The Public Life of the Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G., Etc., Etc

By descent a Jew-The Sephardim-The Inquisition-The exodus from SpainThe settlement in England-The Disraeli family never poor-Benjamin Disraeli at Enfield-Isaac Disraeli-The "Curiosities of Literature "Brunet's opinion of them-Controversy with Bolton Corney-The "Genius of Judaism"-Never a Jew-Withdraws finally from the SynagogueBaptism of Benjamin Disraeli-Education-The "celebrated Dr. Cogan "In the office of a firm of solicitors-The Representative-Lord Beaconsfield never connected with it-Mr. Macknight's attack-The Star Chamber-The "Dunciad of To-day”—“Vivian Grey"-Keys to the novel -Brougham upon it—Disraeli a personage in society-Lady Blessington—“Captain Popanilla” -Eastern Tour-"The Revolutionary Epick "-Analysis of the PoemReviews "The Young Duke," "Contarini Fleming," and "Alroy.”

LORD BEACONSFIELD, as all the world knows, is by descent a Jew. Unlike the majority of Hebrews, however, he has at no time been ashamed of the race from which he springs, but has always manifested a certain amount of pride in the fact that he belongs to the most ancient nation on earth. And well may he do so. In the graceful and touching memoir which he prefixed to the edition of his father's works published in 1849, he tells

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the tale of his family history, and it is one which has in it nothing for which the most sensitive need blush. The stock from which he springs is that of the Sephardim, " children of Israel who had never quitted the shores of the Midland Ocean until Torquemada had driven them from their pleasant residences and rich estates in Aragon and Andalusia and Portugal to seek greater blessings even than a clear atmosphere and a glowing sun amid the marshes of Holland and the fogs of Britain." When the family of Disraeli migrated to Spain is not known, or, at all events, has never been told to the world; but they left the sunny Peninsula in the midst of the "ages of faith," somewhere about the year 1500. From Spain they went to Venice, driven out by the terrors of the Inquisition which, as Lord Beaconsfield has told us in "Coningsby," had been "established in the Spanish kingdoms against the protests of the Cortes and amidst the terror of the populace." The crime against which the followers of St. Dominic directed their most vehement efforts was Judaism. The Moors of Spain had always treated their suffering kinsmen with as much gentleness and charity as could be expected by the sons of Jacob from the children of Ishmael. The Goths who succeeded them were at first as tender and considerate, but as they grew stronger they began to persecute. Such privileges as the Jews enjoyed were taken from them, and they were forced to conform outwardly to Christianity, receiving as their reward the title of Nuevos Christianos, and being universally understood to be Christians only in name.

The Inquisition, which had first been established in Seville, soon spread throughout Spain, and the fell institution which, as Lord Beaconsfield has said, "had exterminated the Albigenses

and desolated Languedoc," obtained the supreme power in every Spanish kingdom. "The Cortes of Aragon appealed to the king and to the pope; they organised an extensive conspiracy; the Chief Inquisitor was assassinated in the Cathedral of Saragossa." But the spiritual power was too strong. "Those who were convicted of secret Judaism were dragged to

the stake; the sons of the noblest houses in whose veins the Hebrew taint could be traced, had to walk in solemn procession, singing psalms and confessing their faith in the fell religion of Torquemada." Before such a persecution it was impossible to stand. Sir Arthur Helps has somewhere remarked, in reply to the commonplace about the inutility of persecution, that if you will but persecute relentlessly enough you are certain to gain your end. This truth the Jews of

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"On the capture of Malaga in 1485, Ferdinand had twelve of the Jews whom he found there put to death with pointed reeds, a refinement of lingering cruelty only employed by the Moors upon criminals convicted of treason against the person of the monarch. The other Jews he had burned. . . . Against the introduction of these tyrannical Courts (the Courts of the Inquisition) the Jews used entreaties, and lavished their money and other influence. The Queen, with the Cortes of Castile, protested; and the nobles of Aragon, resisting so gross an innovation on the ancient privileges of their country, shut the gates of Teruel against their king and the inquisitors, and denounced death to any of these who should enter the city. The royal force prevailed, but the first inquisitor entering was put to death. . . . Its tribunal being opened at Seville in 1483, that city in a short time numbered more prisoners than other inhabitants. In one year above 2000 persons were put to death for relapse to Judaism, and 17,000 were subjected to corporal punishment. At length the mound near the city, known by the name of the Tablada, was paved with stone and enclosed. This formed the Quemadero, or burning-place, and on that spot more than 4000 Jews were committed to the flames in thirty-seven years. . . . From the year 1483 to 1520, in the Archbishopric of Seville alone, between the imprisoned, the banished, and the dead, above 100,000 Judaizing heretics received their several sentences."— "Sephardim; or the History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal," by James Finn, p. 379, et seq.

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