considered; and I have seen both Hook and Hood, 'set,' as a pointer sets a partridge, by persons who glitter in evanescent lights, simply by repeating what such men have said. Mr. Hook perhaps liked this celebritythis setting and staring-this lionhunt-so different to the heart-worship paid to veritable greatness. Mr. Hood did not he was too sensitive, too refined, to endure it. The dislike to being pointed out as 'the man who was funny,' kept him out of a crowd, where there were always numbers who really honoured his genius, and loved him for his gentle and domestic virtues. It was only among his friends that his playful fancy flourished, or that he yielded to its influence; although, strictly speaking, 'social' in all his feelings, he never sought to stimulate his wit by the false poison of draughts of wine; nor was he ever more cheerful than when, at his own fireside, he enjoyed the companionship of his dear and devoted wife."

Never having had the fortune of seeing the poet, we are unable to give any description of his personal appearance. The quiet and somewhat methodical cast of his features has been the subject of general comment among those who knew him. The best description, however, we have met is that by himself, in his remarks on his own portrait. With this extract we must close. "The figure opposite," he says, "has certainly the look of one of those practical jokes whereof the original is oftener suspected than really culpable. He might pass for the sign of the Grave Maurice.' The author of Elia' has declared that he once sat as substitute for a whole series of British admirals, and a physiognomist might reasonably suspect that, in wantonness or weariness, instead of giving my head, I had procured myself to be painted by proxy. For who, that calls himself stranger, could ever suppose that such a pale, pensive, peaking, sentimental, sonneteering countenancewith a wry mouth, as if it always laughed on the wrong side-belonged bona-fide to the editor of the Comic,' a professor of the Pantagrulian philosophy, hinted at in the preface of the present work? What unknown, who reckons himself decidedly serious, would recognise the head and front of my "offending," in a visage not at all

too hilarious for a frontispiece to the 'Evangelical Magazine?' In point of fact, the owner has been taken sundry times, ere now, for a Methodist minister, and a pious turn has been attributed to his hair-lucus a non lucendo-from its having no turn in it at all. In like manner my literary contemporaries, who have cared to remark on me personally, have agreed in ascribing to me a melancholy bias; thus an authority in the New Monthly Magazine' has described me as a grave, anti-punlike-looking person; whilst another, in the Book of Gems,' declares that 'my countenance is more grave than merry,' and insists, therefore, that I am of a pensive habit, and 'have never laughed heartily in company, or in rhyme.' Against such an inference, however, I solemnly protest; and, if it be the fault of my features, I do not mind telling my face to its face that it insinuates a False-Hood, and grossly misrepresents a person notorious amongst friends for laughing at strange times and odd places, and particularly when he has the worst of a rubber."

J. E.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI. AMONG the many questions in philosophy and literature which biographical studies suggest, that of hereditary genius is one of the most interesting. All through nature we see the transmission from parent to offspring of those qualities, ethical and physical, by which the first was characterised; and yet, in spite of this law, observed as frequently in man as in the lower creatures, great men are in nothing more remarkable than in being the progenitors of fools. Not that the subject under consideration makes any addition to the category; but that, as an exception to the general fact, it suggests the curious nature of the fact itself. It may be said that great genius is like a great tree, which overshadows all the lesser plants that stand in its vicinity; and admitting that there is something fatal in the shadow and the drip, as regards the tree, there is nothing parallel to it in the case of mental growths; for, although_ordinary talent may appear stunted and weak beside the overpowering grandeur of a great genius, genius itself cannot be frowned down, and only shines out

more fully in its individuality when brought into contrast with others equal to itself. For this reason the plea that genius-keeping to the metaphor of the tree-uses up all the soil, and absorbs all the glory of the sunlight, leaving no room for a successor, is untrue, and the conclusion forced upon us is, that great men are not, as a rule, succeeded by great sons; the fact being so far otherwise, that the sons of great men are, in the majority of cases, but few removes from positive imbecility. There is something physically as well as morally suggestive in this; and as this is not the place to discuss a question so recondite, we content ourselves with having called attention to it, and pass to this exception in the case of Disraeli, as a fit subject at the present moment for the biographer.

Beginning with the father, who was a man of great genius and greater learning, we are led back to the year 1776 as that in which he was born, of Jewish parents, and heir to an extensive property. His ancestors were of the number of trading Jews which in the fourteenth century haunted the European bazaars as speculative traders; alternately assuming the character of unscrupulous usurers and pleaders for their wealth and lives. The persecutions instituted against them at the close of the fifteenth century, drove the ancestors of our Chancellor from their home in Spain; and, flying to Venice, they there settled and assumed the name of Disraeli. The father of Isaac came to this country in 1748, under the inducements offered by the firm esblishment of the Hanoverian dynasty, and the efforts then making by Mr. Pelham for the emancipation of the Jews. This Disraeli had made a fortune before the breaking out of the French Revolution, and he came here to settle down and enjoy it; a wise determination, which he carried out successfully in the neighbourhood of Enfield.

Isaac Disraeli was born in 1776, and, like Scott, Liebig, and others of equal note, was a dunce at school. He was the only son, which, of course, means that he was a spoiled child, and a source of continual anxiety and trouble to his parents. Moody, taciturn, and passionate by turns, he at length completed the climax of his father's sorrow by writing a poem. Terrified

by this act of extravagance in his son, the father lost no time in shipping him off to Amsterdam, where, under the chilling frown of a phlegmatic Dutch tutor, it was hoped his vagrant nature would be withered in the bud. This scheme failed, for he became more literary than ever; and, on his father hinting that he should send him to Bordeaux to study trade in a counting-house, the son produced another poem, which, written at the age of eighteen, was of course Utopian and golden-age-ical; and in this the son vindicated his love of letters and hatred of worldly things, in an attempt to show that commerce was the prime source of the world's sorrows. This poem he took, with trembling hands, to the house of Dr. Johnson, in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, in the hope of obtaining the critical opinion of the great lexicographer upon its merits. He was too late; the doctor was then too ill to read anything, and, a few weeks after, the dropsy closed the great man's career.

A commercial life, however, was not Isaac's fate, for a literary acquaintance prevailed upon the stern father to let the lad's passion have room to grow, and forthwith he was sent to travel through France, to visit libraries, make literary acquaintances, and prepare himself for the duties and responsibilities of the litterateur. Whether the difficulties of his early career gave him the stimulus which afterwards worked out its will in the illustration of the fortunes of the literary class, it is perhaps not possible to say; but certain it is, he devoted himself to the vindication of the literary character with a degree of zeal and learning which constitutes his labours as epochal in English literature. He soon made acquaintance with Samuel Rogers and John Murray, and published a series of works on literature and literary men, which brought him both profit and reputation. "Curiosities of Literature," ,"*" Calamities of Authors," "The Literary Character," "Amenities of Literature," and several romances and historical works, followed each other in rapid succession, the last written after blindness had fallen on him. In 1848 his life terminated, at the age of eighty-two, after having been spent in the midst of the luxuries, marred by none of the heart-burnings, of learning and literature.

Benjamin, eldest son of Isaac Disraeli, was born in London in December, 1805. His mother was Miss Bassevi, of the well-known Jewish family of that name. In youth he was noted for his quickness of apprehension and readiness in the acquisition of his tasks; and his father, who knew the ways of an enthusiastic boy when checked in the pursuit of a growing passion for literature, neglected nothing which might conduce to the growth of his mind, and furnished him with every stimulus to intellectual exertion. It is interesting to know, that when he was sent to school in Islington, he had Mr. Milner Gibson, the present Right Hon. Gibson, for his school-fellow.

At the age of twelve, Benjamin was sent to Brighton on account of the delicate state of his health; and about this period the Disraelis became Christians. Completing his education at Winchester school, where he betrayed many traces of eccentricity, he was afterwards sent, at the age of eighteen, to travel in Germany, concluding his tour before he was twenty-one, when the first part of his first work, "Vivian Grey," appeared. He took a position at once, and though it could not be said that a great book had been written, there was at least a sensation made, which even the ephemeral nature of the book itself could not easily or speedily subdue. It was a book full of impudence, scandal, and sharp satire; witty without being coarse, and dashing without too great a mixture of the bombastical. It was, moreover, a book formed after a new fashion. It was a novel in which the scenes and incidents were built up from the doings of the hour, and marks the peculiar mental traits of its author, who is a man living for to-day, and having few sympathies with the past or hopes for the future. The personages, moreover, were types of the time, and on its appearance the town was involved in a vortex of conflicting conjectures as to who was Mr. So and So, and my lord this and my lord that; the veil thrown over the characters being plainly perceptible, though of too close materials to be pierced with ordinary eyes. Equal curiosity existed to discover its authorship, and every man of note was in turn pounced upon and saddled for a few weeks or months with the sins of the book. As to the hero, it is not speaking too boldly to say that he and the

author are one. True, he has disclaimed this himself, and between the ignominious Vivian and the ambitious author, there is a discrepancy marked and definite. Nevertheless, the man's soul goes Vivian's way, and if he uses not the same sneering tone of speech, nor the same serpent crawling and wriggling, there are too many points wherein they are akin to suffer them evermore to part company.

Vivian Grey is the fast young man in upper life-young England develop ing his first coat of chin-down under the shadow of court rolls and coronets. He is brilliant, ambitious, fashionable, sarcastic, mean, and, in more ways than one, paltry and contemptible. skims through fashionable society like a scented butterfly, and comes into contact with the greatest men of the time, all of whom he dwarfs into littleness by the frivolous vanity of his own mind.

He

The idea of the book is the struggle for power; and in this we have a counterpart of the inside of our present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Vivian is determined to achieve fame, no matter by what means; and so he clings to the skirts of an old twaddler whom he hates and despises because, forsooth, this same old twaddler is an aristocrat, and has political influence. By stratagem and falsehood together, Vivian at last ingratiates himself in the favour of the imbecile aristocrat, the Marquis de Carabas; and after a discourse on punch, in which he favours his lordship with a receipt for making "tomahawk punch," Vivian, with great finesse, leads his lordship into a conversation about power; and, in a powerful battery of argument and eloquence, rouses up the old lord's slumbering ambition. In this passage of the work, Disraeli speaks, according to the household maxim, two words for himself and one for his hero, and breaks out into a most true confession of his own faith:

"Is power a thing so easily to be despised, young man?" asked the Marquis.

"Oh, no, my lord, you do mistake me," eagerly bursts forth Vivian: "I am no coldblooded philosopher that would despise that for which, in my opinion, men-real men -should alone exist. Power! oh, what sleepless nights; what days of hot anxiety; what exertions of mind and body; what travel; what hatred; what fierce encounters; what dangers of all possible kinds would Í not endure, with a joyous spirit, to gain it!"

"It was not to be supposed that Vivian was, to all the world, the fascinating creature that he was to the Marquis of Carabas. Many complained that he was reserved, silent, haughty. But the truth was, Vivian Grey often asked himself, "Who is to be my enemy to-morrow?" He was too cunning a master of the human mind not to be aware of the quicksands upon which all greenhorns strike; he knew too well the danger of unnecessary intimacy. A smile for a friend, and a sneer for the world, is the way to govern mankind; and such was the motto of Vivian Grey.

"Now, Vivian Grey was conscious that there was at least one person in the world who was no craven either in body or mind, and so he had long come to the comfortable conclusion that it was impossible that his career could be anything but the most brilliant.

Not that it must be supposed, even for a moment, that Vivian Grey was what the world calls conceited. Oh, no! He knew

the measure of his own mind, and had fathomed the depth of his powers with equal skill and impartiality; but in the process he could not but feel that he could conceive much, and dare do more."

Vivian climbs well. He forms a party, and seems on the eve of vaulting with them into power. At this time his father (a retired literary gentleman) writes to him as follows; it is Vivian Grey's other self that speaks; and perhaps Benjamin Disraeli himself may yet look back with interest at this prophetic utterance of his youth :

"You are now, my dear son, a member of what is called le grand monde,-society formed on anti-social principles. Apparently, you have possessed yourself of the object of your wishes; but the scenes you move in are very movable; the characters you associate with are all masked; and it will always be doubtful whether you can retain that long which has been obtained by some slippery artifico. Vivian, you are a juggler; and the deception of your sleightof hand tricks depends upon instantaneous motion. When the selfish combine with the selfish, bethink you how many projects are doomed to disappointment! how many cross interests baffle the parties, at the same time joined together without ever uniting. What

a mockery is their love! But how deadly are their hatreds! All this great society, with whom so young an adventurer has trafficked, abate nothing of their price in the slavery of their service, and the sacrifice of violated feelings. What sleepless nights has it cost you to win over the disobliged, to coneiliate the discontented, to cajole the contumacious! You may smile at the hollow flatteries, answering to flatteries as hollow, which, like bubbles when they touch, dissolve into nothing; but tell me, Vivian, what has the self-tormentor felt at the laughing treacheries which force a man down into selfcontempt ?"

In another passage a friend of Vivi

an's, Cleveland, discourses in the following fashion:

"Oh! Grey, of all the delusions which flourish in this mad world, the delusion of that man is the most frantic who voluntarily, and of his own accord, supports the interest of a party. I mention this to you because it is a rock on which all young politicians strike. Fortunately, you enter life under different circumstances from those which usually attend most political debutants. You have your connexions formed, and your views ascertained. But if, by any chance, you find yourself independent and unconnected, never, for a moment, suppose that you can accomplish your objects by coming forward, unsolicited, to fight the battle of a party. They will cheer your successful exertions, and then smile at your youthful zoal; or, crowing themselves for the unexpected succour, be too cowardly to reward their unexpected champion. No, Grey; make them fear you, and they will kiss your feet."

The

Thus the work is somewhat prophetic in its nature, and in it the author casts his shadow forward; and as the shadow sometimes gives an incorrect outline, so in this case it is somewhat distorted, though sufficiently accurate for us to attach it to the man as his own. second part of "Vivian Grey," was published in 1827, and exhibited a sad falling off in the degree of its worth when compared with its predecessor. Still there were not wanting some sharp satirical sketches, and some clever German scenes in which living English characters were again presented as the personages of the fiction, this time under German names. As a whole the second part is decidedly a bad performance, and exhibits a dependence upon mysticism for sustaining its interest rather than a definite aim in the mind of the author. Those who might now turn over these volumes would find little interest in them, owing to the flimsy nature of the materials on which the story is built; but to those who were familiar with the town talk and political intrigue of the day, they were rich in happy allusions, poignant satire, and severe characterisation. The author's knowledge of political minutiæ and state secrets is to be attributed to his open eyes and listening ears when in the office of Mr. Austen, the solicitor, Montague-place, whither he went to study business previous to the writing of the tale. The Austens mixed with many state affairs, and were in many ways connected with parties and cliques. In January, 1826, previous to the completion of "Vivian Grey," young

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Disraeli managed to steal a march on John Murray, who was a frequent visitor of his father, and by some mysterious fascination, got himself appointed editor of the daily newspaper then about to start under Murray's auspices. It could not surely be the eclat attending "Vivian Grey," which influenced Murray, for that work had not then passed through the printer's hands; and it is really surprising that so sagacious and experienced a man should entrust the editorship of a new daily paper to a youth scarcely twentyone. The paper appeared under the title of the Representative. It made no stir, struck out no new field, but preserved a mild Conservatism, as dull as mild; and never evinced any of the flashes which we might suppose to flow from Disraeli's pen; and, after a wretched career of twelve months, perished. The chief foreign correspondent of the Representative was Mazzini, who was then beginning his literary life. Disraeli was at this time something of a Radical, and the sleepy tone of the journal may result from the checks put upon him by the stipulated Toryism of his office.

But Hebrew blood was in his veins; and although he had forsworn the Hebrew religion, he took his way to the shrines of the East, to mingle with the memories of his race, and view the scenes of its former nationality and greatness. The Catholic Emancipation question was drawing to a close, George IV. was dying, and William IV. was ascending the throne, while the author of " Vivian Grey" was writing another work, "The Young Duke," amid the strange scenes of eastern travel. This work was sent home, and published before his return, and though it made little stir, and is now entirely forgotten, it contains some of the finest writing he ever composed. The work itself is of less worth than "Vivian Grey," and turns again on the personal pride and ambition of its author. The horo, a young nobleman, wakes up suddenly from a quagmire of dissipation, under the impulse of a true love; and, instead of flying to the arms of his mistress, rushes "to his place" in the House, and makes a capital speech on the Catholic question. Who but can see in this another distorted shadow of the great Benjamin himself. The cha

racteristic of his style, and of the prevailing style, are strikingly seen in this work, in that excessive elaboration of the writing, with a comparative abnegation of its purpose. It is re

ported that the news of the Reform agitation reached him in the East, and caused him to retrace his steps, for the purpose of flinging himself into the turmoil then raging. He joined the Radical party, but with so many reservations in favour of Toryism, that he seems to have been driven to such an extremity rather from hatred of the Whigs, than anything else.

In 1832 he published "Contarini Fleming; a Psychological Romance," in which he attempted to portray the inner life and development of a poet. Alas! how many have tried that and miserably failed. Edwin Roberts made the attempt in his "Athanase," and Alexander Smith seems to be working the same way in his "Life Drama." Beattie in the "Minstrel" attempted less and achieved more; all the rest have mistaken inflation for sublimity, and mysticism and nonsense for æsthetic analysis, and Disraeli among the number. The book, however, is not to be condemned too hastily. Its composition is full of flash and force, dashing satire and extravagance, and an evident desire to astonish the natives, and, if possible, to catch them nodding, and awake them to stupid wonder by an electric shock. Here and there the genius of the writer breaks through his eccentricities, as the sun sometimes peeps through a crevice in a cloud, and then what brilliance, what imagery, what elegance!

In 1833, he commenced what may be termed his career of lunacy, and published the "Wondrous Tale of Alroy," a story of the Hebrews of the twelfth century. This was hailed by the critics as irrefragable evidence of the author's lunacy; and the gorgeous poetic prose -similar occasionally to Gilfillan's

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Gallery of Portraits "- -was made a theme of ridicule and laughter. It was elaboration done to death, a style lifted up so high on stilts that few could see it had any features to redeem it. redeem it, indeed, it had none; though it is sometimes so wild, so full of polish, so dashingly brilliant that one cannot laugh outright, though tempted to do so by its polite rant and bluster. Following this came the "Revolution