"England and France."

59

that time; while the first chapter of the book opens with the words," After an absence of two years I find myself once more in my native country," a period which corresponds pretty accurately with Mr. Disraeli's absence. The style is, moreover, very similar to that of the "Runnymede Letters," to be noticed farther on. Such a sentence as the following from the dedication to Earl Grey is, one would say, unmistakeable :-" Algiers and Greece, you will delight to hear, are flourishing under the benign influence of that tricolour flag, whose immaculate glory your colleague, Lord Althorp, vindicated with that easy eloquence, and curious felicity of diction, for which he is so remarkable." Another passage from near the end of the book is in the same vein. "When a man will not fight he must be content to be kicked. Our minister has announced to the world that nothing will induce him to resent an insult or defend an interest; and the Lord Chancellor has made a Doctrinaire speech upon peace full of sound and fury. Russia has destroyed Poland, Austria has invaded Italy, France sends her flying expeditions, or plants her permanent colonies, at her will, but principally against our old allies, or in the neighbourhood of our old possessions; and England, or Lord Grey, is quiet, and compensated or consoled for all these agreeable adventures by the proud recollection that the Prince of Saxe Coburg is King of the Belgians." Against this internal evidence, however, must be set the fact that the book displays a minute acquaintance with English politics in their remotest ramifications which could hardly be expected in a young man, however brilliant, who had been absent from home for two years. My own theory on the subject is that the book was written by Lord Beaconsfield in conjunction with a second person. Many pages are in style wholly unlike his, and of one or two we may say what cannot be said of any of his acknowledged works, that they are absolutely dull. The book, as its title implies, is a protest against the affection of the Whigs for France and things French, and is especially interesting as embodying a trustworthy account of the Revolution of 1830.

CHAPTER II.

POLITICAL LIFE.

Abandons literature for politics-Stands for High Wycombe in opposition to Colonel Grey-Is attacked for his Toryism-Nominated by a Tory and seconded by a Radical-The Reform Bill passes-Dissolution of Parliament -Mr. Disraeli's address-Attacks on the Whigs-The "new National Party" -Again defeated-Asked to stand for the county-Again defeated at High Wycombe Irish Coercion Bill-Dissolution of the Melbourne Ministry— "The Crisis Examined"-The agricultural interest-Election at Taunton-O'Connell and his compact with the Whigs-Attack upon Mr. DisraeliCalls upon Morgan O'Connell for the "satisfaction of a gentleman "---Is refused-Writes to O'Connell and sends a copy of his letter to the TimesControversy with the Globe-Intimacy with Lyndhurst-The "Vindication of the Constitution "-Analysis of the book-Runnymede Letters-Admiration for Peel-"Henrietta Temple "-" Venetia "-Death of William IV. -General election-Stands for Maidstone-- Address to the electors-The New Poor Law-Member for Maidstone.

IN the preface to a later edition of "Contarini Fleming," Lord Beaconsfield speaks, as we have seen, of a certain "discouragement from farther effort," caused by the comparative failure of that work. These words must, however, be taken with a qualification. That he was discouraged from making farther literary efforts for the time being is unquestionably true, but a mind so active and so versatile could not waste itself in repose. Politics afforded a field for his energies, and to politics accordingly he turned himself with his accustomed vigour. During the exciting period of the struggle for Catholic Emancipation and for Reform, he had been absent on those

Stands for High Wycombe.

61

travels which served so remarkably to mature his intellectual powers, and to convert him from the curled darling of fashionable drawing-rooms into the cool, steady, and earnest statesman he so early became. He returned to England in the spring of 1832, when the great struggle for reform was practically over, and when the eventual triumph of the Whig Reform Bill was a mere question of weeks. Just before it passed, however, an opportunity for entering public life presented itself, of which "Disraeli the Younger" was not slow to take advantage. Bradenham House, to which his father had retired at the instigation of his friends the Pyes, was very near to High Wycombe, and when a seat for that not very important constituency became vacant, there was perhaps nothing more natural than that the son of its owner should solicit the suffrages of his neighbours. He did so accordingly upon independent grounds, allying himself neither with Radicals nor with Tories, and professing little by way of political creed beyond a tolerably fervent hatred of the Whigs, coupled with an equally sincere distrust of them. He hoped in fact to secure the support of the two extreme parties in his opposition to the middle class Whigs, and the local organ of the latter party fell foul of him from the first. His political creed was declared to be unintelligible; his political friends and supporters an anomalous faction united in nothing save their opposition to the beneficent party which was bestowing upon the country the blessing of a £10 franchise. The Bucks Gazette stigmatised him from the first, however, as a Tory. It was true that he enjoyed Radical support, but he was also patronised by the Tories, and that fact was quite enough for the Whig organ-which, by the way, might have served the

author of " Pickwick " as the model of the Eatanswill Gazette. In its columns the young candidate is described with scathing sarcasm, as a person of "no political character, but very vaguely pledged. whose first act, when all was open to him, was to place his interests into (sic) the hands of a notorious Tory agent, the representative in Wycombe of all that is politically detestable in Bucks."

It might have been thought that there could be little mistake about the political convictions of a candidate who took such a step as this, but those who have persistently misrepresented every act of Lord Beaconsfield since the commencement of his political career in the year of the Reform Bill, have not hesitated to describe him as having begun life as a Radical, and as having "ratted" from interested motives. To listen to some of these purists it might be imagined, indeed, that no public man of consequence had ever modified his views, though it is notorious that the statesman, who, in 1838, was described by Macaulay as "the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories," was in 1868 the most advanced of Liberals, and the leader of the factious movement which stripped Ireland of her Church Establishment without benefiting a soul save a few officials. Lord Beaconsfield, as we shall see, has played an infinitely more consistent part. He began his career nominally as an independent candidate, but his best friends were Tories; his associates belonged to the same party, and if he sought Radical support, it was not because he had any faith in Radical nostrums, but because from the very outset of his political career, he recognised the thoroughly democratic character of the English constitution, and invariably opposed the pretensions of those "great families" whose ambition it was, as he

Opposed by Colonel Grey.

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has said a hundred times, to reduce the sovereign of these realms to the position of a Venetian doge, and to substitute a tyrannical oligarchy for the traditional estates of the realm.

Nomination day was fixed for the 30th of June, and Colonel Grey-a son of the Prime Minister, and afterwards the General Grey to whom the world is indebted for the first volume of the 'Life of the Prince Consort,"-having been duly nominated and seconded, Mr. Disraeli's turn came. He was proposed by a Tory —a Mr. Treacher, and seconded by a Radical, a Mr. King. It would be difficult to imagine a more unequal contest. On the one side was a very young man of whose political opinions the electors knew as much as he chose to tell them and no more; who had a certain reputation in London society as the author of one or two fashionable novels, which had been very cordially abused by the hirelings of the press, and who appeared as the representative of certain principles which at that moment were in the lowest depth of unpopularity. He had no family influence to back him, and his earnest devotion to the cause of the people was sufficient to ruin him for ever with the "respectable" middle class. On the other hand, the Whig candidate was a gentleman of unimpeachable character, known to the electors personally, of fascinating manners and address, and supported by all the prestige which could be given by the facts that he was a son of the Prime Minister, who was carrying through Parliament one of the most popular measures ever passed, and that he enjoyed the countenance and support of the "great families" of the county. In such a case the end may readily be predicted, but that end was not reached without a gallant fight. Called upon for his speech, Mr. Disraeli, in