the high finance against the country gentlemen, into whose shoes, -however, it soon stepped. He has shown that when the colonial system -broke down by the secession of our greatest and worst governed colony, -Pitt the Second reverted to the old, the natural principle of exchange -with the continent by tariff. The exigencies of the Revolutionary and -Napoleonic wars forced an interlude; and for a time England was fed -by foreign corn in free competition with her own--the very time when -the loaf was dearest. But Lord Liverpool recurred to the principle; -and Peel up to 1845--when his hand was confessedly forced by the -appalling famine in Ireland--was in favour of the varying duties termed -the sliding scale, as opposed to the fixed duties of the Whigs and -the no-duties of the Radicals. That scale he eventually surrendered -under the impulse of Lord John Russell’s “Edinburgh Letter,” and was -suddenly converted by the Manchester School. In logic, and apart from -human and national instincts, their theories were as irrefragable as -those of our modern bimetallists, and of those ancient economists on -whose doctrines they rested. But their lasting usefulness depended -on the final achievement of a cosmopolitan confederation. Disraeli -presaged with weighty reasons, scouted when they were detailed, that -other nations would never fall into the scheme; he analysed the -special conditions of France, Germany, and America. He also foretold, -concerning corn, in common with all articles of certain and practically -unlimited demand (as cotton and tea, for examples), that “the moment -you have a settled market, in exact proportion to the demand, prices -will fall. This is the inevitable rule.” He pressed further the grave -peril, hardly yet realised, of England’s dependence on foreign supplies -in time of war. But beyond all, he emphasised the social dangers--the -misery for individuals and for classes. In this precipitate measure -towards a material class-millennium, he discerned a large element -of possible denationalisation, a displacement of labour which must -unavoidably deluge the unwieldy towns, and which would to some extent -relax the fibre of the nation and weaken its very means of defence, -the replacement of excellence by cheapness, and of national welfare -by wealth, the substitution for the landed interest which ought to -preponderate though never to predominate, not, as seemed for the -moment, by a high-toned class of responsible manufacturers, but -eventually by an overwhelming clique of irresponsible capitalists -with self-interests fluid as their portable property; the decrease -of the national, the natural sway of large landowners inheriting a -representative sense of accountability to tenants and dependants; a -probably great fall in agriculture and its profits, prices and wages; -the waste on a large scale and the depopulation of the soil itself; the -special aggravation of ruinous elements in Ireland; an ultimate decay, -when foreign competition should develop, of that very manufacturing -interest the system was protested to advantage and intended to protect; -for he divined already in the ’forties that to fight hostile tariffs -with “free imports” could only benefit England while continental -manufacturers were in comparative infancy. - -Most of this in great measure he foresaw, and in all this has been -amply justified. What he did not anticipate was the enormous stature -which these developments have now reached. Multitudes of telling -instances might be given from those remarkable speeches, the pith and -point of which were always how this change would affect the labouring -classes. I will single out two alone, and both from that great speech -of 1846 on Mr. Miles’s amendment, which, in the light of the present, -reads like a continuous prophecy. Speaking of the displacement of -labour in connection with the then sparse distribution of the precious -metals, which he pointed out six years later must again modify the -situation owing to the recent and immense discoveries of gold, he said: -“... Every year and in every market English labour will receive less in -return of foreign articles. But gold and silver are foreign articles; -and in every year and in every market English labour will have less -command of gold and silver....” “... Supposing you import five millions -more from Russia than you ever did before, how will you make your -payments, if they take no more additional goods from you than they do -now?... I know it will be replied they manage these things by means of -bills and so on. But that will not improve the case. Suppose ... you -buy Russian bills on Brazil and New York to the amount of those five -millions, and you thus complete your transaction. But you have already -supplied the Americans and the Brazilians with as much of your goods as -you cared to take, and if you want to sell more to them, you must do so -at a great sacrifice....” - -Once more, as regards foreign competition. He forecasted that of -America; and in demolishing the argument that Prussia’s protective -Zollverein was being “shaken;” he instanced Mecklenburg, induced by -English remonstrances to abstain from joining, but now complaining -that: “... After all the sacrifices we have made, if the Zollverein are -to have free importation to England, we have no advantage whatever, and -the best thing we can now do is to join and ... advance the cause of -native industry.” - -Disraeli resolved that if the repeal became law, the burdens which -had been thrown on the land, because of the privileges which were its -ancient trust, should in fairness be mitigated; that it should compete -as freely as other manufacturers, for he never ceased to object to a -distinction, as manufacturers, between the farmer, the miller, and the -mill-owner. - -“... I know,” he urged in a speech full of dignity and wisdom, “that -we have been told 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 intelligence and -wealth--the manufacturers of England. My conscience assures me that I -have not been slow in doing justice to the intelligence of that class; -certain I am that I am not one of those who envy them their wide and -deserved prosperity; but I must confess my deep mortification that in -an age of political regeneration, when all social evils are ascribed -to the operation of class interests, it should be suggested that we are -to be rescued from the alleged power of one class, only to sink under -the avowed dominion of another;” and he concluded with the hope that -if the monarchy of England, “mitigated by the acknowledged authority -of the estates of the realm,” was to prove “a worn-out dream,” if -England was to sink “under the thraldom of capital, ... of those who -while they boast of their intelligence are prouder of their wealth,” -if a new force must be summoned to maintain “the immemorial monarchy -of England,” that “novel power” might be found in “the invigorating -energies of an educated and enfranchised people.” - -All this has happened. A thraldom to the middle class came into being, -and was tempered by Disraeli’s own franchise bill, and by an education -act sufficient, though not conceived in the decentralised form which -Disraeli desired, but never won the opportunity of effecting. And out -of this thraldom is springing that other of plutocracy--one which -exercises great political power without assuming great political -duties; one in the interest of which, it seems to me, some of the new -fiscal changes now being mooted are designed. - -These wholesale changes I cannot but feel that Disraeli would have -withstood. Many features in Mr. Chamberlain’s plan would have enlisted -his sympathy, but in their entirety he would have thought them -hazardous. Some protection for the grazier he might have upheld; he -always laid stress on the importance of home markets. A moderate duty -on corn, in partial, though most inadequate, aid of agriculture, he -might have favoured as a necessary lever for colonial reciprocity; -especially as it would be spread over the untaxed colonial, the foreign -dutiable imports. It would scarcely much affect the price of bread, -and the very Peelites forewent the fallacy of the dear loaf; although, -as in 1852, he would show that even a four shilling duty on imported -corn could never restore the land to its former footing. “We ought,” -he would again argue, “to go to the country on principle, and not upon -details. We say we think there should be measures brought forward” -(as since have been brought forward) “to put the cultivators of the -soil in a position to allow them to compete with foreign industry.” -What, however, he then urged with all his force was that the fiscal -revolution had confessedly caused vexatious taxes. “Sir,” he said in -1852, “I do now and ever shall look on the changes which took place in -1846, both as regards the repeal of the Corn Laws and the alteration -of the Sugar Duties, as totally unauthorised. I opposed them ... _from -an apprehension of the great suffering which must be incurred by such -a change_. That suffering in a great degree, though it may be limited -to particular classes, has in some instances been even severer than we -anticipated. But I deny that at any time after those laws were passed, -either I, or the bulk of those with whom I have the honour to act, have -ever maintained a recurrence to the same laws that regulated those -industries previously to 1846.” He then showed the difference between -Lord Derby’s proposed “fixed duty” and the old state of affairs; while -he continued: “... When we come to this question of fixed duty, ... -I must say now what I said before in this House, that I will not pin -my political career on any policy which is not after all a principle, -but a measure. Our wish is, that the interests which we believe were -unjustly treated in 1846,[84] should receive the justice which they -deserve, with as little injury to those who may have benefited more -than they were entitled to, as it is possible for human wisdom to -devise. _Sir, I call that reconciling the interests of the consumer -and the producer, when you do not permit the consumer to flourish by -placing unjust taxes upon the producer; while at the same time you -resort to no tax which gives to the producer; an unjust and artificial -price for his production._...” - -But any prohibitive tax on foreign manufactures--that is another -matter, one which would protect certain trades at the expense of the -community, and aggravate the very evils which Free Trade introduced. -Such a system must press all the harder on that class of consumers -whose pay would remain unaffected by its results, and who would, in -fact, be subsidising our colonies out of their emptied pockets. The -sentiment of the colonies he would have prized beyond measure, but -other means for riveting it might be found; and in the undeveloped -condition of many among them, would not a Canadian favouritism sow a -harvest of jealousies? Moreover, the colonial population as a whole -is still far too scanty for the replacement of our markets abroad; -and further, the two main channels of cheap capital and British -prosperity--our carrying trade and London’s commercial position as -the clearing-house of the world--might be revolutionised by changes, -to which no limit could be fixed. And again, the remission of Income -Tax ought in justice to accompany such a system, for that tax was -revived by Peel expressly because the revenue had to be reimbursed for -its losses on adopting the measures for free imports. With respect to -“dumping,”[85] its conditions contain its cure. England, no longer -the main workshop of the world, cannot perhaps be so generous as -heretofore, but she can still afford to be generous. As for the promise -of higher wages through protective duties, wages are more likely -to rise through the resumption of gold imports from South Africa; -while the joint result of retaliatory tariffs and such imports would -be doubly to enhance the price of commodities for the mass. On the -other hand, the vision of a self-supporting empire he would honour, -and equally the sincere and commanding zeal of its prophet. But he -would surely argue that the times were far from ripe, and that small -and gradual beginnings might lay firmer foundations than a colossal -combination of incompatibles. Again, he would, as the writer fancies, -deplore a loud and unsolicited appeal to the passions of a multitude -and the greed of a class easily thus led into a lordship of mob -despotism. At the same time, he would certainly recognise, as Mr. -Chamberlain alone has fully recognised, the crying need for a better -distribution of employment. - -Disraeli over and over again affirmed that since the nation had -endorsed this vital change, its reversal was impracticable unless the -considered national demand for it became overwhelming. It was one -of his cardinal ideas that without such deliberate demand no great -change of national policy should be risked in any department. In -1852, he and Lord Derby appealed to the country on a modified issue -of this question--that of a fixed duty. The country’s answer Disraeli -considered as final, even in that regard; nor, so far as he was able, -would he ever permit these momentous issues to be reopened by any -party or section. He remained devoted to the reciprocity principle. -He believed that “give and take” is the foundation of trade which -is barter. But, though he descried rocks ahead in the future, he -recognised that the consumer had benefited by the free opening of our -ports, that so far as material wealth was concerned, England had become -the emporium and the banker of the world. On the other hand, this very -prosperity had aggravated the misery of a class and had raised those -problems which are still engaging anxious attention. Utilitarianism, -the “cheapest market” theory, had triumphed in the establishment of -unrestricted competition, but the upshot of that competition was an -increasing strain and disorganisation of native labour. With these -evils he left the quickened spirit of “Young England” to cope; while he -himself strove to meet them by the remission of the now unjust burdens -laid on the land, his industrial franchise bill, and his cherished -policy of _sanitas sanitatum_. He had, at any rate, largely influenced -the opinion of his generation in bringing home to men’s minds and -consciences the equality of the rights of Labour with those of -property, and the adequacy of constitutional forms to enforce them; nor -did he ever cease to press them in his writings and speeches. But as a -statesman he had always to choose between evils; and of these a forced -disturbance of a nationally adopted system, which by hasty expedients -might tend to disorder and to dispersal, he ever considered the graver. -To experiment he always opposed experience. - -Speaking only two years before his death, he said-- - -“So far as I understand ... reciprocity is barter. I have always -understood that barter was the first evidence of civilisation[86]--that -it was exactly the state of human exchange that separated civilisation -from savagery.... My noble friend (Lord Bateman) read some extracts, -... and he honoured me by reading an extract from the speech I then -made in the other House of Parliament. That was a speech in favour -of reciprocity--a speech which defined what was then thought to be -reciprocity, and indicated the means by which reciprocity could be -obtained. I do not want to enter into the discussion whether the -principle was right or wrong, but it was acknowledged in public life, -favoured and pursued by many statesmen who conceived that by the -negotiation of a treaty of commerce, by reciprocal exchange and the -lowering of duties, the products of the two negotiating countries -would find a freer access and consumption in the two countries than -they formerly possessed. But when my noble friend taunts me with a -quotation of some rusty phrase of mine forty years ago, I must remind -him that _we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could -be negotiated_. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert -Peel had taken place, there were one hundred and sixty-eight articles -in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, -if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of -reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. -Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity--have they the -materials?... _You have lost the opportunity._... The policy which -was long ago abandoned, _you cannot now resume_. You have at this -moment a great number of commercial treaties ... nearly forty, with -some of the most considerable countries in the world ... in which ‘the -most-favoured-nation’ clause is included. Well, suppose you are for -a system of reciprocity as my noble friend proposes. He enters into -negotiations with a state; he says: ‘You complain of our high duties -on some particular articles. We have not many, we have a few left; -we shall make some great sacrifice to induce you to enter into a -treaty for an exchange of products.’ _But the moment you contemplate -agreeing with the state, ... every other of the forty states with -‘the most-favoured-nation’ clause claims exactly the same privilege. -The fact is, practically speaking, reciprocity, whatever its merits, -is dead._... The opportunity, like the means, has been relinquished; -and if this is the only mode in which we are to extricate ourselves -from the great distress which prevails, our situation is hopeless. I -should be very sorry to say, whatever the condition of the country, its -condition is hopeless....” - -“I cannot for a moment doubt that the repeal of the Corn Laws--on -the policy of which I do not enter--has materially affected the -condition of those who are interested in land. I do not mean to say -that this is the only cause of landed distress. There are other -reasons--general distress, the metallic changes,[87] have all had -an effect. _But I cannot shut my eyes to the conviction that the -termination of protection to the landed interest has materially tended -to the condition in which it finds itself. But that is no reason why -we should retrace our steps, and authorise and sanction any violent -changes._ This state of things is one which has long threatened.... It -has arrived.... I cannot give up the expectation that the energy of -this country will bring about a condition of affairs more favourable -to the _various classes_ which form the great landed interest of this -country. I should look upon it as a great misfortune to this country -that the character, and power, and influence of the landed interest -and its valuable industry, should be diminished, and should experience -anything like a fatal and a final blow. It would, in my opinion, be a -misfortune, not to this country alone, but to the world, _for it has -contributed to the spirit of liberty and order more than any other -class that has existed in modern times_.... But ... I cannot support -my noble friend when he asks us to pass resolutions of this great -character, and when he himself disclaims the very ground (_i.e._ -protection) on which he might have framed, not what I think was a -correct, but a plausible case. _It is a very unwise course, in my -opinion, when the country is not in a state so satisfactory as we could -wish ... to propose any inquiry which has not either some definite -object, or is likely to lead to some action on the part of those who -bring it forward._ It would lead to great disappointment and uneasiness -on the part of the country; and the classes who are trying to realise -the exact difficulties they have to encounter ... _would relapse into -a lax state which might render them incapable of making the exertions -it is necessary for them to make_.... Looking into the state of the -country, I do not see there is any great mystery in the causes which -have produced a state of which there is undoubted general complaint. -What has happened in our own commercial failures during the last ten -years will explain it. The great collapse which naturally followed the -_convulsion of prosperity_ which seemed to deluge the world and not -merely this country--the fact that other countries have been placed in -an equally disagreeable situation ... these are circumstances which -appear to me to render it quite unnecessary to enter into an inquiry on -this subject.... I do not mean to say that there are not moments ... in -which an inquiry by Parliament ... into the causes of national distress -may not be allowable--may not be necessary; but it must be a distress -of a very different kind from that which we are now experiencing. We -must have the consciousness that the great body of the people are in a -situation intolerable to them....” - -Compare with this that passage from his late _Endymion_--a novel of -memories--where “Job Thornberry” (John Bright) discusses this very -problem with the hero. - -“‘... But, after all,’ said Endymion, ‘America is as little in favour -of free exchange as we are. She may send us her bread-stuffs, but -her laws will not admit our goods, except on the payment of enormous -duties.’ - -“‘Pish!’ said Thornberry. ‘I do not care this for their enormous -duties. Let me have free imports, and I will soon settle their duties.’ - -“‘To fight hostile tariffs with free imports,’ said Endymion, ‘Is not -that fighting against odds?’ - -“‘Not a bit. This country has nothing to do but to consider its -imports. Foreigners will not give us their products for nothing; but -as for their tariffs, if we were wise men, and looked to our real -interests, their hostile tariffs, as you call them, would soon be -falling down like an old wall.’ - -“‘Well, I confess,’ said Endymion, ‘I have for some time thought the -principle of free exchange was a sound one; but its application in a -country like this would be very difficult, and require, I should think, -great prudence and moderation.’ - -“‘... Ignorance and timidity,’ said Thornberry, scornfully. - -“‘Not exactly that, I hope,’ said Endymion; ‘_but you cannot deny that -the home market is a most important element in the consideration of our -public wealth, and it mainly rests on the agriculture of the country_.’” - -To which “Thornberry” retorts that “England is to be ruined to keep up -rents.” - -At all events, it is here, as elsewhere, evident what led Disraeli to -oppose the introduction of unregulated competition. Things have long -since marched quickly. The wall of tariffs has not tottered; Disraeli -never imagined that it would. “Foreigners” now do sometimes “give us -their products for nothing” through those colossal “Trusts” that make -enormous profits at home to undersell us at a loss and capture our -markets abroad. Competition has been reduced to the absurd. Nor is -the Continent in that plight which marked it when Disraeli uttered -the speech above cited. All these changed conditions require changing -remedies, but the heroic remedy lately advocated may well occasion -thoughtful retrospect, and the speech I have chosen may be profitably -pondered in this connection. - -And can any reader of his utterances doubt that, had he lived, he would -never have left the problem of the housing of the poor to private -experiment, or merely municipal omniscience? Thirty-three years ago he -wrote as follows:-- - -“It is the terror of Europe and the disgrace of Britain,” says -“Lothair” of pauperism; “and I am resolved to grapple with it. It seems -to me that pauperism is not so much an affair of wages as of dwellings. -If the working classes were properly lodged, at their present rate of -wages, they would be richer. They would be healthier and happier at the -same cost....” - -I will conclude with an excerpt from Disraeli’s great Crystal Palace -speech of 1872. It concerns the remedies which he had from the first -determined to apply to a state of things which the rush of so-called -“progress” had induced. - -“... It must be obvious to all who consider the condition of the -multitude with a desire to improve and elevate it, that no important -step can be gained unless you can effect some reduction of their hours -of labour and humanise their toil. The great problem is to be able to -achieve such results without violating those principles of economic -truth upon which the prosperity of all States depends. You recollect -that many years ago the Tory party believed that these two results -might be obtained ... and at the same time no injury be inflicted on -the wealth of the nation. You know how that effort was encountered, -how these views and principles were met by the triumphant statesmen -of Liberalism. They told you that the inevitable consequence of your -policy was to diminish capital; and this, again, would lead to the -lowering of wages, to a great diminution of the employment of the -people, and ultimately to the impoverishment of the kingdom.... And -what has been the result? Those measures were carried; but carried, as -I can bear witness, with great difficulty and after much labour and a -long struggle. Yet they were carried; and what do we now find? That -capital was never accumulated so quickly; that wages were never higher; -that the employment of the people was never greater, and the country -never wealthier. I ventured to say a short time ago (_at Manchester_) -that the health of the people was the most important subject for a -statesman. It is ... a large subject. It has many branches. It involves -the state of the dwellings of the people, the moral consequences of -which are not less considerable than the physical. It involves their -enjoyment of some of the chief elements of nature--air, light, and -water. It involves the regulation of their industry, the inspection -of their toil. It involves the purity of their provisions, and it -touches upon all the means by which you may wean them from habits of -excess and brutality.... Well, it may be the ‘policy of sewage’ to a -Liberal member of Parliament. But to one of the labouring multitude of -England, who has found fever always to be one of the inmates of his -household--who has, year after year, seen stricken down the children of -his loins, on whose sympathy and support he has looked with hope and -confidence; it is not ‘a policy of sewage,’ but a question of life and -death. And I can tell you this, gentlemen, from personal conversation -with some of the most intelligent of the labouring class, that ... -the hereditary, the traditionary policy of the Tory party that would -improve the condition of the people, is more appreciated by the people -than the ineffable mysteries and all the pains and penalties of the -Ballot Bill.... Is that wonderful? Consider the condition of the great -body of the working classes of this country. They are in possession of -personal privileges--of personal rights and liberties--which are not -enjoyed by the aristocracies of other countries. Recently they have -obtained--and wisely obtained--a great extension of political rights; -and when the people of England see that under the Constitution of this -country ... they possess every personal right of freedom, and according -to the conviction of the whole country, also an adequate concession -of political rights, is it at all wonderful that they should wish to -elevate and improve their condition, and is it unreasonable that they -should ask the Legislature to assist them in that behest, as far as it -is consistent with the general welfare of the realm?...” - -The crucial problem still exacts, though it need not baffle, solution. -We are still waiting for the complete answer to the question here -propounded by Disraeli. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -CHURCH AND THEOCRACY - - -“The equality of man,” exclaims Disraeli in _Tancred_, “can only be -accomplished by the sovereignty of God. The longing for fraternity can -never be satisfied but under the sway of a common Father ... announce -the sublime and solacing principle of theocratic equality.” - -This is a Semitic idea; but, then, so is the Church. The State, on the -other hand, is an Aryan conception. The real religion both of Athens -and of Rome was the State. These radical ideas of Church and State, -to which we have grown so accustomed, are, in fact, the products of -special races and the salvage of the centuries. The Romans invented -“Empire,” the Athenians “Democracy,” the Jews created “Theocracy.” - -It may be interesting to inquire how this idea of a spiritual -_Church_--a colony from the unseen and eternal--has been in constant -conflict with that other dominant idea of the _State_; and how, among -the nations, England alone has made any serious or successful attempt -to reconcile them. For these are the ideas, expressed or implied, of -Disraeli. I take the liberty of illustrating these ideas afresh in my -own manner, and in continuous commentary, rather than by considering -isolated passages scattered through his books and speeches, many of -which I shall quote later on. And the standpoint marked by the title -of this chapter is the point of view which seems to me to distinguish -the many varieties of the theme which he presents, and which evidently -fascinated him. - -A _national_ Theocracy has always been rejected in the West. The Roman -Church, whose ideal is an international Theocracy under an imperial -form, is in essence anti-national and cosmopolitan; and for this very -reason it became repugnant to those Northern races whose genius makes -for nationality and independence. Moreover, it is unable itself to -flourish without the temporal appanage of a _State_; and it therefore -tends to become an _imperium in imperio_. On Western soil religion is -unable to thrive as a living force unless aided by the equipments of -the _State_, which the instinct of the West evolved, and to which it -is prone; while a non-organised, inorganic creed can no more make a -_Church_, which is a society of believers, than a paper constitution -can make a _state_, which is the community individualised. - -A _national_ Theocracy failed also in the East because the faculty -for creating a _State_ was deficient. When once Theocracy, pure and -simple, vanished from Palestine--“the fatherland of the Spirit”--Israel -and Judah were confronted by their inherent inability to found a -_State_. It was this, indeed, which gave rise to the Messianic hope, -a hope which yielded to daily motherhood the consecration of divine -destiny. For to lend an effective earthly sanction to the theocratic -ideal, to reconcile without violence the government of a community -under the Eternal and Invisible with the progress of a community -under a visible chieftain, a perfect monarch, the founder of a golden -age, was required--a theocrat king. The Jewish polity was a _Church_. -All European churches, on the contrary, are polities. This is well -recognised by Professor Ewald,[88] who proves that the _State_, as -such, took no root and found no real place in Palestine. The tentatives -towards a _State_ conflicted with the native theocratic ideals of -race aspiration, and failed to survive them. And when at length the -Incarnation displayed the “Perfect King,” whose “kingdom was not -of this world,” but “within you,” and whose Kingship was “without -observation,” it was the very anti-nationalism of His teaching at -a period when Rome had tinged Palestine with Western politics that -perplexed or offended a perverse caste of fanatics athirst for -national unity, although national independence had crumbled away. When, -once more, the Apostle to the Gentiles laid the Pauline foundations of -an international Christian Church, the Jewish nationalism, despite the -sublime prophecies of Isaiah, grew doubly embittered, and closed its -ears to that theocratic message, which was, in fact, the fulfilment of -its highest aspirations. - -For the ideal of the early Christian Church was undoubtedly an -_international Theocracy_. On this very account it disgusted the Roman -patriotism which despised it. But directly it became acclimatised -in the West, and prevailed, it also underwent that modification of -theocratic ideals which the West always entails. It threw itself into -the mould of the _State_. It assumed the purple of the Cæsars; it “sent -forth its dogmas like legions into the Provinces.” - -This only happens in Europe; in the East religions are never -politicised. The West seeks the tangible and turns to myth the -wonders that are literal to the Eastern mind. In so far as the old -Egyptian belief was in the priestly power, it may perhaps be termed -oligarchical, but not in the Western sense. The Church of Buddha is a -spiritual brotherhood, never a _State_. Islam, like that from which -it sprang, is a Theocracy without any inherent organisation. Like it, -it eventually chose a monarchical headship; and, like it too, its -monarchy came to be cleft in twain. It is, I repeat, only in the West -that creeds are politicised. As the earthly sanctions for Christianity -coarsened through the centuries, it became at once Cæsarian and -cosmopolitan. But the warfare between the so-called secular and -spiritual powers, which, indeed, forms the history of the earliest -Middle Ages, soon began to impair its birthright of cosmopolitanism. -The invincible bias towards nationality of the Northern races asserted -itself. - -Dante, it is true, dreamed of a real Theocracy. But he was a strong -champion of a monarchical State. He staked his hopes on that great -Emperor--that “patriot king”--whose premature death dashed his vision -to the ground. And after Dante, Savonarola craved a real Theocracy; but -it again assumed that Republican shape which, two centuries later, was -to play a greater, though as futile, a part in England. The Church one -way or another throughout Europe perpetually tended towards becoming “a -State within the State,” a “King of kings;” and in this regard it is -not a little curious that the present Oratorians still obey the antique -Florentine Constitution which St. Philip of Neri transcribed and -embalmed as the rule of his order. In the same way the early American -Episcopalians brought with them, in their three-yearly Conventions, -that Triennial Parliament which William of Orange grudgingly granted to -the Tories, and which Walpole was afterwards to repeal for the Whigs. -Once more, the Pilgrim Fathers brought the ideal of Republican forms -to America; but Republican forms soon passed into democratic facts. -From Jemima Wilkinson to Mormonism and Christian science, sects and -sectaries have abounded. No religious vagary has lacked its audience -and its franchise. America exemplifies the disadvantage of lacking -a national comprehensive Church in a country whose aspirations are -national. Early in the seventeenth century the Presbyterians persecuted -the Quaker immigrants with a ferocity of which Torquemada might have -been proud; but in their turn the American Presbyterians eventually -fell a prey to their own factions. While she was still a British -colony, England unwisely forced on America bishops consecrated at -home; but these very bishops were themselves rejected admittance by -persecuting Presbyterians, who regarded Episcopalians as Jacobites, -and taunted them as Papists. It was the Society for the Propagation of -the Gospel that persistently sought to remedy the gross anomaly of the -Bishop of London being the Bishop of America. - -The Reformation in England was in its essence a national protest -against internationalism. Out of it flowed the notion of a _national -Church_ like a “national party” (a contradiction in terms but a most -remarkable actuality), which it, in common with France, theoretically -justified as prior to Roman usurpation. Our Church is one at once -rooted in the soil as a civil institution, a source of parish life, -a security for local government, a bar at once to oligarchy and -bureaucracy, against the exclusion of the many from public life,[89] -the trustee of an estate which enables all to become proprietors of -the soil, which is, as Disraeli termed it, “the fluctuating patrimony -of the great body of the people;” and it is also by inheritance one -paramount in the country as a spiritual authority, an educator, a -social regenerator, and a mainspring of that tolerance and religious -liberty which the great Whig party secured for our country. As Disraeli -has pointed out repeatedly, the union of Church and State means the -hallowing of the civil power, the investment of secular authority with -religious sanction, the loss of which the State would be the first to -feel and regret, should the bond be severed. - -England, then, is the only nation that has reconciled through -compromise the spiritual ideas of Theocracy with the dominant forms of -the _State_. - -But the English Church, headed by the English king, was soon faced by -Puritanism; and of this phase Disraeli, through his father’s history, -was a deep student. - -Puritanism was cradled among small traders, conscious of their virtues, -but socially ill at ease. It at once became terribly at ease in the -courts of Zion. It began with a retail outlook, and it soon politicised -its creed. It became eminently republican, nor was it ever democratic. -Instinctively counter to all forms, whether “temporal” or “spiritual,” -it aimed at the destruction both of Monarchy and the Church, and yet -it set up an exclusiveness of its own. The Jewish Theocracy had, as I -have pointed out, broken down even under that monarchical shape which -suited it, just because its outward _State_ apparatus was mechanical -and out of touch with the development of national life. The finer -spirits of Puritanism--and they were very fine--had these features to -reckon with. Cromwell, like Savonarola, compassed an impracticable -solecism. He desired a Republican Theocracy. His scheme only chimed -with that of the Church which he sought to ruin in this, that he too -wished religion to be nationally organised--to be political. But the -result was an intolerant fanaticism of mutually persecuting sects, and -a Parliamentary censorship of morals which cramped, nay, imprisoned -self-developing virtue, confounded holiness with austerity, and -furnished the best argument for a “national Church.” - -Milton, who tempered the Puritanic fire with the Renaissance light, -who, in his youth, was a worshipper of the subdued loveliness of the -Church and “her dim, religious light,” came to regard our national -Church as merely, in his own phrase, “an anti-papal schism.” Like -Cromwell, he longed to destroy it. - -“It is a rule and principle,” he urges,[90] “worthy to be known by -Christians, that no Scripture, no, nor so much as any ancient creed, -binds our faith or our obedience to any Church whatsoever denominated -by a particular name; far less if it be distinguished by a several -government from that which is indeed Catholic.... It were an injury to -condemn the papist of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his -Catholic Romish religion, if we, for the pleasure of a king and his -public considerations, shall adhere to a Catholic English.” Milton only -wanted republican instead of monarchical forms. Politics were still the -setting of religion. He was even more inconsistent. He deprecated any -discipline by the State, although his Church was a political Church, -and although Cromwell’s purposes are contradicted by Milton’s very -deprecation” ”If we think”--who can forget this fine passage from his -“Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing”?--“if we think to -regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all -recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to men. No music must -be set or sung but what is grave and Doric.... I hate a pupil-teacher; -I endure not an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an -overseeing fist.” How did Milton relish the Independents as “pupil -teachers,” or the “overseeing fist” of the Fifth-Monarchy men, or the -wardship of the Reign of Saints? Milton wants neither the Church as a -Polity, nor the State as a Church. Not staying to inquire what fits the -genius of England and her national traditions and customs, he seeks a -Theocracy which is untheocratic, and a national republic doomed to fall -when the perfect ruler is removed. - -“When,” he indignantly exclaims[91]--“when God shakes a kingdom with -strong and healthful commotions to a general reforming, it is not -untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in -seducing, but yet more true is it that God then raises to His own work -men of rare abilities and more than common industry, not only to look -back and revise what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further -and to go on some new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth.” -So, then, a reformed commonwealth, and no visible Church are Milton’s -ideals. - -“The Parliament of England,” he protests, had turned “regal bondage -into a free commonwealth.” “All Protestants,” he proceeds, “hold that -Christ in His Church hath left no vicegerent of his power, but Himself -without deputy is the only head thereof, governing it from heaven.” So -far Milton announces pure Theocracy; but the leaven of his classical -republicanism is disclosed in the next sentence: he cannot divorce -religion from politics. “How, then, can any Christian man derive his -kingship from Christ? I doubt not but all ingenuous and knowing men -will easily agree with me that a free commonwealth, without a single -person or House of Lords, is by far the best Government, if it can -be had.” And then he propounds grand councils of a perpetual senate, -safe-guarded against “any dogeship of Venice,”[92] as the means to -save the State. “The whole freedom of man,” he says, “consists either -in spiritual or civil liberty.” No rule for the first is admitted by -him but the Scriptures; for the second he takes the Dutch model of -the United Provinces. But he neglects to consider how liberty can be -settled without order, or order without discipline, or discipline -without authority, or authority without creed. - -Even the loftiest Puritan ideal of Theocracy, therefore, was no less -political than that of the Church. - -A very few years witnessed the complete breakdown of a system which -sought to blend the early Latin and the early Semitic ideals together -in unnatural alliance, and disregarded the native bias of Great -Britain. - -The ensuing reaction rendered the English Church more political than -ever. She was split into contending partisanship for contending -dynasties. She repudiated James the Second, but not the Stuarts. Under -William of Orange latitudinarianism, even her latitudinarianism, -was militant. But under the two first Georges she grew torpid and -time-serving. The rash and rabid Sunderland, the astute Walpole, -parodied the old Miltonic ideals in their zeal for indifferentism, -and in self-defence the Church tended temporarily to seem the mere -stipendiary of the State, like an excise officer. But Wesley in -England, and Whitefield both here and in America, re-aroused the Church -to the higher and holier ideals of a _national_ Theocracy. Some century -later the Tractarian movement spurred her energies afresh, and they -have since been once more quickened in the battle with mechanical -materialism. - -But all along it has been a sheer necessity in England--a necessity -for spiritual as well as civil _freedom_--that the State should lend -its earthly sanction of _order_ to the Church. A _national_ Church so -uncontrolled is impossible in England, where politics tinge every form -of aspiration. For international Theocracy, for that “millenary year” -which is the magnificent ideal of Romanism, the times are unripe. It -must remain a remote goal so long as the competitive egoism of nations, -transfiguring the baser egotism of individuals and of mere races, is -paramount. - -The Church State has been unrealisable. England alone has realised -the State Church. The former has been impossible in the West, owing -to the Aryan genius for State development, and especially to the -national instinct of the Anglo-Saxon family. With the British spirit -a cosmopolitan religion is incompatible. No nation ambitious of being -a world-power can revert to Theocracy. It is not feasible under such -conditions. - -The latter, however, the Anglican Church, has reconciled these two -concepts of opposite origins, the Oriental idea of a “Church,” and the -Occidental idea of the State. For it is not only a religious, but a -national and a social tradition. - -This, I take it, was Disraeli’s attitude. By temperament he was -theocratic. He believed in the original spirituality of his race; -but he also believed in the great destiny of the nation to which he -belonged, and in her Church he descried the naturalised power of -Semitic ideas, the only form in which they could become nationally -operative, the sole political means in a political country of -sanctifying the secular. “The Church,” he once said, “is one of the few -great things left.” The Church ever found him a wise and enthusiastic -supporter. The fact is, as he put it in a speech of 1860, “the Church -is a part of England.” Nor would he ever allow that mere differences -of opinion negatived her comprehensiveness. She was still Anglican. -What he recoiled from was the hard-and-fast narrowness of Puritanism, -the fiercer fanaticisms of which, he always maintained, had undone -Ireland. Sectarianism is not strength, for strength resides in national -discipline. He regarded a “national Church” as the best pledge for -religious liberty to even those outside her communion, as a national -refuge from bigotry and a national rampart against priestcraft. - -The Church’s “nationality” is proved even by the peculiar character of -her property. It is territorial. It is (as he emphasised in a speech of -1862) “... so distributed throughout the country, that it makes that -Church, from the very nature of its tenure, a national Church; and the -power of the Church of England does not depend merely on the amount -of property it possesses, but in a very great degree on the character -and kind of that property. Then I say that the Church, deprived of its -status, would become merely an _episcopal sect_ in this country. And in -time, it is not impossible it might become an insignificant one. But -that is not the whole, nor, perhaps, even the greatest evil, that might -arise from the dissolution of the connection between Church and State, -because in the present age the art of government becomes every day more -difficult, and no Government will allow a principle so powerful as the -religious principle to be divorced from the influences by which it -regulates the affairs of a country. What would happen?... The State of -England would take care, after the Church was spoiled, to enlist in its -service what are called the ministers of all religions. They would be -salaried by the State, and the consequences of the dissolution of the -alliance between Church and State would be one equally disastrous to -the Churchman and to the Nonconformist. It would place the ministers of -all spiritual influences under the control of the civil power, and it -would in reality effect a revolution in the national character....” - -De Tocqueville has proved that the French clergy were the staunchest -upholders of civil liberty before the Revolution; but he has also -acutely shown that the Roman priesthood, devoid of domestic ties, looks -to the Church as its sole fatherland, unless it can itself become a -proprietor of the soil. The French Revolution disempowered it for that -purpose, and evicted it from its heritage. The English clergy, on the -other hand, are linked to civil life both by the land and the home. -Contrast for one moment the landscape of a French village with that of -an English, and the difference becomes typified. In the one the church -stands aloof and dominates the hamlet. In the other it nestles among -the cottages, and helps the daily life around it. - -What was present to Disraeli’s mind was not only that, in such a case, -the ancient landmarks of parish life, the ancient trusts of education, -the ancient equality of social intercourse between clergy and laity, -the ancient duties and intimacies, the ancient openness to the poorest -of career in the Church and of residence on the land, would be swept -away; but that, as he expressed it when discussing the “Cowper-Temple -Amendment” in 1870, “you will not entrust the priest or the presbyter -with the privilege of expounding the Holy Scriptures ... _but for that -purpose you are inventing and establishing a new sacerdotal class_.” -“My idea of sacerdotal despotism,” he said in 1863, “is this, that -a minister of the Church of England, who is appointed to expound -doctrine, should deem that he has a right to invent doctrine. That ... -is the sacerdotal despotism I fear....” The State would suffer; and it -would suffer doubly. Not only would religion cease to be an official -element of order, but the ministers of religion might be unduly -strengthened in civil affairs--might be over-politicised. “Whether -that is a result to be desired,” he remarked ten years afterwards, -“is a grave question for all men. For my own part, I am bound to say -that I doubt whether it would be favourable to the cause of civil and -religious liberty.” - -In his novels he emphasises his belief that society is inconceivable -without religion, and that “without a Church there can be no true -religion, because otherwise you have no security for the truth,” -although he also distinguishes between differing “orthodoxies” and -real religion. At the same time, the Church as a polity must have -dogmas--“No Church, no creed”--“no dogmas, no deans, Mr. Dean.” -The human craving, the passionate instinct for religion, he ever -based--from the date of _Contarini Fleming_ and _Alroy_ to that -of _Coningsby_ and _Tancred_, and from that of _Tancred_ to that -of _Lothair_--on the fact that “_man requires that there shall be -direct relations between the created and the Creator, and that in -those relations he should find a solution of the perplexities of -existence_.”--“The brain that teems with illimitable thought will never -recognise as his Creator any power of nature, however irresistible, -that is not gifted with consciousness.... The Church comes forward, -and without equivocation offers to establish direct relations between -God and man. Philosophy denies its title and disputes its power. Why? -Because they are founded on the supernatural. What is the supernatural? -Can there be anything more miraculous than the existence of man and the -world? Anything more literally supernatural than the origin of things? -The Church explains what no one else pretends to explain, and which -every one agrees it is of first moment should be made clear.” - -Of the two passions which moved Disraeli, the one for mastery, the -other for the mysterious, the last was perhaps the strongest. The -mysteries that fascinated him were real, and did not render him a -mystic, still less a quietist. It is a mistake so to regard him. His -strength alike and his weakness resided in the practical energy of his -imagination. The whole of existence was for him a standing miracle. -“Contarini” finds his fate by a vision in a church; “Venetia” receives -a miraculous answer to her prayer of agony. He delights to depict, even -in the short biography of his father, providential coincidences. What -is deemed bizarre in his works, is really the sense of magic wonder -in all we experience. His irony, too, contrasting show with substance -and words with things, works by paradox.[93] That man is a spirit on -earth was his firm conviction. We find it accentuated from his earliest -utterances to his latest. “... There are some things I know,” said the -Syrian in _Lothair_, according with the Syrian in _Tancred_, “and some -things I believe. I know that I have a soul, and I believe that it is -immortal....”[94] The riddle of life is not to be solved by theories, -however true or ingenious of the processes of development, still less -by the fashionable “prattle of protoplasm,” or the glib triflers with -their “We once had fins, we shall have wings.” He was quite sincere -and consistent in his famous “Ape or Angel” dilemma. He believed, -both passionately and dispassionately, that man was divine. Science -confesses that its discoveries are merely of recurrent facts called -laws; it does not profess to account for them. - -“Science may prove the insignificance of this globe in the scale of -creation,” said the stranger, “but it cannot prove the insignificance -of man. What is the earth compared with the sun? A mole-hill by a -mountain; yet the inhabitants of this earth can discover the elements -of which the great orb exists, and will probably, ere long, ascertain -all the conditions of its being. Nay, the human mind can penetrate far -beyond the sun. There is no relation, therefore, between the faculties -of man and the scale in creation of the planet which he inhabits.... -But there are people now who tell you there never was any creation, -and therefore there never could have been a creator.”--“And which is -now advanced with the confidence of novelty,” said the Syrian, “though -all of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thousands of years ago. -There must be design, or all we see would be without sense, and I do -not believe in the unmeaning. As for the natural forces to which all -creation is now attributed, we know that they are unconscious, while -consciousness is as inevitable a portion of our existence as the eye -or the hand. The conscious cannot be derived from the unconscious. -Man is divine.... Is it more unphilosophical to believe in a personal -God omnipotent and omniscient, than in natural forces unconscious and -irresistible? Is it unphilosophical to combine power with intelligence? -Goethe, a Spinozist who did not believe in Spinoza, said he could bring -his mind to the conception that in the centre of space we might meet -with a monad of pure intelligence. Is that more philosophical than the -truth first revealed to man amid these everlasting hills,” said the -Syrian, “that God made man in His own image?” ... “It is the charter -of the nobility of man ... one of the divine dogmas revealed in this -land; not the invention of councils, not one of which was held on this -sacred soil; confused assemblies first got together by the Greeks, and -then by barbarous nations in barbarous times.”--“Yet the divine land no -longer tells us divine things,” said “Lothair.” “It may, or may not, -have fulfilled its destiny,” said the Syrian. “‘In my Father’s house -are many mansions,’ and by the various families of nations the designs -of the Creator are accomplished. God works by races,[95] and one was -appointed in due season, and after many developments, to reveal and -expound in this land the spiritual nature of man....” - -This quotation may suffice, though many others, even from the biography -of Lord George Bentinck, might have been offered. These ideas are -perhaps best summarised in the Preface to _Lothair_. Disraeli really -believed in the sacredness of the Syrian soil and air, the peculiar -genius of the Semite for communion with God, as of the Hellene for -communion with nature and origination of art; in the special religious -revelation vouchsafed to Semites alone and consummated in Christianity, -which he ever held was the fulfilment of Judaism. The dogma of the -Atonement he received literally. It was a divine mystery enacted by -a prince of Israel. Disraeli’s sense of mystery was, let me repeat, -literal, and never explained through emblems. There was nothing of -Gothic symbolism in his nature. From these convictions flowed his -sanguine confidence in himself and his mission; in destiny, which he -has himself said may be but the exertion of our own will. From these -flowed his sympathy with the heroic, his turn for the adventurous; his -disrelish, too, of modern rationalism, modern materialism,[96] and -even of modern metaphysics.[97] From these flowed his faith in the -revelations of conscience--“I worship in a Church where I believe God -dwells, and dwells for my guidance and my good; my conscience;”[98] -in a word, from these flowed his bias towards a natural Theocracy. -But, as I have already said, he recognised that the English Church -had alone, as the depository of these _racial_ ideas, attuned them to -the _national_ refrain of England, embodied them in living Western -flesh. Just as for him Government meant organised authority, and -Party organised opinion, so the Church meant organised belief; nor -did he ever cease to point out that if the national Church were -disestablished, if that form of Protestant religion, resting on -popular sympathies and popular privileges, which had grown with the -growth of England and had leavened her life, her civil society, her -public education, and even her pastimes, were divorced from the -principle of authority, not only might the competition of sects cause a -bigoted intolerance, but the State itself would certainly be the loser. - -I will choose another most pertinent passage from his speech on -the Irish Church Bill, delivered in March, 1869. He had discussed -“disendowment,” and he opposed it with all his might, as the plunder of -the Church in English history had always gone into the coffers of the -land, although it was a trust for the poor. - -“Now, sir,” he continued, with regard to disestablishment, “I myself am -much opposed to it, because I am in favour of what is called the union -between Church and State. What I understand by the union of Church and -State is an arrangement which renders the State religious by investing -authority with the highest sanctions that can influence the sentiments, -the convictions, and consequently the conduct of the subject; while, -on the other hand, that union renders the Church--using that epithet -in its noblest and purest sense--political. That is to say, it blends -civil authority with ecclesiastical influence; it defines and defends -the rights of the laity, and prevents the Church from subsiding into -a sacerdotal corporation. If you divest the State of this connection, -it appears to me that you necessarily reduce both the quantity and the -quality of its duties. The State will still be the protector of our -persons and our property, and no doubt these are most important duties -for the State to perform. But there are duties in a community which -rather excite a spirit of criticism than a sentiment of enthusiasm and -veneration. All, or most of the higher functions of Government--take -education, for example, the formation of the character of the people, -and consequently the guidance of their future conduct--depart from the -State and become the appanage of religious societies, of the religious -organisations of the country--you may call them the various Churches, -if you please--when they are established on what are called independent -principles.” - -After welcoming the fact of a religious revival, he next continues:-- - -“When we have to decide whether we can dissociate the principle of -religion from the State, it is well to remember that we are asked -to relinquish an influence that is universal. We hear in these days -a great deal of philosophy. Now, it is my happiness in life to be -acquainted with eminent philosophers. They all agree in one thing. They -will all tell you that, however brilliant may be the discoveries of -physical science, however marvellous those demonstrations which attempt -to penetrate the mysteries of the human mind, wonderful as may be -these discoveries, greatly as they have contributed to the comfort and -convenience of man, or confirmed his consciousness of the nobility of -his nature--yet all those great philosophers agree in one thing--that -in their investigations there is an inevitable term where they meet -the insoluble, where all the most transcendent powers of intellect -dissipate and disappear.[99] There commences the religious principle. -It is universal, and it will assert its universal influence in the -government of men. Now, I put this case before the House. We are asked -to commence a great change.... When, therefore, we are called to the -consideration of these circumstances, it is absolutely necessary that -we should contemplate the possibility of our establishing a society -in which there may be two powers, the political and the religious, -and the religious may be the stronger.[100] Now I will take this -case. Under ordinary circumstances, a Government performing those -duties of police, to which it will be limited when the system has -perfectly developed, the first step to which we are called upon to -take to-night--such a Government, under ordinary circumstances, will -be treated with decent respect. But a great public question, such as -has before occurred in this country, and as must periodically occur -in free and active communities--a great public question arises, which -touches the very fundamental principles of our domestic tranquillity, -or even the existence of the Empire; but the Government of the country, -and the religious organisations of the country, take different views, -and entertain different opinions on that subject. In all probability -the Government of the country will be right. The Government in its -secret councils is calm and impartial, is in possession of ample and -accurate information, views every issue before it in reference to the -interests of all classes, and takes, therefore, what is popularly -called a comprehensive view. The religious organisation of the country -acts in quite a different manner. It is not calm; it is not impartial; -it is sincere, it is fervid, it is enthusiastic. Its information is -limited and prejudiced. It does not view the question of the day in -reference to the interests of all classes. It looks upon the question -as something of so much importance--as something of such transcendent -interest, not only for the earthly, but even for the future welfare -of all her Majesty’s subjects--that it will allow no consideration to -divert its mind and energy from the accomplishment of its object. It, -therefore, necessarily takes what is commonly called a contracted view. -But who can doubt what will be the result, _when on a question which -enlists and excites all the religious passions of the nation, the zeal -of enthusiasm advocates one policy, and the calmness of philosophers -and the experience of statesmen recommend another. The Government -might be right, but the Government would not be able to enforce its -policy, and the question might be decided in a way that might disturb -a country or even destroy an empire._ I know, sir, it may be said that -though there may be some truth in this view abstractedly considered, -yet it does not apply to the country in which we live, because ... we -enjoy religious freedom ... and because only a portion of her Majesty’s -subjects are in communion with the National Church. I draw a very -different conclusion to that which I have supposed as the objection.... -_It is because there is an Established Church that we have achieved -religious liberty and enjoy religious toleration; and without the union -of the Church with the State, I do not see what security there would be -either for religious liberty or toleration._ No error could be greater -than to suppose that the advantage of the Established Church is limited -to those who are in communion with it. Take the case of the Roman -Catholic priest. He will refuse--and in doing so he is quite justified, -and is indeed bound to do so--he will, I say, refuse to perform the -offices of the Church to any one not in communion with it. The same -with the Dissenters. It is quite possible--it has happened, and might -happen very frequently--that a Roman Catholic may be excommunicated -by his Church, or a sectarian may be denounced and expelled by his -congregation; but if that happens in this country, the individual in -question who has been thus excommunicated, denounced, or expelled, is -not a forlorn being. There is the Church, of which the Sovereign is -the head, which does not acknowledge the principle of Dissent, and -which does not refuse to that individual those religious rites which -are his privilege and consolation.... Now, I cannot believe that the -disendowment of the Church of England could occur without very great -disturbances.... _England cannot afford revolution. England has had -her revolutions. It is indeed because she had revolutions about two -hundred years ago, before other nations had their revolutions, that -she gained her great start in wealth and empire._ Now, sir, what have -we gained by these revolutions? A period of nearly two hundred years -of great serenity and the secured stability of the State. I attribute -these happy characteristics of our history to the circumstance, that in -this interval we did solve two of the finest and profoundest political -problems. We accomplished complete personal, and, in time, complete -political liberty, and combined them with order. We achieved complete -religious liberty, and we united it with a national faith. These two -immense exploits have won for this country regulated freedom and -temperate religion.... Speaking now not as a partisan, I believe the -Tory party, however it may at times have erred, has always been the -friend of local government, and that _the instinct of the nation made -it feel that on local government political freedom depended_.”[101] - -“It is said,” he remarked three years afterwards, after commenting -on the historical union between Church and State--“two originally -independent powers,” and the fact that their alliance has prevented -the spiritual power from “usurping upon the civil and establishing a -sacerdotal society,” as well as the civil power from invading “the -rights of the spiritual,” and from degrading its ministers into -“salaried instruments of the Government.”--“It is said,” he continued, -“that the existence of Nonconformity proves that the Church is a -failure. I draw from these premises an exactly contrary conclusion; and -I maintain that to have secured a national profession of faith with -the unlimited enjoyment of private judgment in matters spiritual is -... one of the triumphs of civilisation.” Nonconformity he considered -a misfortune, though it was a symptom of national freedom. With -Nonconformists, however, he sympathised. It was with indifference that -he warred. - -Let me illustrate these points. In an earlier speech he addresses -himself to prove that the Church is none the less truly national -because millions of the nation are not in communion with it; and he -analyses Nonconformity. - -“Now, the history of English Dissent will always be a memorable chapter -in the history of the country. It displays many of those virtues for -which the English character is distinguished--earnestness, courage, -devotion, conscience. But one thing is quite clear, that in the present -day the causes which originally created Dissent no longer exist; -while--which is of still more importance--there are now causes in -existence opposed to the spread of Dissent. I will not refer to the -fact that many--I believe the great majority--of the families of the -descendants of the original Puritans and Presbyterians have merged -in the Church of England itself; but no man can any longer conceal -from himself that the tendency of this age is not that all creeds -and Churches and consistories should combine--I do not say that, -mind--but I do say that it is that they should cease hereafter from -any internecine hostility; ... and therefore, so far as the spread of -... mere sincere religious Dissent is concerned, I hold that it is -of a very limited character, and there is nothing in the existence -of it which should prevent the Church of England from asserting her -nationality. For observe, the same difficulties that are experienced -by the Church are also experienced by the Dissenters, without the -advantage which the Church possesses in her discipline, learning, and -traditions.” - -Part of these “difficulties” he considered in the later speech, above -cited, where he holds that the existence of parties in the Church is -a sign of vigour; but the other part, the growth of indifferentism -among millions of the populace, he considers here, and he considers it -as affording a great field for the Church if it be true to its great -traditions and answers to the temper of the times and to the call of -the summons. “... If, indeed, the Church of England were in the same -state as the pagan religion was in the time of Constantine; if her -altars were paling before the Divine splendour of inspired shrines, it -might be well indeed for the Church and its ministers to consider the -course that they should pursue; but nothing of the kind is the case. -With the indifferentists you are dealing with millions of a people the -most enthusiastic, though not the most excitable, in the world. And -what awakes their enthusiasm? - -“... _The notes on the gamut of their feeling are few, but they are -deep. Industry, Liberty, Religion, form the solemn scale. Industry, -Liberty, Religion--that is the history of England._” He predicts a -feeling of exaltation for religion similar to those enthusiasms for -freedom and toil which have inspired the nation in recent periods, -and he harps on the opportunity for a Church with a tradition of -“the beauty of holiness.” “What a field for a corporation which is -not merely a Church, but ... the Church of England; blending with a -divine instruction the sentiment of patriotism, and announcing herself -as the Church of the country;” which may realise its nationality by -increasing her hold on the education[102] of the people, “though it is -possible there may be fresh assaults and attacks upon the machinery -by which the State has assisted the Church in that great effort;” by -extending the Episcopate (which has happened); by developing the lay -element in the administration of her temporal affairs; by fulfilling -the right of visitation both by priest and parishioner, and maintaining -those parochial privileges which are still inviolate both in town and -country; by remedying the gross inequality of stipend (which remains to -be done); by, so far as possible, relying on the Church itself, and not -resorting to the Legislature. - -With respect to indifferentism among the more enlightened classes, it -is “agnosticism,” partly due to the scientific spirit on which I have -touched; partly to that “higher criticism” which Germany originated, -and which, it is clear, can only modify the views of an educated few. -With the mild rationalism of “Essays and Reviews,” Disraeli dealt -characteristically. He found them “at the best a second-hand medley of -contradictory and discordant theories.” Thirty years earlier he had -satirised those devout Christians who do not believe in Christianity. -As in the march of Science he perceived nothing new, and held that it -interpreted the imagery without sapping the foundations of belief, so -with regard to the “Teutonic rebellion” against inspiration, he saw -only repeated in another form, and with no more ability, the Celtic -“insurrection” which distinguished the eighteenth century: both had -their uses. “Man brings to the study of oracles more learning and more -criticism than of yore; and it is well that it should be so.” Nay, the -very development of the German theological school proves its ephemeral -character. - -“About a century ago” (he observed in 1861) “German theology, -which was mystical, became by the law of reactions critical. -There gradually arose a school of philosophical theologians which -introduced a new system for the interpretation of Scripture. -Accepting the sacred narrative without cavil, they explained all the -supernatural incidents by natural causes. This system in time was -called Rationalism.... But where now is German Rationalism, and what -are its results? They are erased from the intellectual tablets of -living opinion. A new school of German theology then arose, which, -with profound learning and inexorable logic, proved that Rationalism -was irrational, and successfully substituted for it a new scheme -of scriptural interpretation called the mythical.[103] But if the -mythical theologians triumphantly demonstrated ... that Rationalism -was irrational, so the mythical system itself has already become a -myth; and its most distinguished votaries, in that spirit of progress -which, as we are told, is the characteristic of the nineteenth century, -and which generally brings us back to old ideas, have now found an -invincible solution of the mysteries of human existence in a revival of -Pagan pantheism.” - -This he defined elsewhere as “Atheism in domino.” Since Disraeli’s -death the German school has made further strides. There has been a -brisk export of fresh theories “made in Germany.” We are now told -that the Old Testament is Babylonian, and that the New springs out of -Aryan ideas; and side by side with this _tour-de-force_ of paradox, -an orgy of anarchical hysteria threatens the sanctions of authority, -the secular as well as the spiritual. Disraeli would probably meet it -by what he retorted in the ’sixties, that when the periodical deluge -subsides, the ark is seen resting at the summit of the mountain. - -But if education was to be secularised, might not the ark be chopped -up for firewood? Education was a problem that, in its private and -public aspects, engrossed Disraeli from his youth. In the second of -two election addresses at High Wycombe in the memorable year 1832 he -had announced: “... By repealing the taxes upon knowledge, I would -throw the education of the people into the hands of the philosophic -student, instead of the ignorant adventurer.” He believed that its -current principles were constantly wrong--that words were taught -instead of ideas, and grammar studied instead of character; and he was -also a great advocate of the wisdom of steeping the youth of a nation -in national literature. It was a keen disappointment to him that he -was deprived of the occasion of settling--partially, at any rate--the -problem of national education, and he considered that the less it was -fettered by direct State interference and the more it was helped by -State support, the better. He was persuaded that any national system -ought to be religious. For the Church’s original training of the -people, for her alliance with the Universities, too, he had the keenest -admiration. - -“Nothing is more surprising to me,” he urged in 1872, “than ... that -in the nineteenth century the charge against the Church of England -should be that Churchmen, and especially the clergy, had educated -the people.... I think the greatest distinction of the clergy is the -admirable manner in which they have devoted their lives and fortunes to -this greatest of national objects.”[104] - -It may not be generally remembered that only two years after Disraeli -entered the House of Commons he delivered himself of a remarkable -speech in this connection. He was opposed, he said, at that time to -a strictly State system, for he was opposed to “paternal government, -which stamped out the sense of independence in man, and caused him -to rely upon others.” Society should be strong, and the State weak; -order should not be disturbed by national injustice, nor liberty by -popular outcry. “_It is always the State and never Society--always -machinery and never sympathy._” But though he did not change the -principles of his outlook, he came by experience very materially to -change his view of the machinery by which they were to be applied. He -detested the interferences of centralisation; but a doubled population -and the overgrowth of cities rendered State measures imperative, and -their absence a disgrace. In his Edinburgh speech, twenty-eight years -later, he thus handled this national need: “... Ever since I have been -in public life I have done everything I possibly could to promote -the cause of the education of the people generally. I have done so -because I always felt that with the limited population of this United -Kingdom, compared with the great imperial position which it occupies -with reference to other nations, it is not only our duty, but ... an -absolute necessity, _that we should study to make every man the most -effective being that education can possibly constitute him_. In the -old wars there used to be a story that one Englishman could beat three -members of some other nation. But _I think if we want to maintain our -power, we ought to make one Englishman equal really in the business of -life to three other men that any other nation can furnish_. I do not -see otherwise how ... we can fulfil the great destiny that I believe -awaits us, and the great position we occupy.” - -It will be noticed that he forecasts the practical and technical -requirements which, at a period of comparative commercial decline, we -are only now beginning to take to heart. - -“Therefore,” he resumed, “so far as I am concerned, whether it be a far -greater advanced system of primary education--whether it be that system -of competitive examination which I have ever supported, though I am not -unconscious of some pedantry with which it is associated--or whatever -may be the circumstances, I shall ever be its supporter.” - -He kept his word. Leading the Opposition in 1870, he supported Mr. -Forster’s great measure, though he strongly opposed the Cowper-Temple -Amendment--one which has undoubtedly kept much religious acrimony -alive. His speech on these clauses can still be studied with -advantage. In 1854, Lord John Russell introduced his bill for the “good -government of the University of Oxford.” Here, again, Disraeli objected -to undue Government interference. He thought that this “great seat of -learning” should deal with these problems itself independently, and -in the spirit of the age. It was designed to create professors on the -Prussian model. Disraeli showed that in Prussia there was then small -“sphere for the genius, the intellect, the talent, and the energy of -Germany, except in the professorial chair.” There were not then great -opportunities for a public career in Germany. “In this country you -may increase the salaries as you please; but to suppose that you can -produce a class of men like the German professors is chimerical.... We -are a nation of action, and you may depend upon it that, however you -may increase the rewards of professors ... ambition in England will -look to public life.... You will not be able, however you think you -may, to lay your hand upon twenty-five or thirty professors suddenly, -capable of effecting a great influence on the youth of England. You -cannot get these men at once. It will be slowly, with great difficulty, -by fostering and cultivating your resources, that you will be able to -produce one of these great professors--a man able to influence the -public opinion of the University. Whether, then, you look to the great -change which you propose with respect to these private halls, which is -in fact a revolution of the collegiate system; or whether you look to -the great alteration you contemplate by the revival of the professorial -instead of the tutorial system--on both points you will meet, I think, -with disappointment.... If I were asked, ‘Would you have Oxford, with -its self-government, freedom, independence, but yet with its anomalies -and imperfections; or would you have the University free from those -anomalies and imperfections and under control of the Government?’ I -would say, ‘Give me Oxford free and independent, with its anomalies and -imperfections.’”[105] - -In the discipline of the Church itself also Disraeli eventually found -it imperative for the State to interfere. With extreme Ritualism, with -amateur popery in an alien camp, effetely and sometimes treacherously -practised, till the insubordination of a few, who were not in any -sense strong men or leaders, began to infect the many, Disraeli could -not sympathise. The Mass of the Roman Church as a solemn act he could -reverence, but not the “masquerade” of amateur ultramontanes. With the -High Anglicans, with the Tractarians, he in many respects sympathised -profoundly. Their movements were those of noble aspiration and high -endeavour. But most of the ultra-Ritualists were of wholly different -calibre. Their attitude he typified most humorously in _Lothair_, and -in the person of the “Reverend Dionysius Smylie,” who was wont to -observe, “Rome will come to _me_.” Moreover, the Church had passed -rapidly through varying vicissitudes. In the late ’thirties and early -’forties there had been a signal revival; but the secession of Newman, -“apologised for but never explained,” had proved a blow under which -“the Church still reels.” She lost a great, a generous, a necessary -leader, when a leader was her need. “If,” Disraeli wrote in 1870, “a -quarter of a century ago, there had arisen a Churchman equal to the -occasion, the position of ecclesiastical affairs in this country would -have been very different from that which they now occupy. But these -great matters fell into the hands of monks and Schoolmen....” - -In the ’fifties there was some degeneration, and the revival of -Convocation was not on the wider basis which might have quickened -clerical energy and lay enthusiasm. In the ’sixties the Church began -to be “in danger.” Radicalism and Ritualism united; and there is a -manuscript letter of Disraeli, still extant, written at this period, -and affording some very interesting and secret knowledge. - -What Disraeli disliked and regretted was that the choice between faith -and free thought should be more and more presented as one between the -Roman purple and the “Red Republic.” - -And this brings me to the consideration of Disraeli’s ideas regarding -the Latin Church, the immortal Rome, “that great confederacy which has -so much influenced the human race, and which has yet to play perhaps a -mighty part in the fortunes of the world.” - -This imperial form of Theocracy exercised for him, both imaginatively -and historically, an enormous attraction. Its special appeal to -the Latin and Celtic races; its unbroken phalanx of organisation; -its immemorial persistence of policy; its creative combination of -spirituality with art, of purity with beauty; its union of ideals -beyond and above the world with the mechanism of empires; its blend -of contrasts, of solemn softness with sombre control, of charm with -coldness, of callousness with charity, of loneliness with society, -of curse and comfort; its theoretic espousal of theological free -will with the practical denial of it in action, and of outward pomp -with inward simplicity; its watchful intimacies with every moment of -life--the way in which, as he puts it in _Contarini_, it “... produces -in” its “dazzling processions and sacred festivals an effect upon the -business of the day;” its guardianship of the weak, the erring, and -the poor; its nursing motherhood of doubt and despair; its insidious -captivation of the will and intellect; its power to recall and continue -the spirits of the centuries, to absorb schism and rebaptise it union; -its claims to obliterate the past for the penitent; to keep all things -old and make all things new; its great deeds and its great heroes; -these elements and many more, that have cooped Jews in Ghettos while -blazoning the proud inscription in front of St. Peter’s, _Vicit Leo -de tribu Juda_,--all these opposites enchant even when they fail to -enchain the mind and the feelings. They have linked the Vatican and -the Palatine, the see to the throne, the tiara to the diadem. They -have transfigured, while maintaining, pagan rites and customs, till -“Madre Natura” reappears with a halo, the very shrines of the Madonna -repeat the antique pattern of those dedicated to the Lares and Penates, -and the procession of waxen images in Southern Italy but perpetuates -another and an older ceremony. The Roman Church has been the most -consistent educator, the greatest organiser, the most universal -legislator of the last thousand years. It has attained uncompromising -ends unswervingly pursued by compromises the most subtle and the most -skilful. Nor is the esoteric doctrine which recalls the Eleusinian -Mysteries, and enables the initiated to regard forms comprehensible -by the multitude as merely popular symbols of higher truths, without -a certain glamour of its own. Disraeli’s father had penned a treatise -on the Jesuits, and their history had been deeply studied by the son. -I can still recall the unconscious tone of ironical appreciation -with which one of those “professors,” “capable of effecting a great -influence on the youth of England,” informed me that when he met -Disraeli, “he spoke to me of the Jesuits.” Both the two factors in -himself which I have mentioned, the sense of mystery and the impulse to -control, are precisely the atmosphere of the Papal Church. There was, -therefore, to some extent the attraction of affinity. But the Papacy -appealed to him imaginatively, not theologically, as it did to his -great rival. I recollect being told by a member of the symposium that -Gladstone once discussed deep into the night at Hawarden what form of -Christianity would eventually survive and prevail. Three chosen friends -agreed with him that it would be Romanism, the establisher and not the -establishment, the supernational and not the national, theocratic and -not (as Disraeli makes one of his characters describe the Church of -England) “parliamentary Christianity.” - -Not so Disraeli. Its political influences, its “clamour for -toleration,” its “labour for supremacy,”[106] its warping limitations, -its prying priestcraft, its humble haughtiness, its casuistic candour, -its centralising forces fatal to Northern liberty, the ban placed -on free discussion and free intercourse, its proclamation of the -uniformity rather than of the unity of human nature, and above all -its admixture of paganism, were the drawbacks that repelled him. “The -tradition of the Anglican Church was powerful,” he observes, adverting -to that “mistake and misfortune” of Newman’s desertion. “Resting on the -Church of Jerusalem, modified by the divine school of Galilee, it would -have found that rock of truth which Providence, by the instrumentality -of the Semitic race, had promised to St. Peter. Instead of that, the -seceders sought refuge in mediæval superstitions which are generally -the embodiments of pagan ceremonies and creeds.”[107] - -The spell of Romanism is an incident in _Contarini Fleming_. The spell, -but also the perils of Romanism, its bewitchment of judgment and of -conscience, its repugnance to free politics and independent wills, -its arrogance of inspiration, its monopolies, its burdens of enjoined -etiquette, form the theme of _Lothair_. He cannot bind himself to the -danger, yet how adorable is its source! How firm the rock on which it -is founded, when it is not of offence! How certain the conclusions, if -only the premises can be conceded! - -“Religion is civilisation,” said the Cardinal--“the highest: it is a -reclamation of man from savageness by the Almighty. What the world -calls civilisation, as distinguished from religion, is a retrograde -movement, and will ultimately lead us back to the barbarism from which -we have escaped. For instance, you talk of progress: what is the chief -social movement of all the centuries that three centuries ago separated -from the unity of the Church of Christ? The rejection of the Sacrament -of Christian matrimony. The introduction of the law of divorce, which -is, in fact, only a middle term to the abolition of marriage. What -does that mean? The extinction of the home and household on which God -has rested civilisation. If there be no home, the child belongs to the -State, not to the parent. The State educates the child, and without -religion, because the State in a country of progress acknowledges no -religion.[108] For every man is not only to think as he likes, but to -write and speak as he likes.... And this system which would substitute -for domestic sentiment and Divine belief the unlimited and licentious -action of human intelligence and will, is called progress. What is it -but a revolt against God?” - -What religious intelligence would not endorse these truths! But let -us now listen to the other side, that of “other-worldliness,” of -“the conversion--or conquest of England,” though the allusions to -“Corybantic Christianity” are not without justice. - -“There is only one Church and one Religion,” said the Cardinal; “all -other forms and phrases are mere phantasms, without root or substance -or coherency. Look at that unhappy Germany, once so proud of its -Reformation.... Look at this unfortunate land, divided, subdivided, -parcelled out in infinite schism, with new oracles every day, and -each more distinguished for the narrowness of his intellect or the -loudness of his lungs; once the land of saints and scholars, and people -in pious pilgrimages, and finding always solace and support in the -Divine offices of an ever-present Church; which were a true, though a -faint type of the beautiful future that awaited man. Why, only three -centuries of this rebellion against the Most High have produced ... an -anarchy of opinion, throwing out every monstrous and fantastic form, -from a caricature of the Greek Philosophy to a revival of Feticism.... -The Church of England is not the Church of the English. Its fate is -sealed. It will soon become a sect, and all sects are fantastic. -It will adopt new dogmas, or it will abjure old ones; anything to -distinguish it from the Non-conforming herd in which nevertheless it -will be its fate to merge....” - -“I cannot admit,” replied the Cardinal, “that the Church is in -antagonism with political freedom. On the contrary, in my opinion, -there can be no political freedom which is not founded on Divine -authority; otherwise it can be at the best but a specious phantom of -licence inevitably terminating in anarchy. The rights and liberties of -the people of Ireland have no advocate except the Church, because there -political freedom is founded on Divine authority; but if you mean by -political freedom the schemes of the illuminati and the Freemasons, -which perpetually torture the Continent, all the dark conspiracies -of the secret societies, then I admit the Church is in antagonism -with such aspirations after liberty; those aspirations, in fact, are -blasphemy and plunder. And if the Church were to be destroyed, Europe -would be divided between the atheist and the communist.” - -This last opinion is Disraeli’s own. None knew better, or realised -more, the disintegrating terrors of the secret societies, the -propaganda of desperation served by desperadoes and exploited by -soldiers of fortune. - -Disraeli appreciated and often testified that Roman Christianity had -pre-eminently spiritualised the once undecayed Latin races. To its -services and ideals he always paid the deepest homage; for some of them -he displayed an evident affection. Nowhere has the higher aspiration of -Romanism been portrayed more touchingly than in the person of “Clare -Arundel.” The description in that book of the _Tenebræ_ vibrates with -delicate emotion. In the same book he foresees the erection on the site -of slums of the stately fane which now adorns Westminster. His public -utterances on Ireland, on the Maynooth question, and many others, his -ardent championship of the bill which secured the offices of his priest -for the Catholic prisoner, showed not only respect, but a sympathy and -conversance with Roman affairs passing that of ordinary statesmen. But, -as a statesman, he also realised that the Roman Church was not only -hostile to the Anglo-Saxon instincts, but has always claimed a despotic -temporal dominion; and he also realised not only the earlier and -far-reaching designs of Cardinal Wiseman, but the later diplomacies of -a definite scheme for the capture, now that absolutism is on the wane, -of democracy. Rome means to be the sole absolutism that shall survive. -What Disraeli dreaded and countervailed was the new-fangled alliance, -not only between Radicalism, but between Liberalism and Romanism. In -Ireland, as I shall show, a peculiar phase of the design was apparent, -and what Rome had manœuvred she came to deplore and even to struggle to -prevent. In _Lothair_, “Monsignor Berwick,” Antonelli’s ultramontane -disciple, is made to say of “Churchill,” the leader of Irish -Nationalism, “For the chance of subverting the Anglican establishment, -he is favouring a policy which will subvert religion itself.” - -In later times the famous encyclical _Rerum Novarum_, Monsignor Ireland -and the “Knights of Labour” in America, Cardinal Manning and the London -Dock strikers, are an evidence that Disraeli’s insight was sound. - -The people as a _Civitas Dei_--the Church-State--is a superb -ideal, one with which Disraeli was in heartfelt accord. But under -what _national_ forms is this to be compassed in England? A desire -that Anglican orders should be confirmed by the Bishop of Rome has -been during the last few years publicly advanced by dignitaries -of our own Church. Is the Roman system capable of satisfying the -progressive demands of the masses in England? Though their sordid -homes need purifying, will they ever tolerate the intrusion of their -privacy by celibate priests? Is a doctrinal absolutism, which the -people themselves have dethroned from political ascendency, likely -to consummate the cosmopolitan dream? State socialism divorced from -ecclesiastical dominion would never for one moment enlist the Pope. And -if some form even of State socialism ever became national (and Disraeli -could have withstood it to the death), how could Catholic socialism -control the socialism of the State? Can the supreme voice of God brook -the admonitions of the voice of the people? - -_Lothair_ treats more especially of the diplomacies of Rome, and -perhaps the polite struggle at “Muriel Towers,” between the Cardinal -and the Bishop for the hero’s soul, is one of Disraeli’s most finished -pieces of humour. “The Anglicans have only a lease of our property, a -lease rapidly expiring,” ejaculates “Monsignor Berwick.” This imminent -expiry of the lease is undoubtedly a cherished hope of the Vatican and -Sacred College. - -“Lothair,” it will be remembered, himself an earnest if somewhat -ineffectual youth, falls under the influence of “Lady St. Jerome,” -whose houses are rallying-centres for the great Cardinal and his -associates. “Lady St. Jerome” induces “Lothair” to attend the office -of the _Tenebræ_. He is told that nothing in this particular service -can prevent a Protestant from attending it. This is followed by the -master-gardener, “Father Coleman’s” comments on the adoration of the -Cross in the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified, and a picnic with “Miss -Arundel” and the courtly “Monsignor Catesby.” “The Jesuits are wise -men; they never lose their temper. They know when to avoid scenes as -well as when to make them.” “Lothair,” under the banner of his heroine, -“Theodora,” fights for Garibaldi and the “Madre Natura” against the -Papal troops. He is wounded at Mentana, and, by a coincidence, tended -by “Clare Arundel” and her Roman circle. On his recovery, a miracle -is announced concerning his rescue. The Virgin has interposed to -save a defender of the Faith. He is led to a great function in the -sacristy of St. George of Cappadocia. He finds himself the centre of -devout attraction. The Cardinal assures him that the miracle is true. -“Lothair” indignantly protests and denies. The Cardinal maintains that -there are two “narratives of his relations with the battle of Mentana.” -“If I were you, I would not dwell too much on this fancy of yours about -the battle.” ... “I am not convinced,” said “Lothair.” “Hush!” said -the Cardinal; “the freaks of your own mind about personal incidents, -however lamentable, may be viewed with indulgence, at least for a -time. But you cannot be permitted to doubt of the rest. You must be -convinced, and, on reflection, you will be convinced. Remember, sir, -where you are. You are in the centre of Christendom, where truth, and -where alone truth resides.” - -Nobody for one moment would believe that the illustrious Archbishop -of Westminster debased strategy to stratagem; or could under any -circumstances have resorted to a deliberate lie. _Lothair_ is a -satirical fairy-tale, and “Cardinal Grandison” is only an outward -semblance of the late Cardinal Manning. But this passage sheds a -true light on Rome’s attitude towards doubt, and her methods of -proselytising; it shadows her secular policy. Can any one deny that -“the truth with a mental reserve” of Jesuitry composes much of the -plot in the drama of the hierarchy? Moreover, the passage agrees with -a very remarkable one in a distinguished French novel that appeared -three years afterwards--“L’Abbé Tigrane,” by M. Fabre. Long after these -events, when “Lothair” comes of age, his guardian, the same Cardinal, -converses with him on the impending Œcumenical Council. The duologue -contains a forcible summary of the Church’s infallibility, however -fallible may seem her individual members:-- - -“The basis on which God has willed that His revelation should rest in -the world is the testimony of the Catholic Church, which, if considered -only as a human historical witness of its own origin, constitution, and -authority, affords the highest and most enduring evidence for the facts -and contents of the Christian religion. If this be denied, there is no -such thing as history. But the Catholic Church is not only a human and -historical witness of its own origin, constitution, and authority, _it -is also a supernatural and Divine witness, which can neither fail nor -err_. When it œcumenically speaks, it is not merely the voice of the -Father of the World; it declares ‘_what it hath seemed good to the Holy -Ghost and to us_.’” - -No wonder that “Lothair,” sitting down in the crisis of his life -by the moonlit Coliseum, muses in a rhapsody of the magnetism for -opposed causes of the genius of the spot, strangely anticipating -Zola’s contrast between the new Italian “Orlando” and the old Italian -“Boccanera.” - -“Theodora lived for Rome and died for Rome. And the Cardinal, born and -bred an English gentleman, with many hopes and honours, had renounced -his religion and, it might be said, his country, for Rome; and his -race for three hundred years had given, for the same cause, honour, -and broad estates, and unhesitating lives. And these very people -were influenced by different motives, and thought they were devoting -themselves to opposite ends. But still it was Rome; Republican or -Cæsarian, papal or pagan, it still was Rome.” - -I have shown the sources, as I believe, of Disraeli’s convictions. -He was the first to dwell on those problems of race which are now -recognised. His derided “Asian mystery” has been amply justified. His -view of the “Caucasian” is that of subsequent science. Writing nearly -forty years after he had mooted his ideas, he observed: “familiar as we -all are now with such themes ... the difficulty and hazard of touching -for the first time on such topics cannot now be easily appreciated.” -His beliefs were _racial_, and depended on the clue of race to history. -Their applications, however, were _national_. For he knew that race -is only an element among the shared associations and common language, -customs and history, that make up that ideal assembly which is called -a nation; and he also knew that mere communication is not communion; -that the rapidity of increased methods of material intercourse will -never extinguish the slow, but certain, fires of race discord, which -can only “consume its own smoke” through the free fusion of nationality. - -His own race he cleared from prejudice, and proudly displayed as a -potent, if sometimes hidden, force throughout the world. His praise -and illustration of its endowments, its strength by virtue of its -purity of strain, its tenacity and power of organisation, its veiled -ramifications among the mainsprings that move Governments and alter -systems, no longer raise a smile; and if they did, they would certainly -cease to do so when placed on the lips of Macaulay, who thus treated -them-- - -“He knows,” said Macaulay, speaking in 1833 of the member for the -University of Oxford--“he knows that in the infancy of civilisation, -when our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts -were still unknown to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on -what was afterwards the site of Rome, this contemned people had their -fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid Temple, their fleets of -merchant ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen -and soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and their -poets.... Let us open to them every career in which ability and energy -can be displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume to say -that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, or heroism -among the descendants of the Maccabees.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -MONARCHY - - -“To change back the oligarchy into a generous aristocracy round a _real -throne_,” Disraeli ranks, with his ideal mission towards the Church, as -“the trainer of the nation;” towards Labour, to “the moral and physical -condition of the people;” towards Ireland, by governing it “according -to the policy of Charles I., and not of Oliver Cromwell;” to Reform, -by emancipating “the political constituency of 1832 from its sectarian -bondage and contracted sympathies.” - -“Sovereignty,” he says, in the peroration to _Sybil_, “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 disappeared....” Such was Disraeli’s summary in 1870 of -what inspired “Young England” in 1840. The more real is representation, -the greater the chances of royalty. De Tocqueville, too, has shown that -it was just the decay of mediæval, municipal institutions that loosened -the hold of the French Crown on the French nation. - -The “real throne,” as against the ornamental, formed a very material -part of it. It chimed with Disraeli’s outlook on English institutions -as “popular, but not democratic.” Since _Sybil_ was written, the -“subject” is no longer “a serf,” but for a long time the “sceptre” -tended to remain “a pageant.” The constitutional possibilities and -opportunities of kingship under our limited monarchy are even now, -perhaps, hardly realised. Before I close this chapter, I intend to say -something of their historical lineage. - -There is a satirical passage about George the Fourth among the -brilliant flippancies of _Vivian Grey_, which may amuse us before -coming to close quarters with the serious side of sovereignty: “The -first great duty of a monarch is to know how to bow skilfully. Nothing -is more difficult, ... a royal bow may often quell a rebellion, and -sometimes crush a conspiracy. Our own Sovereign bows to perfection. His -bow is eloquent, and will always render an oration ... unnecessary, -which is a great point, for harangues are not regal. Nothing is -more undignified than to make a speech. It is from the first an -acknowledgment that you are under the necessity of explaining, or -conciliating, or convincing, or confuting; in short, that you are not -omnipotent, but opposed.” - -“The Monarchy of the Tories is more democratic than the Republic of -the Whigs!” exclaimed Disraeli, as I have already quoted, in his -early _Spirit of Whiggism_. “I think,” cried Canning in 1812, “that -we have the happiness to live under a limited monarchy, not under a -crowned republic;” while, six years later, Canning again denounced -most forcibly the error of those “who argue as if the constitution of -this country was a broad and level democracy inlaid (for ornament’s -sake) with a peerage and topped (by sufferance) with a crown.” This -belief inspired the same statesman when, towards the agitated close of -his days, he speaks in a letter to Mr. Croker of his reliance on the -“vigour of the Crown” in conjunction with the “body of the people.” - -This, too, was the belief that inspired Disraeli. “_The monarch and the -multitude._” Monarchy should be neither a gewgaw nor an abstraction, -but a centre of national enthusiasm. “It is enthusiasm alone that gives -flesh and blood to the skeletons of opinions.” From the beginning of -the first to the close of the fifth decade of last century kingship -had been on its trial in England. “The Tories,” wrote Disraeli in _The -Press_, “already recognised the necessity of employing all the popular -elements of the Constitution in support of its monarchical foundation.” - -Just as I have shown with regard to the Church, his predisposition -lay towards pure Theocracy, but his practical bent discerned in a -national Church its aptest and most congenial embodiment; so with -regard to kingship his predisposition lay towards pure monarchy--royal -leadership--which he knew, and indeed hoped, could in England never -prove absolute, still less arbitrary. But a British king retains the -great advantage of being outside the prejudices of every order in -the State of which he is the social chieftain. The tendency, mused -“Sidonia,” of “advanced civilisation was to ‘pure monarchy;’” “Monarchy -is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilisation -for its fulfilment.” Public opinion, absorbing so many functions -of control, training, and discussion, should find in the king a -disinterested exponent. “In an enlightened age, the monarch on the -throne, free from the vulgar prejudices and the corrupt interests of -the subject, again becomes divine.” But this was said with regard to -France, and in answer to “Coningsby’s” hazard that the republic of that -country might absorb its kingdom, and Paris[109] the provinces. It was -a dream. None felt more deeply than Disraeli that English tradition was -the temper of England. None, more than he, deprecated centralisation. -The very value of her “glorious institutions” is, as he often insists, -that they foster, in a form above the passions of momentary outburst -or fickle reactions, those great elements of loyalty, religion, -industry, liberty, and order which have conjoined to make and keep -her great. Representing classes, they humanise virtues. The problem -since the Revolution has always been how to bring the varying force -of public opinion, the power of Parliament, and the cabinet system, -which has gradually crystallised, into line with the ancient and -beneficial personality of the Crown; in later times, how to reconcile -the King both to Downing and also to Fleet Street; how to harmonise -the dependence of his just limits with the independence of his just -influence; how to render him no mere _roi fainéant_, or marionette -to be danced on the wires of patricians or tribunes, but a real -representative individuality; how he may rule as well as reign; and all -this, in this country and in this century, without assuming any kind -of either fatherly or of stepfatherly meddlesomeness; for the “Patriot -King” must never take even a tinge of the Patriarch. He must be one, -whatever else he may be, who “thinks more of the community and less of -the government.” He must, in a word, bear himself as a chief, and not -as a master. - -As Byron sang, bearing Bolingbroke in mind-- - - “A despot thou, and yet thy people free, - And by the _heart_, not hand, enslaving us.” - -The monarch, thought Disraeli, embodies the national elements in a -form of abiding and unarbitrary influence; he is above interest and -beyond party; his position prevents, his functions collide with, any -favouritism of any class. A King at one with public opinion can prove -a real check on individual designs, ministerial mistakes, private -cajoleries, public passions. “The proper leader of the people is the -individual who sits upon the throne.” - -“‘And yet,’ said Coningsby, ‘the only way to terminate what is called -class legislation is not to entrust power to classes.... _The only -power that has no class sympathy is the Sovereign._’ - -“‘But suppose the case of an arbitrary Sovereign, what would be your -check against him?’ - -“‘The same as against an arbitrary Parliament.’ - -“‘But a Parliament is responsible ... to its constituent body.’ - -“‘Suppose it was to vote itself perpetual?’ - -“‘But public opinion would prevent that.’ - -“‘And is public opinion of less influence on an individual than on a -body?’ - -“‘But public opinion may be indifferent. A nation may be misled--may be -corrupt.’ - -“‘If the nation that elects the Parliament be corrupt, the elected body -will resemble it.... But this only shows that there is something to be -considered beyond forms of government--national character....’ - -“‘But do you then declare against Parliamentary government?’ - -“‘Far from it. _I look upon political change as the greatest of -evils, for it comprehends all._ But if we have no faith in the -permanence of the existing settlement--if the very individuals who -established it are year after year proposing their modifications or -their reconstructions--so, also, while we uphold what exists, ought -we to prepare ourselves for the change we deem impending. Now, I -would not that either ourselves or our fellow-citizens should be -taken unawares as in 1832, when the very men who opposed the Reform -Bill offered contrary objections to it which destroyed each other, -so ignorant were they of its real character, historical causes, its -political consequences.... For this purpose I would accustom the public -mind to the contemplation of an existing though torpid power in the -constitution, capable of removing our social grievances.... _The House -of Commons is the house of a few; the Sovereign is the sovereign of -all._’” - -Now, undoubtedly the period to which these words refer was one when -certain Whig leaders contemplated an oligarchical republic, and wished -to compass their aim by an undue exaltation of the Lower House, as, -in 1718, Sunderland had wished to attain the same end by that of the -Upper. No student of the Croker Papers can fail to recognise the -fact, and undoubtedly Disraeli thought--and Sir Robert Peel thought -so too--that the times were ripe for reviving those constitutional -prerogatives, those kingly privileges which form the Crown’s sole -direct representative faculty in the constitution, of which the Crown -had long been robbed, first by its own alternate abuse or incapacity -to use them, afterwards by faction itself often imitating the royal -errors. And so the executive power had passed almost wholly into -ministerial hands. After 1830 the prerogatives which, as I shall show, -Mr. Gladstone champions, seemed falling into entire abeyance. In 1836, -before he had entered Parliament, Disraeli had, in the _Runnymede -Letters_, where he spoke of “the people of England sighing once more -to be a nation,” called on Sir Robert Peel to achieve “a great task -in a great spirit”--“_rescue your Sovereign from an unconstitutional -thraldom_; rescue an august Senate which has already fought the battle -of the people; rescue our National Church which our opponents hate, -our venerable constitution at which they scoff; but, above all, rescue -that mighty body of which all these great classes and institutions are -but one of the constituent and essential parts--rescue the _nation_.” - -In 1837, “our young Queen and our old Institutions” were no mere -catchwords. And it seems unquestionable, also, that the subsequent -interferences of Baron Stockmar, the late Queen’s early tutelage to -Lord Melbourne, the circumstances attendant on her happy marriage, -the peculiar treatment of Prince Consort by her first ministers, and -the long retirement due to private grief, contributed in successive -combination towards that invisibility, so to speak, of her royal -office, which prevailed, though it did not, however, eventually -preclude her very real and valuable exercise of it. In England the only -true blemish of our party system, which Disraeli vehemently fought to -uphold, is, as he more than once urged, that it tends to “warp the -intelligence.” To this fault the wisdom of a constitutional and popular -monarch, above and beyond party, offers an antidote. - -Sir Robert Peel, in the very year of Queen Victoria’s accession, writes -to Croker as follows:-- - -“... The theory of the constitution is that the King has no will except -in the choice of his ministers.... _But this, like a thousand other -theories, is at variance with the fact._ The personal character of -the sovereign ... has an immense practical effect.... There may not -be violent collisions between the King and his Government, but his -influence, though dormant and unseen, may be very powerful. Respect -for personal character will operate in some cases; in others the King -will have all the authority which greater and more widely extended -experience than that of any single minister will naturally give. A -King, after a reign of ten years, ought to know much more of the -working of the machine of government than any other man in the country. -_He is the centre to which all business gravitates._ The knowledge that -the King holds firmly a certain opinion, and will abide by it, prevents -in many cases an opposite opinion being offered to him.... The personal -character of a really constitutional King, of mature age, of experience -in public affairs, and knowledge, manners, and customs, is practically -so much _ballast_, keeping the vessel of the State steady in her -course, countervailing the levity of popular ministers, of orators -forced by oratory into public councils, the blasts of democratic -passions, the groundswell of discontent, and ‘the ignorant impatience -for the relaxation of taxation.’ ... The genius of the Constitution had -contrived this in times gone by. - - “‘Speluncis abdidit atris - Hoc metuens, molemque et montes insuper altos - Imposuit, _Regemque_ dedit, qui fœdere certo - Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas.’ - -“If at other times this _paternal authority_[110] were requisite, -the authority to be exercised _fœdere certo_, by the nice tact of an -experienced hand, how much more is it necessary when every institution -is reeling, when - - _‘Excutimur cursu, et cœcis erramus in undis’!_” - -Sir Robert’s idea, then, of a constitutional sovereign was that of -an unseen driver who holds the reins from within. The sailor-king -of narrow mind but broad sympathies, just departed when Peel wrote, -had not proved a cipher. He insisted on being for a space Lord High -Admiral, despite Croker’s ungenerous retort that James II. had done -the same. In 1828 he had offered wise advice to his ministers as to -the unripeness of the times for a change in the form then proposed, -which touched his heart. On his accession he emphatically expressed his -pleasure in retaining his ministers. And, though he composed a couplet -so bad that it might have been the jingle of Harley-- - - “_A dissolution - Means revolution_,” - -yet throughout the brief and perplexed span of his reign he honestly -tried to accord with the whole nation as opposed to cliques and -sections of it that assumed the title of “the people.” The fact was -that he acceded during one of those crises when the balance of power -was shifting, and, his intellect being mediocre, he became bewildered. -The new, the legitimate, the organised predominance of public opinion -clashed with Parliament, and was played upon by ambitious ministers. -William the Fourth lived in just fear and blunt defiance of that -“Venetian oligarchy” which ever since 1704 had been the recurrent ideal -of the place-engrossing, great revolution families. What he apprehended -was foiled, principally by the personality of Sir Robert Peel, whom -he summoned to his aid. Henceforward the monarchy became, as it ought -long before to have become, completely, if gradually, popularised. When -monarchy is popular, the invisibility of its office ceases to be an -expedient. “... I think,” said Disraeli, in a speech of 1850, “it one -of the great misfortunes of our time, and one most injurious to public -liberty, that the power of the Crown has diminished.” - -With Victoria and our present King--if we except a very transient spasm -of George III., whose first essay to be a “patriot king” had been to -dismiss and thwart the most popular minister that England has ever -had--monarchy has for the first time during nearly two centuries proved -wholly and nationally popular. Before the Stuarts, Elizabeth had ruled -by the sole virtue of her popularity; she had “inflamed the national -spirit,” and the checks introduced by the Revolution were only a -necessity for unpopular sovereigns. The Press has now introduced a far -greater check than any of these. Now that the nation is in full unison -with the Crown, the King is doubly entitled to support the nation -in hours of befitting emergency against the cabals or passions of a -person, a clique, or a class. A modern English King is too cognisant of -the popular feeling eloquent in an unbridled press ever to violate it; -he could not do so with impunity. The last surrender of “independent -kingship,” which Mr. Gladstone has noted, and others after him, was in -1827, when a weak sovereign renewed the “charter of administration of -the day.” There is no pretext now for a King to yield or hide his just -and popular privileges to serve the turn of ministers. The necessity -for a “monarch of Downing Street” has disappeared. - -Disraeli adverted to some of these topics at Manchester in 1872, long -after the events of those times had passed, but when “the banner of -republicanism” was once again unfurled. - -“... Since the settlement of that constitution, now nearly two -centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though -there is no country in which there has been so continuous and -such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your -forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of -human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife -of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public -mind, there has always been something in this country round which all -classes and powers could rally, representing the majesty of the law, -the administration of justice, and involving at the same time the -security for every man’s rights and the fountain of honour.” And then, -after emphasising the non-partisanship of the Crown, the very end which -Bolingbroke forecasted at the time when an unemancipated King was -condemned to be a party man, he led the discussion to the conventional -views of the King being not only outside politics, but outside affairs. - -“... I know it will be said that, however beautiful in theory, -the personal influence of the Sovereign is now absorbed in the -responsibility of the minister. I think you will find there is a great -fallacy in this view. The principles of the English Constitution do -not contemplate the absence of personal influence on the part of the -Sovereign; and if they did, the principles of human nature would -prevent the fulfilment of such a theory.” He is here in complete accord -with Peel. “Even,” he says, “with average ability, it is impossible -not to perceive that such a Sovereign must soon attain a great mass -of political information and political experience. Information and -experience, ... whether they are possessed by a Sovereign or by the -humblest of his subjects, are irresistible in life.... The longer the -reign, the influence of that Sovereign must proportionately increase. -All the illustrious statesmen who served his youth disappear. A new -generation of public servants rises up. There is a critical conjuncture -in affairs--a moment of perplexity and peril. Then it is that the -Sovereign can appeal to a similar state of affairs that occurred -perhaps thirty years before. When all are in doubt among his servants, -he can quote the advice that was given by the illustrious men of his -early years, and though he may maintain himself within the strictest -limits of the Constitution, who can suppose, when such information and -such suggestions are made by the most exalted person in the country, -that they can be without effect? No; ... a minister who could venture -to treat such influence with indifference would not be a Constitutional -minister, but an arrogant idiot....” And in another speech of the same -year, after insisting that English attachment to English institutions -was no “political superstition,” but sprang from a resolve that “_the -principles of liberty, of order, of law, and of religion ought not to -be entrusted to individual opinion, or to the caprice and passion of -multitudes, but should be embodied in a form of permanence and power_,” -he also remarked: “... We associate with the Monarchy the ideas which -it represents--the majesty of law, the administration of justice, the -fountain of mercy and honour.” He might, in fitness with his other -pronouncements, have added the ideas of loyalty and of leadership. -Again, in 1871, a moment of republican revival, adverting to the -superintendence of public business by the Sovereign, he insisted that -“... there is not a dispatch received from abroad, or sent from this -country abroad, which is not submitted to the Queen.... Those Cabinet -Councils, ... which are necessarily the scene of anxious and important -deliberations, are reported and communicated, ... and they often call -from her critical remarks requiring considerable attention.... No -person likely to administer the affairs of this country would treat -the suggestions of Her Majesty with indifference, for at this moment -there is probably no person living who has such complete control over -the political conditions.... But, although there never was a Sovereign -who would less arrogate any power or prerogative which the Constitution -does not authorise, so I will say there never was one more wisely -jealous of those which the Constitution has allotted to her, because -she believes they are for the welfare of her people.” - -It is by its constitutional prerogatives that, in the first place, the -Crown can assert its lawful influence. They confer on him a deciding -power in many spheres. Of these prerogatives Disraeli was a champion; -and Mr. Gladstone upheld them in at least two interesting discussions -among his “Gleanings.” - -To defer the most obvious among these, the King’s consultative faculty, -“the power,” to cite Mr. Gladstone, “which gives the monarch an -undoubted _locus standi_ in all the deliberations of a Government, ... -remains as it was.” In olden days this was effected openly in form. Nor -should it be forgotten that whenever a Ministry is changed, again to -cite Mr. Gladstone, “the whole power of the State periodically returns -into the royal hands.” In 1852, when Lord Derby reluctantly consented -to assume office with a minority, there were forty-eight hours when, -as Disraeli pointed out in a speech of 1873, “the Queen was without -a Government.” Then take the royal prerogative of dissolution. This -right enabled, in 1852, that very administration to perform the work -of the session, and to carry the supplies before appealing to the -constituencies on its right to exist. It is in effect a right of appeal -by the Sovereign through or even against (should he deem it their -duty to take the national voice) his ministers to the country; and in -any crucial instance it forms the best check to faction of which our -Constitution admits. - -Further, there exists the admitted prerogative, openly exercised, of -choice of ministers. This was the main arena of party cleavage under -the greater portion of the sway of George III. It was this which, -as Mr. Gladstone also mentions, was unsuccessfully, but neither -unwholesomely nor unfairly, pressed into popular service in 1834. -And, among many others remaining, there is that to appoint bishops--a -stalking-ground of contention during the reign of Anne, and, in the -Victorian era, signalised by Dr. Hampden’s appointment against a -remonstrant primate. There is the prerogative of the Royal Warrant -utilised by Mr. Gladstone himself in the repeal of the Purchase Act. -There is the prerogative of disapproving the choice of Speaker, which -will probably cease. There is that for proposing grants of public -money, and there is the salutary initiative of Royal Commission which -paves the way for social reform. On these personal rights I need not -dwell. But on the prerogative of peace and war a word must be said. Had -it been withheld for hostilities in the Crimea, a needless complication -of Europe need never have occurred.[111] We may conjecture that its -influence was not absent from our recent peace in South Africa. Mr. -Gladstone has instanced the Chinese war, some fifty years ago, as an -example of carrying on a conflict believed to be necessary despite its -condemnation by “the stewards of the public purse.” The Sovereign has -also the undoubted right to consult with his ministers, and to attend -the deliberations of his Cabinet. Queen Anne did this habitually, and -the fatal movement of her fan decided great issues on more than one -occasion. The first two Georges used on occasion, but with indifference -where money was not concerned, to do the same. Since then it has fallen -into disuse, and perhaps the end is better served by the premier’s -audiences with his King. But I may here be permitted to hope that when -the great intercolonial council which is in the air has taken shape, -the Sovereign may deign to be its President. Such a decision would be -in complete accord with the policy of Disraeli, who affirmed in 1876, -“No one regrets more than I do that favourable opportunities have been -lost of identifying the colonies with the royal race of England.” - -The prerogatives are the royal faculties for independent expression. -But it is obviously not by prerogative mainly or alone that the Crown -rivets and can mould a nation. The Crown is a many-sided emblem. It is -the centre of English unity, a focus of consolidation and compactness; -while it also represents Great and Greater Britain abroad. As a source -of home sympathy, as the embodiment of the might and mercy of a great -Empire, as the durable impersonation of the individual character that -out of many welded races creates a united Empire, it is manifestly -operative. I may add that it may also set an example of simplicity, for -the Crown is able to bring choice virtues into vulgar fashion. - -Nor should sight be lost of the immense services which the Sovereign -may render to British interests abroad. Shifting administrations -encourage various hopes in foreign powers. The Crimean War was an -outcome of such renewed aspirations. Our foreign policy lacks the -strength of continuity, and its changefulness seems ineradicable -from our party system. It is, therefore, of high importance that -European courts should be able to count on certain limits which they -know that a monarch whom they respect is likely to maintain. Such a -consciousness of finality enables foreign Governments to moderate the -popular clamour often worked up by dishonest agitation, and the more -obstinate because purposely misinformed. The Crown can thus become a -great conciliator,[112] and sometimes a preventer of actual war. The -affinities of the blood royal to continental dynasties are not so -cogent, though their material aid as sources of inner information is -manifest. But as guarantees of amity they often prove comparatively -helpless, unless supported by the recognition of character, tact, -and abilities, for which the nurture of every British prince should -fit him, and which entitle him to appeal to every differing headship -of peoples abroad, as well as to the originally alien ingredients of -empire at home. The British Sovereign may well be called the Member for -the Empire. - -On these aspects Disraeli often dwelt; and at a period when, for these -objects, the comparatively small expense was affected to be grudged -by a set of extreme politicians, his analysis proved its cheapness in -proportion to the cost of large democracies and republics. - -A great outcry was raised when, twenty-seven years ago, Disraeli made -the startling move of appealing alike to the Hindoo and the Mohammedan -sentiment by investing Queen Victoria with a title which has impressed -India with the grandeur of Great Britain. To the Oriental the style -of a white queen meant as little as to the queen of the Ansaries, so -humorously depicted in _Tancred_. It was well said of Disraeli by -Lord Salisbury, in the speech which commemorated his death, that zeal -for the greatness of England had eaten him up; and zeal, as Disraeli -observed in an Irish speech of 1844, is rare enough in these days. -Never was a stroke more justified by its results. Like the purchase of -the Suez Canal shares, equally justified, it was bitterly and blindly -assailed. “Bastard imperialism” was the refrain of the Opposition. No -one knew on what sacred ark the Machiavellian finger might next be laid. - -Disraeli proved that “empress” was an old ascription even in England, -and that “emperor” even in the Western mind was not a title bound -up with “bad associations.” Macaulay had singled out the age of the -Antonines as a signal era for the world, and the Antonines had been -emperors. In the early ’sixties a definite and powerful party had -conspired to break the unity of the empire and the dignity of the -kingdom, to sacrifice everything to material considerations, to convert -_a first-class monarchy into a second-class republic_. It was not -enough that the national sentiment should be diverted from appeals to -pocket by appeals to patriotism; that the gush of utilitarian cold -water should be arrested from drowning the rekindled flames of public -spirit. The coloured imagination of the East must also be brought into -line with the soberer background of the West. Nor was the relation of -the measure less weighty to Europe. Europe, too, must realise that -India was a trust which Britain was resolute never to abandon. These -objects Disraeli effected by his “Royal Titles Bill,” a conception -as simple as it was daring. “They know in India,” he urged, after -imploring the House to “remove prejudice from their minds”--“they know -in India what this bill means, and they know that what it means is what -they wish.... Let not our divisions be misconstrued. _Let the people of -India feel that there is a sympathetic chord between us and them, and -do not let Europe suppose for a moment that there are any in this House -who are not deeply conscious of the importance of our Indian Empire._ -Unfortunate words have been heard in the debate upon this subject; but -I will not believe that any member of this House seriously contemplates -the loss of our Indian Empire.... If you sanction the passing of this -bill, it will be an act, to my mind, that will add splendour even to -her throne, and security even to her Empire.” In a subsequent chapter -I shall show that these ideas of sympathy with India had animated him -while the great Mutiny was raging. - -It was Disraeli who suggested to Queen Victoria the propriety of -learning the language and studying the literature of the vast domain -over which she ruled, and the _munshis_ summoned to instruct her, -brought home to every Indian the conviction that her sway was one, not -only of strength, but of sympathy and intelligence. Doubtless these -policies were born of dreams, and of dreams which to the unreflecting -might seem extravaganzas. But they were not merely an Arabian Nights’ -entertainment. The Monarchy, like the Church, in his mind were in one -respect akin. The Clergy and the King were both “English citizens and -English gentlemen,” and yet the undue political influence of either, as -he insisted in 1861, was to be feared, because it might diminish their -best influence. Both make for order, and order makes for liberty. “... -It is said sometimes that the Church of England is hostile to religious -liberty. As well might it be said that the Monarchy of England is -adverse to political freedom.” - -Many of Disraeli’s central ideas as to British kingship were partly -decided by him from his boyish conversance with the works of Lord -Bolingbroke, whose constitutional theories (repeated by Burke) solved -the difficulty of accounting for the popularity of exclusiveness in -the theory of government, and for the odiousness of that party which -had once been inclusive and “national.” Prerogative has been nowhere -better defined than by Bolingbroke, who uniformly also declares -that Parliament is the main barrier against “the usurpation of its -illegal, or the abuse of its legal, powers.” He terms prerogative “a -discretionary power in the King to act for the good of his people -where the laws are silent; ... never contrary to law;” and this in -a passage where he protests against its being raised “one step -higher;” and he has further shown elsewhere how some such “barefaced, -extraordinary powers” _were_ welcomed by the nation in Elizabeth’s -reign, because they were called forth by popular emergencies and -used in a popular manner. Elizabeth, at a time before the Sovereign -depended on Parliament, and before the Cabinet system was established, -owed her power to her sympathy with her people. The first two Georges -were unsympathetic, and the second abetted not only partisanship, but -cliqueship. He became dependent on contending heads of greedy factions. -To cure these evils was the purport of the “Patriot King,” which -inspired Disraeli as it had before inspired Chatham. - -It has been objected that Bolingbroke’s aim was for the King to “defy -Parliament.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout his -writings he champions the rights of Parliament; indeed, Parliament was -his hobby. In his treatise on the “Patriot King,” the word “Parliament” -is not employed--it is his only essay from which it is absent--but the -phrase “the people,” that is, has been expressly defined by him as the -whole nation in its capacities, representative as well as collective. -It therefore includes “Parliament.” In Bolingbroke’s previous “Spirit -of Patriotism,” he had approached the theme of national regeneration -from the standpoint of the ideal citizen; in the “Patriot King,” from -the standpoint of a throne in accord with national concurrence. Its -whole pith is that the ideal King, governing through ministers and -through party, should rise above and beyond them. He must be neither -a partisan (as all the Georges proved), nor a puppet, nor (as Canning -long afterwards repeated) “the tool of a confederacy,” but in alliance -with and reliance on the whole body of his subjects. The “Patriot King” -is expressly urged “to confine instead of labouring to extend his -prerogative;” and Bolingbroke adds that such an ideal would be derided -by his own generation. - -Of Elizabeth herself, whose great example is his perpetual praise, he -has observed elsewhere that, “instead of struggling through trouble and -danger to bend the constitution to any particular views of her own, she -accommodated her notions, her views, and her whole character to it;” -and he proceeds to say, “a free people expects this of their prince. He -is made for their sakes, not they for his;” and again, “the merit of -a wise governor is wisely to superintend the whole.” He expresses his -ideal of an impartial and democratic King in his “Spirit of Patriotism” -as of one who should “_govern all by all_.” He further, in many direct -passages, distinctly looks forward to a transference of power from -caballing cliques led by selfish ambition, to the nation at large, and -he calls on the King to be a truly national ruler. He desires, under -changes, descried in the dim distance, that the “_sense of the Court, -the sense of the Parliament, and the sense of the People should be the -same_;” that the King, as he expresses it, should prove the “centre of -the nation,” and, as Disraeli has expressed it, should be above “class -interests;” should, in a country of classes, respond to every class, -and favouritise none. To this end he harped, as did Disraeli from -first to last, on what he admits to be a seeming solecism--a “National -Party;” and by this he means--as I could prove by countless passages--a -party whose main object is _national and imperial unity_; one that is, -moreover, comprehensive instead of being exclusive. - -These ideas, in happier times and altered circumstances, passed -to Disraeli. In 1859, repeating in part what he had affirmed of -“Bolingbroke” in the Letter to Lord Lyndhurst, indited nearly -twenty-five years earlier, he said of the Conservative party: “... In -attempting, however humbly, to regulate its fortunes, I have always -striven to distinguish that which was eternal from that which was but -accidental in its opinions. I have always striven to assist in building -it upon a _broad and national_ basis, because I believed it to be a -party peculiarly and essentially _national_--a party which adhered to -the institutions of the country as embodying the national necessities -and forming the best security for the liberty, the power, and the -prosperity of England.” - -In his Runnymede Letter to Peel of 1836, he calls on him to head this -“national party.” In his Crystal Palace oration of 1872, he showed that -the ideal of a “Conservative” party seeking to preserve, adapt, and -expand traditional institutions is to be national. In this striking -speech, after deprecating that, in the days of Eldon, “... instead of -the principles professed by Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville, and which -those great men inherited ‘from predecessors’ not less illustrious, -the Tory system had degenerated into a policy which formed an adequate -basis on the principles of exclusiveness and restriction,” he urged, -as he had always urged: “... The Tory party, unless it is a national -party, is nothing. It is not a confederacy of nobles, it is not a -democratic multitude; it is a party formed from all the numerous -classes in the realm--classes alike and equal before the law, but whose -different conditions and different aims give vigour and variety to our -national life.” - -For the essence of these ideas, the forms which have since appeared or -vanished--the development of the ministerial system, the organisation -of public opinion--are immaterial. Of course Bolingbroke could not -foresee the _routine_ of the far future; it was its _spirit_ which -he foresaw, and to which, through Disraeli, he contributed. In his -own language about another, he “... _had the wisdom to discern, not -only the actual alteration which was already made, but the growing -alteration which would every day increase_.” And this, too, may be -affirmed of Disraeli. - -I think that, in the denial of Bolingbroke’s real objects, achieved by -Disraeli, some misconception has arisen from the constant use towards -the close of the eighteenth century of “to govern by party connections.” - -George III., a student of Bolingbroke, but a narrow abuser on his first -trial of his doctrine, was accused of meaning to dispense with this -watchword of oligarchs. But the quarrels of his time proved that what -George III. really wanted was to dispense with one party alone, to -escape from the dictation of a few governing families, and to choose -his own ministers. There may be--there have been--great parties based -on principles of disruption and contraction rather than of union -and expansion, or parties based on principles more international or -continental than national and British. A “national” party does not -exclude their existence and criticism, any more than it does that -of another “national” party taking another outlook on “general -principles.” What it ought more and more to exclude, what the monarch -as the centre of union should more and more render impossible, is an -anti-national group, and the remedy that Burke suggests for such an -ailment is that propounded by Bolingbroke and upheld by Disraeli--the -limited and constitutional prerogatives of the Crown--which -should render less possible those gangs of office-mongers who, in -Bolingbroke’s phrase, pay “a private court at the public expense,” and -in Disraeli’s, are “public traders of easy virtue.” - -These ideas, shared by Bolingbroke, by Burke, by Canning, and by -Disraeli, are no tiresome theories, but lively and practical issues. We -too must look ahead. How far under modern conditions, and apart from -the spasms and clamours of party, can the sovereign power as a force -consolidating the Empire be strengthened, and the royal prerogatives -wisely displayed in the light of day? Ought a King’s personality to -prove also the means of his power? Time will show. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -COLONIES--EMPIRE--FOREIGN POLICY - - -Before Disraeli had entered public life, at a time when public opinion -remained stagnant regarding the reciprocal needs and splendid future -of the Mother Country and her children, while it was still thought -optional whether the parent supported the offspring or the offspring -the parent, Disraeli had pondered on the problem, and brought -imagination to bear upon it. The colonies were not merely commercial -acquisitions, they were the free vents for the surplus energy of a -great race, and the nursery gardens of national institutions. - -In _Contarini Fleming_ he thus muses, dreaming of things to come, in -sight of Corcyra-- - -“... There is a great difference between ancient and modern colonies. -A modern colony is a commercial enterprise, an ancient colony was a -political sentiment. In the emigration of our citizens, hitherto, _we -have merely sought the means of acquiring wealth_; the ancients, when -their brethren quitted their native shores, wept and sacrificed, and -were reconciled to the loss of their fellow-citizens solely by the -constraint of stern necessity, and the hope that they were about to -find easier subsistence, and to lead a more cheerful and commodious -life. _I believe that a great revolution is at hand in our system of -colonisation, and that Europe will soon recur to the principles of the -ancient polity._” In 1836 he thus satirises the impending King’s speech -in his Runnymede Letter to Lord Melbourne-- - -“... It will announce to us that in our colonial empire the most -important results may speedily be anticipated from the discreet -selection of Lord Auckland as a successor to our Clives and our -Hastings; that the progressive improvement of the French in the -manufacture of beetroot may compensate for the approaching destruction -of our West Indian plantations;[113] and that, although Canada is not -yet independent, the final triumph of liberal principles, under the -immediate patronage of the Government, may eventually console us for -the loss of the glory of Chatham and the conquests of Wolfe.” - -Once in the House of Commons, he never ceased to urge the claims of -sentiment and the bonds of interest, while he enforced the necessity -for cementing them by federation and by tariffs. In 1848, when Lord -Palmerston, with his “perfumed cane,” was dictating a constitution -to Narvaez, Disraeli, who on principle deprecated interference with -foreign powers unless British interests were endangered, here supported -him, just because he considered it a case with contingencies affecting -our colonial welfare and our own prestige. It was in 1848, too, that, -descanting on the narrowing aspects of the Manchester School, and their -“unblushing” advocacy of the “interests of capital,” he indicted their -“colonial reform with ruining the colonies.” It was in the same year -that he taxed the self-righteous Peelites with “turning up their noses -at East India cotton as at everything else Colonial and Imperial.”[114] - -Under Governments, of which Disraeli was the leading spirit, a -constitution was framed for New Zealand in 1852, and in the summer -of 1858 the colony of British Columbia was established. It was not -more than a few months afterwards that disturbances arose; and the -_Times_, in its review of the year 1859, found in these elements only -the “incubus” of ubiquitous colonies and commerce. To this standing -snarl about “the millstone of the colonies and India” Disraeli adverted -thirteen years afterwards, when he said: “... It has been shown with -precise, with mathematical demonstration, that there never was a jewel -in the Crown of England that was so truly costly.... How often has it -been suggested that we should emancipate ourselves from this incubus!” -It was Disraeli’s Government that in the ’sixties was to confederate -Canada, and in the ’seventies to devise a scheme for confederating -South Africa. In his earliest pamphlets Disraeli had announced that -the genius of the age was one of a transition from the “feodal” to the -“federal.” In his whole outlook throughout he sought to reconcile the -higher spirit of the one with the material interests of the other. -And yet, astounding to relate, it was stated in a speech some seven -years or so ago, that Disraeli himself had endorsed such melancholy -and shortsighted pettiness. The sole foundation that I have been able -to find is a stray sentence in a light letter to Lord Malmesbury; just -as in 1863 he made merry in Parliament over those who regarded the -“colonial empire” as an “annual burden.” - -This sentence, jesting of the “millstone,” but sighing over the chance -of severance, was penned in 1853--the very year after the New Zealand -Constitution. It was a time of despondency, following on fourteen years -of colonial crisis. During it both Canada and the Cape had rebelled. -The former’s Constitution had been suspended. The repeal of the Sugar -Duties had estranged mutinous Jamaica. Peel had been constrained to -exclaim that in “Every one of our colonies we have another Ireland,” -and Peel was an imperialist. In a raw state, and in the crudity of -earlier hardships, the colonies always clash more readily with home -government than when the mellowing progress of experience enables them -to take a less partial view, and to accept help in working out their -own salvation. Moreover, the choice still lay between pure democracy -and democracy monarchical and national. The democratic idea during this -period was working in absolute detachment from the ancient institutions -which should have been easily transplanted. In the colonies these were -all in danger. It was difficult here to find a rallying centre for them -there, and that difficulty was heightened by the two new schools of -Radical thought--the older, that of the philosophical Molesworth and -the utilitarian Hume, who tested policy by the criterion of immediate -success; the newer, that of the dry “Physical Equalitarians” of -Manchester, which regarded Great Britain as a huge co-operative store. -Disraeli from first to last urged the especial need in England for -strong as well as good government. The faculties for government were -being lessened and weakened. It was not one side only that despaired; -Lord John Russell himself had no faith in the bare democracy of the -colonial feeling. And yet we have seen what Disraeli wrote of Lord -John in _The Press_ at this very period. The home example then was -unpropitious for the colonies. Monarchy was yet far from popular. What -Disraeli feared in England--what may still be dreaded in our midst--was -the possible reaction--in the face of limited employment of labour -and growing tyranny of capital--from detached democracy to moneyed -despotism. “Nor is there”--wrote Disraeli, with premature penetration, -in _The Press_ of March 21, 1853--“a country in the world in which the -reaction from democracy to despotism would be so sudden and so complete -as in England, because in no other country is there the same timidity -of capital; and just in proportion as democratic progress by levelling -the influences of birth elevates the influences of money, does it -create a power that would at any time annihilate liberty--if liberty -were brought into opposition with the three-per-cents.” The effects -of this fermenting leaven both in England and among her colonies had -to be weighed; and Disraeli many years afterwards avowed in a speech -that for a moment he too had wavered. That moment was the one of this -passing phrase. But it stood for a phase as momentary. Disraeli, like -Strepsiades in the Attic burlesque, had only “mislaid his cloak, not -lost it.”[115] Ten years later he could advocate our colonial empire -with effect and authority. The colonies had become--as the Crown had -become--a popular institution, and a requisite for the fresh air, -fresh vents, and fresh health of an expanding population cramped by -now overcrowded towns. They might still prove a recruiting ground for -labour. Peel’s adoption of the “physical happiness” principle, which -postulates unlimited employment of industry, had not settled that -problem by his “liberation of commerce.” And, as Disraeli pointed -out in 1873, if it were only to be settled by natural forces, the -“unlimited employment” of labour made for the erasement of the national -idea. To the theoretic Radical, however, the colonies, like all our -institutions, were still obstacles. “... To him the colonial empire is -only an annual burden. To him corporation is an equivalent term for -monopoly, and endowment for privilege....” - -Together with Disraeli’s name, in the mention of early colonial -aspirations, that of the then Sir E. Bulwer Lytton should assuredly -be commemorated. He, too, treated colonial concerns, during his brief -period of secretaryship, with firmness, insight, and adroitness. Nor -should it be forgotten that between the two was a link of romantic -imagination as well as of long-standing friendship. Years before, -they had both contributed to the _New Monthly Magazine_. Both were -men of striking originality, untempered by a public school education; -and it is amusing to note that the fantastic strain, enabling both to -view the prospect spaciously, and censured as “un-English”[116] in -Disraeli--often when he was really quoting from our classics[117]--was -only criticised as “extravagant” in Lytton, or, at a later period, -as “ornate” in Lord Leighton. Both were students and interpreters of -Bolingbroke. They had each the faculty of regarding history as a whole, -and from a high vantage-ground, instead of perverting their vision of -progress by the paltry rancours of the moment. Such an instinct is -invaluable in attaching new settlements to the nest of their nurture. - -In 1863, summarising the aspirations of Conservatism, he spoke of “our -colonial empire, _which is the national estate_, that assures to every -subject, ... as it were, a freehold, and which gives to the energies -and abilities of Englishmen an inexhaustible theatre.” He was swift to -discern the bearing of crucial alterations in America on the colonies. -In 1864, while the civil conflict was raging in the United States, he -urged, regarding them: “... What is the position of the colonies and -dependencies of her Majesty in that country? Four years ago, when the -struggle broke out, there was very little in common between them. _The -tie that bound them to this country was almost one of formality_; but -what has been the consequence of this great change in North America? -You have now a powerful federation _with the element of nationality -strongly evinced in it_. They count their population by millions, -and they are conscious that they have a district more fertile and an -extent of territory equal to the unappropriated reserves of the United -States. _These are the elements and prognostics of new influences_ -that have changed the character of that country. Nor is it without -reason that they do not feel less of the ambition which characterises -new communities than the United States, and that they may become, we -will say, the ‘_Russia of the New World_.’... If from considerations -of expense we were to quit the possessions that we now occupy in North -America, it would be ultimately, as regards our resources and wealth, -as fatal a step as could possibly be taken. Our prosperity would -not long remain a consolation, _and we might then prepare for the -invasion of our country and the subjection of the people_.” And he next -insisted on the need of Canada’s adequate defence, saying that while -we would not force our connection on any dependency, yet, finding our -colonies now asserting the principle of their nationality, “... and ... -foreseeing a glorious future, ... still depending on the faithful and -affectionate assistance of England, it would be the most short-sighted -and suicidal policy to shrink from the duty that Providence has called -upon us to fulfil.” In 1866, again, he advocated colonial interests in -Parliament, and, by a fine phrase, warned us to “... recollect that -England is the _metropolis of a colonial empire_; that she is at the -head of a vast number of colonies, the majority of which are yearly -increasing in wealth; and that every year these colonies send back to -these shores their capital and their intelligence in the persons of -distinguished men, who are naturally anxious that _these interests -should be represented in the House of Commons_.” - -But it was in 1872 that Disraeli first propounded a colonial policy -which was the sum of many previous pronouncements, and is even now -being pondered, and not by one party alone. He recognised that a -united empire implies a united nation; that, as he always maintained, -Parliament represents national opinion, and that colonial opinion and -sentiment at last formed part of it. - -“Gentlemen,” urged Disraeli, “there is another and second great object -of the Tory party. If the first is to maintain the institutions of -the country, the second is, in my opinion, to uphold the empire of -England. If you look to the history of this country since the advent -of Liberalism--forty years ago--you will find that there has been -no effort, so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much energy, -and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of -Liberalism _to effect the disintegration of the empire of England_. -Statesmen of the highest character, writers of the most distinguished -ability, the most organised and efficient means have been employed -in this endeavour. It has been proved to all of us that we have lost -money by our colonies.” Alluding next to the “incubus” in the passage I -have already cited, he thus frankly continues: ... “Well, that result -was nearly accomplished when these subtle views were adopted by the -country, under the plausible plea of granting self-government to the -colonies. I confess that I myself thought that the tie was broken. -Not that I, for one, object to self-government. I cannot conceive how -our distant colonies can have their affairs administered except by -self-government. But self-government, in my opinion, ought to have -been conceded, _as part of a great policy of imperial consolidation. -It ought to have been accompanied by an imperial tariff, by securities -for the people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated -lands which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a -military code which should have precisely defined the means and the -responsibilities by which the colonies should be defended,[118] and -by which, if necessary, the country should call for aid from the -colonies themselves._ It ought further to have been accompanied _by -the institution of some representative council in the metropolis, -which would have brought the colonies into constant and continuous -relations with the home Government_. All this, however, was omitted -because those who advised that policy--and I believe their convictions -were sincere--looked upon the colonies of England, looked even upon -our connection with India, as a burden upon this country, _viewing -everything in a financial aspect, and totally passing by those moral -and political considerations which make nations great, and by the -influence of which alone men are distinguished from animals_.” - -Here we have a foreseeing and a far-seeing policy. Not a point of this -forecast but has engaged, or will soon engage, national attention. -With what courage and sagacity did Disraeli hand on the torch of -Bolingbroke, who, first of English statesmen, had emphasised the -significance of Gibraltar, who foretold England’s mission as “a -Mediterranean power,”[119] and pictured her then scanty colonies as so -many “home farms”! None can now doubt the sagacity; and if any doubt -the courage, they have only to peruse the warnings of that commercial -Cassandra, Mr. Bright, who, during the manufactured reaction of 1879, -unconsciously justified Disraeli’s predictions of seven years before. -After cataloguing his “annexations” like an auctioneer, he thus -proceeded to stir passion and impute motives-- - -“... All this adds to your burdens. Just listen to this: they add to -the burdens, not of the empire, but of the 33,000,000 of people who -inhabit Great Britain and Ireland. We take the burden and pay the -charge. This policy may lend a seeming glory to the Crown, and it may -give scope for patronage and promotion, and pay a pension to a limited -and favoured class. But to you, the people, it brings expenditure of -blood and treasure, increased debts and taxes, and adds risk of war in -every part of the globe.” - -Is sense more conspicuous than charity in this onslaught? Has it not -been proved penny wise, pound foolish? Could a better instance be -adduced of a contrast between England as an emporium and Great Britain -as a united empire?[120] In many respects I honour Mr. Bright. He -at least had the courage of his honest convictions. He was against -war altogether; but in being so he opposed the instincts of rising -nationalities and tried to lull Great Britain into a fool’s paradise -of international exhibitions. It is now asserted that Russia could -not advance through Persia to India without a bristling series of -bayonets. This is not to be wished, but is it to be feared? Of “Peace -at any price,” Disraeli said with truth--and truth in the interests -of general peace--that it was a “dangerous doctrine, which had done -more mischief and caused more wars than the most ruthless conquerors.” -What happened? Mr. Bright at a bound converted Mr. Gladstone. It was -a mutual necessity. Neither of them without the other could have -swayed the commercial classes and “the lower middles.” Mr. Gladstone -was Don Quixote; Mr. Bright, Sancho Panza. Mr. Gladstone appealed to -the nation; Mr. Bright, with sincere power and definite ideals, to a -class. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the customs and institutions which -he heroically assailed; Mr. Bright attacked more directly and without -even the show of sympathy. Here Mr. Gladstone was Girondin; Mr. -Bright, Jacobin. Mr. Gladstone’s conviction of being “the legate of -the skies,” his electric temperament, devout genius, practical fervour -and “connection,” both idealised and popularised the doggedness and -the narrowness of Mr. Bright’s democratic doctrine. But Mr. Bright -was consistent. He was against any fight for united nationality. He -would never have embarked on war at all, and so could never have -withdrawn from struggle at the wrong moment. He never deluded himself -or others. It might be said that the author of the essay on “Church -and State” led the “Nonconformist conscience” to the altar, and that -the eloquent denouncer both of Church and State gave the bride away. -But the chivalrous knight-errant could not quite forego the Dulcinea -of his youth. It will be remembered that Mr. Gladstone, still by -inadvertence, used occasionally to stumble upon the word “empire” in -his speeches. Peel himself had called it “wonderful”! Lord John Russell -had employed it in 1855. It was a word born with Queen Elizabeth, -and familiar throughout the reign of Queen Anne. Chatham’s clarion -rang with it. The poet Cowper, whom none can accuse of egotism or of -bombast, repeats it with a glow of pride. But Mr. Bright, unless I -mistake, never condescended to breathe the name or condone the thing. -Mr. Gladstone regained power, and ran riot--the riot of the best -intentions in the worst sense of the phrase. The policy of “scuttle” -ensued--from what motives I stop not here to inquire. We abandoned -Kandahar, “annexed” through a need caused by past vacillations and -repulses of the Ameer; but, together with conditions for rendering -him independent of Russia’s natural intrigues. We abandoned it just -when the disasters of the Soudan again invited Russian encroachment. -We abandoned the Transvaal at the first blush of defeat. “Peace, -Retrenchment, and Reform” culminated in war, extravagance, and -confusion. The trumpeters of impolitic economy, proposing expenditure -and yet dangling the repeal of some tax to gratify “the interests or -prejudices of the party of retrenchment,” were, in Disraeli’s phrase -of 1861, “penurious prodigals.” Upright “prigs and pedants,” intruding -private opinions on public affairs, honest hypocrites who deceived -themselves and hoped to persuade the sceptics of the world, preachers -of theories to the winds, all played with crucial issues and trifled -solemnly with a cynical Continent. The school-master was abroad. We -took Egypt against our will, and promised not to retain it. We cried, -“Hands off, Austria!” and apologised for doing so. We prepared for -necessitating the most exceptional war of modern times. It was the -policy of panic and disunion, the policy of alternate weakness and -bluster, the policy that by turns coaxed and coerced Ireland, allured -and abandoned Gordon; it was a policy of private magnanimity at the -public expense, and not the policy of wise consolidation and calculated -outlets. It was not the policy of diplomacies at once instructed, firm, -and gentle. Nor was it one of defined spheres, regulated boundaries, -and fortified “gates of empire.” Yet it led us to “expenditure of -blood and treasure.” And if we have since--and not, as I believe, in -the spirit or with the precautions of Disraeli--been forced to retrace -our steps, it is due to these retail maxims of Mr. Bright, and not to -the wholesale creed of Lord Beaconsfield. - -But the temper of his “Imperialism,” whatever may have been momentarily -suspected or sneered at, was never aggressive, and always deliberate. -It was for defence, not defiance; it was no grandiose illusion, no -gaudy show of spurious glory; no froth or fuss of sound and fury -signifying nothing. - - “‘_Twas not the hasty project of a day, - But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay._” - -It ran utterly counter, as he declared in 1862, to “that turbulent -diplomacy which distracts the mind of a people from internal -improvement.” Just as internally his statesmanship guarded against the -predominance of any particular class, so externally the only ground -for British intervention was for him the undue predominance of a -particular power against English or the general interests. Throughout -he sought what Lord Castlereagh had also attempted, the solidarity -of Europe. No doubt, like all great men of action, he made mistakes -and committed errors. He owned as much himself. But I believe that -history will justify the height from which he surveyed the scene, his -reach and sweep of vision, the depth, too, of an insight piercing far -below the surface. In one respect at least he may be said to have -resembled Napoleon--“his vast and fantastic conception of policy.” I -do not deny that he wished to strike the imagination; I do not deny -that occasionally the direct response may have missed fire; but I -submit that on the whole his policy was right, that its final effects -rarely disappointed intention, and that it has left pregnant and -abiding results. His aim was what the late Lord Salisbury afterwards -declared as his own, to “resume the thread of our ancient empire;” -and, as Macaulay has remarked of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, -who was also twitted with inconsistency: “... Through a long public -life, and through frequent and violent changes of public feeling, he -almost invariably took that view of the great questions of his time -which history has finally adopted.” At home on leading issues he had -strengthened the power of Government by representing worthy opinion, -and by renewing the affection of the people for their institutions in -the struggle to maintain united English nationality against disruptive -forces. It was reserved for him to reawaken the slumbering sense of -what had once been an arousing reality--the _duties_ of an august -empire over many associated races and religions, the due greatness of -Great Britain, the high destinies and ennobling burdens of an ancient -nation appointed to rule the seas. - -The keynote was sounded in that very speech of 1862, when he repeated -what he had often before objected to the robust Lord Palmerston’s -frequently flustering methods, but added that “... we should be -vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the honour of the country.” -On an earlier occasion, he laid stress on the diplomatic duty of -“... if necessary, saying rough things kindly, and not kind things -roughly;” while from first to last, however, as head of opposition, -he disapproved a foreign policy which landed us in superfluous -engagements, he always supported the Government when the crisis became -really national. In 1864, criticising the Palmerstonian management -of the Danish imbroglio, he remarked: “... I am not for war. I can -contemplate with difficulty the combination of circumstances which can -justify war in the present age _unless the honour of the country is -likely to suffer_.” - -Two more of his ruling principles were, first, that the ripe moment is -half the battle in national attitude towards distant complications; and -second, the importance, under our system, of distinguishing between -what a minister, backed by a large parliamentary majority, decides -in home and in foreign affairs. His prescient criticisms on both the -source and the course of the Crimean War illustrate the one; his -deliverance, in a speech of May, 1855--a speech prescribing a most -statesmanlike policy towards both Russia and Turkey, part only of -which[121] he was able more than twenty years later to execute, the -other: “... A minister may, by the aid of a parliamentary majority, -support unjust laws, and ... a political system which a quarter of a -century afterwards may, by the aid of another parliamentary majority, -be condemned. The passions, the prejudices, and the party spirit that -flourish in a free country may support and uphold him.... But when you -come to foreign politics things are very different. Every step that you -take is an irretrievable one.... You cannot rescind your policy.... -If you make a mistake in foreign affairs; if you enter into unwise -treaties; ... if the scope and tendency of your foreign system are -founded on a want of information or false information, ... there is no -majority in the House of Commons which can long uphold a Government -under such circumstances. It will not make a Government strong, but it -will make this House weak....” - -Throughout, his policy was that of confederation, not annexation; -of “scientific frontiers” safeguarding ascertained “spheres of -influence;” of binding, not loosing; of a strong front but a soft -mien; of persuasion, if possible, rather than compulsion--as he always -recommended in framing measures to protect labour and improve society; -of a straight line steadfastly pursued, instead of wobble, worry, and -flurry; first beating the air, and then--a retreat; at once headstrong -and weak-kneed. Although his “Imperialism” was by no means that which -has occasionally since usurped the name, assuredly, in upholding the -burden of Great Britain’s destiny, he would never have recoiled from -“the too vast orb of her fate.” Disraeli’s imperialism was not the -bastard and braggart sort that he once styled “rowdy rhetoric;” nor the -official sort to which he sarcastically alluded when Lord Palmerston, -in 1855, took credit for accepting Lord John Russell’s resignation, -and was “ready to stand or fall by him:” “The noble Lord is neither -standing nor falling, but, on the contrary, he has remained sitting on -the Treasury bench.” Associated with it, lay a deep sense of obligation -in the choice of high character, ability, and spirit to carry it out; -the sense too that a momentary mistake should never sacrifice excellent -proconsuls to the “hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity;” -the resolve also never to shirk responsibility by making scapegoats. -And, beyond all, a feeling that in dealing even with semi-barbarous -nations, it was neither magnanimous, wise, nor dignified to crush them -utterly, and that their feelings, prejudices, and customs ought to be -respected. - -Perhaps no better example could be given than his attitude regarding -the events of 1879 in South Africa. The Zulus had threatened and -harassed an impoverished and resourceless Transvaal. The Transvaal had -requested and obtained “annexation” from Great Britain. But the Zulu -chief, irritated by the suppression of the “suzerainty” arrogated by -him over the Boer lands, began to beset the Natal borders. The Governor -of Natal was for appeasing them. Sir Bartle Frere, however, that -commanding High Commissioner of South Africa, took an opposite view, -and favoured a course unmistakable for weakness. In his conferences -with Cetchwayo he made requisitions, on his own initiative, exceeding -his instructions from home. The result was war, with the disaster of -Isandhlwana, the rally of Rorke’s Drift, and eventual success. During -March the matter was brought before the House of Lords in a form -arranged to censure the Government policy, but so worded as to restrict -the debate to the advisability of Sir Bartle Frere’s recall on the -ground of his unauthorised ultimatum. - -Disraeli’s speech is worthy of close attention, if only because it -forecasts the ultimate federation of South Africa. Disraeli defended -Sir Bartle on the score that to succeed in impugning error, if error -it was, of a distinguished public servant chosen by the Crown, was to -impugn its prerogative. “_Great services are not cancelled by one act -or one single error, however it may be regretted at the moment._ If he -had been recalled ... in deference to the panic, the thoughtless panic -of the hour, in deference to those who have no responsibility in the -matter, and who have not weighed well and deeply investigated all the -circumstances and all the arguments ... which ... must be appealed to -to influence our opinions in such questions--no doubt a certain degree -of odium might have been diverted from the heads of her Majesty’s -ministers, and the world would have been delighted, as it always is, -to find a victim.... We had only one course to pursue, ... to take -care that at this most critical period ... affairs ... in South Africa -should be directed by one, not only qualified to direct them, but who -was superior to any other individual whom we could have selected for -the purpose.” - -It would be a bad precedent, he resumed, for the safety of the empire -if an exceptional indiscretion were to efface a long record of signal -ability; and he drew to the recollection of the House[122] the case of -Sir James Hudson at Turin, whose conduct had been similarly attacked, -and whom he, as the leader of the Opposition, had refused to make -a party question, and had himself then defended on the same public -considerations. But adverting to policy, he used these weighty words-- - -“... Sir Bartle Frere was selected by the noble Lord (Carnarvon) ... -chiefly to secure one great end--namely, _to carry out that policy of_ -CONFEDERATION _in South Africa_ which the noble Lord had carried out -on a previous occasion with regard to the North American colonies. - -“If there is any policy which, in my mind, is opposed to the policy of -_annexation_, it is that of _confederation_. By pursuing the policy -of confederation, _we bind states together, we consolidate their -resources, and we enable them to establish a strong frontier; that -is the best security against annexation. I myself regard a policy of -annexation with great distrust. I believe that the reasons of state -which induced us to annex the Transvaal were not, on the whole, -perfectly sound._ But what were these circumstances?... The Transvaal -was a territory which was no longer defended by its occupiers.... _The -annexation of that province was ... a geographical necessity._ - -“But the ‘annexation’ of the Transvaal was one of the reasons why those -who were connected with that province might have calculated upon the -permanent existence of Zululand as an independent state. I know it is -said that, when we are at war, as we unfortunately now are, with the -Zulus, or any other savage nation, even though we inflicted upon them -some great disaster, and might effect an arrangement with them of a -peaceable character, before long the same power would again attack -us, unless we annexed the territory. _I have never considered that a -legitimate argument in favour of annexation of a barbarous country...._ -Similar results might occur in Europe if we went to war with one of -our neighbours.... _But is that an argument why we should not hold our -hand until we have completely crushed our adversary, and is that any -reason why we should pursue a policy of extermination with regard to -a barbarous nation with whom we happen to be at war? That is a policy -which I hope will never be sanctioned by this House._ - -“It is, of course, possible that we may again be involved in war -with the Zulus; but it is an equal chance that in the development of -circumstances in that part of the world, the Zulu people may have -to invoke the aid and the alliance of England against some other -people, and that the policy dictated by feelings and influence which -have regulated our conduct with regard to European states, may be -successfully pursued with regard to less civilised nations in a -different part of the world. _This is the policy of her Majesty’s -Government, and therefore they cannot be in favour of a policy of -annexation, because it is directly opposed to it...._” - -The same considerations, those of settled and settling -limits--considerations, let me repeat, directly opposed to a vague -and wavering policy fraught with encroachments, alarm, and haphazard -embroilment--were to actuate his policy towards Afghanistan during -1879, into the vexed details of which I shall not now enter, though -they might be reviewed with instruction; the policy, too, that -recognised that English vacillation would at once be magnified into -weakness throughout the bazaars of the Orient.[123] - -The “insane annexation” of that fortress-citadel, Kandahar, it has -often been objected, was the most vulnerable of Disraeli’s schemes. -There are many entitled to respect who still hold that it was rightly -and profitably rescinded. Moreover, the tragic sequel of the heroic -Cavagnari’s death prejudiced the public. But the chain of events which -required, the conciliatory conditions which accompanied it, and the -true causes, or pretexts, for its annulment with virulence, should -be carefully remembered. A former Viceroy’s mistake in rebuffing the -friendly overtures of the Afghans, the Muscovite move forward in -Central Asia, while war was in the air, the consequent intrigues at -Cabul, perturbed by dynastic broils--these were some of the warrants -for its necessity. Fresh Russian manœuvres and advances, owing to a -fatally feeble policy in the Soudan, were parts of the lever for its -relinquishment. The highest military authorities sanctioned it at the -time, though other high military authorities disapproved a few years -later. But when it is borne in mind that Disraeli’s previous occupation -of Quetta, the key both to Kandahar and the Pishin valley, is now a -large cantonment, that a railway is ready to be laid to within no -great distance of Kandahar itself on any fresh emergency, it may well -be pondered whether Disraeli was mistaken, and whether time has not -confounded the triflers who caricatured him as a music-hall singer, -with the refrain-- - - “I wear a jewel in my cap-- - Kandahar, Kandahar.” - -It was no mere question of a “buffer” state. It formed a weighty -part of his great and pacific project for safeguarding the “gates” -of our Indian Empire. Of the three main approaches then open to -Russia--entitled in her own interests to use them, as he always -admitted--the south-eastern limits of Afghanistan command the long -high-road which leads to the distant north-western borders and the -“gate” of Herat. Moreover, they dominate one of the important trade -routes to Northern India. The remote side of the Indus can thus be used -as a protection against the remoter side of the Oxus. At the same time, -Disraeli subsidised the Afghans, and when their Ameer, under Russian -influence, insulted our envoy, treated them at first “like spoiled -children.” His aim was--as always in his whole policy--a compact -independence. “_Both in the East and West_,” he observed, “_our object -is to have prosperous, happy, and contented neighbours_. But these -are things which cannot be done in a day. You cannot settle them as -you would pay a morning visit.” He was building the foundations for a -lasting peace. At any rate, the rectified frontier, which as he pointed -out could be held by five thousand men, while a “haphazard” frontier -demanded twenty times that number, is unimpugned. Nor should those who -speak of a smoothed Ameer and an unruffled Cabul, after Kandahar was -evacuated, forget that, since Merv has become Russian, the old dynastic -intrigues and tribe feuds may, one day, readily recur at Cabul, fresh -opportunities encourage Russia, and a reoccupation of this cancelled -coign of vantage become imperative. “The science of politics,” as -Macaulay well says, “is an experimental science.” Disraeli excelled -most statesmen in his intuitive grasp of Indian affairs. Peel himself, -shortly before his death, prophesied that Disraeli, “when his hour -struck,” would be “Governor-General of India.” - -The same principles, as will appear, prompted the masterly and -masterful Treaty of Berlin. The same, caused him to exclaim of Russia, -whose designs he had thwarted in India and foiled at Constantinople, -in memorable language, that in Asia there was “room enough” for her -and for us; yet that, though in the face of possible conflict, she was -entitled to equip her expedition of courtesy to “cool the hoofs of its -horses in the waters of the Oxus,” she must be induced to withdraw it -by our own counter-preventions. But what I wish here particularly to -illustrate is, the psychological point of respect for and reckoning -with the habits, wants, and traditions of other or alien civilisations. -It rested on an idea familiar to his youth, and which he thus expressed -in a soliloquy of _Alroy_: “Universal empire must not be founded on -sectarian principles and exclusive rights.... Something must be done to -bind the conquered to our conquering fortunes.” - -It was signally evinced in his treatment--his exceptional treatment -when Opposition leader--of the Indian Mutiny. At that time Disraeli -alone seemed to grasp the significance of the outbreak in its initial -stage, which was viewed as a mere military rebellion, and regarded as -lightly, and with as little reason, as the beginnings of the Boer War. - -“It is remarkable,” he urged, before the crisis became recognised, -“how insignificant incidents at the first blush have appeared which -have proved to be pregnant with momentous consequences. A street riot -in Boston and at Paris, turned out to be the two great revolutions -of modern times. Who would have supposed when we first heard of -the rude visit of a Russian sailor from a port in the Black Sea -to Constantinople, that we were on the eve of a critical war and -the solution of the most difficult of modern problems?” It was, he -contended, a national revolt, not a military mutiny. In our policy of -the immediate past we had forcibly destroyed native authority for the -sole object of increasing revenue. “In spite of the law of adoption, -which was the very corner-stone of Hindoo society, when a native -prince died without natural heirs, though a son had been adopted as -a successor, the Government of India annexed his dominions. Sattara, -Berar, Jeitpore, Sumbulpore, Jhansi, were monuments of ‘nefarious’ -acquisition. And Oude, of ‘a wholesale system of spoliation,’ for it -had been annexed even without the pretext of a lawful failure of heirs.” - -We had also disturbed the settlement of property by “a new system -of government.” He analysed the popular law of adoption as the -basis of Hindoo property, and as contrasted with its misuse in the -hands of princes as a source of succession. He gave many instances, -distinguishing each. “What man was safe, what feudatory, what -freeholder who had not a child of his own loins, was safe throughout -India?... The Government determined to exact all it could, not only -from princes, but from the people.” The exemptions from the land -tax--“the _whole_ taxation of the State”--had, under pretences, been -continually taken away. The resumption of estates in Bengal alone had -yielded the Government half a million of revenue; in Bombay alone -£370,000 a year. Moreover, hereditary pensions had been commuted into -personal annuities. These disturbances had naturally fomented these -discontents. - -We had, moreover, tampered with the Hindoo religion. “... I think a -very great error exists as to the assumed prejudice of Hindoos with -regard to what is called missionary enterprise. The fact is that ... -the Indian population generally, with the exception of the Mussulmans, -are educated in a manner which peculiarly disposes them to theological -inquiries.... They are a most ancient race; they have a mass of -tradition on these subjects; a complete Indian education is to a -great degree religious; their laws, their tenure of land depend upon -religion; and there is no race in the world better armed at all points -for theological discussion.... Add to this, that they can always fall -back upon an educated priesthood prepared to supply them with arguments -and illustrations.... _But what the Hindoo does regard with suspicion -is the union of missionary enterprise with the political power of the -Government._ With that power he associates only one idea, violence.... -It appears to me that the legislative council of India has, under the -new principle, been constantly nibbling at the religious system of the -natives.” It had tried to adapt Western systems to Oriental habits. In -its theoretical system of national education the “sacred Scriptures had -suddenly appeared in the schools; and you cannot persuade the Hindoos -that those holy books have appeared there without the concurrence and -the secret sanction of the Government.” Systematic female education, -again, had been commanded--a most unwise step, considering “the -peculiar ideas entertained by Hindoos with regard to women.” But two -acts had even more contributed to the ferment of native feeling. The -first, that no man who changed his religion should be deprived of his -inheritance. That struck at the main purpose of property in India, -which consists in being a sacred trust for religious objects. The -second, that a Hindoo widow might marry again, “which is looked upon by -all as an outrage on their faith,” uncalled for, and fraught with alarm. - -But the main blunder had been the annexation of Oude without excuse, -and executed in such a manner that for the first time the Mahometan -princes felt that they had an identity of interest with the Indian -rajahs. “... You see how the plot thickens.... Men of different races -and different religions ... traditionary feuds and long and enduring -prejudices with all the elements to produce segregation, become -united--Hindoos, Mahrattas, Mahommedans--secretly feeling a common -interest and a common cause.” Princes and proprietors are against you. -“Estates as well as musnuds are in danger. You have an active society -spread all over India, alarming the ryot, the peasant, respecting his -religious faith. Never mind on this head what were your intentions; -_the question is, what were their thoughts--what their inferences_?” -And a further aggravation had resulted. The Oude sepoy, who was a -yeoman, had recruited the Bengal army. “Robbed of his country and -deprived of his privileges, he schemed and plotted, and sent mysterious -symbols from village to village, which prepared the native mind,” -agitated by princes deposed, religion insulted, soldiery discontented, -for an occasion and pretext “to overthrow the British yoke.” “_The -Mutiny was no more a sudden impulse, than the income tax was a sudden -impulse. It was the result of careful combinations, vigilant and -well-organised, on the watch for opportunity...._ I will not go into -the question of the new cartridges.... I do not suppose any one ... -will believe that because the cartridges were believed to be, or were -pretended to be believed to be, greased with pig’s or cow’s fat, that -was the cause of this insurrection. _The decline and fall of empires -are not affairs of greased cartridges. Such results are occasioned by -adequate causes and by an accumulation of adequate causes._” - -And now what remedies would meet such emergencies? Force, it was -agreed, must now be employed. The force proposed was inadequate. “There -should be an advance from Calcutta through Bengal, and an expedition up -the Indus. The Militia should be called out. An Empire, not a Cabinet, -was in danger.” - -“... But to my mind that is not all that we ought to look to. Even -if we do vindicate our authority with complete success--revenge -the insults that we have received, rebuild the power that has been -destroyed ... although we will assert with the highest hand our -authority, although we will not rest until our unquestioned supremacy -and predominance are acknowledged, ... it is not merely as avengers -that we appear. _I think that the great body of the population of that -country ought to know that there is for them a future of hope. I think -we ought to temper justice with mercy--justice the most severe with -mercy the most indulgent...._ Neither internal nor external peace can -in India,” he urged, “be secured by British troops alone. _There must -be no more annexation, no more conquest...._ It is totally impossible -that you can ever govern 150,000,000 of men in India by merely European -agency. You must meet that difficulty boldly and completely.... _You -ought at once ... to tell the people of India that the relation between -them and their real ruler and sovereign, Queen Victoria, shall be -drawn nearer._ You must act upon the opinion of India on that subject -immediately; _and you can only act upon the opinion of Eastern nations -through their imagination_. You ought to have a Royal Commission sent -by the Queen from this country to India immediately, to inquire into -the grievances of the various classes of that population. You ought to -issue a royal proclamation to the people of India, declaring that the -Queen of England is not a sovereign who will countenance the violation -of treaties ... that she ... will respect their laws, their usages, -their customs, and, above all, their religion. _Do this, and do this -not in a corner, but in a mode and manner which will attract universal -attention, and excite the general hope of Hindostan in the Queen’s name -and with the Queen’s authority._ If that be done, simultaneously with -the arrival of your forces, you may depend upon it that your military -advance will be facilitated, and, I believe, your ultimate success -insured.” - -I have abstracted this significant speech, which took three hours to -deliver, because it shows how his mind grasped such situations, and -how his imagination played all around them. In the same way, in 1856, -he deprecated the violent interference of Sir J. Bowring (a former -secretary of the Peace Society) with the Chinese, and insisted that -they were “the nation of etiquette,” and were not to be coerced by “a -brutal freedom of manners.” “If you are not,” he then prophetically -protested, “cautious and careful of your conduct now in dealing with -China, you will find that you are likely not to extend commerce, _but -to excite the jealousy of powerful states, and to involve yourselves in -hostilities with nations not inferior to yourselves_....” - -Such were the ideas that prompted the stroke of the Suez Canal shares, -and his dramatic summoning of the Indian troops to Malta when Russia -was before the citadel of the Levant, and India had to be impressed; -that prompted, too, his proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India; -and his choice of the late Lord Lytton as a poet suited for Indian -Viceroyalty; these ideas, that made him announce, shortly before he -died, that “London” was “the key of India.” - -In this context I must dwell too for a moment on what I have already -hinted concerning the temper of his diplomacy. Already, in 1860, he -had recognised the full changes imposed by the spirit of the age. -“... In the old days,” he observed, “diplomacy was conducted in a -secret fashion, whilst now we had ‘a candid foreign policy.’ What in -former times ... would have been a soliloquy in Downing Street, now -becomes a speech in the House of Commons.” But that was no pretext, he -also always asserted, as I shall again have to notice, for roughness -and offence, for a high voice and a low hand; still less for playing -censor, lecturer, or hector at once. Above all, he abominated the -diplomacy which encourages by words and disappoints by deeds--the -diplomacy that in 1864 promised defence to Denmark and then denied her -even encouragement. Speaking then, Disraeli said: “... We will not -threaten, and then refuse to act; we will not lure on our allies with -expectations we do not mean to fulfil. And, sir, _if ever it be the -lot of myself or any public men with whom I have the honour to act, to -carry on important negotiations on behalf of this country ... I trust -that we at least shall not carry them on in such a manner that it will -be our duty to come to Parliament to announce to the country that we -have no allies, and then declare that England can never act alone_.” -In diplomacy, moreover, he laid great stress--as is witnessed by a -striking passage in _Endymion_--on the need for a minister’s personal -acquaintance with the chief actors on the foreign stage, and with the -temper of the people whose fortunes are in their hands.[124] - - * * * * * - -All these governing issues underlay his great Berlin Treaty. Its first -principle was to uphold the _effective_ independence of Turkey. Several -absurdities have been alleged on this head. It was also bruited for -political ends that, as a Semite,[125] he fostered the Moslem, whom, as -a Briton, he should have suppressed. - -This is not only untrue, but inaccurate. It is the sort of mistake -adopted by such as imagine Mahomet to have been a Turk. Disraeli had -early in life travelled far into the East, had been present at Yanina -during an insurrection, had known leading pachas (one of whom consulted -him), and observed inner intrigues. But while the Moslem soldier and -peasant always impressed him, he detested the system of the Sultan. -An early passage records this detestation. Pondering, in _Contarini -Fleming_, the failure of successive Governments to rid Asia of “the -revelations of the son of Abdallah,” he calls its whole object one “to -convert man into a fanatic slave.” His two earlier romances, _Alroy_ -and _Iskander_, both glow with this theme--rebellion against Islam. -The picturesqueness, both in scenery and history, of all Mediterranean -countries,[126] fascinated him; so did the charm of the East, which, as -a stripling, he defined as “repose.” But it was the habitation of the -Turk, not the Turk, that exercised the spell. “Live a little longer in -these countries before you hazard an opinion as to their conduct,” says -one of his characters. “Do you indeed think that the rebel beys of -Albania were so simple?... The practice of politics in the East may be -described by one word, dissimulation....” - -An adverse opinion also characterises his letters from the East, some -of which are embodied in his books. _Alroy_, dedicated to Jerusalem, as -_Iskander_[127] is to Athens, are neither of them favourable to Turkey. -And even the Turkish want of humour annoyed him. “I never offered an -opinion till I was sixty,” says the old Turk in the last romance, -“and then it was one which had been in our family for a century.” He -detested fanatics as he detested bores, but he loved purpose; and the -sole thing that recommended the Turk to him was that, though a fanatic -and a bore, he was both for a purpose. Moreover, up to 1840 the Greeks -were more favourable to the Jews than the Turks; and it can scarcely -be contended that his attitude to the Afghans--who are Semite by -race--was prejudiced by the fact. No; if we seek for a Semitic affinity -in Disraeli outside that to Israel, we must find it in that to the -Saracens of Spain. - -But neither is the stricture of his principle valid. As is well known, -in upholding the independence of Turkey, he was following in the steps -of his predecessors and indorsing the known views of two skilled -diplomatists, Sir Robert Morier and Sir Henry Layard, whose political -tenets were opposite to Disraeli’s. He had long before made up his mind -on this subject, had defined Turkey as a “barrier” against aggression. -In a speech towards the close of the Crimean War--“the Coalition -War”--a speech in which he blamed the Government for their treatment -of Russia, and considered Russia’s “preponderance” towards Turkey, he -observed: “... I believe that there are elements, when Turkey shall -be more fairly treated--and never has any country been more unfairly -treated than Turkey, especially within the last two years--for securing -the independence of her empire, and (what is to us of vital interest) -preventing Constantinople from becoming an appanage to any great -military power.” - -By a tripartite treaty we, conjointly with Russia, Austria, and -France, were allies bound to maintain the territorial integrity of -Turkey--that is, whatever dispositions might be made, she must retain a -compact and self-inclosed dominion. And why had this become a necessity -for England, which is an Eastern as well as a Western power? There -was a double cause--our Indian Empire and our Mediterranean trade; it -was in the interest of both that a comparatively weak power should -occupy the very key of the position--an historical capital whose very -name symbolises empire, and whose situation, facing both east and -west, dominates the Levant and commands the high-road of the Orient. -As between Greece and Russia, the first undoubtedly possesses the -claims of race and inheritance. The second is an interloper, and her -“Greekness” springs from ecclesiastical and political usurpation. The -Greek Macedonians are more hostile to Russia than to Turkey. Before now -the Greeks have expressed their gratitude that Disraeli saved them from -being sucked into a huge Bulgaria. It was in the interest of European -peace that Constantinople should not be in the hands of a power so -small, so restive, so motley, so fluid as Greece. It was in the -interest of India that the Moslem pope should be upheld. It was in the -interest, moreover, of the Christian subjects of the Porte themselves -that Turkey should be so tied and so pledged to the great military -and maritime powers in concert, that they could exact real guarantees -for their protection, should brutal misbehaviour re-arise, and that -the work of humanity should be left to none of these powers apart, -and exposed to the temptation of indulging separate ambitions and -disturbing the peace of the world. If united selfishness has deterred -them from doing their duty, that must not be laid to the treaty’s -charge. “Those,” he said, in 1876, “who suppose that England ever would -uphold, or at this moment particularly is upholding, Turkey from blind -superstition and from a want of sympathy with the highest aspirations -of humanity, are deceived. What our duty is at this critical moment is -to maintain the Empire of England;” and before the Congress, he again -solemnly pointed out that worse, more widespread, and far more lasting -agonies would be caused to myriads abroad if the misguided excitement -of several sections at home were to prevail, than even by any horrors -which must move both indignation and sympathy in every heart. - -Into the detailed controversies of the “Bulgarian atrocities” agitation -I will not here enter. It is now generally confessed that Disraeli was -right not to be led away by the sensational exaggerations manufactured -for Russian purposes abroad, and retailed, sometimes, for political -purposes at home. Horrible savageries, of course, happened on both -sides in such a war, and those horrors, from the nature of their -theatre, were Oriental. But that they were bound up with racial feuds, -and were in full evidence on the other side, was vouched for to me--and -in great detail--some ten years after their occurrence, by Sir William -White, then Ambassador at Constantinople, and by the then consul, -himself a leading member of the committee for their investigation. -These authorities went much further in their declarations than ever -Disraeli did, with his extreme reticence in public. Indeed, they -told me that the whole source of the war had been engineered by the -acute irritations of Russian diplomacy, which, as Lord Derby long ago -expressed it, “has never proceeded by storm, but by sap and mine.” - -The true facts should not be blinked. With regard to Turkey in Europe -they are both racial, political, and ecclesiastical. The race aspect -was powerful with Disraeli. He always believed it to be “the key of -history, and the surest clue to the characters of men in all ages.” In -England he discerned the blend of “Saxon industry and Norman manners.” -While it was race again that had made national institutions “the -ramparts of the multitude against large estates exercising political -power derived from a limited class.” Practically, it is still a -question of the Slav against both Greeks (whom they have murdered) and -Albanians, who themselves massacre the Serbs. Politically, it is a -question of Russian influence and both Austrian and Italian jealousy. -Ecclesiastically, it is a question of the freed principalities -against the Patriarch of Constantinople; who, since the very time -when Russia first newly pretended to the Byzantine inheritance of -the Greeks, became (oddly enough) a nominee of the Sultan. From the -outset Disraeli determined to undo that larger Bulgaria, stretching -to the Ægean, involving all the international conflicts just hinted, -and ranging from the Danube to Salonica, which Russia proposed by -the clandestine Treaty of San Stefano. As is familiar, he founded -a smaller Bulgaria, barriered by the Balkans, dividing it into two -portions--Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia--in the last of which he -implanted autonomy. It has often been said that the sequel proved him -futile, for the two slices of the big worm have since been repieced. -But the events of 1885-86 which caused this reunion were the gift, not -of Russian ascendency, but of those very institutions which Disraeli -created. Again, it has been popularly put as if the treaty were not -his own policy and had not endured. I could most easily prove the -error of both these propositions. As regards the first, just as in the -Reform Bill of 1867, the co-operation of both parties was necessary -for the limited achievement of his views, so it fared with the need -for European concert in the Berlin Treaty. But his ideas had been -sketched out during the Crimean War, and the restoration of that very -concert, which still subsists, was a birth of the treaty. The Berlin -Treaty restored not only British prestige, but--as a foreign statesman -remarked--Britain’s moral influence in the councils of Europe. It -was so hailed in England, and this, as Mr. Roebuck acknowledged, -was its ground for enthusiastic national support. Russia withdrew -from Constantinople. Both the Dardanelles and the Turkish frontier -in Europe were assured. A Sultan, then beset with bankruptcy and -dynastic troubles, was given his chance of heading a party of reform -championed by Midhat. Turkey was rendered compact, and lopped of -mongrel provinces, while she obtained the port of Burgos on the Black -Sea as a check to Russia. As regards Turkey in Asia, Disraeli’s aim, -as I have already outlined, was Indian. Erzeroum, Bayazid, Alashkerd, -proved powerful buffers against Russian predominance; and Russia still -sways the mongrel Bessarabia then restored to her. It is now recognised -that Russia, to traverse Persia, would encounter a British bayonet at -every step. Disraeli’s great object, like Palmerston’s, was to prevent -Turkey from becoming a fief to Russia, and the Black Sea from remaining -a mere Russian lake, as the repudiation by Mr. Gladstone, in 1871, -of the clause in the Treaty of Paris, for which the Crimean War had -been resumed, subsequently empowered it to become. Turkey, Disraeli -had written in _The Press_ of May 21, 1853, was “a necessary evil in -the European system,” but one preferable to some others, and more -likely to prevent general anarchy and bloodshed. And he recalled Prince -Potemkin’s old inscription on the gates of Chusan: “This is the road -to Constantinople.” The standing danger was the interposal of Russian -ambition on the perpetual plea of a Christian protectorate--resented -by many of the Christian provinces themselves--in order to constitute -Turkey a Russian province, and to spread a dominion less fanatical, -perhaps, but even more merciless and repressive in Europe, however -civilising it has proved in portions of Central Asia. His scheme, -compassing autonomy here, independence there, compactness, the power -to govern and the accountability to improve, everywhere was one of -development. It held within it, as he said, the seeds of “Evolution.” - - * * * * * - -How did Disraeli diagnose Russia’s legitimate aspirations? He certainly -neither ignored nor condemned them, but he distinguished between -aspirations legitimate and illegitimate. Speaking in 1871, after Russia -had violated and Mr. Gladstone had torn up the Black Sea Clause, -Disraeli criticised the course which the Ministry had pursued. - -“... Russia has a policy, as every great power has a policy, and she -has as much right to have a policy as Germany or England. I believe -the policy of Russia, taking a general view of it, to have been a -legitimate policy, though it may have been inevitably a disturbing -policy. When you have a great country in the centre of Europe, with -an immense territory, with a numerous and yet, as compared with its -colossal area, a sparse population, producing human food to any extent, -in addition to certain most valuable raw materials, it is quite clear -that a people so situated, practically without any seaboard, would -never rest until it had found its way to the coast, and could have a -mode of communicating easily with other nations, and exchanging its -products with them. Well, for two hundred years Russia has pursued -that policy; it has been _a legitimate though disturbing policy_. It -has cost Sweden provinces, and it has cost Turkey provinces. But no -wise statesman could help feeling that it was a legitimate policy--a -policy which it was impossible to resist, and one which the general -verdict of the world recognised--_that Russia should find her way to -the sea-coast_. She has completely accomplished it. She has admirable -seaports; she can communicate with every part of the world, and she has -profited accordingly. - -“_But at the end of the last century she advanced a new view. It was -not a national policy_; it was invented by the then ruler of Russia--a -woman, a stranger, and an usurper--_and that policy was that she must -have the capital of the Turkish Empire_. That was not a legitimate, -that was a disturbing policy. _It was a policy like the French desire -to have the Rhine--false in principle._ She had no moral claim to -Constantinople; _she did not represent the races to which it once -belonged_; she had no political necessity to go there, _because she -already had two capitals_. Therefore it was not a legitimate but a -disturbing policy. _As the illegitimate desire of France to have the -Rhine has led to the prostration of France, so the illegitimate desire -of Russia to have Constantinople led to the prostration of Russia...._” - -The means used by Disraeli for preserving the peace of Europe and -protecting our Eastern Empire were, in the rough, on the lines I -have tried to shadow. First of all, refusing to allow the creation -of an unwieldy and anarchic province of discordant races which could -not become a coherent nation, he reduced the Bulgaria designed under -the San Stefano arrangement by two-thirds, created Eastern Roumelia, -with a framed constitution, south of the Balkans, and yielded the -rest to Turkey. By this measure not only was Bulgaria prevented from -being bulky and hybrid, but the Macedonian Greeks (preponderant over -Slavs and Serbs) were saved from absorption. Turkey was delimited in -Europe by the natural fastnesses of the Balkans--one that even in -his youth Disraeli marked as the real frontier. Turkey was pledged -to reform her administration, while the signatories also guaranteed -her from Russian aggression. Both Russia and Turkey, therefore--and, -indeed, all Europe--knew that England was in earnest about her Indian -Empire. Turkey’s position was ascertained, so was Russia’s. Russia -was propitiated by Bessarabia, Kars, Ardahan, and Batoum; Turkey, -gratified by the retention of the great portion of what was to have -been Bulgaria’s, by the retention of Bayazid, by the great region of -Erzeroum, and of the valley of Alashkerd. - -Further, Cyprus fell to the lot of England as a post “of arms,” a -strategical, a coasting and a coaling port of high value for our -Indian Empire, commanding as it does the high-route which leads to -the Euphrates Valley, and useful besides for Egypt. He had noted this -island on his youthful trip in the East as most opportune for the -purpose.[128] - -Disraeli’s whole purview, in these arrangements, apart from the -defence of Great Britain, was to ensure a feasible government under -the watch of the European concert. This intention is well expressed by -the late Master of Balliol, writing in 1877: “... I want to see the -higher civilisation of Europe combining against the lower and offering -something like a paternal government to ... the East. _But then there -is such a danger of taking away the government which they have and -substituting only chaos._ This might be avoided if the European Powers -would jointly take up their cause....” - -I may be allowed to recall, in relation to some of these matters, a few -of Disraeli’s immediate after-utterances. They are too often neglected. - -As regards the English guarantee of the Porte against Russian offence, -attained by the Convention of Constantinople which supplemented the -treaty, he observed-- - -“... Suppose now ... the settlement of Europe had not included the -Convention of Constantinople and the occupation of the isle of Cyprus, -... what might ... have occurred? In ten, fifteen, or twenty years, -the power and resources of Russia having revived, some quarrel would -again have occurred, Bulgarian or otherwise, and in all probability -the armies of Russia would have been assailing the Ottoman dominions, -both in Europe and Asia; and enveloping and inclosing the city of -Constantinople, and its all-powerful position. Well, what would be -the probable conduct under these circumstances of the Government ... -whatever party might be in power? _I fear there might be hesitation -for a time--a want of decision, a want of firmness_; but no one doubts -that ultimately England would have said, ‘This will never do; we -must prevent the conquest of Asia Minor; we must interfere in this -matter and arrest the course of Russia....’ Well, then, that being -the case, I say it is extremely important that this country _should -take a step beforehand_ which should indicate what the policy of -England would be.... The responsibilities of England are practically -diminished by the course we have taken.... One of the results of my -attending the Congress of Berlin has been to prove, what I always -suspected to be an absolute fact, that neither the Crimean, nor this -horrible devastating war which has just terminated, would have taken -place if England had spoken _with the necessary firmness_. Russia had -complaints to make against this country; that neither in the case of -the Crimean War, nor on this occasion--and I don’t shrink from my -share of the responsibility in this matter--_was the voice of England -so clear and decided as to exercise a due share in the guidance of -European opinion_.” Without such finality the treaty could only have -been patchwork. “That was not the idea of public duty entertained by my -noble friend and myself. We thought the time had come when we should -take steps which would produce some order out of the anarchy chaos that -had so long prevailed. We asked ourselves was it absolutely a necessity -that the fairest provinces of the world should be the most devastated -and the most ill-used, and for this reason, that there is no security -for life and property so long as that country is in perpetual fear of -invasion and aggression.... _I hold that we have laid the foundation of -a state of affairs which may open a new continent to the civilisation -of Europe_, and that the welfare of the world, and the wealth of the -world, may be increased by availing ourselves of that tranquillity and -order which the more intimate connection of that country with England -will now produce....” And, added the late Lord Salisbury, “We were -striving to pick up the thread--the broken thread--of England’s old -imperial position.” - -Before this utterance Disraeli had stated that the Convention’s object -was not only to confirm “tranquillity and order,” but to safeguard -India. “We have a substantial interest in the East; it is a commanding -interest, and its behest must be obeyed.”--“In taking Cyprus,” he -continued, “the movement is not Mediterranean, it is Indian;” and, -speaking of Russia’s temptation to profit by a state of things which -tended to resolve the societies of Asia Minor and the countries beyond -into the anarchy of original elements, he used the familiar words: “... -_There is no reason for these constant wars, or fears of wars between -Russia and England._ Before the circumstances which led to the recent -disastrous war, when none of those events which we have seen agitating -the world had occurred, and when we were speaking in another place of -the conduct of Russia in Central Asia, _I vindicated that conduct, -which I thought was unjustly attacked, and I said then, what I repeat -now, there is room enough for Russia and England in Asia_.” - -On the other hand, in another speech alluding to Austria’s trusteeship -of Bosnia, he said it permitted us to check, “... I should hope for -ever, that Pan-Slavist confederacy and conspiracy which has already -proved so disadvantageous to the happiness of the world.” Nobody -acquainted with Austria’s desire for Salonica, Italy’s dread of that -possibility, and the fear of one at any rate of these powers lest -Greece should absorb Albania, can fail to grasp the relevance of this -hope. - -It should be borne in mind that at the time these deliverances were -made Abdul Hamid[129] was not what he seems since to have become. -He was then--and the late Sir William White was my informant--an -enthusiastic reformer, with the wise and accomplished Midhat for his -inspirer. Had he remained so Turkey would have achieved much for -Asia Minor. Even now, Abdul may perhaps be sometimes excused for -mistrusting the cant of reform on the part of unreforming powers. -Perhaps it is impossible long to be Sultan of Turkey without falling -into the faults bred by habitual suspicion. Perhaps the varying -conduct of Western Powers conduces to cynicism. But at this period -the Armenians themselves were hopeful. With the Russian aspiration I -sympathise. Russia is destined to expansion and greatness; she is a -cold power desiring to be warm, pushed by a military power eager to -be forward. But she is also that strange anomaly--a new empire with -a mediæval standard. With the freezing officialism of Russia, giant -in profession and pigmy in practice, I entertain no sympathy at all. -Nor are the Cossack barbarities a whit less infamous than those of -the Bashi-Bazouks. What is always to be dreaded is the periodical -recurrence of race-hatreds and barbarism on the confines of both -countries. Turkey comprises many more races than Russia; at such times, -therefore, when bad governors incense brutalised men, unspeakable -horrors eclipse imagination and baffle even sympathy. Bulgarian or -Servian Slavs massacre Macedonian Greeks, Albanians butcher Macedonian -Serbs, and Turks both massacre and torture Macedonian Slavs. The name -of the particular province inflamed at a specific time by revolutionary -committees is constantly used as if designating the natural uprising -of a united people or of a single race; but this is not the case. -The recent blood-orgy, however, connived at by more than one of the -powers, would seem to disgrace the Ottoman beyond any other single -group concerned. And yet the normal Turk--soldier or peasant--is not -naturally brutal. It is only when insulted fanaticism dements him that -he becomes so; and his fanaticism seldom fans the flames unprovoked -by foreign designs. Of course nothing could be more desirable than -a practical, a permanent understanding with Russia; nothing more -desirable than a complete reform of European Turkey, which the joint -powers could enforce if they would unite. Both are consummations -devoutly to be wished. But bearing in mind the panther tread of Russian -diplomacies, their recent developments in China and Japan, their -constant designs on India and in Persia, their stealthy hankering after -Constantinople, their earlier annexation even of American territory, as -Disraeli pointed out--is the former practical? By all means let Russia -expand, as she has a right to expand; but by all means let England -ascertain the due spheres of her expansion, and retain her own empire, -that gives justice and freedom to countless races once oppressed. Nor -let any cant of whatever nature blind her eyes to the hard issues. - -Throughout his pronouncements on foreign affairs is to be discerned his -construction of “balance of power” and of “interference.” As regards -the first, his principles are well defined in a speech of 1864. “... -The proper meaning of ‘balance of power’ is _security for communities_ -in general against a predominant and particular power.” It also follows -“that you have to take into your consideration states and influences -that are not to be counted among the European powers.” Every crisis -in Europe bears on America and the colonies. So early as 1848 he had -pointed out that, though insulted, “... yet our welfare as a great -colonial power was so intimately connected with European politics, -that in seasons of crisis we could only retire from interference at -the expense not only of our prestige but of our safety.” The “balance -of power” principle he derived from Bolingbroke; he also adopted from -Bolingbroke his principle of “interference.” - -“... There are conditions,” he laid it down in 1860, “under which it -may be our imperative duty to interfere. _We may clearly interfere in -the affairs of foreign countries when the interests or the honour of -England are at stake, or when, in our opinion, the independence of -Europe is menaced._ But a great responsibility devolves upon that -minister who has to decide when those conditions have arisen; and he -who makes a mistake upon that subject, he who involves his country in -interference or in war under the idea that the interests or honour of -the country are concerned, when neither is substantially involved, he -who involves the country in interference or war because he believes the -independence of Europe is menaced, when, in fact, it is not in danger, -makes of course a great, a fatal mistake. _The general principle that -we ought not to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations, unless -there is a clear necessity_, and that, generally speaking, _it ought to -be held a political dogma that the people of other countries should_ -SETTLE THEIR OWN AFFAIRS _without the introduction of foreign influence -or foreign power, is one which I trust the House ... will cordially -adhere to_....” To this let me add a passage from the great Denmark -speech of 1864. It is its corollary-- - -“... By the just influence of England in the councils of Europe, I -mean an influence contradistinguished from that which is obtained by -intrigue and secret understanding; I mean an influence _that results -from the conviction of foreign powers that our resources are great, and -that our policy is moderate and steadfast_.... I lay this down as a -great principle which cannot be controverted in the management of our -foreign affairs. _If England is resolved upon a particular policy, war -is not probable._” - -One illustration is worth many arguments. At the Berlin Congress -affairs at a time began to march ill. The Russian plenipotentiary was -making mischief. Disraeli quietly pencilled some requisitions on the -part of England and forwarded them to him. “If you accept these,” he -said, “peace--if not, war.” - -Bearing these two further principles of foreign policy in mind, let me -endeavour to sketch Disraeli’s attitude towards various other powers. -With America I deal separately in the next chapter. - -Friendship with France amounted with him almost to a passion, and none -would have rejoiced more heartily at the amity which our King has -recently renewed. He himself knew the French well, and in the ’forties -had met with the most cordial welcome on two occasions from the King, -the Court, the lights of literature and science, the politicians and -the people. He thought that with French alliance other powers might -exclaim as Shakespeare’s Constance exclaimed-- - - “France friends with England, what become of me!” - -France was the nation of society, the nurse of arts and manners. -England and France supplied reciprocal wants. Their friendship is a -pledge for European peace. Had the Czar been made aware of it in time, -the blunder and misfortune of the Crimean War would not have taken -place. In _Coningsby_ he called Paris “the university of the world,” -and enlarged on commercial exchange between two first-class powers -in a vein at once light and serious. In 1845, France regarded Peel -as the guardian of Anglo-French cordiality, and feared the chance of -Palmerston’s return to office as fraught with a possible treatment -of “the French connection with levity or disregard.” Louis Philippe -relieved his anxieties by consulting Disraeli on this point.[130] - -“A good understanding,” was Disraeli’s interpretation in 1864, “between -England and France is simply this--that so far as the influence of -these two great powers extends, the affairs of the world shall be -conducted by their co-operation instead of by their rivalry. _But -co-operation requires not merely identity of interest but reciprocal -good feeling. In public as well as in private affairs, a certain -degree of sentiment is necessary for the happy conduct of matters._” -In another speech ten years earlier he also observed that Anglo-French -relations were not dynastic, but depended on commercial interests. - -Perhaps his most remarkable expression on this theme occurs in a -speech of 1853,[131] when Sir James Graham had gone about saying that -the Emperor was a despot who turned his people into slaves, and when -there was one of those periodical outbursts of Gallophobia to which -we are accustomed. Disraeli pointed out that peace with France had -then subsisted for forty years, that social relations had multiplied, -that an identity of interest in high policy existed. He exploded the -fallacy that national hostility was a true tradition. Even Agincourt -and Crécy stood for a struggle between two princes rather than between -two nations. “... No one can deny that both Queen Elizabeth and the -Lord Protector looked to that alliance as the basis of their foreign -connections. No one can deny that there was one subject on which even -the brilliant Bolingbroke and the sagacious Walpole were agreed--and -that was the great importance of cultivating an alliance, or good -understanding, with France. At a later date the most eminent of -the statesmen of this century, Mr. Pitt, formed his system on this -principle....” The traditional prejudice, therefore, was the reverse of -true. The natural tendency was to concord, for after the great European -revolutions at the close of the eighteenth and dawn of the nineteenth -centuries, a durable peace had emerged. Nor were the defences (which -Sir Robert Peel had really inaugurated) due to the rise of the Third -Napoleon; they were due to the changes in scientific warfare. It was -true that in France there was then a military government. “But there is -a great error also, if history is to guide us, in assuming that because -a country is governed by an army, that army must be extremely anxious -to conquer other countries.” The lust for conquest under militarism -is due to home-uneasiness, and from a feeling in the army that its -power is not felt. The real prejudice was that France had subverted -her constitution. This prejudice had foundation, but it was the very -cause of those acts which indiscreet journalism was now criticising -so angrily. “Some years ago,” he resumed (and the glimpse of Louis -Philippe is interesting), “I had occasion frequently to visit France. -I found that country then under the mild sway of a constitutional -monarch--of a prince who, from temper as well as policy, was humane -and beneficent. I know that at that time the Press was free. I know -that at that time the Parliament of France was ... distinguished by its -eloquence, and by a dialectic power that probably even our own House -of Commons has never surpassed. I know that under these circumstances -France arrived at a pitch of material prosperity which it had never -before reached. I know also that after a reign of unbroken prosperity -of long duration, when he was aged, when he was in sorrow, and when he -was suffering under overwhelming indisposition, this same prince was -rudely expelled from his capital,[132] and was denounced as a poltroon -by all the journals of England, because he did not command his troops -to fire upon the people. Well, other powers and other princes have -since occupied his seat, who have asserted their authority in a very -different way, and are denounced in the same organs as tyrants because -they did order their troops to fire upon the people. I think every man -has a right to have his feelings upon these subjects; but what is the -moral I presume to draw upon these circumstances? It is this, that -it is extremely difficult to form an opinion upon French politics; -_and that so long as the French people are exact in their commercial -transactions and friendly in their political relations, it is just -as well that we should not interfere with their management of their -domestic concerns_.” - -The same ideas animated him in 1854, when he pointed out that ten -years earlier the Czar had, by a secret manœuvre, sought to provoke -an estrangement which had not endured, but which the Czar was led -to believe enduring when the Crimean War broke out. The same guided -his hearty approval of Mr. Cobden’s aims in relation to France. What -he objected to in the later Italian Treaty was that it embodied -“reciprocity” too late--at a time when for England reciprocity could -secure no more. In 1858--the Walewski affair--Disraeli termed our -alliance with France “the key and corner-stone of modern civilisation.” -After the Treaty of Villafranca, Disraeli advised England not “to go -to congresses and conferences in fine dresses and ribands, to enjoy -the petty vanity of settling the fate of petty princes,” but to have -recourse to “your ally the Emperor of the French”--a monarch who, as -Disraeli said some years afterwards, “... has been created and can only -be maintained by the sympathies of his people--a proud, imperious, -and apt to be discontented people.” In 1860, when many were jubilant -over Italy’s united nationality, Disraeli, demonstrating its present -incompleteness, asserted that its accomplishment must come not through -the “moral influence of England,” but “by the will and the sword of -France”--though this did not blind him to contingent perils. - -“It is the will of France that can alone restore Rome to the Italians. -It is the sword of France, if any sword can do it, that alone can -free Venetia from the Austrians.” But in a long and splendid speech -he urged, almost prophetically, that by forcing the French Emperor to -a policy which he was unwilling to pursue, we should eventually give -him a dangerous preponderance: “... It will be in his power ... to -make those greater changes and _aim at those greater results which -I will only intimate and not attempt to describe_.” In 1864, on the -Danish crisis, advocating firmness of action following on firmness -of statement, he once more repeated: “... If there is, under these -circumstances, a cordial alliance between England and France, war -is most difficult; but if there is a thorough understanding between -England, France, and Russia, war is impossible.” Though here, again, -this consideration would not deter him from the single object of -England’s welfare. - -Finally, he consulted French sentiment in the delicate arrangement -at Berlin. “... There is no step of this kind that I would take -without considering the effect it might have upon the feelings of -France--a nation to whom we are bound by almost every tie that can -unite a people.... We avoided Egypt, knowing how susceptible France is -with regard to Egypt; we avoided Syria; ... and we avoided availing -ourselves of any part of the _terra firma_, because we would not hurt -the feelings or excite the suspicions of France.... But the interests -of France ... are, as she acknowledges, sentimental and traditionary -interests; and although I respect them, ... we must remember that -our connection with the East is not merely an affair of sentiment -and tradition, but that we have urgent and substantial and enormous -interests which we must guard and keep.” - -I pass now to Germany. Prussia, in his early days, he had described as -“the Persia” of Europe; the Austrians as “the Chinese.” Some thirty -years before Germany became united, and Bismarck had brandished -the mailed fist, Disraeli regarded much in the air as “dreamy and -dangerous nonsense;” he considered theory and “inner consciousness” -as distinctive of the German nature, and he failed to perceive the -rising wave of its instinct for united nationality. Here certainly -his foresight flagged. When Prussia dismembered Denmark, he pointed -out that by the arguments used she, too, might be deprived of Posen. -Here certainly his foresight failed. But when the great war broke out, -he rose to the occasion and realised its meaning to the full. “It is -no common war,” he said at the onset, “like that between Prussia and -Austria, or like the Italian war in which France was engaged some years -ago; nor is it like the Crimean War. This war represents the German -revolution, a greater _political_ event than the French Revolution -of last century. I don’t say a greater or as great a social event. -What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single -principle, accepted by all statesmen for guidance in the management of -our foreign affairs up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is -not a diplomatic tradition that has not been swept away. You have a -new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers -with which to cope, at present involved in the obscurity incident to -the novelty of such affairs.... Lord Palmerston, eminently a practical -man, trimmed the ship of State and shaped its policy with a view to -preserve an equilibrium in Europe. But what has come to pass? The -balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which -suffers, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England.” -He recommended an attitude of “armed neutrality,” such as Austria’s -occupation of the Danubian provinces, which certainly abridged the -Crimean War. Such a policy tends to prevent, if possible, to shorten -if it cannot prevent a conflict; and when that conflict is finished, -to temper the terms for the vanquished. Had it been feasible in the -then state of our armaments, it might have produced lasting results. -As time went on Disraeli grew to understand Germany better, though he -never ceased to regret the humiliation to France. In Bismarck, however, -he found a powerful friend, and one of his last utterances regarding -Germany was to praise her as a peacemaker. - -At the Berlin Congress Lord Beaconsfield made his speeches in -English. This was of design. A story was told that an eminent English -diplomatist, in attendance on his chief, had adroitly suggested this -course out of apprehension that “Dizzy’s” French accent might not -impress foreign representatives. But however this may have been, I -am convinced it was not the real reason, which was to assert the -leadership of Great Britain. - -Disraeli’s French was fluent, if insular. In Italian he was naturally -proficient. Italian literature was familiar to him, and next to Dante, -he was fondest of Alfieri, a fine passage from whom, it will be -remembered, he quotes in _Lothair_. He knew German well enough to read -it. - -No sentiment surrounded his favour to Austria. It was her partition -that he feared. So early as 1848 he objected, from the sole standpoint -of England’s interest, to championing the Magyars and the Italians -against Austria, the Sicilians against Naples. We should, he then said, -“mind our own business.” And in 1856, when he combated the views of his -opponents who sighed for the dismemberment of Russia, he also pointed -out the dangers to European peace that must attend the dismemberment of -Austria. The complete dismemberment of that empire--partly a few years -later to be accomplished--would involve the independence of Hungary and -the emancipation of Italy. - -With Italy herself he nourished, indeed, an innate sympathy, and -for her a sentimental attachment. In all his reveries Venice and -Rome figure no less frequently than do Athens and Jerusalem; and -afterwards none applauded Daniel Manin more than he. Italy is the -haunting refrain of _Venetia_, Venice of _Contarini Fleming_, Rome -romanticises _Lothair_. Perhaps a leaven of his old enthusiasm for -“a cluster of small states” and “federal unions” still mingled with -the practical outlook which also made him sacrifice many of his -personal emotions to the cold requirements of statesmanship. “Federal -unions,” he had sighed in _Contarini_, “would preserve us from the -consequences of local jealousy.”--“There would be more genius, and, -what is of more importance, much more felicity.”--“_Italy might then -revive._” However this may be--and I for one regret his forced attitude -towards the first flutter of Italian freedom--or whether his late -acquaintance with Metternich had coloured his ideas, there can be no -doubt of their constraining cause. His public views always confined -themselves to what he believed was for the benefit of Great Britain. -And in this instance--“... If we, or any other power,” he urged, -“should forcibly interfere in the affairs of Italy with the view of -changing the political settlement of that country, the result will -be, as in the case of an attempt to dismember Russia, one of those -protracted wars that might fatally exhaust this country, and which, -even supposing it to be successful, would leave Italy very possibly -not in the possession of Austria, but under the dominion of some other -power as little national.” It should be recollected that 1858-61 were -critical years for Anglo-French relations. After Palmerston’s Orsini -imbroglio we were more than once on the verge of war with France. -Luckily, England was never forced into interference. Luckily, Italy -regained her independence, through two commanding individualities. But -it was history that warned Disraeli. Italy had been the battle-field -of Austria and Spain, and a prolific source of war, disorder, and -havoc throughout the eighteenth century. “A war in Italy,” he said in -1859, “is not a war in a corner. An Italian war may by possibility -be an European war. The waters of the Adriatic cannot be disturbed -without agitating the waters of the Rhine. The port of Trieste is -not a mere Italian port. It is a port which belongs to the Italian -confederation, and an attack on Trieste is not an attack on Austria -alone, but also on Germany. If war springs up beyond the precincts of -Italy, _England has interests not merely from ... those enlightened -principles of civilisation which make her look with an adverse eye -on aught that would disturb the peace of the world, but England may -be interested from material considerations of the most urgent and -momentous character_.” It was from England’s vantage-ground alone that -he discussed these questions in public. He wished Italy to be free, -but he feared the results of ineffective feeling. Italy, he held, must -free herself, and her aid, if any, should be French, not English, for -France heads the Latin League. In 1859 he rested on a mutual accord and -disarmament between Great Britain and France. This would, he pleaded, -be “a conquest far more valuable than Lombardy, or those wild dreams -of a regeneration ever promised but never accomplished.” “National -independence,” he urged in another speech on the same subject, “is not -created by protocols, nor public liberty guaranteed by treaties. All -such arrangements have been tried before, and the consequence has been -a sickly and short-lived offspring. What is going on in Italy--never -mind whose may have been the original fault, what the present -errors--_can only be solved by the will, the energy, the sentiment, and -the thought of the population themselves_.” - -One word before I close this chapter about Greece and Poland. Of his -own feeling for Hellas there can be no question. It pervades his -works. “All the great things have been done by the little peoples.” -He was offered, I have heard, the kingship of that country. But Greek -ambitions, he felt, outgrew her capacities. Her hereditary dream has -always been Constantinople. He bade her, in a famous passage, take -the advice that he would give to a youth of genius and enterprise: -“_Be patient_.” But he also insisted that she should be heard at the -Conference of Berlin. - -With Poland’s free aspirations he always sympathised, and more than -once expressed the grounds of his sympathy in Parliament. The movement -in Poland was one, natural, spontaneous, and national. It was not -forced by agitators, nor fomented by despots, nor provoked elsewhere -from ulterior motives. It was the genuine expression of a combined -people, and not the plea of a single race overbearing its fellow -components, or the pretence of a single locality to manage itself, both -of which have so frequently proved the stalking-horse of “national -rights;” pleas that, if sound, would bring back the Heptarchy in -England, undo the union of Germany and of Italy, break up the faculty -for government, and resolve into petty elements every great nation -in Europe. Such an article of “liberal” faith is neither more nor -less than political atomism; and its humanitarian guise too often the -false philanthropy of “sublime sentiments.” In all his treatment of -“Britain’s interests abroad,” Disraeli realised that whereas in England -government can still be carried on by “traditionary influences,” -the remaining ancient communities of Europe were falling more and -more under the veiled sway of “military force.” These were the two -alternatives. A “reconstruction” of England “on the great Transatlantic -model” would only accentuate the discrepancy between the ineradicable -features of her body politic, and the social standard which she would -seek to imitate. The result would be that “after a due course of -paroxysms for the sake of maintaining order and securing the rights of -industry, the State quits the senate and takes refuge in the camp”-- - -“Let us not be deluded by forms of government. The word may be republic -in France, constitutional monarchy in Prussia, absolute monarchy in -Austria, but the King is the same. _Wherever there is a vast standing -army the government is the government of the sword._ Half a million -of armed men must either be, or be not, in a state of discipline. If -not... it is not government but anarchy; if they be in a state of -discipline, they must obey one man, and that man is the master.”[133] - -I have tried to track a large subject deserving a longer space. At any -rate, I hope to have justified Disraeli’s own language in the touching -letter which breathed farewell to his constituents when failing health -compelled him to accept an earldom-- - -“Throughout my public life I have aimed at two chief results. Not -insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavoured to -reconcile change with that respect for tradition which is one of the -main elements of our social strength; and in external affairs I have -endeavoured to develop and strengthen our empire, _believing that a -combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character -and condition of a people_.” - -It is not a little remarkable that this farewell re-echoes the -sentence quoted in my first chapter from his tract _What is he?_ as -well as that later Runnymede Letter which, forty years earlier, he -addressed to Sir Robert Peel.[134] - - “... Spread it then, - And let it circulate through every vein - Of all your empire; that where Britain’s power - Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -AMERICA--IRELAND - - -I have associated these two heads of discussion because they have long -been coupled in home politics, at times disastrously, but now, it may -be hoped, under favouring auspices. On the lighter side of American -society and its first invasions of England he also touched. I shall -touch these in the next chapter, reserving this for the political -aspects of the question. My first chapter has already mentioned the -paragraph in his earliest pamphlet, dedicated to Canning. - -Disraeli was always intensely interested in America, and watched her -development with vigilance. He predicted her imperial future. He -deprecated jealousy of her power, and, while England was incensed -at her conduct in 1871, he alone maintained that it was due to -the prejudices of a class and the objects of a party, not to the -national sentiment. He descried in America’s essential democracy, -which adheres even to her republican forms, one wholly peculiar to -herself--a democracy of the soil, of which the base and root is land, -underlying the gigantic commerce and colossal finance which are merely -the froth of her wealth; and in such a democracy he perceived an -element of stability lacking to every other known democratic country. -Before her crucial conflict was determined, he prophesied, too, among -the difficulties that must confront her, that of a vast number of -emancipated negroes. When the great struggle arose between the energy -of the North and the traditions of the South, Disraeli also, alone -among the leaders of his party, discerned both the probabilities of -the winning side and its aptitude for moderation and self-control. -For this sagacity he received Mr. Bright’s approbation in 1865. When -the civil war was in process, the gentry of England, naturally and -generously sympathetic with the Southerners, had suspected that Canada -might be threatened, and had wished something “to be done;” Disraeli -restrained and allayed them. Mr. Bright said: “With a thoughtfulness -and statesmanship which you do not all acknowledge, he did not say a -word from that bench likely to create a difficulty with the United -States. I think his chief and his followers might learn something from -his example.” I quote this meed from an opponent, because Mr. Bryce, -in his recent monograph, implies the contrary; but then, Mr. Bryce -sometimes trips, and has made the trifling mistake of naming “Lucian” -as Disraeli’s pet classic, whereas surely it was “Tacitus.” - -Disraeli’s leading idea as to America was that, although she had long -achieved independence, her original spirit had remained colonial, -but that her civil war would transform the past colony into a coming -empire. Speaking in 1863, he said-- - -“I am bound to say that from the first--and subsequent events have -only confirmed my convictions--I have always looked upon the struggle -in America in the light of a great revolution.[135] Great revolutions, -whatever may be their alleged causes, are not likely to be commenced, -or to be concluded, with precipitation. _Before the civil war -commenced, the United States were colonies_, because we should not -forget that such communities do not cease to be colonies because they -are independent. _They were not only colonies, but colonising_; and -they existed under all the conditions of colonial life except that -of mere political dependence. _But even before the civil war_, I -think that all impartial observers must have been convinced that in -that community _there were smouldering elements which indicated the -possibility of a change, and perhaps of a violent change_. The immense -increase of population; the still greater increase of wealth; the -introduction of foreign races in large numbers as citizens, not brought -up under the laws and customs which were adapted to a more limited, -and practically a more homogeneous, race; the character of the -political constitution, consequent, perhaps, on these circumstances; -_the absence of any theatre for the ambitious and refined intellects -of the country, which deteriorated public spirit and lowered public -morality_; and, above all, _the increasing influence of the United -States upon the political fortunes of Europe_;--these were all -circumstances which indicated _the more than possibility that the mere -colonial character of these communities might suddenly be violently -subverted, and those imperial characteristics appear which seem to -be the destiny of man_. I cannot conceal from myself the conviction -that, whoever in this House may be young enough to live to witness -the ultimate consequences of this civil war, will see, whenever the -waters have subsided, a different America from that which was known -to our fathers, and even from that of which this generation has had -so much experience. _It will be an America of armies, of diplomacy, -of rival states and manœuvring cabinets, of frequent turbulence, and -probably of frequent wars._ With these views, I have myself, during the -last session, exerted whatever influence I possessed in endeavouring -to dissuade my friends from embarrassing her Majesty’s Government in -that position of politic and dignified reserve which they appeared to -me to have taken upon this question. It did not appear to me, looking -at these transactions across the Atlantic, _not as events of a mere -casual character, but being such as might probably influence, as the -great French Revolution influenced, and is still influencing, European -affairs_, that there was on our part, due to the _existing authorities_ -in America, a large measure of deference in the difficulties which they -had to encounter. At the same time, it was natural to feel ... the -greatest respect for those Southern States, who, representing a vast -population of men, were struggling for some of the greatest objects of -existence--independence and power....” - -Long before this--in 1856--he had said, when America’s attitude towards -Central American troubles was irritating England, that in his opinion -“... it would be wise if England would at last recognise that the -United States, like all the great countries of Europe, _had a policy, -and a right to have a policy_. It was foolish for England to regard -with jealousy _any legitimate extension of the territory of the United -States beyond the bounds originally fixed_.” Such a jealousy would -not arrest or retard the development of America; but it might involve -disasters. He instanced California and the gloomy forebodings at home -with regard to it, none of which had been realised; and he impressed -upon the House that “_It was the business of a statesman to recognise -the necessity of an increase of power in the States._” The same year -evoked another speech which forecasts the tenour of that in 1863, and -is a fresh witness of the continuity of his imaginative insight, and -his wakeful constancy of his purpose. After deprecating jealousy of -America’s political and commercial progress, he thus proceeded-- - -“... I cannot forget that the United States, though independent, -_are still in some sense colonies, and are influenced by colonial -tendencies_; and when they come in contact with large portions of -territory scarcely populated, or at the most sparsely occupied by an -indolent and unintelligent race of men, _it is impossible--and you -yourselves find it impossible--to resist the tendency to expansion; -and expansion in that sense is not injurious to England_, for it -contributes to the wealth of this country (let us say this in a -whisper, lest it cross the Atlantic) more than it diminishes the power -of the United States. In our foreign relations with the United States, -therefore, I am opposed to that litigious spirit of jealousy which -looks upon the expansion of that country and the advance of these young -communities with an eye of jealousy and distrust.” - -What he realised and first proclaimed, was that America was ceasing -to be a mongrel blend or a colonial people, and was fast becoming -a national community, with a voice, a vigour, a tendency, and in -every department a twang, so to say, of its own; that, moreover, -this consolidation would tend towards empire, and that England must -prepare for and reckon with it, especially as a partial crudeness and -rudeness are to some extent inseparable from developments so sudden. -It had not always been thus. Even long after the Puritan settlement, -the primæval charm of an aboriginal race clung to its forests and -prairies. The strain, the science of race, fascinated Disraeli; -the unsubdued and the untameable ever appealed to him. Races could -only be replaced by nations; and the interval was always atomic and -confused; but it was also one of primitive dash and daring. As a youth, -Disraeli, in _Contarini_, had dreamed of such a life. In _Venetia_[136] -he had wondered whether the Atlantic would ever be so memorable as -the Mediterranean; whether pushfulness would ever attain refinement; -whether its provincialism might not be doomed to weakness. “... Its -civilisation will be more rapid, but will it be ... as permanent?... -What America is deficient in is creative intelligence. _It has no -nationality._ Its intelligence has been imported like its manufactured -goods. _Its inhabitants are a people, but are they a nation?_ I wish -that the empire of the Incas and the kingdom of Montezuma had not been -sacrificed. I wish that the republic of the Puritans had blended with -the tribes of the Wilderness.” - -Two dangers for England, however, emanated from America; and perhaps -they were connected. The one was American Anglophobia, the other -Fenianism. The one might estrange our North American colonies; the -other was to imperil our national unity. - -In 1865, Disraeli addressed himself to the former. The American war -was not then decided. He was not of opinion that, when it ended, our -connection with Canada would bring us into collision with America. -He did not believe that if the North was vanquished, it would “feel -inclined to enter immediately into another struggle with a power not -inferior in determination and in resources to the Southern States of -America;” and he saw many rocks ahead to divert the advancing tide-- - -“I form that opinion because I believe that the people of the United -States are eminently a sagacious people. I don’t think they are -insensible to the glory of great dominion and extended empire, and I -give them equally credit for being influenced by passions which actuate -mankind, and particularly nations which enjoy such freedom as they do. -But ... I do not think they would seize the moment of exhaustion as -being the most favourable for the prosecution of an enterprise which -would require great resources and great exertions.” - -He then turned to the opinions which had been ventilated on American -platforms and in certain American newspapers. He refused to judge the -real American character and opinions by them. “I look upon them,” he -said, “as I should look upon those strange and fantastic drinks ... -which are such favourites on the other side of the Atlantic; and I -should as soon suppose this rowdy rhetoric was the expression of the -real feelings of the American people, as that these potations formed -the aliment and nutriment of their bodies.” And he thus explained a -point which I have already noticed: “There is another reason why this -violent course will not be adopted. The democracy of America must not -be confounded with the democracy of the Old World. _It is not formed -by the scum of turbulent cities_: neither is it merely a section of -an exhausted middle class, _which speculates in stocks and calls that -progress. It is a territorial democracy._ Aristotle, who has taught us -most of the wise things we know, never said a wiser one than this--that -the cultivators of the soil are the least inclined to sedition and to -violent courses. Now, being a territorial democracy, their character -has been formed and influenced, in a manner, by the property with -which they are connected, and by the pursuits they follow; and a sense -of responsibility arising from the reality of their possessions may -much influence their future conduct. On the other hand, this great -change would certainly alter the spirit of society, and perhaps of -government.” But he saw clearly the difficulties that still beset her. -“... We must recollect that even if the Federal Government should be -triumphant, it will have to deal with most perplexing questions and -with a discontented population.... The slave population will then be -no longer slaves. _There will be several millions of another race -emancipated and invested with all the rights of freemen; and, so far -as the letter of the law is concerned, they will be upon an equality -with the Saxon race, with whom they can possibly have no sympathy.... -Nothing tends more to the discontent of a people than that they should -be in possession of privileges and rights which practically are not -recognised, and which they do not enjoy._” - -Such were the elements of disunion. To cope with them a strong -government was requisite; and that meant a _centralising_ government -with a military force at its command to uphold unity and order. Our -colonies, on the other hand, were free from such obstacles, and were -themselves developing an “element of nationality.” They would not be -assailed. But none the less, we must reckon with the United States -in “the balance of power.” He would not say that a class in America -regarded old Europe “with feelings of jealousy or vindictiveness,” “... -but it is undeniable that the United States look to old Europe with _a -want of sympathy. They have no sympathy with a country that is created -and sustained by tradition._” We must, therefore, for the far future, -foster and defend our colonies. If Canada had preferred absorption -by America, “... we might terminate our connection with dignity, and -without disaster.” But if, as appeared, Canada and our North American -colonies desired deeply and sincerely “to form a considerable state -and develop its resources, and to preserve the patronage and aid of -England, ... then it would be the greatest political blunder that -could be conceived, for us to renounce, relinquish, and avoid the -responsibility of maintaining our interests in Canada.” - -American Anglophobia once more engaged his attention in 1871. The pith -of his criticism may be summarised by the purport of that elegant -metaphor, “Twisting the lion’s tail.” With regard to the _Alabama_ -claims, their “indirect” demands, and the disputes with our colonies, -which once more provoked British feeling, Disraeli now complained that -America’s communications with England had been couched in arrogant -terms, while those with Russia and Germany had been courteous. -He declared that it was caused by rowdy rhetoric addressed to -“irresponsible millions.” “... The reason of this offensive conduct,” -he continued, “is this: there is a _party_ in America, _who certainly -do not monopolise the intelligence, education, and property of the -country, and who, I believe, are not numerically the strongest, who -attempt to obtain political power and excite political passion by -abusing England and its Government, because they believe they can -do so with impunity_.... The danger is this. Habitually exciting the -passions of millions, some unfortunate thing happens, or something -unfortunate is said in either country; the fire lights up, it is beyond -their control, and the two nations are landed in a contest which they -can no longer prevent.... Though I should look upon it as the darkest -hour of my life, if I were to counsel, or even to support, a war with -the United States, still, the United States should know that they are -not an exception to the other countries of the world, that we do not -permit ourselves to be insulted by any other country in the world, and -that they cannot be an exception.” Nevertheless, with regard to these -very matters, he reiterated as late as 1872: “Ever since I sat in this -House, I have always endeavoured to maintain and cherish relations of -cordiality and confidence between the United Kingdom and the United -States. I have felt that between those two great countries the material -interests were so vast, _were likely so greatly to increase_, and were -in their character so mutually beneficial to both countries, that -they alone formed bonds of union.... But I could not forget that, -in the relations between the United States and England, _there was -an element also of sentiment_, which ought never to be despised in -politics, and without which there can be no enduring alliance. When -the unhappy Civil War occurred, I endeavoured, therefore, so far as I -could, to maintain ... a strict neutrality between the Northern and -the Southern states.... There were some at a particular time ... who -were anxious to obtain the recognition of the Southern states by this -country. I never could share that opinion.... We were of opinion that, -had that recognition occurred, it would not have averted the final -catastrophe, ... and it would, at the same time, have necessarily -involved this country in a war with the Northern states, _while there -were circumstances then existing in Europe which made us believe that -the war might not have been limited to America_.” - -I must now consider Fenianism. Every one now knows that Fenianism, -at its inception in 1865, though its pretext was Ireland and its -rallying centre America, was really an _international_ ruffianism for -the disruption of the foundations of social order--was, in fact, an -alliance of anarchists with soldiers of misfortune. Disraeli discerned -this from the first. Plots and conspiracies of all kinds piqued at once -his curiosity, his skill, and his fancy. I was told, more than thirty -years ago, by an old gentleman who was a schoolfellow of Disraeli, -that he remembered a boyish mutiny. Disraeli headed the conspiracy, -and the head-master himself listened at the keyhole, spellbound by the -eloquence that controlled it. He loved to unravel their machinations, -to contrast their underground conclaves with their open appearance. -Conspiracies abound in _Vivian Grey_, _Alroy_, _Iskander_, _Contarini -Fleming_, _Sybil_, and _Tancred_; these very secret societies, together -with those of Jesuitry, pervade _Lothair_. “Mirandola” and “Captain -Bruges” are drawn from life. When Fenianism raged in Ireland, Disraeli -himself crossed the Channel and attended their meetings. He spoke -about what he knew; and if secret societies were his hobby, he was yet -undoubtedly right in ascribing most of the unforeseen abroad to their -initiation. - -Adverting, in 1872, to its fatal influence on Ireland, he remarked: -“... The Civil War in America had just ceased, and a band of military -adventurers, Poles, Italians, and many Irishmen, concocted at New York -a conspiracy to invade Ireland, with the belief that the whole country -would rise to welcome them. How that conspiracy was baffled ... I -need not now remind you.... You remember how the constituencies were -appealed to, to vote against the Government who had made so unfit an -appointment as that of Lord Mayo to the Viceroyalty of India. It was by -his great qualities when Secretary for Ireland, by his vigilance, his -courage, his patience, and his perseverance, that this conspiracy was -defeated. He knew what was going on at New York, just as well as what -was going on in the city of Dublin?...” And when, only a year before, -the then Lord Hartington, at a moment of Fenian resurrection, withdrew -his motion for a secret committee, Disraeli inveighed against an -indecision that would be flashed in an hour across the Atlantic. This -new movement of Fenianism brought America into dangerous relations -with England. And in many disguises and under mitigated forms, it half -associated itself with the agitation for repeal, and the restless -intrigues of the Papacy. Paid Nationalists and peasant priests were -brought into connection with these Swiss guards of treason, ready to -compass the destruction of property and authority in any country, and -for any cause. It had been otherwise before its invention in America. -When O’Connell--the great O’Connell as, despite everything, Disraeli -publicly confessed when he died--supported Disraeli (who began as an -“Independent”) at his first election in 1832, he did so on the common -ground that both abominated the Whig system and desired the extension -of reform. It was only afterwards, when O’Connell pronouncedly lent -himself to what tended towards a repetition of “Captain Rock,” and -became at once an agitator for dismemberment[137] and a pillar of the -Whigs, that the young Disraeli denounced the fellowship of the dagger -with the mitre, and incensed the degenerating patriot into insult. But -the violence in Ireland of O’Connell’s days was native. It sprang from, -and it disgraced, the soil. Fenianism, however, added to the ancient -terrors of a country distressed to madness and goaded into crime, the -worst horrors of cosmopolitan conspiracies mated with every movement -for the unsettlement of Europe; and for a while it tainted every breath -of Irish nationalism, not only with detestation of England, but with -enthusiasm for her enemies. The “Clan-na-gael” still foments the last -vestiges of genuine discontent; but the headquarters seem to have -shifted from New York to a European capital. And yet so unconcerted and -unprepared was Ireland herself, however equipped and compact were these -mercenary foreigners, that Disraeli makes “Captain Bruges” exclaim in -_Lothair_, after his rescue of the hero at the meeting, held under the -sham banners of St. Joseph and harangued by a mock priest, “They manage -their affairs in general wonderfully close, but I have no opinion of -them. I have just returned from Ireland, where I thought I would go -and see what they really are after. No real business in them. Their -treason is a fairy tale, and their sedition a child talking in its -sleep.” - - * * * * * - -And this brings me to Disraeli’s ideas concerning the romantic, the -persecuted, the generous, the witty, the pathetic Ireland. - -No one who has studied his career can question his intense sympathy. -Many of his earliest friends had been brilliant Irishmen and -Irishwomen. He too sprang from a race once persecuted, still pathetic, -always witty and romantic. Already, in 1843, Disraeli had exclaimed: -“You must reorganise and reconstruct the Government, and even the -social state of Ireland.... By really penetrating into the mystery of -this great misgovernment” might be brought about “a state of society -which would be advantageous both to England and Ireland, and which -would put an end to a state of things that was the bane of England -and opprobrium of Europe.” But his ideas are conspicuously set forth -in the great speech of 1844, which won the high praise of Macaulay, -which Mr. Gladstone, some quarter of a century later, described as -one of the “most closely woven tissues of argument and observation -that had ever been heard in the House,” and the reperusal of which -he recommended as an intellectual “treat;” though Disraeli himself -then ironically observed that when he delivered it, nobody appeared -to listen. “It seemed to me that I was pouring water upon sand, but -it seems now that the water came from a golden goblet.” He showed -that, politically, Ireland was an open question. It was not the -Tories who started the penal code. Mr. Pitt would have settled the -question long ago had not the great war diverted his policy. Again, -the grievances of Ireland were not due to Protestantism. They were -owing to Puritanism--Puritanism in disloyal rebellion against which -loyal Ireland rebelled. Ireland, he proved, was never so contented -as in 1635. There was then perfect civil and religious equality. “At -that period there was a Parliament in Dublin called by a Protestant -king, presided over by a Protestant viceroy, and at that moment there -was a Protestant Established Church in Ireland; yet the majority of -the members of that Parliament were Roman Catholics. The government -was at that time carried on by a council of state presided over -by a Protestant deputy, yet many of the members of that council -were Roman Catholics. The municipalities were then full of Roman -Catholics. Several of the sheriffs also were Roman Catholics, and a -very considerable number of magistrates were Roman Catholics. _It is, -therefore, very evident that it is not the necessary consequence of -English connection--of a Protestant monarchy, or even of a Protestant -Church--that this embittered feeling at present exists; nor that -that system of exclusion, which either in form or spirit has so long -existed, is the consequence of Protestantism._” - -It was not the Protestantism, not the connection, but the kind of -Protestantism, the sort of connection, the exclusive and selfish -spirit, that filled Ireland with ferment. - -Hitherto Government had offered “a little thing in a great way.”[138] -“Justice to Ireland” had been long cried on the housetops. What was the -meaning of that cry? It only signified a forced _identity_ of English -institutions with Irish. Identity, however, was just what Ireland -resented with disgust. - -What were her stumbling-blocks and stones of offence? What was “the -Irish question”? “One says it is a physical question, another a -spiritual. Now it is the absence of the aristocracy, now the absence of -railroads. It is the Pope one day, potatoes the next. Let us consider -Ireland as we should any other country similarly situated.... Then we -shall see a teeming population, which, with reference to the cultivated -soil, is denser to the square mile than that of China; created solely -by agriculture, with none of those sources of wealth which are -developed with civilisation, and sustained, consequently, on the lowest -conceivable diet; so that, in case of failure, they have no other means -of subsistence upon which they can fall back. That dense population -in extreme distress inhabit an island where there is an Established -Church which is not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy, the -richest of whom live in distant capitals. Thus you have a starving -population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church; _and, in -addition, the weakest executive in the world_. That is the Irish -question. What were the remedies? - -“To begin with, and before anything else, you must have a -representative, a responsive, a _strong_ Executive. Ireland is an -exceptional piece of the United Kingdom, and she alone demands what is -foreign to the English spirit--_centralisation_ of government. Next, -the administration must be _impartial_. There must be no exclusion -and no favouritism. You must also have _ecclesiastical equality_. The -Church in Ireland must change the tone of its temper. And you must -‘_reconstruct_ the social system’ of Ireland. ‘All great things are -difficult;’ but it is more difficult to reconstruct a society than a -party. Agitation only unsettles: it does not settle; and it means the -incompetence of a Government. You must ‘create public opinion instead -of following it; lead the public instead of always lagging after and -watching others.’ - -“... What, then, is the duty of an English minister? _To effect by his -policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force...._ It -is quite evident that, to effect this, we must have an Executive in -Ireland which shall bear _a much nearer relation to the leading classes -and characters_ of the country than it does at present. There must -be a much more _comprehensive_ Executive, and then, having produced -order, the rest is a question of time. There is no possible way by -which the physical condition of the people can be improved by Act of -Parliament.”[139] - -So I read this pregnant deliverance. So, I believe, will read it any -one who scans it closely in relation to its time and setting. In -1868, when there was capital to be made out of it, Mr. Gladstone did -not so read it. Mr. Gladstone contended--and he had full right to -contend--that, with regard to the Church, at any rate, it spelled out -“Destruction.” Disraeli contented himself with retorting: “... There -are many remarks which, if I wanted to vindicate ... myself, I might -legitimately make.... But I do not care to say it, and I do not wish -to say it, because in my conscience the _sentiment of that speech -was right_....” My view is that it spelled out “Reconstruction.” It -would have settled Ireland and the Irish question by the principles of -1636 and on the lines of 1792, and not either by the Orange lodges of -1795, which answered Pitt’s abortive schemes of improvement, or by the -undemanded spoliation of 1868, which trebled the discontent it designed -to allay. All Pitt’s proposed measures were against _exclusion_. -He tried to grant Ireland that free outlet for her manufactures to -England which had proved her main source of discontent throughout the -eighteenth century. He tried to include the Protestant Dissenters as -well as the Roman Catholics in the avenues to political power. He was -foiled by the selfishness and corruption of an Irish caste, and by -the spread of the French Revolution to the Irish multitude. But in -each case _inclusion_ was his principle; development, not destruction. -Disraeli followed him. It was his hatred of exclusiveness that prompted -his aversion alike to the Whiggism of the Grenvilles and the Toryism of -Eldon. It was his devotion to wide and popular as opposed to democratic -and class principles that drew him to the Toryism of Bolingbroke and -Wyndham, and enabled him to reconstruct the Tory party on its first but -forgotten foundations. - -But if we want a practical comment on the speech of 1844, we have it -in an utterance of 1868. In 1868 he defined the position: “... I said -the other night, as I say now, that I think you might elevate the -_status_ of the unendowed clergy in Ireland.... My opinion is, that if -this system of conciliation, founded on the principle that in Ireland -_you ought to create and not destroy_, had been pursued, you might have -elevated the Irish Church greatly to its advantage. You might have -rendered it infinitely more useful.... I do not think it impossible -that you might have introduced measures which would have elevated -the _status_ of the unendowed clergy, and so softened and terminated -those feelings of inequality which now exist, _so that you might -have had the same equality in the state of Ireland which you have in -England_. There is perfect equality in the state of the Dissenter in -England, although his is no established Church. That state of things -might exist in Ireland, if you had taken measures which would, among a -sensitive people, have prevented a sentiment of humiliation.... Without -disestablishment, without the difficulties and dangers of concurrent -endowment, there might have been a system of Government grants both -to Romanists and Dissenters for education and other public objects. -That is how I interpret the ‘ecclesiastical equality’ of 1844; ‘to -create and not to destroy.’”[140] And, speaking again of his desire to -supplement the educational means for the Roman Catholics, he said: “... -That is in accordance with our uniform policy, ... a reconciliation -between creeds and classes.” - -After 1844 the Irish question still festered. Nowhere did the repeal -of the Corn Laws inflict more immediate distress than in a country so -dependent on native agriculture as Ireland was then and still remains. -Pauperism became the crying evil of Ireland. Even in 1869, more than a -quarter of the inhabitants were paupers. Pauperism defied “political -palliatives.” The Government of Ireland, despite his warnings, remained -a weak one, and, alluding to this in a famous speech of 1869, he -pertinently brought into prominence the fact that what strength it -has depends now on its connection with England. “... The Government -of Ireland is not a strong one; its sanctions are less valid than -those of the Government of England. It has not the historic basis -which England rests upon. It has not the tradition which the English -Government rests upon. It does not depend upon that vast accumulation -of manners and customs which in England are really more powerful than -laws or statutes.” What Disraeli felt all along was that Ireland -needed security for capital and variety of employment; and that for -these repose and order were requisite. In November, 1868, alluding -to the naturalisation of Fenianism in Ireland at a time when Ireland -was inherently contented and immeasurably superior to her plight in -1844--when she had begun to rest and be thankful--he made the following -comment:-- - -“... In Ireland there was always a degree of morbid discontent which -the Fenians believe they may fan into flame, and which might lead to -the revolutionary result they desire. The whole nature of the race -will account for it. An Irishman is an imaginative being. He lives in -an island, in a damp climate and contiguous to the melancholy ocean. -_He has no variety of pursuit._ There is no nation in the world that -leads so monotonous a life as the Irish, because _their only occupation -is the cultivation of the soil before them_.... The Irishman in other -countries, _where he has a fair field for his talents in various -occupations, is equal, if not superior, to most races_.... I may say -with frankness that I think this is the fault of the Irish. If they -led that kind of life which would invite the introduction of capital -into the country, all this ability might be utilised; and instead of -those feelings which they acquire by brooding over the history of -their country, a great part of which is merely traditionary, you would -find men acquiring fortunes, and arriving at conclusions on politics -entirely different from those which they now offer.” - -The same outlook prompted him in another speech to regret the cry of -a “conquered people” which the manipulators of grievance perpetually -raised. Ireland was no more a conquered country than England. In both -there had been conquerors and conquests;[141] but in both a blend of -races and institutions which had produced a nation in one, and made for -nationality in the other. - -Time went on. Ireland had improved by rest. There was even -prosperity in her borders. Fenianism was subsiding.[142] Classes -were less estranged. Emigration had increased, but the Liberals -welcomed emigration. Disraeli had risen into supreme power, and had -constitutionalised the democracy by his Bill of 1867. The Radicals were -incensed at the measure, which they had coveted in another form and -with sectional objects. The stiffer even of his own party stood aghast, -and some seceded. The Liberals began to nibble at the Radical bait. It -is a curious fact that the Whigs, when in political despair, usually -resort to a revolutionary measure. Already, over thirty years before, -they had done so in connection with Ireland. Suddenly, without warning, -without a popular mandate, or even an Irish outcry for the upheaval, -like a bolt from the blue came Mr. Gladstone’s first great conversion -from principles firmly protested only a year before.[143] The question -was sprung on both countries. He brought in, and in a manner so -imperious that a solid portion of his own followers deserted him, his -Act for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church; not -only for its severance from the State, but for its spoliation by the -State. - -In the abstract its disestablishment, apart from its disendowment, -was a great, a just, and a generous measure; theoretically it was as -sound as bimetallism. But its logical issues were incompatible with a -united kingdom. They really, on examination, involved that separatist -theory of the “right” of “nationalities” to be self-governing, of -which he grew so fond. “Nationality” is here a wrong expression, for -“nationality” is, by its essence, a term of union, and not of division. -It should be “Locality.” What is meant by this assumed “right” is, that -particular races or particular provinces, absorbed into or dependent on -“nationalities,” are entitled, from the mere fact of their geographical -limits, to withdraw from the greater whole of which they are portions. -This theory would revive the Heptarchy. It would make Jersey and -Guernsey, or the Isle of Man, it would make Scotland or Wales, a -“nation.” - -I say that Mr. Gladstone’s measure, introduced when and how it was, -and with its double purport, involved these conclusions, because if -the mere existence of an “alien Church” justifies the severance of the -ties between authority and religion, and the plunder of its revenues -for purposes other than that for which they were created, then the same -reasoning would not only justify the abolition of an alien and the -substitution of a native government, but also a refusal to contribute -any revenue to the deposed government at all. There might be occasions -demanding such a course. An oppressive Church, a tyrannical government, -might well be swept away by a statesman with ears to hear the cries of -impatience and eyes to see the ravages of injustice--a true statesman -who, as Disraeli said in 1844, would accomplish by statute and -conciliation what revolutions necessitate by force. - -But this was not one of them. The English Church itself was not -practically resented, however its historical existence might be -made to rankle in common with the other historical anomalies in -Ireland, including its connection with England. The Church itself had -been bettered, and might be still more improved. It was alive with -opportunities. The Catholics and the Dissenters might, apart from -the Establishment, which stood for British authority, be set upon a -complete equality, and helped towards usefulness in many directions. -The Church itself had proved a valuable educational centre. The Roman -clergy called, not for its extinction, but for its disendowment; and -rather because they could not bear to think that it was there at all, -just as they cannot bear to think that it exists in England, than -because they wanted the revenues or suffered under the rebuffs or -rivalry of an English Church. It was an argument, as Disraeli put it, -that might be paralleled if all those Irish gentlemen who had small -estates, but frequented the same society, were to say that their -brethren of large estates should surrender their revenues to the State; -or if the unendowed hospitals of London were to exact the deprival of -the endowments enjoyed by St. Bartholomew’s, St. Thomas’s, and Guy’s, -not with the object of themselves sharing them, but out of wanton envy. - -Disraeli delivered three main speeches of great power, interest, and -length on this subject. I shall not quote them in words, but shall only -endeavour to present their pith. - -As regards the _Disestablishment_. - -He objected to it on principle--the principles outlined in my second -chapter. The union of Church and State is a symbol of the Divine nature -of government, which is the only truth underlying the obsolete fiction -of the “Divine Right of Kings.” He objected to it on policy. Divorce -the religious principle from that of government, and it is the State -that will suffer most. The result must be disorder. One day that might -take a peculiar form. The political power once separated from the -spiritual, a crisis might arise where the two might collide; and where, -though the political power might be right, the spiritual would appeal -in haste to both passion and prejudice. - -As regards the _Disendowment_. - -He objected to it on principle. The plunder of public corporations was -nothing new, but where the trust for which the corporation had been -endowed was not observed in the application of the spoil by the State, -which was a trustee, it was indefensible. It became confiscation. -“Irish purposes” were vaguely hinted as the destination, but the repeal -of the whisky duty might be an “Irish purpose;” and where was the sense -of dedicating some of this annexed property to Irish pauper lunatics? -Moreover, historically, he had always noticed that the spoil of the -Church went eventually to enrich the large landed proprietors. - -He objected to it on policy. One of the causes of discontent was -alleged to be that a particular Church was not connected with the -State. Mr. Gladstone proposed to regenerate the country by having -_three_ Churches not connected with the State. Discontent, however, -would still remain smouldering, and Disraeli prophesied that its next -phase would threaten the tenure of land. What would be the effect in -this relation of having three Churches disconnected from the State? The -land question would, he predicted, assume many threatening forms with -one purpose--a purpose against the rights and the duties of property. -One Church was to be deprived of property which none of the others -claimed. Three sets of clergy were to be equally apart from the State. -A class in the first place, therefore, and that a class of resident -proprietors, was to be destroyed; when it was agreed that one of the -evils in Ireland was the want of a variety of classes and of resident -proprietors. In the second, one of the avowed evils, the curse of -Ireland, was poverty; but here was an Act to confiscate property, and -that property in its nature popular--the appanage of the people. - -When the land question should arise, there might ensue a triple danger, -that of three sets of clergy divided in theology and matters of -discipline, but united in discontent; and the three might eventually -demand the restoration of the national property; and if it were -refused, there might be revolution. England could afford no more -revolutions. But, in any case, the spoliation of the Protestant clergy -would breed jealousies among themselves also; for they were actually -invited and induced (by means which he exposed) to co-operate in their -own expropriation. The plunder of the Catholic clergy had bred great -discontent. The plunder of the Protestant clergy would do the same. -And if discontent were left to grow as it went, the land outcry would -produce others, and they again others in their turn and train. There -would be no rest, no finality. It would be discontent without end. - -Far more than this, however, he objected to the ultimate consequences -of this revolutionary departure. Confiscation was contagious. What was -now applied--and applied in a form aggravated by its complications--to -the national property, might one day be applied to private property. -What was now applied to Ireland might one day be forcibly applied -to England. If the public disaster of the disestablishment and -disendowment of the English Church ever took place, in deference to -the jealousy of a class and not because of its own inherent decay as a -great civil and ecclesiastical institution, it would be aided by the -precedent of Ireland. - -Such is the pith, though many of the details and much of the historical -criticism are omitted; nor have I here dealt with the Maynooth and -“Regium Donum” problems and their bearings on these matters, which -Disraeli discussed in full. But I have condensed enough to point the -path of his ideas. - -Not all these dismal forebodings have yet been realised; but many of -them, unfortunately, came to pass. Ireland’s discontent, Catholic -discontent, were, neither of them, allayed by the disestablishment and -disendowment of the Protestant Church. The clergy of that Church are -still far from contented. The land question burst out within a brief -space of Disraeli’s prediction. It brought with it a long and fatal -series of cumulative troubles; and, as Disraeli had also predicted, -the actual rights of civil property, the rights of civilised society, -became invaded. “Compensation for disturbance” asserted the right to -pay no rent. For a time the last state of Ireland was almost worse -than the first. There were “months of murder, incendiarism, and every -conceivable outrage.” “The Executive absolutely abandoned their -functions.” Disraeli’s last trumpet-call was to warn the country, in -his celebrated letter to the Lord-Lieutenant, that there were those -who wished to sever Ireland from England as part of a scheme for the -disruption of the Empire. In 1881 he adverted to that warning. - -“... Now what was the consequence of that declaration? The present -Government took an early opportunity soon after I had made that -declaration, to express a contrary opinion. They said there was in -Ireland an absence of crime and outrage, with a general sense of -comfort and satisfaction.... I warned the constituencies that there -was going on in Ireland a conspiracy which aimed at the disunion of -the two countries, and probably at something more. I said that if they -were not careful something might happen almost as bad as pestilence and -famine.... My observations, of course, were treated with that ridicule -which a successful election always secures....” - -We all know the rest. The country was only saved by a secession of the -light and leading of the Liberal party from their rash and misguided -leader. Wisdom has been justified of her child. - -In conclusion, let me say that none would have welcomed more gratefully -than Disraeli the statesmanlike effort to settle the land question -which has recently made England the landlord of Ireland. He might have -descried in it elements of difficulty, and even of some danger for the -future. But it would, in the main, I am confident, have received his -unstinted support; for it is founded on the rock of conciliation--on -Disraeli’s policy “_To create and not to destroy_.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -SOCIETY - - -Macaulay observes of Frances Burney that “while still a girl she had -laid up such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix -much in the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had -watched and listened to people of every class, from princes and great -officers of State, down to artists living in garrets and poets familiar -with subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had -passed in review before her--English, French, German, Italian, lords -and fiddlers, deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers -leading about newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by -deputy husbands.” - -This is true of Disraeli. Long before he entered public life, before -he knew the inimitable D’Orsay, or even the luminous Lyndhurst, before -his most happy marriage, he had entered society at both doors--the gate -of horn and the gate of ivory. As a stripling of twenty he had been -sent, as we have seen, by Murray, the founder of his own fortune on -Byron’s fortune and misfortunes, to Abbotsford and Sir Walter Scott. -The young Disraeli used to dub Murray “the Emperor.” Murray described -him as the most remarkable young man he had ever met; “a deep thinker -but thoroughly practical in his ideas,” at once brilliant and solid, -of a bright and airy disposition which endeared him to the young, and, -himself unspoilt as “a child;” singularly happy in his home relations, -and “his father is my oldest friend.” That father was himself a -singular and remarkable man, who had attracted a distinguished -coterie. He was Pye’s early intimate and Thomas Baring’s friend. His -ties with Penn cemented his love of Buckinghamshire. He was familiar -with Southey, and he knew Mrs. Siddons. He conversed with Samuel -Rogers[144] and Tom Moore; he had corresponded and dined with Byron, -of whom “Disraeli the Younger” has recorded some striking traits. He -knew all the men of quills and letters, including the antiquarian -Bliss and Douce, many of the wits, and some of the “wit-woulds.” His -own brother-in-law, George Basevi, was an eminent architect,[145] and -architecture is often touched in the son’s novels.[146] Another member -of the family was a conveyancer, and through him the son was first -sent to read law with a solicitor, in whose office he read Chaucer, -and was then entered at Lincoln’s Inn. He had artistic acquaintances -also. Barry, he knew well. Downman painted his wife, and Downman’s -brother was his associate. And there were also some men of affairs -who visited Isaac Disraeli’s house. The burrowing and irrepressible -Croker, afterwards so mercilessly satirised as “Rigby,”[147] and -equally trounced, poor man, by Thackeray and Macaulay, seems to have -been his occasional purveyor of politics. But for contemporary parties -he cared little. He was a solitary student of the past; excavating -ancient manuscripts in the British Museum when the daily number of -such scholars did not exceed six. He was shy, meditative, dreamy, and -dispassionate. But he was poet besides recluse; his earliest courtship, -while Dr. Johnson lay dying, had been that of the muse. Sir Walter -Scott included one of his lyrics in a published collection.[148] -He diversified his stern by lighter labours, and his novels, long -since moldered, caused some stir and attracted sympathy. After the -romance of his early failures and the surprise of his early success, -he set himself patiently down to work for ten years before he would -print another line. His own father, who never understood but always -humored him, was a man of business, sanguine and prompt, yet gay and -nonchalant, who lost fortunes and regained them.[149] Disraeli the -Younger united the two strains of his father and of his grandfather. He -was a practical dreamer. - -Isaac Disraeli, then, gave his boy an opening to the literary world. -Among his intimates was the shrewd solicitor, Mr. Austin, and his -clever young wife, a literary coquette of talent, the aunt of the -future Sir Henry Layard, the transcriber of _Vivian Grey_. Her salon -was frequented, among others, by the Hooks[150] and the Mathews. -With the Austins young Disraeli journeyed in Italy and Germany. From -his father’s library he thus emerged on a larger world. But he soon -outstepped its bounds. After his long Eastern travels with Clay, and -Meredith[151] affianced to Disraeli’s sister--a voyage on which Byron’s -Tita became Disraeli’s valet, and on which he encountered the most -opposite types as well as some curious adventures[152]--his own first -books made him the lion of several seasons. He and Bulwer divided the -honors of Bath, then still fashionable. Lyndhurst grew to depend on his -assistance, and even advice; Disraeli escorted him when as Chancellor -he was present at Kensington at the accession of Queen Victoria; -Lyndhurst’s daughter became an associate of Disraeli’s sister; and -nothing gave Disraeli more unfeigned pleasure than the visits of -Lyndhurst and Bulwer to his father at Bradenham. - -He not only wrote novels, pamphlets, and sonnets (his vain ambition -was to revolutionise poetry), but he seems to have contributed to -the _Edinburgh Review_ as well as to many magazines. In 1833, as has -been noticed, he corresponded with its editor, Napier, with a view -to a “slasher” on Morier’s “Zohrab,” which had been puffed in the -_Quarterly_. Of the book he remarks, “A production in every respect -more contemptible I have seldom met with;” and of the puff, “This is -what comes of putting a tenth-rate novelist at the head of a great -critical journal.”[153] - -Then followed Gore House, with its high Bohemian wits, its low -Bohemian buffoons, its loose celebrities, its “man of destiny,” Louis -Napoleon; its laughter and its tears; its Watteau-like _parterres_, -and the generous, erring Egeria of the grot.[154] Then, too, came that -fascinating circle of the Sheridans, which united sparkling talent -to entrancing beauty in extraordinary charm. But then also came the -duller round of High Mayfair--the Londonderrys and the Buckinghams. -Among diplomatists at this period he knew Pozzo. He had seen, or met, -or known the fathers or grandfathers of most of the aristocracy which, -forty years afterwards, he was to lead. Resolved from the first, as -he said in an early letter, “to respect himself, the only way to make -others respect you;” an outrageous dandy; sometimes in deplored debt, -often in surmounted scrapes, always in good humour, he had surveyed the -whole kaleidoscope of society, artificial as well as natural, before, -or soon after, he turned thirty years of age; from the pachas and -intriguers of the East, to the leaders and amusers of the West; from -Ali and the governors, admirals, and garrisons of Malta and Gibraltar, -to solemn busy-bodies in and out of place; the fops and flutterers in -and out of society; men famous who were destined to obscurity, men -obscure who were vowed to fame; eccentrics and platitudinarians; the -Upper Ten--“the two thousand Brahmins who constitute the world”--and -the lower ten thousand; from the eccentric Urquhart to “L. E. L.,” “the -Sappho of Brompton,” and, it would seem, Davison the future musical -critic. An early letter, probably addressed to him, lies before me. It -may be of passing interest to subjoin it:-- - - “MY DEAR DAVISON, - - “I am very vexed that I missed you this morning. I arrived in town - to-day, and am now living the _vie solitaire_ in Bloomsbury. Will - you come and ameliorate a bachelor’s torments by partaking of his - goblet? - - “I am alone, as Ossian says, but luckily not upon the hill of - storms. - - “Instead of that catch-cold situation, a good fireside will greet - you. - - “Mind you come. - - “Yours ever, - “B. DISRAELI.” - - “Excuse scrawl, etc. 6 o’clock.” - -The society of those days still retained much of the Regency’s tinsel. -It glittered far more than it shone. Society was not then quite -the Dresden china shop with porcelain figures of beaux and boxers, -of topers and bull-dogs, of satyrs and nymphs, of city swains and -simpering shepherdesses, that it had been ten or fifteen years before. -Byron, with his savage sincerity, may be said to have dashed that -smooth farrago to fragments. But it remained a society of veneer and -affectation. It was a less natural age than our own, with fewer ideals -and less outward movement. It was a more boisterous age than our own; -public opinion exercised far less pressure. It was at once a coarser, -a more sentimental and a more romantic, if a more bombastic age than -ours. There still lingered the curiosity of Dr. Johnson’s age for the -tittle-tattle of voyagers and the curiosities of barbarism. But it was -not in the main a more material age, or, under the surface, a much -more selfish one. Sympathy was local then. “The people were only half -born.” It was, however, certainly a generation far more fastidious and -exclusive; and at the same time it was certainly more appreciative -of genius. You could then appeal to the few where you cannot now -appeal to the many; for the few then had neither the narrowness of the -_bourgeoisie_ nor the unlimited appetite of the million. - -“The invention,” smiles Disraeli so early as in his mock-classical -squib, _The Infernal Marriage_, “by Jupiter of an aristocratic -immortality, as a reward for a well-spent life on earth, appears to -me to have been a very ingenious idea. It really is a reward very -stimulative of good conduct before we shuffle off this mortal coil, and -remarkably contrasts with the democracy of the damned. The Elysians, -with a splendid climate, a teeming soil, and a nation made on purpose -to wait upon them, of course enjoyed themselves very much.... The -Elysians, indeed, being highly refined and gifted ... were naturally a -very liberal-minded race and very capable of appreciating every kind of -excellence. If a gnome, or a sylph, therefore, in any way distinguished -themselves, ... aye! indeed, if the poor devils could do nothing better -than write a poem or a novel, they were sure to be noticed by the -Elysians, who always bowed to them as they passed by, and sometimes, -indeed, even admitted them into their circles.” - -What Disraeli detested was what he termed, even in _Vivian Grey_, -“_society on anti-social principles_.” What he liked was a distinct -and distinctive circle, interchanging its ideas--“free trade in -conversation.” In his social, as in his political outlook, he -craved inclusiveness on the basis of excellence, and not either the -restrictedness of a caste or the miscellany of a multitude. In this -sense all society should be “aristocratic.” And he always felt that, as -a rule, it was precisely the middle-class element, contrasted either -with those who inherited the finer perceptions of breeding or with -those--the gallery--born with perceptive instincts--that is in the main -deficient in these respects. “... The stockbrokers’ ladies took off the -quarto travels and the hot-pressed poetry. They were the patronesses of -your patent ink and your wire-wove paper. That is all past....”[155] -What he disrelished was the meaner sort of mediocrity, except when it -was unassuming and useful. - -“High breeding and a good heart,” he demands in _Lothair_ for the -“perfect host.” “To throw over a host,” he has also written, “is the -most heinous of social crimes. It ought never to be pardoned....” -“... She, too,” he says of the Duchess in _Coningsby_--who “was one -of the delights of existence,”--“was distinguished by that perfect -good breeding which is the result of nature and not of education; for -it may be found in a cottage and may be missed in a palace. ’Tis a -genial regard for the feelings of others that springs from the absence -of selfishness.... Nothing in the world could have induced her to -appear bored when another was addressing or attempting to amuse her. -She was not one of those vulgar fine ladies who meet you one day with -a vacant stare, as if unconscious of your existence, and address -you on another in a tone of impertinent familiarity.” “This is a -lesson for you fine ladies,” says “Egremont” in _Sybil_, “who think -you can govern the world by what you call your social influences; -asking people once or twice a year to an inconvenient crowd in your -house; now haughtily smirking, and now impertinently staring at them, -and flattering yourselves all this time that to have the occasional -privilege of entering your saloons, and the periodical experience of -your insolent recognition, is to be a reward for great exertions, or, -if necessary, an inducement to infamous tergiversation.” And, indeed, -the “Zenobia” of _Endymion_, who was Lady Jersey, did sometimes -condescend to practise these shifts of political ambition.[156] But -in high society with low standards, there were worse depths than the -backstairs patronage of party recruits. “Never,” as the fine sentence -prefixed to _Sybil_ recalls, “were so many gentlemen, and so little -gentleness.” The contemptuous materialism of “Monmouth House,” the -elegant indifference of “Lord Eskdale,” around which revolve the -satellites and parasites, social and political--the folks that made -Selwyn exclaim when a great nobleman’s golden dinner-service was up to -auction--“Lord, how many toads have eaten off this plate!” - -“Among the habitual dwellers” (this from _Coningsby_) “in these -delicate halls there was a tacit understanding, a prevalent doctrine, -that required no formal exposition, no proofs and illustrations, -no comment, and no gloss, which was, indeed, rather a traditional -conviction than an impartial dogma--that the exoteric public were, -on many subjects, the victims of very vulgar prejudice, which these -enlightened personages wished neither to disturb nor to adopt.” -“Society,” he said, alluding to its treatment of Byron in _Venetia_, -“is all passions and no heart.” In _Vivian Grey_ (as to the -circumstances of which I shall say something in my last chapter) the -father (that is, Disraeli’s father) thus admonishes the boyish son. - -“... You are now inspecting one of the worst portions of society in -what is called the great world (St. Giles’ is bad, but of another -kind), and it may be useful, on the principle that the actual sight -of brutal ebriety was supposed to have inspired youth with the virtue -of temperance.... Let me warn you not to fall into the usual error -of youth, in fancying that the circle you move in is precisely the -world itself. Do not imagine that there are not other beings, whose -benevolent principle is governed by finer sympathies, and by those -nobler emotions which really constitute all our public and private -virtues. I give you this hint, lest, in your present society, you might -suppose these virtues were merely historical.” Speaking of “Vivian -Grey” under the guise of “Contarini Fleming’s” first novel, Disraeli -makes his hero ejaculate: “All the bitterness of my heart, occasioned -by my wretched existence among their false circles, found its full -vent. Never was anything so imprudent. Everybody figured, and all -parties and opinions alike suffered.” Still more did he despise “the -insolence of the insignificant.” - -What he admired in whatever form--even when incompatible with -society--was purpose with personality. This is manifest in all his -early novels, conspicuous in his later ones. The two heroes of -_Venetia_--Byron and Shelley[157]--are portrayed from this point -of view. Even the hysterical purpose of Lady Caroline Lamb in the -person of “Lady Monteagle” is recognised; and of Byron he causes his -characters to speak in _Vivian Grey_: “There was the man! And that -such a man should be lost to us at the very moment that he had begun -to discover why it had pleased the Omnipotent to have endowed him -with such powers!”--“If one thing were more characteristic of Byron’s -mind than another, it was his strong, shrewd common sense, his pure, -unadulterated sagacity.”--“The loss of Byron can never be retrieved. -He was indeed a real man; and, when I say this, I award him the most -splendid character which human nature need aspire to.”[158] The very -intellectual purpose of comparative purposelessness, of dilettante -taste, attracted him. This is how he addresses “Luttrell” in _The Young -Duke_: “... Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is -not magnificence, and that splendour is not heart. Teach us that taste -is a talisman which can do greater wonders than the millions of the -loan-monger. Teach us that to vie is not to rival; and to imitate not -to invent. Teach us that pretension is a bore. Teach us that wit is -excessively good-natured, and, like champagne, not only sparkles, but -is sweet.[159] Teach us the vulgarity of malignity. Teach us that envy -spoils our complexions, and that anxiety destroys our figure. Catch the -fleeting colours of that sly chameleon, Cant, and show what excessive -trouble we are ever taking to make ourselves miserable and silly. Teach -us all this, and Aglaia shall stop a crow in its course, and present -you with a pen, Thalia hold the golden fluid in a Sévres vase, and -Euphrosyne support the violet-coloured scroll.” - -So, too, the energetic personality of D’Orsay aroused his enthusiastic -friendship, and drew from him, some twenty years after that ambrosial -figure had vanished, the tribute of “... the most accomplished and the -most engaging character that has figured in this century, who, with -the form and universal genius of an Alcibiades, combined a brilliant -wit and a heart of quick affection, and who, placed in a public -position, would have displayed a courage, a judgment, and a commanding -intelligence which would have ranked him among the leaders of mankind.” -D’Orsay speaks and acts to the life as “Count Mirabel” in _The Young -Duke_. And, in a too unfamiliar passage of _The Young Duke_, he thus -also embalms, I fancy,[160] the memory of Lady Blessington’s maligned -charm under the veil of “Lady Aphrodite.” - -“... We are not of those who set themselves against the verdict of -society, or ever omit to expedite, by a gentle kick, a falling friend. -And yet, when we just remember beauty is beauty, and grace is grace, -and kindness is kindness, although the beautiful, the graceful, and the -amiable do get in a scrape, we don’t know how it is, we confess it is a -weakness, but, under these circumstances, we do not feel quite inclined -to sneer. But this is wrong. We should not pity or pardon those who -have yielded to great temptation, or, perchance, great provocation. -Besides, it is right that our sympathies should be kept for the -injured.” Endeavour and individuality he reverenced and recognised. -Tact, the charity of manners, he admired.[161] But for aimlessness, -whether callous or random, whether patrician or plebeian--whether of -“Lord Marney,” who said to “Egremont,” “I am your elder brother, sir, -whose relationship to you is your only claim to the consideration of -society,” and was answered, “A curse on the society that has fashioned -such claims ... founded on selfishness, cruelty, and fraud, and leading -to demoralisation, misery, and crime;” or of “Rigby,” who called his -record in Debrett of the marriage successfully schemed for his patron, -“a great fact.” To such as these he gave no quarter; and he scalped -them with a wit and an irony that has rarely been equalled. - -And he loved startling contrasts. “Whatever they did,” he says in _The -Infernal Marriage_, “the Elysians were careful never to be vehement.” -Disraeli liked to break the monotone of society’s polished surface -by pronounced and original types of race, of class, of passion, of -enterprise; the Roman among the European-Americans, the Arabian, -the Syrian, the Greek, the Gaul among the Franks. He revelled in -romantic women, muses, or prophetesses, who lead forlorn movements, -or rally broken fortunes; in men whom they cheer and kindle; in -public spirits; in sudden and unexpected revolutions of fortune, -and sudden and unforeseen revelations of character. To himself in -his first youth might adhere the phrase with which he then labelled -“Popanilla:” “He looked the most dandified of savages, and the most -savage of dandies.” He liked to pit the Bohemian against the noble, -and the valet against the hero; the “light children of dance and song” -against their heavy patrons; to display the power of career even in the -lodginghouse-keeper’s daughter; to depict the aristocracy of the master -working man; to analyse and contrast the ironies of the struggle, the -social tragedy of illusion, and the social farce of fashion. “... -‘Your mind is opening, Ixion,’” says Mercury, in that brilliant skit -which Disraeli penned before he was celebrated; “‘you will soon be -a man of the world. To the left, and keep clear of that star’--‘Who -lives there?’--‘The Fates know, not I. Some low people who are trying -to shine into notice. ’Tis a parvenu planet, and only sprung up into -space within this century. We don’t visit them.’” “Sybil” herself, it -should be remembered, is an aristocrat born, but not bred, while half -“Egremont’s” Norman relations are cads or snobs. - -He loved, too, society’s foibles--to hit off the precocious wiseacres -of the golden youth. “... A young fellow of two- or three-and-twenty -knows the world as men used to do after as many years of scrapes. I -wonder whether there is such a thing as a greenhorn? Effie Crabbs -says the reason he gives up his house is that he has cleaned out the -old generation, and that the new generation would clean him.”[162] To -banter “those uncommonly able men who only want an opportunity,” the -philosophers and the puppies; to jest, as he does in _Popanilla_, at -legal fictions; to poke fun at the “great orator, before a green table, -beating a red box,” or the prattlers on science in “gilded saloons;” to -depict the pyramidal selfishness but unruffled pride of Lord Hertford -in “Lord Monmouth”--Thackeray’s “Lord Steyne;” to chronicle the pæan -of “Mrs. Guy Flouncey”--a precursor of “Becky Sharp”--when she wins -the invitation to the great house: “My dear, we have done it at last!” -or those whose _summum bonum_ is to have ten thousand a year and be -thought to have five; or those waiters on dying Mammon, who, when the -will is read, “all become orderly and broken-hearted;” or the bored -good humour of the Radical noble, who was almost a Communist except as -regarded land--“as if a fellow could have too much land;” to burlesque -the whole medley of blue bores and bore-blues, of red-tape, and -peas-on-drums, the Jacks-in-office and the Jacks-in-boxes, of “nobs and -snobs,” of “statesmen, fiddlers, and buffoons.” But it should not be -forgotten that he ever kept a warm place in his heart for sailors, whom -he regarded as among the most natural and delightful of mankind.[163] - -It was not only the big shams and little follies of society that -revolted or amused him. He held, also, that melancholy and dulness were -social crimes. “If a man be gloomy, let him keep to himself. No man has -a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if -he stifled grief. These fellows should be put in the pound. We like a -good broken heart or so now and then; but then one should retire to the -Sierra Morena mountains and live upon locusts and wild honey, not dine -out with our cracked cores....”[164] And among breaches of social tact, -he most disliked those minor monomanias which make the bore. “Never,” -he once warned a young man, “discuss ‘The Letters of Junius,’ or ‘The -Man in the Iron Mask.’” Some of his happiest conversations are to be -found in the _Lothair_ colloquies at Muriel Towers. - -Society used to depend on conversation much more than it does now, when -there is so much hurry, so much wealth, so many amusements, so little -privacy, and so much printed about it that practically there is no -compact society at all--merely a touring menagerie. Disraeli, in one of -his earlier novels,[165] has an excellent essay in miniature on social -conversation:-- - -“The high style of conversation where eloquence and philosophy emulate -each other, ... all this has ceased. It ceased in this country -with Johnson and Burke, and it requires a Johnson and a Burke for -its maintenance. There is no mediocrity in such intercourse, no -intermediate character between the sage and the bore. The second style, -where men, not things, are the staple, but where wit and refinement and -sensibility invest even personal details with intellectual interest, -does flourish at present, as it always must in a highly civilised -society.... Then comes your conversation man, who, we confess, is -our aversion. His talk is a thing apart, got up before he enters the -company from whose conduct it should grow out. He sits in the middle of -a large table, and, with a brazen voice, bawls out his anecdotes about -Sir Thomas or Sir Humphry, Lord Blank or Lady Blue. He is incessant, -yet not interesting; ever varying, yet always monotonous. Even if we -are amused, we are no more grateful for the entertainment than we are -to the lamp over the table for the light which it universally sheds, -and to yield which it was obtained on purpose. _We are more gratified -by the slight conversation of one who is often silent, but who speaks -from his momentary feelings, than by all this hullabaloo._ Yet this -machine is generally a favourite piece of furniture with the hostess. -You may catch her eye, as he recounts some adventure of the morning, -which proves that he not only belongs to every club, but goes to them, -light up with approbation; and then when the ladies withdraw, and the -female senate deliver their criticism on the late actors, she will -observe with a gratified smile to her _confidante_, that the dinner -went off well, and that Mr. Bellow was very strong to-day. All this is -horrid, and the whole affair is a delusion. A variety of people are -brought together, who all come as late as possible, and retire as soon, -merely to show that they have other engagements. A dinner is prepared -for them, which is hurried over, in order that a certain number of -dishes should be--not tasted, but seen. And provided that there is no -moment that an absolute silence reigns; that, besides the bustling of -the servants, the clattering of the plates and knives, a stray anecdote -is told, which, if good, has been heard before, and which, if new, is -generally flat; provided a certain number of certain names of people -of consideration are introduced, by which some stranger, for whom the -party is often secretly given, may learn the scale of civilisation -of which he this moment forms a part; provided the senators do not -steal out too soon to the House, and their wives to another party--the -hostess is congratulated on the success of her entertainment.” He much -preferred the conversation of “Pinto,” whose raillery, unremembered, -amused and “flattered the self-love of those whom it seemed sportively -not to spare.... He was not an intellectual Crœsus, but his pockets -were full of sixpences.” But then, “Pinto” did not quite belong to -the lower social stratum above characterised. That Disraeli had not -altered his opinion of it after forty years’ immense and intimate -experience is shown by the description in _Lothair_ of the “reception” -of “Mrs. Putney Giles.” Not that Disraeli by any means inclined to the -“call-a-spade-a-spade” view of conversation. To say all one thought, -to be rudely frank, would destroy social converse. “... As Pinto says, -if every man were straightforward in his opinions, there would be no -conversation. The fun of talk is to find out what a man really thinks, -and then contrast it with the enormous lies he has been telling all -dinner, and perhaps all his life.” “Never argue,” he once wrote, “and, -if controversy arises, change the subject.” And he also recognised that -“talk to man about himself, and he will listen for hours.” “All women -are vain, some men are not.” He believed, too, in the saying of Swift, -that a community of ailments is a fastener of friendship. Once when an -intimate asked Lord Beaconsfield what he did when his acquaintanceship -was claimed by many whose faces and names were unfamiliar, but who -professed to have known him in youth, he answered, “I always say one -thing--‘Quite so, quite so! _and how is the old complaint?_’” - -I have said that in his youth Disraeli had occasionally been in -debt.[166] No one ever reprobated it more, though no one, except -Goldsmith and Sheridan, has also extracted more humour out of it, as is -attested by the episode of “Mr. Levison” and the coals in _Henrietta -Temple_.[167] In this novel he thus moralises-- - -“If youth but knew the fatal misery that they are entailing on -themselves the moment they accept a pecuniary credit to which they -are not entitled, how they would start in their career! how pale they -would turn! how they would tremble, and clasp their hands in agony -at the precipice on which they are disporting. Debt is the prolific -mother of folly and of crime; it taints the course of life in all its -dreams. Hence so many unhappy marriages, so many prostituted pens and -venal politicians. It hath a small beginning, but a giant’s growth and -strength. When we make the monster we make our master, who haunts us at -all hours, and shakes his whip of scorpions forever in our sight. The -slave hath no overseer so severe. Faustus, when he signed the bond with -blood, did not secure a dream more terrific. But when we are young we -must enjoy ourselves. True; and there are few things more gloomy than -the recollection of a youth that has not been enjoyed....” - -He was never a gambler. One of the most striking passages of _Vivian -Grey_ gives the story--which would make a strong play--of a man in high -place, led on by even noble motives to game, until he sharped at play, -and was rescued from disgrace by friendship; and in _The Young Duke_ -is the thrilling romance of the career of the founder of Crockford’s. - -The Macaronis were replaced by the Beaux; the Beaux in their turn by -the more florid Dandies; until, at last, in the ’seventies, appeared -the “Swells,” the heavy, if grand, Blunderbores, sworn to bachelor -indulgence, who thought that “every woman should marry, but no man,” -the exception only being if a girl sprang from “an affectionate family, -with good shooting and first-rate claret.” Disraeli was interested -in the “swells.” In a measure he had created them, because he had -reconciled the people to the nobles, and the “swell” was a term -embodying the people’s homage. But in this phase Disraeli saw something -comic and barbaric. “St. Aldegonde,” himself a gigantic “swell,” could -not bear the “swells.” When he met them he described them as “a social -jungle in which there was a great herd of animals.” - -And with the “swells” began something of that “free-and-easiness” -which hails from modern Columbia, and has now leavened society with -its licence and its slang. “Free-and-easiness is all very well,” once -laughed Disraeli to a friend, “but why not be a little freer and a -little less easy?” “His spirit,” he says of “Coningsby,” “recoiled from -that gross familiarity that is the characteristic of modern manners, -and which would destroy all forms and ceremonies, merely because -they curb and control their own coarse convenience and ill-disguised -selfishness.” With the “swells” came also another social change--the -diffusion not only of wealth, but of taste. A great lady assures -“Lothair” that he will be surprised to see so many well-dressed and -good-looking people at the opera, that he never beheld before. - -Political society pervades all Disraeli’s novels. Only two phases of -it need here be mentioned. The tiny coteries who dine together twice -a week and “think themselves a party.” They appear in _Sybil_; they -reappear in _Endymion_. And the breakfast gatherings of the ’forties, -peculiar, as Disraeli noted, to Liberals. “It shows a restless, -revolutionary mind,” mocks “Lady Firebrace,” “that can settle to -nothing, but must be running after gossip the moment they are awake.” -But two sayings, not directly with regard to society, may in this -connection, however, be recorded. Both are from _The Young Duke_. “... -He was always offended and always offending. Such a man could never -succeed as a politician--a character who, of all others, must learn -to endure, to forget, and to forgive.” The second was prophetic: “One -thing is clear--that a man may speak very well in the House of Commons -and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct -styles requisite. I intend in the course of my career, if I have time, -to give a specimen of both. In the Lower House, ‘Don Juan’ may perhaps -be our model; in the Upper House, ‘Paradise Lost.’” - -As for club existence, the “lounging, languid men who spend their time -in crossing from Brooks’s to Boodle’s and from Boodle’s to Brooks’s,” -has he not characterised “those middle-aged nameless gentlemen of -easy circumstances, who haunt clubs and dine a great deal at each -others’ houses and chambers; men who travel regularly a little, and -gossip regularly a great deal; who lead a sort of facile, slipshod -existence, doing nothing, yet mightily interested in what others do; -_great critics of little things_ ... peering through the window of a -club-house as if they were discovering a planet”? And as for civic -hospitality, he sums it up best, perhaps, in the _Endymion_ epigram: -“Turtle makes all men equal.” - -He felt all along that, after all, true society is at home, and not -with “polished ruffians;” the “courtesy of the heart” was preferable -to that “of the head.” “My idea of perfect society,” says “Lothair,” -“is being married, as I propose, and paying visits to Brentham;” or, as -Disraeli varies the theme in the same novel, “I am fond of society that -pleases me, that is accomplished and natural and ingenious; otherwise I -prefer being alone.” Home, he thought, should be the centre of society, -and a homeless society was not one at all. It is very noticeable, in -comparing present with past fiction, how the English sense of home and -flicker of the fireside, which used to warm every page, has receded -out of view before the motor-speed and nervous restlessness of the -age. His home-fondness was touchingly displayed after the death of his -wife by his reply to a friend, who asked if he were driving home--a -reply accompanied by tears; “Home! I have no home _now_.” Nor did any -great man ever reserve the sanctities of the hearth more completely -from a prying public. The purity of his home affections was one of Mr. -Gladstone’s notes of eulogy in the funeral oration that he delivered -in the House to which Disraeli had been proudly devoted for forty-five -long years. There are scores of sayings and episodes in his books, from -_Vivian Grey_ downwards, regarding the home affections; many charming -touches, too, in his letters to his sister. But I content myself with -one, from _Venetia_-- - -“... After all, we have no friends that we can depend upon in this life -but our parents.... All other intimacies, however ardent, are liable -to cool; all other confidence, however limited, to be violated. In -the phantasmagoria of life, the friend with whom we have cultivated -mutual trust for years is often suddenly or gradually estranged from -us, or becomes, from painful yet irresistible circumstances, even -our deadliest foe. As for women ... the mistresses of our hearts, -who has not learnt that the links of passion are fragile as they are -glittering?... Where is the enamoured face that smiled upon our early -love, and was to shed tears over our grave?... No wonder we grow -callous, for how few have the opportunity of returning to the hearth -which they quitted in levity or thoughtless weariness, yet which alone -is faithful to them; whose sweet affections require not the stimulus -of prosperity or fame, the lure of accomplishments or the tribute of -flattery, but which are constant to us in distress, and console us even -in disgrace!” - -I ought, perhaps, to add a word of Disraeli’s ideas on love and -marriage. No one set more store by, or laid more store on, the deciding -influence of woman on man’s career. No one recognised more heartily a -woman’s instinctive superiority to logic. How good is the humour in -that dressing-room scene of the ’seventies in _Lothair_:-- - -“... The gentlemen of the smoking-room have it not all their own way -quite as much as they think. If, indeed, a new school of Athens were -to be pictured, the sages and the students might be represented in -exquisite dressing-gowns, with slippers rarer than the lost one of -Cinderella, and brandishing beautiful brushes over tresses still more -fair. Then is the time when characters are never more finely drawn, or -difficult social questions more accurately solved; knowledge without -reasoning, and truth without logic--the triumph of intuition! But we -must not profane the mysteries of Bona Dea.” - -To women, moreover, he, like “Coningsby,” “instinctively bowed as -to beings set apart for reverence and delicate treatment,” but -disillusions chequered his experience. In maturity he could undoubtedly -“conceive that there were any other women in the world than fair -Geraldines and Countesses of Pembroke.” While Lord Randolph Churchill -was still alive, a young man--now an eminent Liberal statesman, and -then in the thick of a passionate courtship--poured out his heart to -him as they walked home together from the House. Lord Randolph reminded -him of what Disraeli had once observed to himself, that two of the -great elements in life were passion and power; that in youth the first -prevailed, but that, as years proceeded, the last proved incomparable. -He once said in his early youth that most of the distinguished men -of his acquaintance who had married “for love” bullied or maltreated -their wives; and he also remarked at an early period that the man who -wishes to rule mankind must not marry a too beautiful wife, who would -divide his time and his will. Long afterwards, in the devotion of his -home, Mrs. Disraeli would rally him by saying, “You know you married -me for money, and I know that now, if you had to do it again, you -would marry me for love.” It will be recalled, too, that “Sidonia,” -though he had a heart, indulged his deeper emotions more towards -causes than individuals. “In his organisation there was a peculiarity, -perhaps a great deficiency.” And yet Disraeli wrote: “We know not how -it is, but love at first sight is a subject of constant ridicule, but -somehow we suspect that it has more to do with the affairs of this -world than the world is willing to own.”--“Where we do not respect, we -soon cease to love; when we cease to love, virtue weeps and flies.” -I think that real love as the base of marriage is more genuinely, as -well as romantically, portrayed in _Venetia_ that in any of his works. -In those pages it really moves us instead of moving before us, as it -often does, even in the “love story” of _Henrietta Temple_. One of his -early hobbies, too, was that men ought to marry early, as a source of -strength and simplicity both to the affections and to the race. This -is emphasised in _Contarini Fleming_. The passage is striking, and -illustrates his deeper ideas on the whole subject: “To a man who is in -love the thought of another woman is uninteresting, if not repulsive. -Constancy is human nature. Instead of love being the occasion of all -the misery of this world, as is sung by fantastic bards, _I believe -that the misery of this world is occasioned by there not being love -enough_.... Happiness is only to be found in a recurrence to the -principles of human nature, and these will prompt very simple manners. -For myself, I believe that permanent unions of the sexes should be -early encouraged; nor do I conceive that general happiness can ever -flourish but in societies where it is the custom for all males to -marry at eighteen. This custom, I am informed, is not unusual in the -United States of America, and its consequence is a simplicity of -manners and purity of conduct _which Europeans cannot comprehend, but -to which they must ultimately have recourse_. Primeval barbarism and -extreme civilisation must arrive at the same results. Men under these -circumstances are actuated by their structure; in the first instance -instinctively, in the second philosophically. At present[168] we are -all in the various gradations of the intermediate state of corruption.” - -At all events, his own compositions were conspicuously spotless; and -it may be said of him, as it was of Addison--so unlike otherwise--“No -whiter page remains.” - -Such, then, are some of Disraeli’s main ideas on the outward forms and -inward spirit of society. Fashionable “society” he played with, and -he used--it amused him; but he never cherished, rather he scorned it. -Power he valued; and fame--“the opinion of mankind after death”--for -him meant power. There was once a certain rather fussy Radical member -who had long been anxious to make his acquaintance. When _Lothair_ -appeared, he rushed up to Disraeli excitedly, with many apologies -for the intrusion, and begged him to receive the assurance of his -daughter’s intense admiration for that work. “Thank you ever so much,” -returned Disraeli, “_and this is fame_!” - -When the gorgeous trinket was in his grasp, and he was at the zenith -of his eminence, I have already recorded an impressive instance. I may -contrast with this another picture, also of a fact already chronicled -in the interesting recollections of a young associate of his old age. -It will bear repetition. The scene was Hughenden in late autumn, the -time, after Lady Beaconsfield’s death. He sat in reverie before the -fire, watching the flickering embers. “Dreams, dreams, dreams,” he -murmured, as the wreaths of smoke and the sparks of flame went upwards. -He was thinking of his favourite Sheridans, by whose own fireside, and -basking in whose sunshine of wit and beauty, so many of his happiest -evenings had been spent forty years agone. And perhaps, also, he was -thinking of that charming daughter of Lord Lyndhurst, whose pet name -tallied with his own sister’s; and possibly, too, of that little -Frances Braham, whom he had known in girlhood, and whom, after she, -too, had carved a career, he still knew and admired as Frances, Lady -Waldegrave. - -Yet one more dissolving view-- - -The scene shifts again to London and a Foreign Office reception, with -its gaping throng. It was the last function that Lady Beaconsfield, -frail with age and bent with rheumatism, was able to attend. Step by -step, all the way down that long staircase, he himself planted her -feet and tenderly supported her feeble frame, till, when she reached -the end, he presented to her a youth of promise, since a member of -ministries, who will still remember it. - -Yes, it was companionship, not “society,” that was precious to him. And -trial proves friendship. - -“‘Since I last met you, I heard you had seen much and suffered -much.’--‘And that makes the kind thoughts of friends more -precious.’--‘You have, however, a great many things which ought to make -you happy.’--‘I do not deserve to be happy, for I have made so many -mistakes....’--‘Take a brighter and a nobler view of your life.... Feel -rather that you have been tried and not found wanting.’” - -[Illustration: DISRAELI IN 1852 - -_After a painting by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A._] - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -LITERATURE - -WIT, HUMOUR, ROMANCE - - -Whatever Disraeli wrote was always literature, and never lecture. He -was a born man of letters, and Dickens once lamented that politics had -so long and often deprived fiction of a master. - -Disraeli is renowned for his wit; but he is not so generally famed for -two qualities in which he excelled, though with limitations--his subtle -sense of humour and his fine feeling for the picturesque and romantic. - -Like his own “Sidonia,” Disraeli “said many things that were strange, -yet they instantly appeared to be true;” like his own “Pinto,” he “had -the art of viewing common things in a fanciful light.” I shall notice -both these characteristics. He believed in the force of phrases as a -pollen, so to speak, of ideas wafted through the air; and he believed -in the perpetual miracles of existence. His favourite English authors -were the romantics of Queen Elizabeth and the wits of Queen Anne and -the Georges. - -It was once said that wit is a point, but humour a straight line. -This epigram is inadequate. Wit is no _résumé_ of humour; the two -qualities differ in kind. Wit is a department of style; and style -is gesture, accent, expression. Wit is the faculty of combining the -unlike, by the language of illustration, suggestion, and surprise. -It sums up characters, things, and ideas. Like misery, “it yokes -strange bedfellows,” but with the link of words alone. It is best when -intellectually true, but its requisite is _fancy_, and its domain -expression. Humour, on the other hand, is an exercise of perceptive -sympathy; it is the faculty of discerning the incongruous, especially -of human nature, in the visible alone; it “looks on this picture and -on that;” it is most excellent when ethically sound, but its essence is -insight, and its sphere, situation. - -No one ever heard of a witty picture, or a humorous epigram. We laugh -at humour, whereas at wit we smile. Wit is, as it were, Yorick with cap -and bells; but humour unmasks him with a moral. Popular proverbs are -the wit of the people; what the crowd laughs at is its humour, and its -humour varies in different countries; but the standard of wit is the -same in all civilisations. To define wit and humour would require both -qualities, but, if I were to try my hand, I would venture to call wit, -mirth turned philosopher--humour, philosophy at play. - -Disraeli’s wit is at root arabesque. Its filagree flourishes, like the -ornaments of the Alhambra, are supported by solid if slender pillars. -It is fanciful grace sustained by a poised strength; but it is also -tempered by the cheery, if sententious, cynicism of the eighteenth -century, in which he had steeped himself from childhood. Its source was -racial; but its form and colour were much influenced by Pope, Swift, -and Voltaire. He was “a master of sentences.” He delighted to condense -thought, as it were, in civilised proverbs, and at the same time to let -his terse fancy[169] embellish it with subtle and airy flourishes. His -paradoxes are almost always thought in a nutshell, and never obscure -nonsense in a clever frame. Of his directer wit, a good instance is to -be found in his repartee to the crowd at his early Marylebone election: -“On what do you stand?” “_My head._” Or his remark on the member who -solemnly assured the House that he “took” his “stand” on “progress.” -“It occurred to me that progress was a somewhat slippery thing to take -one’s stand on.” When the late Mr. Beresford Hope’s rather turgid -remark on the “golden image set up on the sands of Arabia” provoked -Disraeli’s famous phrase, its accompaniment was equally good. He said -that there was “a certain prudery” about the honourable member’s -eloquence which never failed to fascinate.[170] The great Catholic -lady who received her guests “with extreme unction” reminds one of -Horace Walpole. - -Wit, of whatever class, is, roughly speaking, twofold in -degree--lightning wit and wit lambent--the wit that strikes sharply, -and the pleasantry that shines around its object. In the first Disraeli -excelled. Like his own Monsignor, he “sparkles with anecdote and -blazes with repartee.” His pages bristle with good things; it is hard -to choose. Every one remembers his political retorts and his literary -aphorisms. “One whom I will not say that I respect, but rather that I -regard.” Another, “Who has learned much, but has still to learn that -petulance is not sarcasm, nor insolence invective.” The “conjuror who -advances to the edge of the platform, and for hours draws yards of red -tape from his mouth.” One quotation against Peel--“Always ready with -his Virgil”--that of the Horatian “Vectabor tunc humeris;” and “Is -England to be governed by Popkins’ plan?” “Batavian Grace,” “Superior -Person,” and the like. Then there are the drunken recruits “full of -spirit;” the hansom, the “gondola of London;” the critics, “the men -who have failed;”[171] Tadpole’s, “Tory men and Whig measures;” and -Rigby’s, “little words in great capitals”--these are household words. -“Our young Queen, and our old institutions.” There are Diplomatists, -“the Hebrews of politics;” St. James’s Square, “the Faubourg St. -Germain of London;” the “bad politician” of the ’thirties, who “like -a bad shilling has worn off his edge by his very restlessness,” and -the enlightened Whig minister “almost eructating with the plenary -inspiration of the spirit of the age;” the men of the ’seventies who -“played with billiard-balls games that were not billiards,” and the -lady of the ’forties who “sacrificed even her lovers to her friends;” -stolid bores, our “Social Polyphemi;” books, “the curse of the human -race;” of Austria, “two things made her a nation, she was German -and she was a Catholic, and now she is neither;” of the Reform Bill, -“It gave to Manchester a bishop and to Birmingham a dandy.” And, -less familiar, there is “Lord Squib’s” definition of money value, -“very dear;” “Count Mirabel’s” pleasantry, “coffee and confidence;” -“Essper George’s,” “Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I -remember, and remembered more than I have seen;” Venus, the “goddess -of watering-places,” and “Burlington” with “his old loves and new -dances.” There is the advice in _The Young Duke_, too, that “good -fortune with good management, no country house and no children, is -Aladdin’s lamp,” and that in _Lothair_ to “go into the country for the -first note of the nightingale and return to town for the first muffin -bell.” Then there is the “treatise on a subject in which everybody -is interested, in a style no one understands;” and there are the -French actresses averring at supper, “No language makes you so thirsty -as French;” the English tradesmen who “console themselves for not -getting their bills paid by inviting their customers to dinner;” the -Utilitarian, whose dogma was “Rules are general, feelings are general, -and property should be general;” and the definition of Liberty, “Do -as others do, and never knock men down.” There is Monmouth’s “some -woman has got hold of him and made him a Whig.” There is the great -political lady “who liked handsome people, even handsome women;” and -there is the unfortunate third-rate statesman, “who committed suicide -from a want of imagination.” Nor should I omit an unprinted _mot_. He -defined a political “Deputation” as “a noun of multitude meaning many, -but not signifying much.” He was wont also to distinguish between -“lawyers” and “legislators.” A brace of very witty similes also -claim a mention here--the comparison of the Parliament-built region -of Harley Square to “a large family of plain children with Portland -Place and Portman Square for their respectable parents;” and that of -the detached breakfast-tables at “Brentham,” to “a cluster of Greek -or Italian Republics, instead of a great metropolitan table, like a -central government, absorbing all the genius and resources of society.” -Further, in the same category are the many metaphorical allusions and -descriptions that ornament his speeches. The transference of the -Bank currency crisis to the Neapolitan procession and miracle of St. -Januarius, both from a common cause, “congealed circulation;” the -picture of a maladroit reinforcement of opposition as the exploit of -the Turkish Admiral, summoned by the Sultan and blessed by the muftis, -to retrieve the war, who yet steered his imposing fleet right into the -enemy’s port; and the many illustrations from Cervantes, whose irony -they share. - -Then, again, there are those terse figurative fancies which belong -to the family of those first mentioned. The “Midland Sea” for the -Mediterranean; the “Western minster” for Westminster Abbey; the “dark -sex” for man; the “free-trader in gossip” for the bad listener; the -“confused explanations and explained confusions,” “Stateswoman”[172] -and “Anecdotage,” which, by-the-by, is a phrase of Isaac Disraeli -derived by him in conversation from Rogers[173]--all these and their -kindred remind us that he was the son of an author portrayed by him as -sauntering on his garden terrace meditating some happy phrase. - -Of the second--the wit of sustained sparkle rather than of sudden -flashes--there are abundant examples. There is the passage in which -“Lady Constance” in _Tancred_ unconsciously ironises evolution in her -criticism of a pamphlet, “The Revelations of Chaos.” There is the -lady’s reasoning on the Gulf Stream theory, and “Lothair’s” retort, -“You believe in Gulf Stream to that extent--no skating.” There is the -pious regret that a boring authoress could not be married to the author -of “The Letters of Junius” and “have done with it;” and the pious hope -that the Whigs would disfranchise every town without a Peel statue. -Then, again, there is “Herbert” in _Venetia_. - -“I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being that he is -at five-and-twenty.” - -“I wonder,” said Lord Cadurcis, “if a creditor brought an action -against you at fifty for goods sold and delivered at five-and-twenty, -one could set up the want of identity as a plea in bar; it would be a -consolation to elderly gentlemen.” - -And to go back to an even earlier date-- - -“What a pity, Miss Manvers, that the fashion has gone out of selling -one’s self to the devil!... _What a capital plan for younger brothers!_ -It is a kind of thing I have been trying to do all my life, and -never could succeed in. I began at school with toasted cheese and a -pitchfork.” - -Or take the report of the debate in the House of Lords, “imposing, -particularly if we take a part in it”-- - -“Lord Exchamberlain thought the nation going on wrong, and he made a -speech full of currency and constitution. Baron Deprivyseal seconded -him with great effect, brief but bitter, satirical but sore. The Earl -of Quarterday answered these, full of confidence in the nation and -himself. When the debate was getting heavy, Lord Snap jumped up to -give them something light. The Lords do not encourage wit, and so -are obliged to put up with pertness. But Viscount Memoir was very -statesmanlike, and spouted a sort of universal history. Then there was -Lord Ego, who vindicated his character, when nobody knew he had one, -and explained his motives, because his auditors could not understand -his acts.” - -Or the comparison of the defeated Tories to the Saxons converted by -Charlemagne-- - -“... When the Emperor appeared, instead of conquering, he converted -them. How were they converted? In battalions; the old chronicler -informs us they were converted in battalions, and baptised in platoons. -It was utterly impossible to bring these individuals from a state of -reprobation to one of grace with sufficient celerity.” - -In his speeches again there is the _locus classicus_ of “the range -of exhausted volcanoes”--“not a flame flickers on a single pallid -crest.” There are the wonderful political pictures of the “Calabrian -Earthquake,” the “ragged regiment that would not march through -Coventry--that’s flat;” “Melbourne with his Reform Ministry and -Ducrow still professing to ride on three sullen jackasses at once, -but sprawling in the sawdust of the arena;” of Peel as the profligate -deserting his mistress and “sending down his valet to say, ‘I will -have no whining here,’” and a hundred others as good.[174] Perhaps -“Gamaliel, with all the broad ‘phylacteries on his forehead,’ -who ‘comes down to tell us that he is not as other men are,’ in -reference to the ‘Cabal’ of 1859, should also be included. This is the -‘parliamentary wit’ which Gladstone avowed unrivalled, and these, the -vivid illustrations and metaphors, which he declared supreme in power -of ‘summing up characters and situations,’ and fraught with the gift of -‘appealing to the ear and the fancy.’” - -But there is also one from _The Press_ of 1853 which is unknown, and -claims a memorial. He is referring to the “Coalition” Ministry of -1853--one, as he calls it, of “suspended opinions,” and “resembling the -ark into which creatures of the most opposite species walked two by -two.” It singles out a magnificent “over-educated mediocrity” among the -strait sect of the “Peelites”--those who in Lady Clanricarde’s epigram -“were always putting themselves up to auction and buying themselves -in again.” It satirises that leader’s protest that he was still a -“Conservative,” his announced “regret at the rupture of ancient ties,” -his “hope of some future reunion”-- - -“... Amiable regret! Honourable hope! reminding us of those inhabitants -of the South Sea Islands, who never devour their enemies--that would be -paying them too great a compliment. They eat up only their own friends -and relations with an appetite proportioned to the love that they bear -to them. And then they hasten to deck themselves in the feathers and -trappings of those thus tenderly devoured in memorial of their regret -at the ‘rupture of ancient ties,’ and their ‘hope of some future -reunion.’ Do you feel quite safe with your new ally? Do you not dread -that the same affectionate tooth will some day be fastened upon your -own shoulders?’” - -No wonder that Lord Granville--“un radical qui aime la bonne -societé”--described Disraeli as a “master” in the literary expression -of “praise and blame.” - -Last, though not least, should be mentioned Pinto’s dictum on English-- - -“It is an expressive language, but not difficult to master. Its range -is limited. It consists, so far as I can observe, of four words, -“nice,” “jolly,” “charming,” and “bore;” and some grammarians add -“fond.” - -But none knew better than Disraeli that wit unrelieved is metallic. He -had a very real perception of the ludicrous, and it was usually of a -cast bordering on irony. In boyhood, Disraeli had been a great admirer -of Montaigne, one of those authors, as he acknowledged, who “give a -spring to the mind;” but I cannot discern any influence of Montaigne’s -twinkling stillness on Disraeli’s humour. The humour of Molière and of -Sheridan, like that of Fielding, of Hogarth, and of Dickens, is direct -and didactic, pointing to the follies and foibles of mankind. That, -on the other hand, of Sterne, often of Thackeray, always of Heine, is -indirect, inclined to be sentimental, and insinuating with all the -machinery of playful surprise, the inconsistencies that enlist feeling -or awaken thought. Swift’s grim and creative humour, also, that “knocks -off the tallest of heads” with a knotted bludgeon, wielded, however, -by an imaginative fierceness, is of the same order; and Swift had been -early studied, was constantly quoted, and often imitated by Disraeli. -The former is the broadsword of Cœur de Lion; the latter, the scimitar -of Saladin. It is of this latter species that Disraeli at his best must -be reckoned. It stamps the whole of _Popanilla_, and much of _Ixion_, -and _The Infernal Marriage_, and it interleaves both his wit, his -argument, and his reflection throughout his novels, and, conspicuously -in his triumph, _Coningsby_. - -Take “Lord Monmouth’s” indignant lesson to the hero: “You go with your -family, sir, like a gentleman. _You are not to consider your opinions -like a philosopher or a political adventurer_;” or the motive for his -bequest of his bust to “Rigby,” “that he might perhaps wish to present -it to another friend;” or the same amiable nobleman’s reason for -esteeming besides appreciating “Sidonia”--he was so rich that he could -not be bought. “A person or a thing that you perhaps could not buy, -became,” in his eyes, “invested with a kind of halo amounting almost -to sanctity.” “Lord Monmouth,” indeed, and “Rigby” are Disraeli’s -masterpieces in this vein; and “Mrs. Guy Flouncey,” who, like “Becky,” -“was always sure of an ally the moment the gentlemen entered the -drawing-room,” follows at no very remote distance. Take “Waldershare’s” -account of England’s ascendency:-- - -“I must say it was a grand idea of our Kings making themselves -sovereigns of the sea. _The greater portion of this planet is water, so -we at once became a first-rate power._” - -Or the Homeric simplicity of the “Ansary” tribe, who believe London to -be surrounded by sea, and inquire if the English dwell in ships, and -are thus corrected by their would-be interpreter “Keferinis”-- - -“The English live in ships only during six months of the -year--principally when they go to India--the rest entirely at their -country houses.” - -Similarly, too, is the oblique sarcasm of “_Tancred’s_” “Fakredeen”-- - -“... We ought never to be surprised at anything that is done by the -English, who are, after all, in a certain sense, savages.... Everything -they require is imported from other countries.... I have been assured -at Beiroot that they do not grow even their own cotton; but that I can -hardly believe. _Even their religion is an exotic, and, as they are -indebted for that to Syria, it is not surprising they should import -their education from Greece._” - -So, too, the piteous plight of the two honest servants--“Freeman -and Trueman”--who complain to their master, in sight of Sinai, that -they “do miss the ‘ome-brewed ale and the family prayers;” and the -twice-raised wonder of the “Swells” as to what could drag one of -their compeers to Palestine: “I believe Jeremiah somewhere mentions -partridges.” Nor should “St. Aldegonde’s sigh”--“of a rebellious -Titan”--at refusing to attend morning church at Brentham be forgotten: -“Sunday in London is bad, but Sunday in the country is infernal;” or -his dainty wife’s elaborate efforts that he should never be bored; -or the handsome Duke’s[175] daily thanksgiving as he completed his -“consummate toilette” that he had a family “worthy of him.” - -“Rigby’s” election, too--an excellent example--well illustrates the man -to whom the country meant nothing in comparison with the constituency, -and to whom his titled patron’s choice of him as executor was a -“sublime truth.” The whole scene is one of sustained humour. I will -only cite “Rigby’s” “grand peroration.” - -“... He assured them that the eyes of the whole empire were on this -particular election (cries of ‘That’s true!’ on all sides), and England -expected every man to do his duty. ‘_And who do you expect to do -yours_,’ inquired a gentleman below, ‘_about that ’ere pension?_’...” - -Then again, the episode of the Justice of the Peace in _Venetia_, and -this from _Endymion_-- - -“The chairman opened the proceedings, but was coldly received, though -he spoke sensibly and at some length. He then introduced a gentleman -who was absolutely an alderman to move a resolution.... The august -position of the speaker atoned for his halting rhetoric; and a city -which had only just for the first time been invested with municipal -privileges was hushed before a man who might in time even become a -mayor.” - -So, too, once more; the description of “Armine’s” experiences in the -sponging-house, where the only literature was a Hebrew Bible. This is -from _Henrietta Temple_. In _Vivian Grey_, his first novel, occurs the -same whimsical humour that is to be found in his last, _Endymion_. -The German statesman is pointing a _gourmet_-metaphysician, “stuffing -‘kalte schale’ in a corner.” - -“... The leaven of the idealists, a pupil of the celebrated Fichte.... -The first principle of this school is to reject all expressions which -incline in the slightest degree to substantiality.... Matter is his -great enemy. My dear sir, observe how exquisitely Nature revenges -herself on these capricious and fantastic children. Methinks that the -best answer to the idealism of M. Fichte is to see his pupil devouring -_kalte schale_.” - -In _Lothair_ few will forget the hero’s musings after the opera -attendant’s “Thank you, my lord” had attested the “overpowering -honorarium.” - -“‘He knows me,’ thought Lothair; but it was not so. When the British -nation is at once grateful and enthusiastic, they always call you -‘my lord.’” And in the same novel occurs the admirable humour of the -scene at Muriel Towers, where the new French dance which is remembered -and at last arranged by the impromptu good humour and cleverness of -“Theodora,” is muddled by “Lord Carisbrook,” who sums up his knowledge -by “Newest thing in Paris,” yet, notwithstanding, grins afterwards, -quite self-satisfied, with his “I am glad I remembered it.” - -There remains this light thrust at London architecture-- - -“Shall we find refuge in a committee of taste, escape from the -mediocrity of one to the mediocrity of many?... One suggestion might -be made. No profession in England has done its best until it has -furnished its victim. The pure administration of justice dates from the -deposition of Macclesfield.... Even our boasted navy never achieved a -victory until we shot an admiral. _Suppose an architect were hanged!_” - -And, finally, how admirable is the mock epic of the _chef’s_ dilemma at -the opening of _Tancred_: “It is worthy of Boileau.” - -“... ‘What you learned from me,’ says Papa Prevost, ‘came at least -from a good school. It is something to have served under Napoleon,’ he -added, with the grand air of the imperial kitchen. ‘Had it not been -for Waterloo, I should have had the cross. _But the Bourbons and the -Cooks of the Empire never could understand each other._ They brought -over an emigrant _chef_ who did not comprehend the taste of the age. -He wished to bring everything back to the time of the “_œil-de-bœuf_.” -_When Monsieur passed my soup of Austerlitz untasted, I knew the old -family was doomed._.’... ‘We must muster all our forces,’ says the -great Leander. ‘There is a want not only of genius but of men in our -art. The Cooks are like the civil engineers: since the middle class -have taken to giving dinners, the demand exceeds the supply.’ ‘There -is Andrien,’ said Papa Prevost; ‘you had some hopes of him.’ ‘He is -too young. I took him to Hellingsley, and he lost his head on the -third day. I entrusted the _soufflés_ to him, and but for the most -desperate personal exertions, all would have been lost. _It was an -affair of the Bridge of Arcola._’...” How Lilliput and Brobdingnag here -combine! I prefer this epic-fantasy to the lyric-fantasy of Thackeray’s -“Mirobolant.” - -When Disraeli was out of office for the last term, he was walking with -a leading member of the Government that had replaced his own. The -statesman asked him how he thought the new Administration was getting -on. “Pretty well,” was his answer, “but I like the old-fashioned -methods. The first year you do nothing; the second year you talk -of doing something; the third year you do something--and succeed; -the fourth you do something--and fail; the fifth year you spend in -discussing whether it was a failure or not; the sixth, you go to the -country, _who pronounce that it was_.” - -Most of these are to some degree fanciful _persiflage_. Not so the -following--a passage alluded to in a note already, and compared -with another one from Heine. He is describing the Vintage Feast of -Tabernacles, and the passage is the more remarkable because Disraeli’s -father instances this very festival as one of the obsolete and -fanatical absurdities that unfit the Old Testament religion for its -proper fulfilment by the New:-- - -“Picture to yourself the child of Israel in the dingy suburb or the -stolid quarter of some bleak Northern town, where there is never a sun -that can at any rate ripen grapes; yet he must celebrate the vintage -of purple Palestine.... He rises in the morning, goes early to some -Whitechapel market, purchases some willow boughs for which he has -previously given a commission, and which are brought probably from one -of the neighbouring rivers of Essex, hastens home, cleans out the yard -of his miserable tenement, builds his bower, decks it even profusely -with the finest flowers and fruit he can procure, and hangs its roof -with variegated lamps. After the service of his synagogue, he sups late -with his wife and children, as if he were in the pleasant villages of -Galilee beneath its sweet and starry sky.... Perhaps as he is offering -up the peculiar thanksgiving, ... and his wife and children are joining -in a pious ‘Hosanna’--that is, ‘Save us’--_a party of Anglo-Saxons, -very respectable men, ten-pounders, a little elevated, it may be, -though certainly not in honour of the vintage, pass the house, and -words like these are heard: ‘I say, Buggins, what’s that row?’ ‘Oh, -it’s those cursed Jews! We’ve a lot of them. It’s one of their horrible -feasts. The Lord Mayor ought to interfere. However, things are not so -bad as they used to be. They used always to crucify little boys at -their hullabaloos, but now they only eat sausages made of stinking -pork.’ ‘To be sure,’ replies his companion, ‘we all make progress.’_” - -And there are many pendants to this kind of pathetic humour in the sad -vagaries, degraded ignorance, sordid joys and squalid sorrows of the -operatives of “Wodgate” so sympathetically presented in _Sybil_:-- - -“... ‘They call me Tummas, but I ayn’t got no second name; but now I’m -married I mean to take my wife’s, for she has been baptised, and so -has got two.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl with the vacant face and the -back like a grasshopper, ‘I be a reg’lar born Christian, and my mother -afore me, and that’s what few gals in the yard can say. Thomas will -take to it himself when work is slack; and he believes now in Our Lord -and Saviour Pontius Pilate, who was crucified to save our sins, and -in Moses, Goliath, and the rest of the apostles.’ ‘Ah, me!’ thought -Morley, ‘and could not they spare one missionary from Tahiti for their -fellow-countrymen at Wodgate?’” - - * * * * * - -I must turn to the romantic and the picturesque in Disraeli’s fiction. -It is a large subject, but it need not necessitate a long treatment. - -The Brontës and Bulwer Lytton, in opposed spheres and with opposite -material, are perhaps the only modern pure romantics in English -fiction, before the romantic revival of the last twenty years or -so had set in. In the early nineteenth century Sir Walter Scott had -headed another romantic revival. Miss Austen, however,--the miniaturist -of realism--recalled fiction in her delicate manner to the beaten -high-road of the eighteenth. Dickens, romantic by instinct, dwelt on -the horrible and grotesque, and was more melodramatic than strictly -romantic. Thackeray, sternly combating the infinite romance of his -own nature, disclaimed a hero, and proved sentimental rather than -romantic. Trollope, who photographed feeling, abominated romance. -George Eliot set out as a romantic, but she soon became gloriously -whelmed in the vortex of scientific psychology. Others, who lack her -imagination, have since followed in her track. We have been treated to -analytic presentations of life, where some five persons engage in a -mutual war of motive, and the very reasons for turning a door-handle -are minutely involved in character. On the one hand, we had the -English and French sensationalists elaborately unravelling mysteries; -on the other, the boudoir psychologists as elaborately anatomising -moods. The great “naturalist” school supervened with its claims to -scientise misery. Victor Hugo’s romanticism was doomed by the merciless -lancet of these literary surgeons. And throughout--even now, in the -main, using “romance” more with regard to situation and expression -than to events--the purely and simply heroic and adventurous has -lost ground. Mind rather than action engrossed a great part of late -nineteenth-century fiction. - -With all faults, native and imposed, Disraeli proclaimed in his novels, -in those which were political fairy-tales, as in those which were not, -“adventures are to the adventurous;” and this very phrase, too, occurs -in his earliest satire. _Contarini Fleming_ was originally styled “The -Psychological Romance;” _Alroy_ is undoubtedly a romance historical; -_The Young Duke_, a romance of fashion; _Vivian Grey_, one both of -fashion and of ambition; _Venetia_, of biography; _Henrietta Temple_, -of love; and the rest, romances of the world’s actors and action. - -But the extraordinary is merely the mantle of romanticism proper. -Its method is everything. It is one that brings up before us at -once the thing seen and the man seeing. It releases individuality -from stereotyped shackles, it transfers interest from achievement to -achievement’s atmosphere, and it lends to landscape-painting the same -element that it lends to character-drawing. - -The French separate their terms in distinguishing between real -and feigned romance. The one they call _romantique_; the other, -_romanesque_. The really romantic in fiction is so to write as to -import into the interest of the extraordinary the interest also -of the author’s temperament. Both the unusual subject and the -imparted atmosphere are requisites. _Rasselas_ is an unusual subject -sententiously treated. It is parable, not romance. The _Song of the -Shirt_ is an, alas! commonplace theme transfigured by sympathy. It -is pathetic, not romantic. Sir Walter Scott, however, is romantic -_par excellence_. We are sure that his background is unusual, and he -stamps his individuality on the foreground. So, too, with his pictures -of scenery. The writer’s heart, rather than his head, pervades the -perspective. The unromantic author is a showman, the romantic author -an actor. The one fits character to persons; the other from persons -evolves character. The romantic reveals the wonderful to us by -personal feeling. Ruskin once defined the picturesque as “parasitical -sublimity;” Carlyle, too (as romantic and picturesque himself as -Ruskin), denounces the faculty in which he excelled. But these -thinkers failed, perhaps, to grasp that the root of the most beautiful -impressions is association interwoven with memory, fancy, affection, -even superstition, and the symbols of very names. Strip Venice of her -climate, rob man of his memory, and where is the Venice that Ruskin -adored? Absolute beauty does exist, but rarely; and we atone for -imperfections by supplementing it with the endearments of outward -accident. It is Nature’s own method; she garlands the rift of ruins -with her greenery. The dead letter sleeps in literature as in life, of -which literature ought to be the most sensitive mirror. Warmth is as -indispensable as light; and if fiction is to remain an art and not sink -into a false science, the dry bones of hard facts must be made to live. -By these means, too, the personal influence of great writers is most -practically preserved. The wonderful in Nature can never be unnatural. -It is only the affectation of it that is so--and that is usually -accompanied by Mrs. Malaprop’s “nice derangement of epitaphs.” - -Now, so far as Disraeli’s characters merely typify--and they do -often--causes or movements, they are not romantic, however picturesque -their garb. But so far as they do not, they are essentially romantic, -and, where politicians in council are not concerned, this is constantly -the case. - -Nothing can be more romantic, both in matter and manner, than the -first introduction of “Sidonia.” The “Princess Lucretia Colonna” in -_Coningsby_, is romance incarnate. “Morley,” again, in _Sybil_ is a -most romantic figure. The whole episode of the “Baronis,” in _Tancred_, -is genuinely and strikingly romantic. So is the figure of “Theodora” -in _Lothair_; and all these occur in political novels. But in the -non-political they abound. The early squibs are, perhaps, the only -romantic skits in our language. _Vivian Grey_, too, is full of romance, -and comprises the romantic drolleries of “Essper George,” a modern -Sancho. The whole of _Venetia_ and all the action of _Contarini_ are -romantic; so is his only and halting drama, _Alarcos_. Though at times, -and from causes which I shall consider, there is in these early novels -something of old Drury, and too much occasionally of the “Ha!-and-Pah!” -attitude, these are only blemishes in the costume; the figures remain -romantic. - -But it is, perhaps, in the short but charming descriptions of character -and of scenery that Disraeli best showed his powers for the romantic -and the picturesque. Take the character of “Fakredeen;” take even the -character of Sir Robert Peel in the _Life of Lord George Bentinck_. -Take a hundred touches from his _Home Letters_, and those to his -sister and family. He there says that “description is a bore,” but he -contrived in a few strokes to picture without describing. The sunset -at Athens, “like the neck of a dove.” His vignettes of the Parthenon, -of the Lagoons, of Jerusalem, of Syria, both here and in _Contarini_, -_Tancred_, and _Lothair_, are etched by a master-hand. - -Disraeli casts over his scenes the reflected glow of associative -feeling. Peruse the beautiful rendering of “Marney Abbey” in _Sybil_ -(too long to quote). It is essentially a placid scene romantically -described, with an individual feeling of soft regret and tender awe -communicated to the dreamy landscape. It proves his delight in what he -called “the sweet order of country life;” his feeling for the “order of -the peasantry ... succeeded by a race of serfs who are called labourers -and burn ricks.” - -If we would note the contrast in unromantic writers of genius, we have -only to re-read Jane Austen’s description of Northanger Abbey, where, -be it marked, in purposely deriding the false romance of a girl’s -sickly fancy, she must have desired to depict the demesne with every -impressive attribute. - -And take this from _Tancred_: “Sometimes the land is cleared, and he -finds himself by the homestead of a forest farm.... Still advancing the -deer become rarer, and the road is formed by an avenue of chestnuts.... -Persons are moving to and fro on the side-path of the road. Horsemen -and carts seem returning from market; women with empty baskets, and -then the rare vision of a stage-coach. The postillion spurs his horses, -cracks his whip, and dashes at full gallop into the town of Montacute, -the capital of the forest.... Nor does this green domain terminate till -it touches the vast and purple moors that divide the kingdoms of Great -Britain.” - -The effects of light play a leading part in Disraeli’s landscapes. - -“... Nor is there, indeed, a sight” (of Mont Blanc in _Contarini_) -“more lovely than to watch at decline of day the last embrace of the -sun lingering on the rosy glaciers. Soon, too soon, the great luminary -dies; the warm peaks subside into purple, and then die into a ghostly -white: but soon, and not too soon, the moon springs up from behind -a mountain, flings over the lake a stream of light, and the sharp -glaciers glitter like silver.” - -This, too, of night in Venice-- - -“... The music and the moon reign supreme.... Around on every side are -palaces and temples rising from the waves which they shadow with their -solemn form, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms and -softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city, too, is -poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster -on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the -surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam -in the moonshine and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is -not graceful--the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the -responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh, light, joyous, -and yet musical, bursts forth from some illuminated coffee-house, -before which a buffo disports....” - -Here, again, is an English summer morning from _Sybil_-- - -“A bloom was spread over the morning sky; a soft golden light bathed -with its fresh sheen the bosom of the valley, except where a delicate -haze rather than a mist still partially lingered over the river, -which yet occasionally gleamed and sparkled in the sunshine. A sort -of shadowy lustre suffused the landscape, which, though distinct, -was mitigated in all its features--the distant woods, the clumps of -tall trees that rose about the old grey bridge, the cottage chimneys -that sent their smoke into the blue, still air, amid their clustering -orchards and gardens, flowers and herbs.” - -There are many more such studies of light in home landscape, and not -least in _Lothair_. And these are all renderings of scenery, and not -scene-painting. In those abroad I might have included, too, the German -Twilight from _Vivian Grey_, and the Grecian Sunset from _Contarini_, -each dashed off with speed, yet each breathing a delicate and pensive -peace. - -Another feature of his pencil is its fondness for and studied -conversance with the forms, and even the sounds, of trees. Their -“various voices” are introduced with effect into the storm in _Vivian -Grey_. As years went on, this love of trees grew stronger. It is -expressly mentioned as the hobby of his old age by Lady John Manners. -There is not one of his novels where the varieties of wood and forest -are not handled with distinctness and affectionate observation. -“Contarini’s” pet tree is oak. In _Endymion_ is a park entirely of -ilex. A glade at “Hurstley” is “bounded on each side with masses of -yew, their dark green forms now studded with crimson berries.” “Nigel -Penruddock,” the Tractarian, lolls “on the turf amid the old beeches -and the juniper;” and in the woods of a castle in _Vivian Grey_, “There -was the elm with its rich branches bending down like clustering grapes; -there was the wide-spreading oak with its roots fantastically gnarled; -there was the ash with its smooth bark, and the silver beech, and the -gracile birch, and the dark fir affording with its rough foliage a -contrast to the trunks of its more beautiful companions, or shooting -far above their branches with a spirit of freedom worthy of a rough -child of the mountains.” “Elegant” and “gracile” in this boyish sketch -are Johnsonese, it is true; but its romantic faculty is evident. He -delighted, too, in Elizabethan gardens and Italian parterres; and he -has drawn, both in outward and inward outline, suggestive and romantic -presentments of Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton. - -And he could paint the marvellous to perfection. In _Alroy_, the magic -ravine over which the hero must cross to win his talisman, rises before -the view with the detail of reality: so does the ideal island of -_Popanilla_. So--and they really belong to the marvellous--do the great -country seats of “Montacute,” “Hellingsley,” “Beaumanoir,” “Alhambra,” -“Château Désir,” “Hainault,” “Princewood,” and “Muriel Towers.” There -are pictures, besides, of Seville, Cairo, and the Frankfort Fair. -I could have subjoined the flaming castle in _Sybil_, the Derby in -_Endymion_, the bull-fight in _Contarini_, the desert in _Alroy_, the -mountain storm in _Vivian Grey_. But I prefer his tranquil pictures, -and perhaps one of the best is the “Cherbury” in _Venetia_. - -Another prominent characteristic of his romance was its fondness for -London and the suburbs, the beauty of which, he always held, was -only half appreciated. “Airy” Brompton and “merry” Kensington, with -its young Queen “in a palace in a garden,” touched his fancy; and -the Georgian pleasaunces of Roehampton, the antiquer abodes of Sheen -dedicated to Swift, Temple, and Stella, and the deer-haunted woodland -of Richmond Park still breathing of Anne, and Ormonde, Pope, and -Thomson, and Walpole; even, too, the Regency villas of Wimbledon. -A few romantic strokes in _Henrietta Temple_ thus etch the Park of -London:-- - -“At the end of a long sunny morning, ... where can we see such -beautiful women and gallant cavaliers, such fine horses and such -brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such agreeable -accessories; the groves, the gleaming waters, and the triumphal arches. -In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the bowery glades of -Kensington.” And readers of _Lothair_ will remember with what romance -he clothes an early June morning in Bond Street, and how, out of the -prismatic hues of the fishmonger’s shop, he weaves a garland of gay -fancies; nor will he forget St. James’s Street--that “celebrated -eminence” in _Endymion_. But it was more serious London that he admired -most. The foreign crannies of Soho and the dingy length of Marylebone -have both been explored by him. The Strand and the City purlieus, -however, were his favourites. The quaint sites, the busy romances of -the now grimy riverside, the historic names, the contrast of outside -flurry with inside repose, the dwelling-houses of a past age rich with -its art but now reserved for musty parchments or massive ledgers, -fascinated him. “It is at Charing Cross,” he avers, that “London -becomes more interesting.” This is how he limns one of finance’s -headquarters:-- - -“In a long, dark, narrow, crooked street, which is still called a -lane, and which runs from the south side of the street of the Lombards -towards the river, there is one of these old houses of a century -past.... A pair of massy iron gates of elaborate workmanship separates -the street from its spacious and airy courtyard, which is formed on -either side by a wing of the mansion, itself a building of deep red -brick, with a pediment and pilasters and copings of stone; in the -middle of the plot there is a small garden plot inclosing a fountain, -and a very fine plane tree. The stillness, doubly effective after the -tumult just quitted, the lulling voice of the water, the soothing -aspect of the quivering foliage, the noble building and the cool and -spacious quadrangle--the aspect even of those who enter, and frequently -enter, the precincts, and who are generally young men gliding in and -out earnest and full of thought--all contribute to give to this -locality something of the classic repose of a college, instead of a -place agitated with the most urgent interests of the current hour.” - -London’s motley vastness, too, and magnetism of attraction were -constantly his themes. “... It is a wonderful place, ... this London; a -nation, not a city; with a population greater than some kingdoms, and -districts as different as if they were under different governments, and -spoke different languages.” And yet (of “Lothair”), “I have been living -here six months, and my life has been passed in a park, two or three -squares, and half a dozen streets!” - -In _Vivian Grey_ Disraeli whimsically observed that literature was -declining in the ’twenties through a wealth grown so luxurious as to -rank it with “ottomans, bonbons, and pier-glasses.” “Consols at a -hundred were the origin of all book societies. There is nothing like a -fall in consols to bring the blood of our good people of England into -good order.” - -Consols have now fallen, and maybe literature is reviving. Certain I -am that, when its revival becomes pronounced, it will be through the -invigoration of romance. The strange need not be sought in the remote. -Wordsworth found it in “laughing daffodils,” as truly as Byron in the -Corsair. Unromantic matter, romantically treated, is more refreshing -than romantic matter unquickened by personal feeling--by - - “_Quod latet arcanâ non enarrabile fibrâ_.” - -I have mentioned Disraeli’s early tendency towards “Ha!” and “Pah!” For -this there were several reasons besides his own temper and that of the -time. - -When we speak of an “artificial” style we mean one unnatural to the -author. Disraeli’s style was perfectly natural to him, and it altered -little. To impose another man’s voice on our own is real artifice. How -natively pathetic he could be, is shown by the scene in _Vivian Grey_, -where the broken Cleveland sits and sobs amid the laughing children on -his lonely bench in Kensington Gardens; and how simply pleasing, by the -encounter after long years between “Coningsby” and “Lady Theresa.” He -constantly alternates between the homely and the outlandish. - -In the few years preceding his grand tour, and, still more, the earlier -_Vivian Grey_, he was at a phase in his development when he was only -just beginning to realise the true bent of his powers, of which he had -from the first been conscious, but which had hitherto more or less -perplexed and bewildered him. In _Alroy_ and _Contarini_ his tone -is one of savage force as yet unchastened and unmellowed. The wild -Arab is in them. All the over-mastering dreams of his youth claimed -materialisation; his language went before his feelings, and strove to -outrun them by vehement strokes of attitude. He thirsted for action, -and yet drooped, restless and mortified. His circumstances were at war -with his consuming ambitions. It was the discord of a peculiar fate and -an unique organisation; the ferment of a ripe spirit cooped by unripe -experience, of an as yet untempered vigour. The genius, as in the old -legend, shrank and dwindled in the bottle, but soared with gigantic -stature when the stopper was released. One must not take the personal -touches in _Vivian_, _Alroy_, and _Contarini_ too literally. They are a -blend of several factors and of various characters; and he himself in -his age regretted that the last had been the task of immaturity. But -from the main emphasis and the prevailing moods of the three together, -thus much one may gather. - -“Why, what is life” (this from _Alroy_), “for meditation mingles ever -with my passion?... Throw accidents to the dogs, and tear off the -painted mask of false society! Here am I, a hero; with a mind that can -devise all things, and a heart of superhuman daring, with youth, with -vigour, with a glorious lineage ... and I am--nothing.” He was morbidly -overdone, and he brooded and overdid his own morbidity. He had lived -in “a private world and a public world,” and the two were still at -variance. “I was,” he says extravagantly of a still earlier date, on -the lips of “Contarini,” “in these days but a wild beast who thought -himself a civilised human being;” and yet “I felt the conviction that -literary creation was necessary to my existence.”--“What vanity in all -the empty bustle of common life! It brings to me no gratification; -on the contrary, degrading annoyance. It develops all the lowering -attributes of my nature.” He was impatient, and yet he felt that -“patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.” “Nothing is more -fatal than to be seduced into composition by the first flutter of -the imagination.” He had aspired to be a poet, and a poet in a new -style befitting modern life. The failure of the _Revolutionary Epick_ -disgusted him; yet how could he have expected it to succeed? even if it -had been sold at a farthing, as in the case of Mr. Horne’s experiment, -it would never have attracted the public, for it was a long essay -in stilted verse.[176] He still aspired to influence and rule his -fellow-men, but no path was clear. These moods were not to last. “Think -of me as of some exotic bird which for a moment lost its way in thy -cold heaven, but has now regained its course and wings its flight to a -more brilliant earth, and a brighter sky.” - -Moreover, he had for some years fostered the idea that verse was -obsolete for poetry, and that rhyme was a solecism. Poetry should -be the revelation of nature, and yet it had sought a modern vent in -unnatural language.[177] He attempted, therefore, to frame a language -for poetical expression on a plan of his own, at once rhythmical and -theatrical. And for all his confidence he was not wholly at ease. -“I observed that I was the slave of custom, and never viewed any -particular incident in relation to men in general.... I deeply felt -that there was a total want of nature in everything connected with -me.”--“When I look back on myself at this period, I have difficulty -in conceiving a more unamiable character.” And yet instinct revolted -against artificiality. In defiance he would air his most extreme -passions. To veil them was cant. “Never apologise for showing -feeling.... Remember that when you do so, you apologise for truth.” - -But if something of all this is applicable to 1829, still more is -applicable to three years earlier, when _Vivian Grey_--a miracle, -whatever its defects, for one barely out of his nonage--was -published;[178] and much of the phase was only a remnant of its -aggravated form in 1826. He had been seriously and mysteriously ill. He -had small acquaintance with the great world, and continual conversance -with his visions of it. He was in doubt, even in despair. His family -was astonished, even annoyed. In _Contarini_, where his first novel -figures as “Manstein,” he has himself told us what he regretted in -_Vivian Grey_. It was “written in a storm and without any reflection;” -its few images were all “probably copied from books.”--“I thought -of ‘Manstein’ as of a picture painted by a madman in the dark.”--“I -determined to re-educate myself.” Years afterwards, when these fleeting -phases had long passed, and had been succeeded by the higher and -healthier moods following on the discovery and pursuit of his true -destiny, he apologised for _Vivian Grey_ as a boyish freak, affected -because not written from observation of the world, and he added that -every one has a right to be conceited until he is successful. He showed -his opinion of it by publishing _Contarini_ anonymously. In his old -age, he excused its “inevitable reappearance” by once remarking that -first efforts dealing with a big but unknown world must be exaggerated -in style, and that “false taste accompanies exaggeration.” Had he been -grandiose without afterwards proving himself great, the blame would -have been deserved. - -These are not the blemishes of his great political novels; but there -is in them also, with all their deep thought and striking insight, -their absolute originality and stimulating suggestiveness, an air at -times of the perfumer’s shop rather than of the fresh air. Even “Sybil” -cries out, “Oh! the saints, ’tis a merry morn!” “Coningsby” meets his -lady-love at a ball, which “is a dispensation of almost supernatural -ecstasy;” and in _Lothair_ itself we revert to “barbs” and “jennets.” -I think that these later defects were partly due to the reaction -against the constraint, repression, and formality compelled by his -political career. They were a reaction in form, but in no case were -they artificial in substance. They meant something, and they pressed -it home. Disraeli was always a fantastic, and the fantastic holds -high rank in literature. It distinguishes Disraeli’s pet, Cervantes. -But fantasy is different far from frippery. Fantasy is the flicker of -firelight, not the flare of gas. - -Again, it is always hard for originality to win a first hearing from -the public. Browning once remarked in a letter that to fasten the -attention of the British public some stroke of style is required. This -is true. Browning is himself an example; Carlyle, another; for his -early essays completely lack that compound of Jean Paul’s German, and -old Mrs. Carlyle’s Scotch, out of which Carlylese was evolved. Ruskin -is another instance. Disraeli in his correspondence is far more free -and flowing than in his books. Of those books there is least trace of -apparent affectation in _Coningsby_, which is the best political novel -in any language. Reviewed as a whole, his novels are creative, and a -marvellous medium for thought. Some bedizenment there is doubtless, and -there are many gauds of fancy; and parts of the characterisation may be -said to be written in italics. It is true also that some of the persons -are waxworks, but none of the characters are, and his movement of -ideas, as well as his ideas of movement, display a flexibility rarely -joined to such piercing penetration. Next to his three great political -novels and in some respects above them, I would rank _Venetia_, -which has never met with such widespread appreciation. _Alroy_ and -_Contarini_ are psychological romances, exceptional of their kind. His -method of composition was the same throughout his life. He pondered in -the night what he penned in the morning. And of his early preparation -he has left a memorial-- - -“... I prepared myself for composition in a very different mood -from that in which I had poured forth my fervid crudities in the -Garden-house. Calm and collected, I constructed characters on -philosophical principles, and mused over a chain of action which should -develop the system of our existence. All was art. I studied contrasts -and grouping, and metaphysical analysis was substituted for anatomical -delineation. I was not satisfied that the conduct of my creatures -should be influenced merely by the general principles of their being; I -resolved that they should be the very impersonations of the moods and -passions of our mind. _One was ill-regulated will;[179] another offered -the formation of a moral being_;[180] materialism sparkled in the -wild gaiety and reckless caprice of one voluptuous girl, while spirit -was vindicated in the deep devotion of a constant and enthusiastic -heroine.[181] Even the lighter temperaments were not forgotten. -Frivolity smiled and shrugged her shoulders before us, and there was -even a deep personification of cynic humour.” - -He believed in the influence of the creative arts on creative -authorship. He has pointed out how the Tuscan school of painting trains -to the grandeur of simplicity, the Venetian to the gorgeousness of -fancy. And of music he has written: “The greatest advantage that a -writer can derive from it is that it teaches most exquisitely the art -of development. It is in remarking the varying recurrence of a great -composer to the same theme, that a poet may learn how to dwell upon -the phases of a passion,--how to exhibit a mood of mind under all its -alterations, and gradually to pour forth the full tide of feeling.” -But he thought that such influences were a prelude to creation, not to -execution. “It is well to meditate upon a subject under the influence -of music, but to execute we should be alone, and supported only by our -essential and internal strength.” - -As is familiar, he was fastidious even when he was florid. It is well -known that he relieved his last illness by correcting the proofs of his -last speeches for Hansard--“the Dunciad of Politics.” “I will not,” he -said, “descend to history speaking bad grammar.” - -About national literature he held views which sprang from his theories -of race. He considered that modern Europe depended overmuch on ideas -derived from Rome, Greece, and Palestine. “At the revival of letters -we beheld the portentous spectacle of national poets communicating -their inventions in an exotic form.... They sought variety in increased -artifice of diction, and substituted the barbaric clash of rhyme for -the melody of the lyre....” Spain, he thought, offered the best field -for a national novel. - -“The outdoor life of the natives induces a variety of the most -picturesque manners, while their semi-civilisation makes each district -retain with barbarous jealousy its peculiar customs.” - -For the critics he had a smile at the first as at the last. They -“admired what had been written in haste and without premeditation, and -generally disapproved of what had cost me much forethought and been -executed with great care.... My perpetual efforts at being imaginative -were highly reprobated.... I puzzled them, and no one offered a -prediction as to my future career.... I thought no more of criticism. -The breath of man has never influenced me much, for I depend more upon -myself than upon others....” - -At “Reisenburg” in _Vivian Grey_ were two great journals edited on -opposite principles. In the one, every review was written by a personal -enemy; in the other by a personal friend. And there was a third by -that “literary comet,” “Von Chronicle,” the historical novelist, who -believed that in romance costume was superior to character. His novel -of “Rienzi” terminated with the scene of the Coronation, because -“after that, what is there in the career of Rienzi which would afford -matter...? All that afterwards occurs is a mere contest of passions and -a development of character; but where is a procession, or a triumph, -or a marriage...? Not a single name is given in the work for which he -has not contemporary authority; but what he is particularly proud of -are his oaths. Nothing has cost him more trouble than the management of -the swearing; and the Romans, you know, are a most profane nation.... -The ‘’sblood’ of the sixteenth century must not be confounded with -the ‘zounds’ of the seventeenth.... The most amusing thing is to -contrast this mode of writing works of fiction with the prevalent and -fashionable mode of writing works of history.... Here we write novels -like history and history like novels. All our facts are fancy, and all -our imagination reality.” - -Excellent fooling, this! Through the long range of his writings -Disraeli did more than any novelist of the nineteenth century to -impress on the ordinary mind not only the pleasures but the powers of -the Imagination. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -CAREER - - -The secrets of success, Disraeli has told us more than once, are -knowledge of your capacities, constancy of purpose, and mastery of -your subject. It is seldom that in one brain these qualities of grip, -mental and moral, are fully combined; and, rarer still, when they -do reside together, is the addition of the third requisite named by -him--patience. It, with the tact it bears, is as necessary for the -servant as the master. - -“The magic of the character,” he says of the courier in _Contarini_, -“was his patience. This made him quicker and readier and more -successful than all other men. He prepared everything, and anticipated -wants of which we could not think.” - -The preparation for career--apart from its entitling endowments--should -be education; but education, he held, even in its prescientific days, -often started with a vital mistake. It proceeded on words, grammars, -and systems. It should proceed on a knowledge of predisposition; others -should know a man before he is called upon to know himself. “What we -want is to discover the character of a man at his birth, and _found his -education upon his nature_.... All is an affair of organisation.... -Among men there are some points of similarity and sympathy. There -are few alike; there are some totally unlike the mass.... Until we -know more of ourselves, of what use are our systems?... We speculate -upon the character of man; we divide and we subdivide. We have our -generals, our sages, our statesmen. There is not a modification of -mind that is not mapped out in our great atlas of intelligence. We -cannot be wrong, because we have mapped out the past; and we are -famous for discovering the future when it has taken place. Napoleon -is First Consul, and would found a dynasty.... But what use is the -discovery, when the Consul is already tearing off his republican robe -and snatching the imperial diadem? And suppose, which has happened, and -may and will happen again--suppose a being of a different organisation -from Napoleon or Cromwell placed in the same situation--a being gifted -with a combination of intelligence hitherto unknown--where, then, -is our moral philosophy? How are we to speculate upon results which -are to be produced by unknown causes?... The whole system of moral -philosophy is a delusion, fit only for the play of sophists in an age -of physiological ignorance.” So, too, he had reason to think of some -physicians “who decide by precedents which have no resemblance, and -never busy themselves about the idiosyncrasies of their patients.”[182] -“Until,” he wrote again, “men are educated with reference to their -nature, there will be no end of domestic fracas.” He remembered his -grandfather’s misconstruction of his father’s temperament, and his -uncle’s of his own. Even illness he considered “as much a part of -necessary education as travel or study.” And his constant idea, that -national literature ought to be native and not imported, allied itself -to his educational ideas also. “The duty of education is to give ideas. -When our limited intelligence was confined to the literature of two -dead languages, it was necessary to acquire them.... But now each -nation has its literature.... Let education, then, be confined to the -national literature, and we should soon perceive the beneficial effects -upon the mind of the student. Study would then be a profitable delight. -I pity the poor Gothic victim of the grammar and the lexicon. The -Greeks, who were masters of composition, were ignorant of all languages -but their own. They concentrated the genius of the study of expression -upon one tongue. _To this they owe that blended simplicity and strength -of style, which the imitative Romans, with all their splendour, never -attained.... The ancients invented their Governments according to their -wants; the moderns have adopted foreign policies, and then modelled -their conduct upon this borrowed regulation._ This circumstance has -occasioned our manners and customs to be so confused, absurd, and -unphilosophical. What business had we, for instance, to adopt the Roman -law--a law foreign to our manners, and consequently disadvantageous? He -who profoundly meditates upon the situation of modern Europe will also -discover how productive of misery has been the senseless adoption of -Oriental customs by Northern peoples. Whence came that divine right of -kings which has deluged so many countries with blood?--that pastoral -and Syrian law of tithes, which may yet shake the foundations of so -many ancient institutions?” The spirit of this passage was ever present -to his mind. He went even further. He has asserted that the mere fact -of copying or assuming ideas deprives them of their native virtue, -and that all that is second-hand loses the vigour and flavour of its -originals in imitating them. - -Preparation must be succeeded, and, indeed, attended, by meditation. I -shall return to this idea shortly, and consider it in his own instance. -But there comes a juncture when action must rise from the chrysalis of -thought which encloses it. - -“... You must renounce meditation. Action is now your part. Meditation -is culture. It is well to think until a man has discovered his genius -and developed his faculties, but then let him put his intelligence in -motion. Act, act, act without ceasing, and you will no longer talk of -the vanity of life.” - -The perpetual thought of death he considered harmful. To live in -present duty and energy was truer piety than to brood on the coming -hour when no man can work; and the very sense of existence is a great -happiness, and leads to hope. “... If, in striking the balance of -sensation, misery were found to predominate, no human being would -endure the curse of existence....”[183] He would surely have echoed -that fine saying of Gladstone--“Indifference to the world is not love -of God.” He was infinitely sanguine in outlook, although extremely -cautious in expedients. I may recall that when _Coningsby_ has missed -his fortune, _Sidonia_ consoles him by a series of more disagreeable -contingencies. - -Such, then, were for him the equipments of career. Of its arts in -attaining what it designs to exercise for the good of others, much will -have been gleaned from many citations as to tact and temper. There is -one other maxim of worldly wisdom which is worth recording: “If you -wish a man to be your friend, allow him to confute you.” His idea of -power was that it was “a divine trust,” but it was also a cumulative -fund. “The very exercise of power only teaches me that it may be -wielded for a greater purpose.” Mrs. Disraeli said, when her husband -had, in his own words, “climbed to the top of the greasy pole at last,” -“You don’t know my Dizzy, what great plans he has long matured for the -good and greatness of England. But they have made him wait and drudge -so long--and now time is against him.” - -It is not here my province to track the details of his own career. This -book deals with his ideas. But with the interesting psychology of his -early temperament I mean to deal, for it concerns his ideas. - -I might, had his career been within my scope, have cleared some -doubts, and explained many misunderstandings. I could have shown, as -I have shown elsewhere, the real truth about the Peel letter, and the -events of 1851-52. I should have pointed out the dividing lines in -his campaign and the halting-places in his march, the Eastern tour, -his marriage, his estrangement from Peel, the Crimean War, his steady -progress in social improvements, his Reform Bills of 1859 and 1867, -the strong effect on his outlook of events of magnitude, and the last -act of the drama--his imperialism. I might also have explained the -moot points connected with the years 1833, 1835, 1837, 1846, 1851, -and 1860.[184] I might, perhaps, have been able to shed light on the -delayed Malmesbury despatches in 1859. Nor should I have shirked his -mistakes, notably the motion of censure on Lord Palmerston. And I would -have dwelt on the striking influences which his sister and his wife -exercised over him. - -But one brief topic I shall skim before I finally trace something of -his own peculiar development. - -Much has been talked of his alien “aloofness.” As for alien, Mazarin -was in this sense an “alien,” not to speak of the less worthy examples, -Alberoni and Ripperda. In the eighteenth century a Scotch premier -was in England an “alien.” Augustus was partly, Napoleon wholly, an -“alien.” And what but “aliens” were Manin, Gambetta, Lasker, Midhat, -and Emin? Nobody understood his countrymen more shrewdly at once and -sympathetically than Disraeli. His was no sham patriotism, and he loved -John Bull fondly, even when he poked fun at him. Nor had any pondered -more deeply the lessons which history imparts. There are, however, -two grains of truth in this reproach. He did regard the world and its -history as a fleeting show. He believed in recurring cycles. What is -now old was once new; what is new will one day be old. So long as -individuals worked their best, what did it matter? One civilisation -succeeds another, and the last state of a mighty nation is often worse -than the first. “The whirligig of Time brings about his revenges.” In -this sense--the historical and philosophical sense--he might be called -indifferentist. And again, he understood England, but it took long for -his countrymen to understand _him_. When they came to do so, he met -with that generosity which immense bravery and perseverance always -eventually receive; but, meanwhile, he had struggled against a jealous -malice which is, perhaps, peculiar to politics. He had “educated” -his followers, but suspicion and misunderstanding hampered his every -step. During two spans of some six years each (without counting his -early period) he had to play the losing game with an unruffled brow, -an encouraging smile, and an unwearied resource, which included the -transformation of a party and foundation of a political magazine. He -had to hearten the despairing, the recalcitrant, the slothful, and the -sullen. He had to deplore the stupidity of missed opportunities;[185] -he had to humour the engrossers of office; and, even, in the intervals -of power, to bend his neck to the grindstone of finance. “I am not,” -he once sarcastically rejoined, alluding to Sir Charles Wood opposite, -“a born Chancellor of the Exchequer.” His hour struck. At sixty-four -he began to govern England on lines planned and with projects pondered -full thirty years earlier; and even then he had to confront anonymous -endeavours to sap his leadership from quarters which should have -disarmed suspicion. His own mind was impartial in the extreme. The -same “aloofness” which he is alleged to have displayed to British -affairs, he certainly displayed in his books with regard to Eastern -emirs, who talk with the aspirations of the West. “Alroy” himself is -very European, and never more so than when he disdains the isolating -fanaticism of “Jabaster.” - -Much, too, has been prattled about his “audacity,” and I notice that -the hackneyed quotation about “L’audace” is usually in these diatribes -ascribed to Danton, and not to its author, Beaumarchais. Many of these -“audacities” are now recognised as wisdom; but it has been after-wisdom -that has recognised it; though Disraeli was usually Prometheus. - -“There are times,” he said in one of his early novels, “when I am -influenced by a species of what I may term happy audacity, for it -is a mixture of recklessness and self-confidence, which has a very -felicitous effect upon the animal spirits. At these moments I never -calculate consequences, yet everything seems to go right. I feel in -good fortune; the ludicrous side of everything occurs to me; I think -of nothing but grotesque images. I astonish people by bursting into -laughter apparently without a cause....” - -Disraeli was naturally sensitive, but he studied self-repression. No -one was more cut to the quick by contumely or impertinence; no one was -more determined to hide the wound. “If,” once observed Jowett, “Dizzy -were on the brink of the bottomless pit, and each moment about to fall -into it, his look would never betray the fact; such is his pluck and -power of countenance.” As he bore himself towards provocation, he bore -himself towards pain. The last great speech he ever made was delivered -with youthful jauntiness, yet he was forced to take a drug in order to -deliver it. “One must meet death boldly,” he exclaimed to an intimate -friend, after he had read the denial of the doctors’ assurance in their -faces. - -Disraeli’s intellectual shortcomings are those, it seems to me, -belonging to an intense, as opposed to a diffused imagination. His -mind shed both heat and light, but both the light and the heat were -over-concentrated. The same applies, perhaps, to his will, and to his -character also. Everything in him was focussed. His ideas possessed -him, and he chafed, like a sculptor at work, to embody them. Outside -the forms of those ideas he could not penetrate. In relation to them, -he judged all junctures and all endeavours. It is this averseness to -the abstract that pervades his every outlook. He could not conceive of -ideas as unmaterialised or disembodied. They had been the companions of -his boyish solitude. - -“... The clustering of their beauty seemed an evidence of poetic -power: the management of these bright guests was an art of which I was -ignorant. I received them all, and found myself often writing only that -they might be accommodated.” - -As a child, his ruling mood was that of reverie. He had steeped himself -in his father’s library, and his extraordinary imagination played upon -the poets, the philosophers, and, above all, the historians. Dim dreams -from the vast procession of the centuries took shape and became flesh. -He beheld the great men and movements marching before him. Incarnate -presences peopled his loneliness, and called to him with their voices-- - -“The votary of a false idea, I linger in this shadowy life and feed -on silent images which no eye but mine can gaze upon, till at length -they are invested with the terrible circumstances of life, and breathe, -and act, and form a stirring world of fate, beauty, time, death, and -glory. And then, from out this dazzling wilderness of deeds, I wander -forth and wake ... horrible! horrible!” “Often in reverie had I been -an Alberoni, a Ripperda, a Richelieu....” “I sat in moody silence, -revolving in reverie without the labour of thought....” - -He felt that he was not as others. He found that though at once -proud and gentle, as a boy, his family were sometimes eyed askance -as foreigners. He wished to frequent a public school; it was deemed -unadvisable. The harder side of his nature began to assert itself. He -would triumph over all, hew down every obstacle. His father suggested -the University. He rejected the offer. Why waste his time in words -that might prove a school for deeds? “A miserable lot is mine to feel -everything and be nothing.” He was destined, appointed, reserved. As he -grew older these convictions deepened. “Am I a man, and a man of strong -passions and deep thoughts? And shall I, like a vile beggar, upon my -knees crave the rich heritage that is my own by right?” But how? The -very thought bewildered, oppressed, and embittered him. “Everything -is mysterious, though I have always been taught the reverse.” In a -dangerous moment he began to lay it down as a principle “that all -considerations must yield to the gratification of my ambition.” Life -without power, and power that he felt deserved, was intolerable. His -father remonstrated. He warned him against the fatal tyranny of the -imagination. “I think,” he said, “you have talents indeed for anything -... that a rational being can desire to attain; but you sadly lack -judgment.” The boy replied, “I wish, sir, to influence men.... I am -impressed with a most earnest and determined resolution to become a -practical man. You must not judge of me by my boyish career. The very -feelings that made me revolt at the discipline of schools will insure -my subordination in the world. I took no interest in their petty -pursuits, and their minute legislation interfered with my extended -views.” In answer, he was admonished that a nature so “headstrong and -imprudent” would lead to situations ridiculous and even dangerous; -that his lack of regulated balance would warp his excellent instincts. -The boy persisted that, if not by deeds yet by words, he would sway -his fellows. “Mix in society,” rejoined his father, with a shrug of -the shoulders, “and I will answer that you lose your poetic feeling; -for in you, as in the great majority, it is not a creative faculty, -originating in a peculiar organisation, but simply the consequence of -a nervous susceptibility that is common to all.” The youth continued -to fret, and brood, and calculate. He felt method within him as well -as frenzy. In his old age he was once driving past Bradenham with a -lady who knew how happy his home relations had been. “Ah!” he sighed, -“there is where I passed my miserable youth.”--“Miserable!” she -replied; “impossible! Surely you were happy there.”--“Not then. I was -devoured by an irresistible ambition which I could not gratify.”[186] -It reminds me of that passage in Swift where the great dean ascribes -the first pricks of ambition, in the career which the inequalities of -his situation had urged, to the rage and mortification he experienced -as a boy in failing to land a big fish. He grew distracted; for a time -he had to inhabit a darkened room. With the Austins he travelled in -Germany and Italy. The result was _Vivian Grey_--the “Don Juan” of -politics. - -The circumstances and results of the book I have touched in the -preceding chapter. Disraeli grew ashamed of its fashionable success. -The world was not merely his oyster. He would elevate and benefit -by it. He mixed in society, but it neither raised his spirits nor -slaked his thirst, although it did help him to see his measure and -stature among mankind. That commerce with the world is the best cure -for misjudged ambition he pressed in his fine address to youth at the -Manchester Athenæum; but ambition itself he regarded as elevating for -man. At the crisis, however, that we have reached, his ambitions were -still unsettled. He began to be soured and sceptical both of himself, -of mankind, and of God. His spiritual fibre was shaken. His sister, -with talents nearly equal to his, and faith and charity superior, came -to his rescue. She healed his wounds; she ennobled his standard; she -comforted him with her entire belief in his great future. She restored -him to his higher self. - -Once more the shadow of ill health fell across the young Disraeli’s -footsteps; this time a very critical malady--a complete nervous -breakdown. He “fainted as he dressed.” He even had convulsions. He was -overwhelmed by strange noises in his head. “... The falls of Niagara -could not overpower the infernal roaring that I alone heard.”[187] -Travel was prescribed. He departed for two years from Europe, and -mended. - -Even at this time, with the spectres of doubt and illness athwart his -way, he could not stifle the secret assurance of his destiny. I have -seen a letter to a friend, who had shared a financial misadventure, in -which he deplores his condition, but declares that “something within me -whispers that one day I shall be famous. Be assured, if ever that time -comes, you will be the first that I shall remember.” - -He returned, found his place, his mission, and his ideals. But still -his discreet family opposed themselves to his entrance into public -life. It was incredible, impossible, absurd. “So much for the maddest -of mad acts, as my uncle said,” he wrote to his sister on his first -return to Parliament. - -Every one remembers the story of his meeting with Lord Melbourne, and -his answer, true or not, as to what the premier could “do for him.” “I -wish to be Prime Minister.” At any rate, Mrs. Austin, in extreme old -age, recalled a party at her house about this period, when the young -Disraeli explained his plans for England, “when I am Prime Minister,” -amid laughter and surprise. “You will see,” he said, bringing his fist -down on the mantelpiece, “I _shall_ be Prime Minister.” He felt, as -he wrote to his sister after attending a great debate, that “he could -floor them all.” His confidence in himself, like his sister’s in him, -was colossal. - -So I read his earliest years from his earliest books. Thenceforward -he marched from strength to strength, and he employed power when he -obtained it conscientiously according to his best lights for the -improvement of the people and the glory of the Empire. - -And yet how strange it is, that at the annual gatherings on his -death-day, celebrated by the romance of his memory and his flower, -the successors who, faltering from his footsteps, honour the good -will of his enduring popularity, have never breathed his name! I can -see him smile in the shades; for he found his party a quagmire, and -he left it a township. At all times he toiled hard and long, though -sometimes by fits and starts; and a study was reserved ready for his -visits at Bradenham. Although in his later years he would sometimes -play at indolence, it was really against the grain. The occasional air -of listlessness which society remarked in his latter days was the -attendant of failing health, and only filmed an activity that neither -age nor illness could overcome. In the long recess of 1848 he was -working over ten hours a day, rising at five and retiring at nine. -In the long session of 1852 he was working considerably more. To the -last he read the classics while he dined. As he lay dying he corrected -his speeches. He never relaxed that infinite interest in everything -and everybody of purport and meaning, which the French well style “la -grande curiosité.” - -When he died, amid national mourning, the late Lord Salisbury, after -singling out his unquenchable zeal for the glory of Britain, lasting -to a period when “the gratification of every possible desire negatived -the presumption of any inferior motive,” adverted to his “patience, his -gentleness, his unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and -fellow-labourers.” Indisputably his moral character was high. Without -question he, like Gladstone, raised the tone of parliamentary life -from that of the days when politics were merely a squabble for place -and a toss-up as to “whether England should be ruled by Tory nobles -or by Whig.” His tone may not always have chimed with certain forms -or formulas of earnestness, but he acted up to his own high standard. -“It was impossible,” said the late Lord Granville, “to deny that Lord -Beaconsfield had played a great part in British History. No one could -deny his rare and splendid gifts and his force of character.” Character -will always appeal to England. “But,” pursued the orator, after -noticing his tolerance and forbearance, “he undoubtedly possessed the -power of appealing to the imagination, not only of his countrymen, but -of foreigners,[188] and that power is not destroyed by death.” - -My book opened with Personality, Ideas, and Imagination. With -Imagination, Ideas, and Personality it shall close. They can turn and -change the semblances of material “facts,” for they abide behind the -veil of time and of existence. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] “... These are concessionary, not Conservative principles. This -party treats institutions as we do our pheasants, they preserve only to -destroy them.” - -[2] Swift, adverting to National Debt. - -[3] Cardinal Newman afterwards inveighed against the same union of -faithlessness and Mammon in one of his finest sermons. Disraeli -constantly dwelt on the dangers that liberty might suffer, if a -democracy unreconciled to monarchy and its institutions became a -class instead of an element, and was brought into collision with the -“three per cents.” The despotisms of bare democracy and of aggravated -plutocracy were equally distasteful to him, and he feared their union. -_Cf._ many striking passages in _The Press_, 1853-59. - -[4] With this passage should be compared the striking remarks on p. 222 -of _The Political Biography of Lord George Bentinck_. - -[5] “It was that noble ambition, the highest and the best, that must -be born in the heart and organised in the brain, which will not let -a man be content unless his intellectual power is recognised by his -race, and desires that it should contribute to their welfare.” Thus he -speaks of _Coningsby_, the castle of whose fathers is not to be one “of -Indolence.” - -[6] Through Lord Durham, Lord J. Russell, and Lord Melbourne, whom he -met early at Mrs. Norton’s. - -[7] I may mention that when he wrote _Alarcos_ in six weeks, an -intimate (I think Lord Strangford) asked him why he had turned his -energies to tragedy. “The idea haunted me,” was the reply, “and I could -not rest until I had given it expression.” - -[8] There is a touch also of his grandfather in the “Mr. Putney Giles” -of _Lothair_, who: “never made difficulties, but always overcame them.” -In both “Miriam” (_Alroy_) “Venetia” and “Myra” (_Endymion_) there are -direct transferences from his sister’s temperament; and “St. Barbe” is -far more Hayward than Thackeray. - -[9] _Cf._ the moralisations in its strange account of the hero’s malady. - -[10] _The Infernal Marriage._ - -[11] So called owing to Lord Grey’s query in a letter. His brother had -just opposed the young Disraeli, standing as an “independent” and a -“reformer” at High (or “Chepping”) Wycombe; and his brilliant speeches -on the hustings had been republished as _The Crisis Examined_. - -[12] After he had been articled to a firm of solicitors at seventeen, -and eventually called to the bar, his father had wished him to enter a -government office. _Cf._ Mr. Lake’s “Reminiscences.” - -[13] _Cf._ p. 254. - -[14] It treated of a hero outlawed under the Alien Act by a Ministry -resenting a poem (_cf._ Smiles’ “Memoirs of John Murray”). Disraeli -had also edited a “history” of _Paul Jones_. Of his early American -pamphlet, I speak later on. A Mr. Powles--“something in the city”--was -concerned in assisting both this and the _Representative_. - -[15] Of Keats it sings-- - - “Who grasped the Theban shell and struck a tone, - No master yet had wakened--save its own.” - -[16] It succeeded a respectable pro-Canning and pro-Queen-Caroline -weekly, to which Disraeli seems to have contributed as a lad also. Its -foundation brought him to Sir Walter Scott, and to Lockhart, who at -first disdained to be “editor,” but melted when Disraeli assured him -that he would be “Director-general” of a controlling organ. Only a -temporary breach with Murray was caused by Disraeli’s speedy withdrawal -from the concern. But for Lockhart, as a “tenth-rate novelist,” -Disraeli expressed contempt in 1833, when he proposed to write for the -_Edinburgh_, presided over by Napier. _Cf._ British Museum, Add. MS. -34,616, f. 45. - -[17] This is no imaginary picture. _Cf._ Isaac Disraeli’s letters in -the British Museum, Add. MS. 34,571, ff. 94, 96. Bradenham Manor, now -the residence of my friend, Mr. Graves, had been under Queen Anne the -seat of the Earl of Strafford through his marriage with a City heiress. - -[18] In a future chapter I shall revert to this episode, which Disraeli -ever deplored. His valet, in bachelor days, at 35, Duke Street, -St. James--one Whittlestone, like Disraeli’s servant in the East, -Byron’s Tita, provided for as attendant in a government office by his -master--used to retail many scraps of such gossip. The young Disraeli’s -novels, he averred, were written in bed. Heroes truly should dispense -with valets. - -[19] In _The Press_ (1853-59)--which vies with Swift in the _Examiner_ -and Bolingbroke in the _Craftsman_, and to which Lord Derby and Shirley -Brooks also contributed--Disraeli finely characterises Chatham as “a -forest oak in a suburban garden.” - -[20] Of this virtue, singled out with domestic purity by Gladstone for -praise in Disraeli, the late Lady J. Manners wrote, “He feared nobody -but God.” In my eighth chapter I shall quote Jowett’s verdict. - -[21] “The Later Years of Lord Beaconsfield,” by Janetta, Lady J. -Manners, Blackwood, 1881. - -[22] In 1852 he sought and obtained a long interview with Feargus -O’Connor, whose correspondence in the _Star_ he had utilised seven -years before in _Sybil_. - -[23] “Thus, amid all the strange vicissitudes of life, we are ever, as -it were, moving in a circle.” - -[24] In 1832. - -[25] His Edinburgh speech of 1867 and his Glasgow address of 1873--on -“Representation” and “Equality” respectively rank among his best. - -[26] So also does another. Lady Beaconsfield, waiting up, as was her -wont even in extreme age, for her husband’s return after a critical -effort, entered the library in the small hours of the morning (and in -_négligée_), and impetuously embraced what turned out to be Lord Cairns -writing an important minute before Disraeli’s arrival. - -[27] When Lord Derby came in in 1852, “At last we have got a _status_,” -he said; “I feel like a young girl going to her first ball.” - -[28] British Museum Add. MS. 34,645, f. 19. - -[29] In _The Press_ Disraeli illustrates this historical fact with -infinite knowledge in a remarkable passage. - -[30] In 1850, 1852, 1855, and 1859. - -[31] Like most of the Peelites, Mr. Gladstone was not proof against -a certain air of over-righteous condescension and patronage. Even in -the ’sixties he notes in his diary that, meeting Disraeli at a time -of trial, he extended his hand, which was “kindly accepted.” But -he honestly admired his gifts, and in 1859 generously disdained to -“bargain” him “out of the saddle.” - -[32] Not only convictions, but tactics also. Mr. Gladstone often blamed -actions in others which he afterwards adopted; Disraeli never did. I -subjoin a few instances. In 1852 he blamed Disraeli’s budget-proposal -for repealing half the malt tax; he himself afterwards repealed the -whole. In 1867 he blamed Disraeli’s first introduction of the Reform -Act by resolutions; next year he did the same with his Irish Church -Bill. In 1869 he severely blamed Disraeli for resigning without meeting -Parliament; in 1874 he himself followed suit. - -[33] Some of the best in his earliest speeches are derived from “Don -Quixote.” - -[34] Letters to the Whigs, _The Press_, May 7, 1853. - -[35] Letters to the Whigs, _The Press_, May 14, 1853. - -[36] Disraeli always insisted on the indispensability of the party -system. As he pointed out of Bolingbroke, so in his own case, the -idea of a “national” party had to be accommodated to conservatism. -Gladstone, too, said of Peel, in 1846, that “to abjure party was -impossible” (Morley, i. 295; _cf._ Disraeli’s _Life of Lord George -Bentinck_, p. 224). After repeal was carried, Peel gave great offence -to his followers--and especially to Mr. Gladstone--by singling out its -illustrious and original champion for praise. - -[37] “As for the Irish bill on which he had turned Peel out, it was one -of the worst of all coercion bills; Peel, with 117 followers, evidently -could not have carried on the Government, and what sense could there -have been in voting for a bad bill in order to retain in office an -impossible Ministry?”--He might have added that the bill--supported -some months earlier by Lord John and Lord G. Bentinck--under protest -as only excusable through urgency, was delayed by Peel to carry the -repeal, until its necessity had vanished. - -[38] He said (1846): “... It was no wonder they (the Protectionists) -regarded themselves as betrayed, and unfortunately it had been the -fate of Sir R. Peel to perform the same operation twice.” From the -party standpoint there was abundant justification. Gladstone in old age -declared that “Disraeli’s brilliant philippics surpassed even their -reputation, and that, under their lash, Peel sat powerless.” _Cf._ -Morley’s “Gladstone,” i. 296, iii. 465. “Dealt with them with a kind -of righteous dulness”--“The Protectionist secession due to three men. -Derby contributed prestige; Bentinck backbone; and Dizzy parliamentary -brains.” The real fault found with Disraeli by his enemies (but -afterwards) was that he “did not care a straw” for Protection. The -reader must judge after my two next chapters. - -[39] It was a sail, however, that could not bear being crossed by -contrary winds. From youth upwards Gladstone could never brook -opposition. - -[40] In 1831 Sir Henry Bulwer--_teste_ Mr. Frederick Greenwood--was -asked by his famous brother to meet his marvellous new friend at -dinner. The company was all young, ambitious, and able; yet all agreed -that their master was “the man in the green trousers.” Perhaps they -were not quite so green as Sir Henry’s recollection painted them. - -[41] The title of “Beaconsfield,” long before foreshadowed in _Vivian -Grey_, was adopted in homage to the abode of Burke. - -[42] This phrase was used by Disraeli in a speech of the ’fifties. Its -origin, though not its phrasing, is to be found in Bolingbroke. - -[43] His conviction, however, that our Lord came to fulfil, not to -abolish, was directly derived from his father’s “Genius of Judaism.” - -[44] I am informed, through the kindness of my friend Mr. George -Russell, that the original of “Theodora” was one Madame Mario, _née_ -Jessie White. - -[45] “Shelley and Lord Beaconsfield.” Blackwood, 1881. For private -circulation. Only twenty-five copies printed. - -[46] Canning’s ideas on variety of representation influenced Disraeli. - -[47] It must be remembered that in 1833 the Radicals were a very small -band, and differed vastly from their successors of the Manchester -School. They were thoroughly discontented with the middle-class -legislation of the Reform Bill, and they were violently opposed to -the Whig pretensions to popular emancipation. Disraeli shared these -feelings. - -[48] It should be remembered that in the brilliant characterisation -of Bolingbroke in Disraeli’s _Letter to Lord Lyndhurst_, he says, -“that despite the Whig affectation of popular sympathies, and the Tory -admiration of arbitrary power, Bolingbroke penetrated appearances, and -perceived that the choice really lay ‘between oligarchy and democracy.’” - -[49] A sentence from his appeal to Mr. Gladstone in 1859. - -[50] _The Press_, June 11, 1853. The whole series is full of great -strokes; and there is also a critique on the dividing periods of -English history, which is most bold and original. - -[51] _Vide_ “Chartism,” p. 35. - -[52] _Contarini Fleming._ For a like passage of about the same date, -_cf._ _ante_, p. 48. - -[53] And _cf._ _post_ at the opening of Chapter VI. - -[54] _The Spirit of Whiggism._ - -[55] _Cf._ his fine speech on “Agricultural Distress,” April 29, 1879. -He urged the same, almost in the same words, on February 17, 1863. - -[56] Letter to Lord Lyndhurst. So, too, in his early _Spirit of -Whiggism_. In a speech of 1865 he defines an Estate as “a political -body invested with political power for the government of the country -and for the public good,” and “therefore a body founded upon -_privilege_ and not upon _right_,” and “in the noblest and properest -sense of the term an _aristocratic_ body.” Under the Plantagenets it -was at one time mooted whether the _Law_ should not be raised into -such an “Estate.” He says the same in a letter of explanation to Lord -Malmesbury. - -[57] “Our constituent body should be _numerous_ enough to be -independent, and _select_ enough to be responsible.” In 1865 he -distinguished between the constitution, absorbing the best from each -class, and a “democracy”--“the tyranny of one class.” - -[58] _Runnymede Letters._ - -[59] In 1733 Walpole objected to the repeal of the Septennial Act -precisely on the grounds that it would involve over-confidence in the -people, and democratise England. - -[60] “... He (Pitt) created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with -the patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat -graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched -them from the counting-houses of Cornhill....”--_Sybil._ - -[61] The motion was designed to throw the burden of taxation on land. -Disraeli showed that land was no monopoly, while it remained a security -for good government; and that the rental of property in Great Britain, -if equally divided among its proprietors, would only amount to £170 as -an average annual income per head. - -[62] “... But thanks to parliamentary patriotism, the people of England -were saved from Ship-money, which money the wealthy paid, and only -got in its stead the customs and the excise, which the poor mainly -supply....”--_Sybil._ - -[63] “... Burke effected for the Whigs what Bolingbroke in a preceding -age had done for the Tories: he restored the moral existence of the -party. He taught them to recur to the ancient principles of their -connection.... He raised the tone of their public discourse; he -breathed a high spirit into their public acts....”--_Ibid._ - -[64] “... In my time” (said Mr. Ormsby) “... a proper majority was a -third of the House. That was Lord Liverpool’s majority. Lord Monmouth -used to say that there were ten families in this country who, if they -could only agree, could always share the government. Ah! those were the -good old times!...” - -[65] That this object was of direct design is proved by a -correspondence of Cobden with Sir Robert Peel. - -[66] In a speech of 1864, Disraeli said: “... For my own part, -believing that parliamentary government is practically impossible -without two organised parties, that without them it would be the most -contemptible and corrupt system which could be devised, I always regret -anything that may damage the just influence of either of the great -parties in the State.” - -[67] The great depression of 1847-51 was not wholly caused by the -fiscal change. It was largely due to reaction after the railway mania, -as Disraeli pointed out in a speech of 1879. It was followed by a rise -in wages, due, not to Free Trade, but to the large imports of newly -discovered gold; and by an increased purchasing power which _was_ due -to Peel’s large abatements of the tariff. - -[68] It should be borne in mind that Disraeli sometimes employs the -words “aristocracy” and “democracy” to mean the order of aristocrats -and democrats, sometimes to mean the systems of exclusion and -inclusion, sometimes to mean the government by the best and by the -miscellaneous, and oftener as indicating elements in our Constitution. - -[69] This phrase is American, and refers to the democrat extremists, -conduct in Tammany Hall in 1834. The same year had seen the invention -of the “self-lighting” cigar. - -[70] At that time, under the full spell of the analogy which the age -of Walpole presented, he believed that triennial parliaments and the -ballot might redress the balance of constitutional power and foil the -oligarchs who had baffled the people by espousing a popular cry. In -1852, however, he said, with regard to those proposals brought forward -by Mr. Hume: “... He did not object to them, but he saw no necessity -to adopt them. His objections to the latter were distinctly founded -on the limits of the franchise which the settlement of 1832 had not -sufficiently extended, but ... if they had universal suffrage they came -to a new constitution--a constitution commonly called the ‘Sovereignty -of the People,’ but that is not the Constitution of England; for, -wisely modified as that monarchy may be, the Constitution of England is -the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.” - -[71] _Cf._ speech, May 18, 1871. The Whigs, who in 1843 called it “a -fungus of monopoly,” worked and upheld it afterwards as “Liberals.” Now -that a democracy and an Empire are being “run” at the same time, its -permanence, for many years questioned, seems assured. - -[72] This preluded the “Lodger franchise,” of which, in 1867, Disraeli -said he had been “the father” (_cf._ p. 108). - -[73] _Cf._ p. 109. - -[74] This once more is emphasised by De Tocqueville as the essence of -centralisation. - -[75] _Cf._ Morley’s “Gladstone,” vol. i. p. 262. - -[76] _Cf._ the passage from _The Press_, cited _ante_, p. 7 note, and -_post_ at opening of Chapter VI. - -[77] Bishop Latimer--quoted as motto to _Sybil_. - -[78] Book iv. ch. iv.: “... To be a noble Master among noble Workers -will again be the first ambition with some few; to be a rich Master -only the second.” - -[79] “Sidonia” stands for several types in addition to Disraeli’s own. -“Oswald Millbank” is in part painted from the young Gladstone. Most of -the other characters in _Coningsby_ are familiarly ascribed to their -originals. - -[80] This phrase he twice repeats; the first time in that fine speech -at the Manchester Athenæum (1844), on the “Acquirement of Knowledge,” -which expressed his undying sympathy with the ideals, perplexities, and -possibilities of youth. - -[81] This was the speech in which he said that Gladstone founded “a -great measure on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always -back to the tea-kettle.” - -[82] The rise in wages and prices about 1851 was mainly due not to -“Free Trade,” but to the influx of newly discovered gold. In 1842, when -Peel was revising the tariff, bread was actually cheaper than it had -been for many years previously, or till 1849 afterwards. In 1851 corn -had sunk to about 40_s._, nearly 8_s._ lower than Peel had contemplated -as possible. The immediate results of repeal were not the cheapening -of bread; but the sudden cheapening of commodities _was_ effected by -Peel’s revision of the tariff. In 1851, however, all other agricultural -produce but wheat was at fair prices, and Disraeli then wrote, “It is -possible that agriculture may flourish without a high price of wheat or -without producing any” (_Correspondence_, p. 262). - -[83] “... A large system of commercial intercourse on the principle of -reciprocal advantage.” - -[84] The land was promised compensation, but received none worth the -name. It was deluded by vague promises of actual benefit under the new -system. Peel even asserted that corn would never fall under forty-eight -shillings per quarter. - -It is often forgotten that in 1843 Peel favoured a preferential tariff -for Canada, and that both he and Gladstone were then for Canadian -“retaliation” on America. - -[85] It is only the old evil of over-production and “glut in the -market.” While England was still the main manufacturer and exporter, -she herself periodically “dumped,” and suffered from the process. - -[86] A satirical passage in his very early _Popanilla_ may be compared. - -[87] These he had long before predicted, and his forecast that they -would cause some of the prosperity of manufacture, apart from “Free -Trade,” has come true. - -[88] “History of Israel,” vol. iv. p. 286. - -[89] That the Church was “a main obstacle to oligarchical power,” -Disraeli pointed out as early as in his _Runnymede Letters_. - -[90] Answer to “Eikon Basilike.” - -[91] “The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Commonwealth.” - -[92] Here we find an early beginning of “the Venetian oligarchy.” - -[93] These paradoxes, like “Sidonia’s,” have been constantly proved -true. I may mention a fantastic description of a sculptured Eastern -cavern, which recent discovery has confirmed. - -[94] _Cf._ _Vivian Grey_. This idea is derived from Bolingbroke’s -philosophical works. - -[95] A very favourite idea of Disraeli’s, and the source of his -disbelief in any “equality of man.” _Cf._ “All is race” in _Coningsby_, -and the passage already quoted in my second chapter from _Contarini -Fleming_. So again in the Preface to _Lothair_, “One of the -consequences of the Divine government of this world, which has ordained -that the sacred purposes should be effected by the instrumentality of -various human races, must be occasionally a jealous discontent with the -revelation entrusted to a particular family.... The documents will yet -bear a greater amount both of erudition and examination than they have -received; but the Word of God is eternal, and will survive the spheres.” - -[96] “... What is styled Materialism is in the ascendant. To those who -believe that an Atheistical society, though it may be polished and -amiable, involves the seeds of anarchy, the prospect is full of gloom.” - -[97] “... Let us at length discover that no society can long subsist -that is based upon metaphysical absurdities.... Before me is a -famous treatise on human nature by a Professor of Königsberg. No -one has more profoundly meditated on the attributes of his subject. -It is evident that in the deep study of his own intelligence he has -discovered a noble method of expounding that of others. Yet when I -close his volumes, can I conceal from myself that all this time I -have been studying a treatise upon the nature--not of man, but of a -German?”--_Contarini Fleming._ - -[98] The hackneyed _mot_ of “Sensible men never tell” is derived from -_Voltaire_. - -[99] In the Preface to _Lothair_ he says:--“The sceptical efforts of -the discoveries of science, and the uneasy feeling that they cannot -co-exist with our old religious convictions, have their origin in the -conviction that the general body who have suddenly become conscious of -these physical truths are not so well acquainted as is desirable with -the past history of man. Astonished by their unprepared emergence from -ignorance to a certain degree of information, their amazed intelligence -takes refuge in the theory of what is conveniently called Progress, and -every step in scientific discovery seems further to remove them from -the path of primæval inspiration. But there is no fallacy so flagrant -as to suppose that the modern ages have the peculiar privilege of -scientific discovery, or that they are distinguished as the epochs of -the most illustrious inventions. No one for a moment can pretend that -printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra as language. -What are the most brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with -the invention of fire and the metals? It is a vulgar belief that our -astronomical knowledge dates only from the recent century, when it was -rescued from the monks who imprisoned Galileo. But Hipparchus, who -lived before our Divine Master ... discovered the precession of the -equinoxes; and Copernicus ... avows himself as only the champion of -Pythagoras.... Even the most modish schemes of the day on the origin of -things ... will be found mainly to rest on the atom of Epicurus and the -monad of Thales. Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the -beginning been descending from heaven to man....” So, too, in a speech -of 1861, dealing both with science and the higher criticism, “Epicurus -was, I apprehend, as great a man as Hegel; but it was not Epicurus who -subverted the religion of Olympus.” - -[100] Probably always in England. In France the reverse is happening. - -[101] This idea is, among other speeches, worked out in that delivered -at Amersham, December 4, 1860, where he says: “The parish is one of -the strongest securities for local government, and on local government -mainly depends our political liberty.” He points out that the Church is -not oligarchical, and does not claim those exclusive privileges which -the Nonconformists often do. It is national in its comprehensive ties -with the country and its inclusiveness. The abolition of the parish -system would alone prove a national and social upheaval. - -[102] This policy was pressed by Peel in the early ’forties, and led to -the fine work of the National Schools. - -[103] That of Strauss. - -[104] In the Croker Papers will be found a masterly letter from Sir -Robert Peel on the importance of the Church rising to her educational -opportunities. It was Peel’s foresight that produced the National -Schools. Peel, though latitudinarian, was a Church statesman. - -[105] I may add that what Disraeli resented in Gladstone’s thwarted -proposals for his Catholic University scheme was that it sought -to exclude theology and philosophy--an exception unworthy of any -“Universitas rerum,” and deeply repugnant to the Catholics. - -[106] Letter to D. O’Connell, 1835. - -[107] This has been elaborately developed by Bolingbroke in his -“Philosophical Works.” - -[108] How true this has now proved itself in France! - -[109] Elsewhere Disraeli said that Paris always remains a republic. - -[110] It will be noticed that Sir Robert goes beyond Disraeli’s ideas -of direct kingship. - -[111] In 1872, Disraeli said, after stating that Lord Derby’s successor -was no enemy to Russian aggression, “... I speak of what I know, not -of what I believe, but of what I have evidence in my possession to -prove, _that the Crimean War would never have happened if Lord Derby -had remained in office_....” Lord Derby’s error in resigning in 1853 -he always deplored; just as he regretted equally his rash acceptance -of office during the previous year, and his more fatal timidity in -shrinking from assuming it in 1855. - -[112] This passage was written before the events of 1903. - -[113] This was realised some ten years later by the repeal of the Sugar -Duties. - -[114] The speech about Income Tax, which contains another masterly -analysis of the displacement of labour. Previously, in 1845, he -had said of Canada, “... I am not one of those who think that its -inevitable lot is to become annexed to the United States. Canada has -all the elements of a great and independent country, and is destined, I -sometimes believe, to be the Russia of the New World.” - -[115] “Ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀπολώλεκ’ ἀλλὰ καταπεφρόντικα.” - -[116] It will be remembered that in _Coningsby_ “Rigby’s” election -speech called everything with which he disagreed “un-English.” -Dickens’s satire of the misuse of “un-English” in the person of -“Podsnap” may be compared. - -[117] “Light and leading,” which Disraeli employed long before the -famous letter to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in a speech of 1858, -comes of course from Burke. His theory of the House of Lords in 1861 as -“an intermediate body” is derived from Bolingbroke and Burke. “Peace -with honour” he employed in one of his Crimean speeches. Many of his -phrases were derived from the works of his father. - -[118] He had in an earlier speech considered this question with regard -to Canada. - -[119] This very phrase was repeated by Lord Beaconsfield in 1876. - -[120] This point is admirably elucidated by Mr. Ewald in his “Life and -Times of Lord Beaconsfield.” - -[121] Chiefly that of the Turkish frontier in Europe, and of the -Russian in Asia. - -[122] A most interesting collection might be made of Disraeli’s ready -and fluent illustration by precedents. For of precedent his memory was -quite as retentive as Gladstone’s. In his famous Address to the Crown -of 1864, he was sharply blamed for referring to “the just influence -of England being lowered” in the extraordinary tangle of alternate -brag and whimper that attended the Government’s action in the Danish -embroilment. This language was solemnly declared “unprecedented since -the great days of the Norths and the Foxes.” But Disraeli instantly -proved that Fox himself had used language in his own Address far more -violent and censorious of the Ministry in 1846. So, again, on at least -two occasions when the phrases “political morality” and “political -infamy” were bandied for partisan purposes, he effectively hurled -back the taunts in the teeth of their inventors, and refuted present -profession by past conduct. When Palmerston again twitted him, in 1846, -he received a reminder which brought home the jaunty service of seven -successive Administrations, and all this, though he never attacked -small game, and never any “unless he had been first assailed.” In the -earlier numbers of _The Press_ are many most interesting historical -instances of how “principles” may be confused with “measures,” when -the latter have to be relinquished in office from the practical duty -of _carrying on the Government_, while at the same time the former can -be developed in other directions when the national condemnation of the -particular measure is deliberate. So Fox had acted towards Catholic -emancipation, Russell towards the Appropriation Bill, the Whigs in -the ’forties towards the Income Tax, and Disraeli in 1852 towards -“Protection.” So, he argued in many previous utterances, the principle -must now be followed by relieving the land, now placed under unfair -conditions of competition, of its burdens. - -[123] Of Disraeli’s Indian policy this much may here be noted. While -allowing Russia to expand where she was entitled or compelled by war, -or allowed by opening intrigues, he wished to baffle her as against -Great Britain. - - (1) By an independent Afghanistan, with a proper frontier and its - Indian “gates” barred. - - (2) By preventing Russia through Turkestan’s approaches to Afghan - and Persia’s eastern border. - - (3) By precluding her from Persia’s western border through the - regions of the Euphrates Valley, (_a_) through making Turkey - compact in Asia (Erzeroum and Bayazid); (_b_) through Cyprus - guarding the Mediterranean approaches. - -[124] “... Do you think a man like that, called upon to deal with -a Metternich or a Pozzo, has no advantage over an individual who -never leaves his chair in Downing Street except to kill grouse? -Pah! Metternich and Pozzo know very well that Lord Roehampton knows -them....” “Roehampton” is Palmerston. The prophecy of the Congress -repeats one in _Contarini_. - -[125] Of the many passages that may be read in this connection, -including that fine ironical one of the Feast of Tabernacles in -_Tancred_, paralleled by that about “Moses Lump” in Heine, and the -telling chapter in the _Life of Lord George Bentinck_, I will only -cite one less familiar from _Alroy_: “... All was silent: alone -the Hebrew prince stood, amid the regal creation of the Macedonian -captains. Empires and dynasties flourish and pass away; the proud -metropolis becomes a solitude, the conquering kingdom even a desert; -but Israel still remains, still a descendant of the most ancient kings -breathed amid these royal ruins, and still the eternal sun could never -arise without gilding the towers of living Jerusalem.” This (with -its after-irony of “Alroy’s” seizure by the Kourdish bandits) may be -compared with the satire in which Disraeli encountered Mr. Newdegate’s -appeals to “prophecy:” “... They have survived the Pharaohs, they -have survived the Cæsars, they have survived the Antonines and the -Seleucidæ, and I think they will survive the arguments of the right -honourable member....” Mr. Morley tells that Mr. Gladstone said that -Disraeli asserted that only those nations that behaved well to the Jews -prospered. Disraeli, in saying so, however, only repeated a _dictum_ of -Frederick the Great. - -[126] “Say what they like,” so “Herbert” in _Venetia_, “there is a -spell in the shores of the Mediterranean Sea which no others can rival. -Never was such a union of natural loveliness and magical associations! -On these shores have risen all that interests us in the past--Egypt and -Palestine, Greece, Rome, and Carthage, Moorish Spain and feudal Italy. -These shores have yielded us our religion, our arts, our literature, -and our laws. If all that we have gained from the shores of the -Mediterranean was erased from the memory of man, we should be savages.” - -[127] It was translated into Greek, as _Alroy_ was into Hebrew. - -[128] He mentions it both in his _Home Letters_ and in _Tancred_ as to -be acquired by England. - -[129] In 1878, Disraeli, after emphasising the Sultan’s friendliness to -Greece and the value of a Græco-Turk _entente_ as a bar to “Pan-Slavic -monopoly,” said: “... No prince, probably, that has ever lived has -gone through such a series of catastrophes. One of his predecessors -commits suicide; his immediate predecessor is subject to a visitation -even more awful. The moment he ascends the throne, his ministers are -assassinated. A conspiracy breaks out in his own palace, and then he -learns that his kingdom is invaded, ... and that his enemy is at his -gates; yet with all these trials, ... he has never swerved in ... the -feeling of a desire to deal with Greece in a spirit of friendship.... -He is apparently a man whose ... impulses are good, ... and where -impulses are good, there is always hope.” - -[130] _Cf._ his _Life of Lord George Bentinck_, p. 170. - -[131] This was the speech in which Disraeli styled himself as not only -a devoted parliamentarian, but “a gentleman of the Press.” - -[132] Disraeli always maintained that the expulsion of Louis Philippe -was the act of the secret societies, and not that of the French nation. -He had reason to know. His letters in 1848 are full of gloom regarding -the outlook in Europe. So were Carlyle’s. - -[133] _Life of Lord George Bentinck_ (1852). - -[134] “... The end of their system ... is the glory of the empire and -the prosperity of the people.” - -[135] Disraeli was always careful to distinguish between -“revolution”--a permanent upheaval, and “insurrection”--a transitory -outburst. Thus he expressly terms the continental movements of 1848, -“insurrections.” - -[136] Though published in 1836, it was written considerably earlier. - -[137] Explaining, in 1835, his phrase that “the Whigs had grasped the -bloody hand of O’Connell,” Disraeli said: “I mean that they had formed -an alliance with one whose policy was hostile to the preservation of -the country, who threatens us with a dismemberment of the empire, which -cannot take place without a civil war.” - -[138] _Cf._ the “passionate carelessness” in “the old state of affairs” -of “this experimental chapter in our history” in the speech of March, -1869. On the “Maynooth Grant” question, also, he observed, in 1846, -that the boons offered to the Roman Catholics were, that “two should -sleep in a bed instead of three.” - -[139] Eight years before, Disraeli had written in the trenchant -slap-dash of his _Runnymede Letters_: “... Then, Ireland must be -tranquillised. So I think. Feed the poor and hang the agitators. That -will do it. But that’s not your way. It is the _destruction_ of the -English and Protestant interest that is the Whig specific for Irish -tranquillity.” - -[140] He was alluding to Lord Derby’s earlier efforts. And again, in -another speech: “... The principles of our policy were, first, to -create and not destroy; and, secondly, to acknowledge that you could -not in any more effectual way strengthen the Protestant interest than -by doing justice to the Roman Catholics.” - -[141] He pointed out that England experienced both Norman and Dutch -conquests; and that if Cromwell conquered Ireland, he conquered England -too. - -[142] “... Fenianism now is not rampant; we think we have gauged its -lowest depths, and we are not afraid of it” (Speech, April 3, 1868). -As regards coercion, he always maintained that proved sedition alone -justified it. - -[143] He wrote that the question of the Church in Ireland was one -totally without the pale of modern politics. His programme also at the -dissolution breathed not a word on the subject. - -[144] Rogers is mentioned in the very young Disraeli’s _Infernal -Marriage--“The Pleasures of Oblivion_. The poet, apparently, is fond of -his subject.” - -[145] He lost his life in restoring Ely Cathedral. He designed a -portion of Belgrave Square. When Disraeli was at last returned to -Parliament, he wrote to his sister, “So much for Uncle G. and his -‘maddest of mad acts.’” - -[146] He mentions several less familiar among the ancients. For -instance, John of Padua in _Endymion_. - -[147] In a letter of the late ’forties to his sister, he says with -surprise that Croker (who disclaimed having read it) should have -greeted him with effusion. In the same correspondence he repeats a -_mot_ that the two most disgusting things in life--because you cannot -deny them--are Warrender’s wealth, and Croker’s talents. - -[148] When they met, Sir Walter treated him with cordiality; -nevertheless, in one of his late letters he styles him “_un vieux -crapaud_.” - -[149] In 1761 he was even bankrupt. _Cf._ British Museum. Add. MS. -36,191, f. 8. - -[150] Theodore Hook is the original of “Lucian Gay” in _Coningsby_. - -[151] His acquaintance seems to have been made through “Platonist -Taylor,” who gave literary symposia. - -[152] In Spain he rescued a lady from robbers. On the Ægean he armed -and drilled the crew against pirates. In Palestine, with difficulty and -courage, he forced his way into the Mosque of Omar. In Egypt a pacha -asked him to draft a constitution. - -[153] _Cf._ British Museum Add. MS. 34,616, f. 45. I have referred to -this in Chapter I. - -[154] “Sure you were to find yourself surrounded by celebrities, -and men were welcomed there if they were clever, before they were -famous, which showed it was a house that regarded intellect, and did -not seek merely to gratify its vanity by being surrounded by the -distinguished.”--_Coningsby._ - -[155] _Vivian Grey._ - -[156] He liked to descant on the fast-fading and now vanished political -Salon. That of “Lady St. Julians,” who “was not likely to forget -her friends,” will be recalled by perusers of _Sybil_. In a Glasgow -speech--recently revived by an evening journal--he praised, with -admiration, Lady Palmerston’s, where diplomatists, at loggerheads with -the minister, could meet him in the neutral zone of his gifted wife’s -catholic hospitality. - -[157] “Great as might have been the original errors of Herbert ... they -might, in the first instance, be traced rather to a perverted view of -society than of himself.” - -[158] Byron also figures in _Ixion_. “All is mystery, and all is -gloom, and ever and anon, from out the clouds a star breaks forth and -glitters, and that star is Poetry.” - -[159] This recalls us to the ’thirties. In a letter to his sister he -mentions the wineglass shape as a new receptacle for champagne. - -[160] It may, however, refer to a certain Lady Sykes. - -[161] There is another similar passage so early as in _Popanilla_, -which says that “... there were those who paradoxically held all this -Elysian morality was one of great delusion, and that this scrupulous -anxiety about the conduct of others arose from a principle, not of -_Purity_, but _Corruption_. The woman who is “talked about,” these -sages would affirm, is generally virtuous....” But the allusion may -here be to Queen Caroline. - -[162] _Coningsby._ - -[163] _Venetia_; _The Young Duke_. - -[164] _Ibid._ - -[165] _Ibid._ - -[166] The brilliant Mr. T. P. O’Connor, in the first edition of -a “Biography” (which, perhaps, now he regrets), troubled himself -to search out and enumerate the writs out against Disraeli in the -early ’thirties. Most of his debts were for elections and “backing” -his friends’ bills. From friends he never borrowed; always from -“Levison’s.” _Vivian Grey_ was originally written to defray a debt. - -[167] Levison offers the required advance, £700 in cash, £800 in coals. -The captain expostulates, and is answered: “Lord! my dear Captin, £800 -worth of coals is a mere nothink. With your connection you will get -rid of them in a morning. All you have got to do ... is to give your -friends an order on us, and we will let you have cash at a little -discount.... Three or four friends would do the thing.... Why, ’tayn’t -four hundred chaldron, Captin.... Baron Squash takes ten thousand of us -every year; but he has such a knack; _he gits the clubs to take them_.” - -[168] It was written 1830-31. - -[169] This quality is noticeable in his descriptions: Jerusalem -at noon--“A city of stone in a land of iron with a sky of brass.” -Seville--“Figaro in every street, Rosina on every balcony.” _Cf._ p. -304. - -[170] It will be recalled that in opposing the Burials Bill, which he -treated with respect, Disraeli, after expounding the parish rights -in the churchyard, said, “I must confess that, were I a Dissenter -contemplating burial, I should do so with feelings of the utmost -satisfaction.” - -[171] _Cf._ _The Infernal Marriage_--“Are there any critics in Hell?” -“Myriads,” rejoined the ex-King of Lydia. There is a kindred remark in -one of Landor’s Dialogues. - -[172] From Swift, however. - -[173] See his “Literary Character; or, The History of Men of Genius.” - -[174] One of the best is the invective against the collapse of Peel’s -“sliding scale:”--“... Of course the Whigs will be the chief mourners; -they cannot but weep for their innocent, though it was an abortion. But -ours was a fine child. Who can forget how its nurse dandled and fondled -it? ‘What a charming babe! Delicious little thing! So thriving! Did -you ever see such a beauty for its years?’ And then the nurse, in a -fit of patriotic frenzy, dashes its brains out, and comes down to give -master and mistress an account of this terrible murder. The nurse too, -a person of a very orderly demeanour, not given to drink, and never -showing any emotion, except of late when kicking against protection.” - -[175] The late Duke of Abercorn. - -[176] Of his verse I have not treated. No reader, however, of his fine -sonnet on the Duke of Wellington, inscribed in the Stowe album, or of -the wistful lyric addressed from the Ægean to his family in the _Home -Letters_, or of the “Bignetta” rondel in the _Young Duke_, with its -Heinesque close, or even of “Spring in the Apennines” from _Venetia_, -can doubt his genuine gift for poetry and metre. - -[177] “The art of poetry was to express natural feelings in unnatural -language.”--_Contarini._ - -[178] In five volumes. Its original dedication ran:-- - - “To the Best and Greatest of Men. - He for whom it is intended will accept and appreciate the compliment, - Those for whom it is not intended will do the same.” - -[179] _Vivian Grey._ - -[180] _Contarini Fleming._ - -[181] _Venetia._ - -[182] _Cf._ Bolingbroke’s “Compare the situations without comparing the -characters.” - -[183] This idea was emphasised by Bolingbroke. - -[184] Hume’s election support, the challenge of O’Connell, the -cultivation of Chandos, the “Canning” episode, the surrender of -“protection,” and the delay in producing the Indian despatches, -respectively. - -[185] Notably in 1855. - -[186] This is told in one of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s “Diaries.” - -[187] It is noticeable, as regards the habitual recurrence of his -phrases, that in his early letters he always nicknames this first -illness “the enemy,” the same as he used to his physicians in his last. -His early ill health quickened his continual sympathy with suffering. -No better instance could be read than his speech at the opening of the -Hospital for Consumption, with his beautiful references to Jenny Lind, -as song ministering to sorrow. - -[188] At Berlin Bismarck said of him, “Disraeli _is_ England.” His -translated works were, and I believe are, read widely abroad. - - - - -INDEX - - - Addington, 82 - - Addison, 286 - - Afghanistan, 215 _et seq._ and _n._ 1 - - Ali Pacha, 271 - - America, on primitive and Puritans, 250; - “landed” democracy, 67, 91, _n._ 1, 246, 251; - Canadian “retaliation” on, 136, _n._ 1; - Church, 148-152, 204, 244; - Disraeli’s discernment regarding, 48, 234, 246-247; - civil war would transform colonial into imperial spirit, 247-250; - Anglophobia, his wise distinctions as to, 250-253; - Fenianism, insight regarding, 253-256; - the negro difficulty, 251; - manners, 283; - Disraeli on marriage in, 287; - manners, 283 - - Antonelli, 175 - - Austen, Jane, 302, 305 - - Austin, Mrs., 10, 23, 31, 270 - - Austria, 208, 226, 240; - Disraeli’s attitude towards, 241, 291 - - - Baring, Thomas, 269 - - Basevi, George, 269 - - ----, Nathaniel (alluded to), 269 - - Baumer (valet), (alluded to), 26 - - Beaumarchais, 309 - - Bentinck, Lord G., 41, _n._ 1, 42, _n._ 1, 304 - - Berlin Congress, 45, 217, 227, 231, 235, 239; - Disraeli at, 326, _n._ 1 - - Bismarck, Prince, 45, 241, 326, _n._ 1 - - Blessington, Lady, 47, 271, _n._ 2; - Disraeli on, 277 and notes - - Bliss, Dr. (antiquarian), 269 - - Bolingbroke, Lord, 3; - Disraeli’s clue, 11, 24, 25, _n._ 1, 46, 51, _n._ 2, 72, 83, - _n._ 2; - Utrecht Treaty, 129, 130, 172, _n._ 2; - ideas of monarchy--their influence on Disraeli, 194-198, 203, - _n._ 2, 206, 234, 259 - - Borthwick, 125 - - Bowring, Sir J., 221 - - Brandes, 9 - - Bright, John, 98, 109, (1879) 206; - and Gladstone, 207-208; - his tribute to Disraeli, 247 - - British Columbia (1858), 200 - - Brontës, the, 301 - - Brooks, Shirley, 25, _n._ 1 - - Brougham, Lord, 51 - - Browning, R., 313 - - Bryce, Rt. Hon. J., 9, 247 - - Buckingham, Duke of, 271 - - Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, 225, 226 _et seq._; - the two portions only repieced through the “autonomy” implanted by - Disraeli in one of them, 227 - - Bulwer, Sir H., 43, _n._ - - Burke, Edmund, 3, 25, 44, _n._, 46, 55, 67, 72, 83, _n._ 2, 194, - 198, 203, _n._ 2, 280 - - Burney, Frances, 268 - - Byron, Lord, 47, 183, 270, 275; - Disraeli on, 276; - in _Ixion_, 276, _n._ 1; - “Cadurcis,” 293, 321; - quoted, 15 - - - Canada, 136, _n._ 1, 137, 200 and _n._ 2, 206, _n._ 1, 247, 250 - - Canning, 3, 25; - dedication to, 48, 55, 195, 198 - - Cape, the, 201, 213 - - Carlyle, Thomas, 34, 35, 58, 125, 126; - identity of ideas with Disraeli’s, 62, 77, 85-92, 119, - 238, _n._ 1; - picturesque, 303; - style, 313 - - Carnarvon, Lord, 213 - - Caroline, Queen, 24, _n._ 4, 277, _n._ 2 - - Castlereagh, Lord, “solidarity of Europe,” 209 - - Cervantes, 293 - - Chartism, 11, 61, 87, 106; - Disraeli’s sympathy with Chartists in 1840, 113; - in 1852 ... 26, _n._ 1 - - Chatham, Lord, 3; - Disraeli on, 24, 74, 195, 200; - empire, 208 - - China, 221, 234 - - Church, 69, 70, 90; - one of the problems, 1830-40 ... 113, 125; - and “Labour,” 126, 127, 129; - Disraeli’s historical and social ideas on Church and Theocracy, - 145-156; - Anglicanism and Puritanism, 149, 152-155; - undoing of national Church a disaster for Nonconformists, 153-154; - attitude to latter, 163-165; - science, materialism, indifferentism, “higher” criticism, - rationalism, 156-158, 165-166; - Ritualism, 170; - education (_q.v._), 167-169; - discipline, 169-170; - Romanism, 171-178; - “The great house of Israel,” 179; - “Corybantic Christianity,” 174; - Radicalism, Liberalism, and Romanism, 175, (1836) 184; - Irish, 262-266 - - Churchill, Lord Randolph, 286 - - Clanricarde, Lady, 295 - - Clay, J., 270 - - Cobbett, 105 - - Cobden, R., 34; - and Gladstone, 40, _n._ 2, 86, 238 - - Coleridge, S. T., 125 - - Colonies, 32, 49, 51; - Disraeli’s early interest in, 199; - federations and constitutions, 201; - critical state of home feeling regarding, 1839-53, 201; - effect of democracy on, 202; - Disraeli’s important pronouncements regarding, 203-206; - Gladstone’s and Bright’s policy contrasted, 207 _et seq._; - self-government, 207-214; - and America, 250-252 - - Copley, Sarah, 22, 270 - - Cowper, W. (poet), quoted, 13; - empire, 208, 245 - - Croker, 269 and _n._ 4 - - Cromwell, Oliver, 3; - republican theocracy, 149, 180; - Ireland, 261 - - Currie, Lady, 29 - - - Dante, theocracy, 147 - - Davison, Mr., letter to (quoted), 272 - - Denmark, 213, _n._ 1, 235, 239 - - Derby, Lord, 14, (1852) 25, _n._ 1, 39, 41, _n._ 2, 136-138, (1852 - and 1855) 191, _n._ 1; - on Russian methods, 226; - Ireland, 260, _n._ 1 - - Dickens, Charles, 289; - romance, 302 - - Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield [and _see_ Carlyle, - Colonies, Empire, Reform Bill, America, Ireland, and Foreign - Policy], his idea of Conservatism, 5-8, 39, 204; - a poet and artist, 11, 36; - his early surroundings, 16-18, 268-272; - unique phases of earliest youth, 16, 18, 275, 309-312, 321-325; - distinction between wish for influence and for position, 12; - his mission, 5-7, 12, 49-52, 56, 111, 119, 210; - regrets Lord Derby’s temerity then, as much as his timidity in the - _gran’ rifuto_ of 1855 ... 191, _n._, 213, _n._; - indisposition to take office, 1852 ... 14; - never opportunist: courted unpopularity, _ib._; - “national” attitude, 19, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 66, 68, 84, - 191, _n._, 210; - responsibility and privilege, 7, 13, 95, 98, 107, 144, 210; - utterances to be viewed successively, 20; - described in youth, 22-25; - described in age, 25-27; - debt, 24, 281-282; - gambling, 282; - contradictions in, 46, 47; - reconciliation of, 43, 293; - illness, 23, 311, 324, 325; - love of flowers and forestry, 26; - light and books, _ib._; - influence with Queen, 29; - and art, 19, 30; - manners, 31; - love of London, 31, 307-308; - vigilance, 32, 246; - generosity, 34, 35; - contrasted with Gladstone, 35-42; - scholarship, 36; - love of beauty, 17; - his longsighted plan, 39; - land, labour, democracy, and empire, _ib._; - principles and measures, _ib._; - duties of opposition, 40; - wish for strong government, _ib._, 42, 50, 210, 252; - dislike of bores, 40, 44, 224; - “nationality and race,” 45, 225; - “detachment,” 46; - influence of eighteenth century on, _ib._; - “predisposition,” _ib._; - religious ideas, _ib._; - “feudal and federal principles,” 51, 63; - change and “obsolete opinions,” 51, 81; - French Revolution theories, 58-68, 83, 85, 97, 145; - historical outlook, 73-77, 81-83; - revolutions, 47, 72; - republican plots, 77; - dread of plutocracy, 6, _n._ 3, 77, 111, 115, 129, 202; - universal suffrage, 77-80, 98-104; - gentlemen should prove leaders, 80; - conduct in 1852 ... 39, 40; - store set by landed interest, 68, 71, 86, 95, 114, 135; - languages, 241; - classics, 249; - middle classes, 83, 105, 123-124, 134-135, 251; - efficacy of Parliament (1848), 87; - his principles of representation, 94; - taxation and, 94; - income-tax and middle class, 96; - views prophecies as to social effects of Peel’s changes, 97; - uniform wish throughout for industrial franchise, 98 _et seq._; - “free aristocracy,” 49, 98, 118, 119; - adopted rating principle of Russell in 1854 ... 100; - the consistent train which led to his measure of 1867, 99-101; - counties and boroughs, 100, 104; - wanted democracy as an element, not a class, 101; - “population” and property standards, 101-104; - wish for variety in representation, 98, 104; - discontent and disaffection, 106; - summary of his ideal for making Toryism “national,” 107; - “household democracy,” 109; - Disraeli’s long consistency, 108-110; - lifelong attitude to Labour, 112-129; - problems of 1830-40 ... 113; - Disraeli’s social outlook on “condition of England” and economical - problems, 114 _et seq._; - upshot of his sympathy with labour (_q.v._), 116 _et seq._, 118, - 119; - vision of a vanishing industrialism, 119; - the spirit of chivalry applicable to labour, 122; - “saviours of society,” 122; - and “Anglicanism,” 126; - he breaks up “Young England” (1845) by pressing home their Church - convictions, 128; - parochial life more important even than political, 127; - his views of “Free Trade” (_q.v._), 131-142; - influence on prices and wages of precious metals, 131, - _n._ 1, 133, 140; - “Reciprocity,” 129, 131, 138, 140; - attitude on Corn Laws, 131-135; - distribution of labour and purchasing power, 113, 131; - Disraeli’s probable attitude towards Mr. Chamberlain’s present - fiscal scheme adumbrated: wholesale plans, retail - applications, 135-141; - consumer and producer, 136; - social, political, spiritual aspects of _Church_ (_q.v._) viewed - from Disraeli’s theocratic bias, 145-179; - Puritanism and Theocracy, 149, 151; - and Ireland, 200; - Aryan and Semitic conceptions, 145 _et seq._; - Anglican Church “part of England,” “one of the few great - things left,” 153; - society, inconceivable without religion, 155; - part played by this attitude in his novels, 155-156; - and science, 156-159; - and revelation by races, 157, _n._ 1; - materialism, 158; - Disraeli’s beliefs, _ib._, 155; - State would lose by severance, 159-163; - “Atheism in domino,” 166; - “Man in masquerade,” 170; - not a “mystic,” 156; - attitude on education (_q.v._), 167-169; - discipline, 169, 170; - universities, 169; - his bias for _Monarchy_, 180-184; - and royal prerogative, 184, 189-192, and fully the whole of Ch. V.; - Royal Titles Bill, 193-194; - cheapness of monarchy, 192; - debt to Bolingbroke’s ideas, 195-198 - _Colonies_ (_q.v._), Disraeli’s zeal and plans for, 198; - Disraeli’s attitude to “millstone” view investigated, 200-203; - “Peace at any price,” 207; - “timidity of capital,” 202; - power of instancing political precedent, 213, _n._ 1; - origin of his title, 44, _n._ - _Empire_ (_q.v._ and _Foreign Policy_), temper of his imperialism, - 209 _et seq._, 245; - principles of his policy illustrated, 210-214, 217-221; - Eastern policy considered, discussed, and illustrated, 222-236; - “the just influence of England,” 235; - diplomacy, 221-222; - Cyprus, 230; - his attitude to France (_q.v._), 235-239; - Germany (_q.v._), 240; - Austria and Italy (_q.v._), 241-243; - Poland, Greece (_q.v._), 243; - pronouncement on militarism with constitutional _forms_, 244; - his farewell to constituents sums up his lifelong aims, and - repeats the phrase, twice used, of his youth, 244-245; - England restored to her due European position, 227, 332; - European concert, 209, 230; - lasting results, 216, 227, 229, 230; - Bulgaria (_q.v._), Eastern Roumelia, and autonomy, 227 - _America_ (_q.v._), early predictions, 48, 246-250; - “revolution” distinguished from “insurrection,” 247, _n._ 1; - must be treated as an imperial power affecting Europe, 234, 248; - the changes produced by her civil war, 248-249; - Disraeli alone recognised the significance of the war, 247; - his discerning treatment of Anglophobia, 250-253; - negro problem, 251; - Fenianism, its true character, 253-256, 261 - _Ireland_ (_q.v._), Disraeli’s early sympathy, and great insight - into true difficulties of, 256, 261; - distinguishes discontent from rebellion, 261; - disestablishment and disendowment, 262-265 - _Society_, attitude to, 31, 44; - early society around Disraeli, 268-272; - his idea of real, 273-277, 284-285; - love of purpose, 276; - social charity, 277; - love of contrasts, 277-278; - foibles, 278-279; - against social melancholy, 279; - conversation, 279-281; - debt, 281-282; - friendship and ailments, 281; - and trial, 288; - “Levison and the coals,” 282, _n._ 2; - the “Swells,” 283; - political society, 283; - salons, 274 and _n._ 1; - club loungers, 284; - domesticity, 284-285; - women, love, and marriage, 285-287; - dream-pictures, 287-288 - _Wit and humour_ distinguished, 289; - nature of Disraeli’s--“a master of sentences,” 290; - retorts, _ib._; - aphorisms, 291-293; - phrases, 293; - similes, 292; - political pictures, 292, 294-295; - sense of ludicrous, 295-300; - pathetic irony illustrated, 300-301 - _Romance and picturesqueness_, 301-308; - Disraeli’s romanticism, 302-304; - associative feeling and description, 290, _n._ 1, 304; - scenery and light, 305-307; - forms and sounds of trees, 306; - the marvellous, 307; - _love of and intimacy with London_, 307-308; - blemishes of style considered and explained, 309-331; - pathos, 309, 310; - mode of preparation, 313; - influence of the arts, 313-314; - critics, 291, 315; - _par excellence_ an imaginative fantastic, 313, 315; - character of his fancy, 290; - poetry, 304, 311, 323 - _Ideas on career_, 316; - preparation and education (_q.v. sub-title_), 317; - second-hand adaptation, 318; - _action_, _ib._; - life true piety, not brooding on death, _ib._; - maxims, 319; - “aloofness,” 320; - “audacity,” 321; - sensitiveness and courage, 321; - idealism, 322; - reverie, _ib._; - industry, 326 - _His own career_ (and see above); - earliest phases of, 322-325; - dividing lines and moot points of, adverted to, 319; - posthumous treatment by party, 325; - tributes to, by Gladstone, Salisbury, and Granville, 326; - character, 326 - _Fiction_--earliest works, 23, and _n._ 1; - American pamphlet quoted, 48; - his _verse_, 340, _n._; - _his books quoted_, 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; - on leisure, 32; - enthusiasm, 15; - characters in, _ib._, 17, 122, _n._ 1, 125, 129, 141, - 274 and _n._ 1; - habit of transference, 16, 175, 210, 275, 277; - in _Alarcos_, 16, 17; - “predisposition” (real Toryism) and “education” (poets), 18, 19, - 31; - _Vivian Grey_, 17, 32, 33, 44, 112, 117, 181, 270, 273, 275; - its effects, 275; - circumstances under which written, 309-310, 311, 323-324; - its original dedication, 312, _n._ 1, 315 - Change and national character, 55, 56; - physical wants, 60; - man’s destiny, 59; - true aristocracy, 62; - “Equality” and Labour, 63, 64; - institutions and nationalism, 65, 68; - modern unoriginality, 69; - “Estates” of realm, 68 (_cf._ 72, 82, 93, 95, 97, 226); - “Marney” and dukeism, 75; - old Whigs and Tories, 81-82; - taxation, 82, _n._ 1; - Burke, _ib._, _n._ 2; - monopoly of power, _ib._, _n._ 3; - bigotry of philosophy, 83; - Reform Bill, 84, 91, 93, 94; - utilitarianism (_q.v._), 87, 88, 123; - towns, 115; - labour and leadership, _ib._; - House of Commons, 116; - labour, 118; - industry and industrialism, 119; - a “dawn” for the People, 120; - _laissez-faire_ (_Popanilla_), 123; - Milnes (_q.v._), 125; - Radicals for capital, 129; - _Young England_ (_q.v._), 130; - “Free exchange,” 142; - Theocracy, 145; - Church, 155; - and science, 156-163; - races instruments for special revelations, 157, _n._ 1; - scepticism, 160; - Ritualism, 170; - Catholicism, 171-178; - _Lothair_ analysed, 172-178; - monarchy, 180-185; - political change _per se_, evil, 183; - colonies, 199; - “un-English,” 203; - militarism, 244; - sympathy and empire, 217; - Semitism, 222, _n._ 1; - civilisation of Mediterranean, 223, _n._ 1; - Alfieri, 241; - Italy, 241-242; - Ireland, 258; - Fenianism, 255; - Rogers (_Infernal Marriage_), 269, _n._ 1; - architects, _ib._, _n._ 3; - Gore House, 271, _n._ 2; - society (_Infernal Marriage_), 273; - breeding (_Lothair_), (_Coningsby_), (_Sybil_), 274; - (_Venetia_), (_Vivian Grey_), (_Contarini Fleming_), 275; - Luttrell (_q.v._), 276; - D’Orsay (_q.v._), _ib._; - Byron (_q.v._), 276-277; - _Ixion_, _ib._; - Lady Blessington (_q.v._), (_Young Duke_), (_Popanilla_), 277; - (_Sybil_), _ib._; - (_Infernal Marriage_), _ib._; - startling contrasts, 278; - (_Popanilla_, _Ixion_, _Sybil_), _ib._; - foibles (_Popanilla_), _ib._; - (_Coningsby_, _Young Duke_, _Venetia_), 279; - (_Lothair_), 279; - conversation (_Young Duke_), 280; - (_Lothair_), 281; - debt (_Henrietta Temple_), 282; - gambling (_Vivian Grey_, _Young Duke_), _ib._; - “Swells,” (_Lothair_), 283; - political society (_Sybil_, _Endymion_, _Young Duke_), 283-284; - club loungers, civic dinners, 284; - home life (_Lothair_, _Venetia_), 284-285; - women (_Lothair_, _Coningsby_, _Henrietta Temple_, _Vivian - Grey_, _Contarini Fleming_), 285-287; - and marriage, friendship, 287-288; - _Wit, Humour, and Romance_, many passages, Ch. IX., _passim_; - impartiality (_Alroy_), 321; - _Correspondence and Letters_, 23, _n._ 4, 32, 131, _n._ 1, 271, - 272, 324, _n._ 1, 325 - _Pamphlets_ (and see “_Press_,” _The_)--_What is he?_ 1, 21, 33, 50; - and _Spirit of Whiggism_, _Runnymede Letters_, 50, 66, 95, 149, - _n._ 1, 197, 198; - _Crisis Examined_, 21, _n._ 1, 51; - _Letter to Lord Lyndhurst_, 51, 72, _n._ 2; - Whiggism, Republicanism, Jacobinism, 74, 75-77; - centralisation, _ib._, 93, 104; - reform, 92; - civil equality, 94; - public opinion, 106; - labour, 112; - Corn Laws, 131; - monarchy, 181, 184; - “national party,” 196 - _Revolutionary Epick_ and Shelley, 47, 51, 68, 85; - labour, 112, 311 - _Speeches_, 14, 38, 44, 50 (election address, 1832), 53; - Equality, 64-65; - Popular principles (1847), 69; - Social and national importance of landed interests, 71, 72, 95; - property and middle classes, 78-79; - agitators, 79, 80, 106; - importance of party system, 84, _n._ 1, 85, 86; - land, 86; - utilitarianism (_q.v._), 90 _et seq._; - triennial parliaments, 92, (1846) 97; - Reform speeches, (1848-59) 98-107, (1859) 101; - public opinion, 106; - ideal and national Toryism, 107; - “popular privileges” and “democratic rights,” 107; - Edinburgh (1867), 109; - Chartists (1840), 113; - Labour (1872-74), 116; - “Trustees of posterity,” _bis_, 123, 130; - anti-Erastianism, (1845) 128, (1848) _ib._; - labour and gold, 133; - Social ills and remedies of Free Trade, (1852) 135, (1879) 140; - reciprocity, 138-139; - social remedies (1872), 143; - Church, 149; - pledge for religious liberty, a benefit to Nonconformists, 153; - Dissenting “sacerdotalism” (1870), 154; - State would lose by severance from it of Church (1870), 159; - parish life (1860), 163; - Dissent, 164; - religious revival, 160; - rationalism (1861), 166; - education (1832, 1839, 1854, 1867, 1870, 1872), 167-169; - danger to State if the civil ecclesiastical powers, disunited, - collide, 161; - monarchy, (1872) 188-189, (1861) 194; - colonies (1848), 200, 234; - colonial empire, (1863) 204, (1872) 295; - imperialism, (1862) 210, (1855) _ib._; - “annexation,” (1879) 212-215, 216; - consideration for subject races and foreign powers, (1879) - 217-221, (1856) 221, (1871) 228-229, (1860) 234-235, - (1853) 236, (1864) 237, (1858) 237-238, (1864) _ib._, - (1879) 239, (1878) 232, _n._ 1; - Burials Bill (1880), 290, _n._ 2; - diplomacy, (1860) 222, (1864) _ib._; - Russia’s lawful ambition, 229; - Berlin Treaty, 231, 235; - “Pan-Slavism,” 232; - “balance of power,” (1864) 234, (1870) 240; - interference, 210, 235, 240; - humanity (1876), 225; - actuating principles of his outlook (repeating his earliest - pamphlets), (1876) 244, (1881) 221; - foresight as to America (1863), 247-248; - speeches of discernment on America (1856), 248, 249; - American Anglophobia, (1865) 250-251, (1871) 251-253; - negroes, 251-252; - Fenianism (1872), 254; - _Ireland_, (1843) 256, (1844) 256-258; - Maynooth, (1846) 257, _n._ 1, (1858) 260, _n._ 1, (1868) 259, - 261, (1869) 260; - his four great speeches, (1868-69) 264-266, (1869) 260, - (1871) 247, (1872) 254; - Peel (1846), 278; - _Wit_, (1845-49) 292, (1833, 1846, 1859, 1860, 1876) 295 - “_Democracy_,” attitude to, 7, 33, 39, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, - and Chap. II. _passim_, 58, 66, 69, 83, 88, _n._ 1, 91, 92, - and _n._ 1, 93, 95, 97, 98-111, 117, 137, 201; - in 1884 ... 100, 107-108; - a true sovereignty, 119; - America, 251 - _Education_, 11, 97, 98, 100, 101-106, 154, 159, 167-169, - 317, 318, 323 - _Qualities_--generally, 26, 32; - ambition (its nature), 11, 12, 17, 323, and Ch. X. _passim_; - self-control, 37, 321; - aristocratic perception, popular sympathies, 49; - buoyancy, 32; - carelessness of money, 27; - chivalry, 29, 286; - courage, 25, 321; - eloquence, 36; - philippics, 41, _n._ 2; - foresight and insight, 32, 35, 54, 96, 97, 115, 117, 118, - 133-135, 140, _n._ 1, 199, 207, 240, 247, 249, 266, 284, - 294, 321; - friendship, 29; - genius (“auto-suggestive”), 15, 16; - gratitude, 27, 34, 325; - humour, 37, and Ch. IX. _passim_; - idealism, 16, 17, 322, and Ch. VIII., IX., and X. _passim_; - imagination, 3, 52, 209, 221, and Ch. VIII., IX., and - X. _passim_; - independence (even when unpopular), 14, and Ch. VIII. and - X. _passim_; - individuality, 13, 19, 46, 49, 275, and Ch. VIII. and - X. _passim_; - intensity, 16, 321, 322; - irony, Ch. IX. _passim_, 300-301; - loneliness, 35, 284, and Ch. X. _passim_; - loyalty and friendship, 29, 288; - magnanimity, 15; - instances of, 34, 213, _n._ 1; - mystery, 44, 238, _n._ 1, 323; - parliamentary, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39, 283, 292, 294-295; - patience, 25, 316; - reserve, 35, 226, 284; - reverie, 32, 322; - romance, 18, and Ch. IX. _passim_; - sense of destiny and a mission, 12, 18, 46, 59, 310, and Ch. IX. - and X. _passim_; - sympathy with labour, 26, 39, 48, 60, 61, 64; - his view of industrial franchise, 98-107; - capacities of working classes, 105, 111, 112-129; - fruits of, 116-117, 138; - tenacity, 35, 36; - will, 11, 14, 25, 40, 43, 47, 316; wit, 33, 43, 44; - considered fully, Ch. IX. - _Defects_, 15, 31, 35, 42, 43, 209, 240, 304, 309-313, 319, 321; - characterised, 321, 322; - style, 203, and Ch. IX. _passim_ - _Anecdotes_ of, Ch. I. _passim_, 16, _n._, 135, 241, 254, 256, - 268-272, 279, 281, 286, 287, 288, 290-291, 300, 319, 321, - 323, 325, 326, _n._ - - Disraeli, Benjamin (Lord Beaconsfield’s grandfather), 16, - 270, and _n._ 1 - - ----, Mrs. (Lady Beaconsfield), 10; - Disraeli’s tributes to, 27; - stories of, 28, 29, 30, 35, 268, 286, 288 - - Disraeli, Isaac, 23; - letter of (alluded to), 24, _n._ 1; - influence on his son, 46, 172; - phrases, 203, _n._ 2; - his surroundings, 268-271; - advice to his son, 275; - phrases, 293, 300 - - ----, Sarah, 10, 17, _n._, 22; - her influence, 324 - - D’Orsay, Count, 268; - Disraeli on, 276; - “Count Mirabel,” 277, 291 - - Douce, F. (antiquarian), 269 - - Downman, H., 269 - - ----, J., 269 - - Doyle, 124 - - Dundas, Sir D., 44 - - Durham, Lord, 14, _n._ 1 - - - Egypt, 208, 221; - Suez Canal, 222 - - Eldon, Lord, 5, 50, 82, 259 - - Eliot, George, 302 - - Empire, 49, 53, 54, 92, 161, 193, 205-207, 209-210, 212-245 - - Ewald, Mr., 9, 207 - - ----, Professor, 146 - - - Faber, 124; - “St. Lys,” 126 - - Falconieri, Tita, 24, _n._ 2, 270 - - Foreign Policy [and _see_ various countries, including Poland]; - Disraeli’s principles of, 210-216, 217, 231, 234, 235; - temper of his imperialism, 193, 205, 207, 209, 212-245; - pacificatory, 210, 214, 216, 221, 235; - principles of diplomacy, 209, 222 - - Fox, Charles, 40, 213, _n._ 1 - - France, 45, 66, 173, _n._ 1; - Disraeli’s desire for _entente_ with, and general policy - towards, 236-239; - and Italy, 239; - and Eastern question, _ib._ - - Frederick the Great (quoted), 223, _n._ 1 - - “Free Trade,” 36, 86, _n._ 1, 96, 97, 112, 114, 131-141; - Disraeli’s probable attitude towards Mr. Chamberlain’s present - fiscal schemes, illustrated by Disraeli’s own pronouncements, - 135-140; - colonies a set-off to urban effects, _cf._ 202, 213, _n._ 1; - Ireland, 260 - - French Revolution, theories of, 2, 46, 58-69 - - Frere, Sir Bartle, 212-215 - - Frith, Mr., R. A., 28 - - Froude, 9 - - - Garnett, Dr. R., 47 - - George III., 74, 187, 197 - - ---- IV., 181; society under, 272 - - Germany, 45; - theology, 166; - Disraeli’s attitude towards, 240; - discerns purport of the war, 1870, _ib._ - - Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 34; - compared with Disraeli, 35-42, 55, 98; - and Cobden, 40, _n._ 2; - and Oswald Millbank, 122, _n._ 1; - Catholic University Bill, 169, _n._ 1; - favours Canadian “retaliation” on America, 136, _n._ 1; - prerogative, 190-191; - and Bright, 207-208; - precedent, 213, _n._ 1; - corrected, 128, _n._ 1, 172, 184, 187, 222, _n._ 1, 258; - his praise, 256, 262, 264; - on Disraeli’s wit, 295; - alluded to, 295; - on indifference to world, 318; - tribute of, to Disraeli, 326; - inconsistencies in tactics, 36, _n._ 1 - - Goethe, 15, 63, 157 - - Gordon, General, 208 - - Graham, Sir J., 34, 41, 236 - - Graves, Mr., and Bradenham, 24, _n._ 1 - - Grant-Duff, Sir Mountstuart, 34 - - Granville, Lord, 295; - tribute of, to Disraeli, 326 - - Greece, 224-225, 226, 232, _n._ 1, 243 - - Greenwood, Mr. Frederick, 43, _n._ 1 - - Grey, Lord, 21, 74, 109, 110 - - Guthrie, Dr., 43 - - - Hallam, A., 124 - - Hamid, Abdul, 227, 232, _n._ 1, 233 - - Hartington, Lord (Duke of Devonshire), on Disraeli, 12, 254 - - Hatherley, Lord, 44 - - Hayward, Abraham (critic), 17, _n._ 2, 38 - - Heine, Heinrich, 9; - on the People, 121; - humour, 296 - - Herbert, Sidney, 39 - - Hook, Theodore, 270 - - Hope, “Anastasius,” 124 - - ----, Mr. Beresford, 290 - - Hudson, Sir J., 213 - - Hume (reformer), 77, 94; - refuted on taxation theory, 97, 98, 103, 105, 112, 201 - - - India, 193, 200; - Disraeli’s policy for, 215, 216; - the Mutiny, 217-221, 225, 232; - his Eastern policy, Indian, 232, and _passim_ throughout Ch. VI. - - Ireland, 33, 84, 127, 132, 133, 175; - Disraeli’s early sympathy with, 256; - follows Pitt’s policy, _ib._; - his wonderful early speeches on the real question, 256-258; - interpreted by later and much later utterances, 258-260; - and Disraeli’s view of coercion, 258, _n._ 1; - wish for strong government and an executive in touch with the - people, 258, 260; - variety of employment, 261; - “conquered people,” 261, _n._ 1; - Fenianism (_see_ America), _ib._, _n._ 2; - progress from 1844 to 1868, 260-262; - disestablishment and disendowment of Church, 262-266; - Disraeli’s warning, 1881 ... 266; - policy “to create, not to destroy,” 259, 261; - against “identity of institutions,” 257; - land question, 265, 267; - pauperism, 260 - - Italy, 45, 226; - Disraeli’s attitude towards, 241-243; - his private sympathy checked by public policy, 241-242 - - - Jamaica, 201 - - Johnson, Dr., 280 - - Jowett, Benjamin, cited on Eastern question, 230; - on Disraeli, 321 - - - Kandahar, 208, 215 _et seq._ and _n._ 1 - - Kebbel, Mr., 9; - quoted, 129 - - Kenealy, Dr., 34 - - - Lamb, Lady Caroline, 276 - - Lamington, Lord (Baillie Cochrane), 27, 124, 125 - - Landor, W. Savage, 291, _n._ 1 - - Lassalle, Ferdinand, 122 - - Layard, Sir Henry, 23, 224, 270 - - Leighton, Lord, 203 - - Lewis, Wyndham, Mr., 28 - - Lind, Jenny, Disraeli’s reference to, 324, _n._ 1 - - Liverpool, Lord, 83, _n._ 3, 132 - - Lockhart, 23, _n._ 4, 271 - - Londonderry, Lady, 271 - - Louis Philippe, King, 10, 236, 237, 238, _n._ 1 - - Luttrell, H., Disraeli on, 276 - - Lyndhurst, Lord, 22, 51, 268, 270, 288 - - Lytton, Sir E. Bulwer, 4, 22, 203, 270; - romance, 301 - - Lytton, Lord, 221 - - - Macaulay, Lord, 179, 209, 217, 256, 268 - - Malmesbury, Lord, 201 - - Manchester School, 50, _n._ 1, 200; - and _see_ Utilitarianism - - Manin, Daniel, 241, 320 - - Manners, Janetta, Lady John, 25 - - ----, Lord John, 124, 126, 127 - - Manning, Cardinal, 177 - - Mario (_née_ White), Madame, “Theodora,” 47, _n._ 1 - - Marx, Karl, 122 - - Mathews, C., 270 - - Melbourne, Lord, 14, _n._ 1, 198 - - Meredith, Mr. (Sarah Disraeli’s _fiancé_), 270 - - Metternich, 221, _n._ 1, 242 - - Meynell, Mr. W., 20 - - Midhat, Pacha, 227 - - Millais, Sir John, 34 - - Milnes, Monckton R. (Lord Houghton), 124, 125, 126 - - Milton, John; - political theocracy, 150-151; - “Venetian Constitution” and Dutch models, 151 - - Molesworth, 201 - - Mommsen, Professor, 66 - - Monarchy, 70, 84, 90, 96, 97; - Disraeli’s attitude to, 182; - prerogative, 184, 189-192; - many-sided emblem, 191; - King, the member for Empire, 192; - “Empress of India,” not bastard imperialism, 193-194; - with Church, make for civil order, 194 - - Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 27 - - Montaigne, 296 - - Monteith, 124 - - Moore, T., 269 - - Morier, Sir R., 224 - - ----, “Zohrab,” 270 - - Morley, Right Hon. J. (quoted), 31, 34, 35, 41, 52, 222, _n._ 1 - - Murphy, Serjeant, 125 - - Murray, John, 23, 268 - - - Napier, editor, 23, _n._ 4, 270 - - Napoleon III., 10, 122, 236, 238, 271 - - Newdegate, Mr., 222, _n._ 2 - - Newman, Cardinal, 6, _n._ 3, 170, 172 - - New Zealand, constitution for, 201 - - Nietzsche, F., 59, 60 - - North, Lord, 213, _n._ 1 - - - O’Connell, Daniel, 172, _n._ 1, 255 and _n._ 1 - - O’Connor, Feargus, 26, _n._ 1 - - ----, Mr. T. P., 282, _n._ 1 - - Osborne, Bernal, 33 - - Owen, Robert, 122 - - - Padwick, Mr., 27 - - Palmerston, Lord, 34, 200, 209, 210, 211, 213, _n._ 1, 222, _n._ 1, - 227, 240, 242 - - ----, Lady, 274, _n._ - - Peel, Sir Robert, 4, 8, 14, 25, 38; - Disraeli’s real design in his overthrow, 40, 41, 48, 50, 56, 64, - 83, _n._, 96; - disjointed labour, 112-114; - his beneficial reduction of tariff, 113, 131, _n._ 1; - “compensations” to land, 136; - (1843) in favour of preference to Canada and Canadian “retaliation,” - _ib._, _n._ 1; - and Church education, 165, 167; - notes on monarchy, 185-187; - colonies, 201; - empire, 208; - his prophecy as to Disraeli, 217, 245; - alluded to, 278, 291, 293, 304 - - “Peelites,” 33, 35, _n._ 1, 39, 53, 295 - - Penn, Mr., 269 - - Perceval, 82 - - Persia, 207 - - Pitt, W., 5; - young Disraeli’s example, 24, 74, 129, 256, 259 - - Poland, Disraeli’s sympathy with, 243 - - Pope, A., 290, 307 - - Powles, Mr., 23 _n._ 2 - - Pozzo, 222, _n._ 1, 271 - - _Press, The_ (Disraeli’s organ, 1853-59), 25, _n._ 1; - quoted, 7, _n._ 3, 33, _n._ 2, 39, 40, 53, 64, 181; - detached democracy, 202, 213, _n._ 1; - Turkey, 228; - political wit, 295 - - Prussia, 240 - - Pye (Laureate), 268 - - - Reform Bill, 1832-36 ... 3, 8, 50, 51, _n._ 73, 77, 83; - effects of, 82-85, 89, 94, 98, 110, 116, 180, 184 - - ---- ----, 1867, principles of, illustrated by former pronouncements, - 78-80, 90 _et seq._, 94 _et seq._, 96, 98; - its drift and meaning, 107-111, 138, 262 - - _Representative_, The, 23, and _n._ 2 - - “Returns to Nature,” 59 - - Roebuck, N., 227 - - Rogers, S., 269, and _n._ 1, 293 - - Rowton, Lord, 9 - - Ruskin, J., quoted, 89, 303 - - Russell, Lord J., 14, _n._ 1, 34, 39, 40, 41, 56, 97, 98 (reform - scheme of 1854) 100, (1860) 105, 132, 169; - colonies and democracy, 202; - empire, 208, 211, 213, _n._ 1 - - Russia, 204, 208; - and India, 215-216; - newness of pretensions to Constantinople, 226, 229; - the patriarchate, _ib._; - Disraeli’s distinction between her “legitimate” and “illegitimate” - ambitions, 229; - his policy towards her, early indicated and long pursued, 228-234; - Pan-Slavism, 232; - dismemberment, 241 - - - Salisbury, Lord, 209, 232; - tribute of, to Disraeli, 326 - - San Stefano, Treaty of, 227, 229 - - Savile, George (Halifax), 209 - - Savonarola, Theocracy, 147 - - Scott, Sir Walter, 23, _n._ 4, 28, 121, 126, 268, 269, 270, - _n._ 1., 302, 303 - - Selwyn, 274 - - Shaftesbury, Lord, 115; - alluded to, 294 - - Sheil, 4 - - Shelley, P. B., 16; - influence of, on Disraeli, 47, 223, _n._ 1; - Disraeli on, 275, _n._ 1; - alluded to, 293 - - Sheridans, the, 10, 271, 288, 296 - - Siddons, Mrs., 269 - - Soudan, 208, 215 - - South Africa, 137, 212-215 - - Southey, R., 269 - - Stafford, 125 - - Strangford, Lord, 10, 16, _n._ 1; - quoted, 62, 124 - - Sunderland, Lord, 73, 152 - - Swift, Jonathan, 6, _n._ 2, 18, 25, _n._ 1, 281, 290, 293, - _n._ 1, 296, 300 - - Sykes, Lady, 277, _n._ 1 - - - Taylor (“Platonist”), 270, _n._ - - Tennyson, A., 124 - - Thackeray, 16, _n._ 2, 279, 297, 300, 302 - - Tocqueville, De, 7, 39, 66, 71; - on Church, 154; - monarchy, 180 - - Transvaal, 208, 214 - - Trelawny, 47 - - Turkey, Disraeli’s attitude and policy towards, 222-234; - Disraeli _not_ pro-Islam, 222-223; - his policy traditional, 224; - real facts of Turkish question in Europe, 226-228; - Cyprus, 232 - - - Urquhart, Mr., and “Sidonia,” 122, 272 - - Utilitarianism, 1, 12, 18, 87-89, 112, 113, 114, 115, 123, 206 - - - Victoria, Queen, 10, 29, (1837) 185, 187; - Royal Titles Bill, 193-194; - Indian language and India, 194, 220-221, 270 - - Villiers, Mr. C., 112 - - Voltaire, quoted by Disraeli, 158, _n._ 3; - influence, 290 - - - Waldegrave, Frances, Lady, 288 - - Walewski, 238 - - Walpole, Horace, 290 - - ----, Mr. Spencer, 32 - - ----, Sir R., 73, 92, _n._ 1, 95, 132, 148, 152 - - Wellington, Duke of, 240, _n._ 1 - - Westbury, Lord, 44 - - Wetherell, 82 - - Whalley, Mr., 38 - - Whigs, “New” and “Old,” 78-83, 90 _et seq._, 96, 99, 132, 143, 184, - 213, _n._ 1, 262 - - White, Sir W., 226, 233 - - Whittlestone (valet), 24, _n._ 2 - - William III., 3, 148 - - Williams, Mrs. (of Torquay), 10, 29 - - Wiseman, Cardinal, 175 - - Wood, Sir Charles, 320 - - Wyndham, Sir W., 80, 82, 259 - - - “Young England,” 14, 48, 115; - fully considered, 123-130; - and Maynooth, 128; - “Sanitas sanitatum,” 128-129; - fruits of, 130 - - - Zulu War, 212-215 - - - - - PRINTED BY - WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, - LONDON AND BECCLES. - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were -not changed. Accent marks in non-English words were neither added or -removed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired -quotation marks retained. - -Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. - -Footnotes originally were at the bottoms of pages; in this eBook, they -have been collected and placed just before the Index. - -Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references. - -Page 41: “Ignatius Loyala” and “Duchess of Marborough” were printed -that way. - -Page 91: Closing single-quotation mark added after “‘religious faith”. - -Page 112: Closing quotation mark removed after “withhold” in the -quotation beginning “withhold his support from”. - -Page 135: Closing quotation mark added after “monarchy of England,”. - -Page 210: Closing quotation mark added after “vindicate the honour of -the country.” - -Page 251: Closing quotation mark removed after “their future conduct.” - -Page 286: “portrayed in _Venetia_ that in any” was printed that way. - -Page 292: Closing quotation mark added after “genius and resources of -society.”. - -Page 317: Closing quotation mark removed after “it was necessary to -acquire them.” - -Footnote 38, originally on pages 41-42: opening quotation mark added -just before “Disraeli’s brilliant philippics”. - -Footnote 144, originally on page 270: the quotation marks appeared as -shown here. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISRAELI*** - - -******* This file should be named 53917-0.txt or 53917-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/9/1/53917 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |