PREFACE.

LORD BEACONSFIELD, the course of whose public life I have here attempted to trace, is the greatest living exemplification of the truth of that saying of Byron, "he who surpasses or subdues mankind must look to garner up a pretty fair share of hatred." For forty years he was the best abused public man in England. Every scribbler who could obtain publicity for his lucubrations lifted up his heel against him. Reviewers"irresponsible, ignorant reviewers "-from Edinburgh and other places made capital for themselves by attacking him. The vilest motives were attributed to him; the most infamous stories were fabricated about him. Those whom he had embalmed for posterity in an epigram, or impaled upon an epithet, have wriggled out the last drops of their venom in attacks upon his honour, his character, his consistency. Adventurer" has been the most respectable title accorded to him. Generally the colours have been more glaring; the brush more fully loaded. Thus the world has heard him called a "renegade," a turncoat," a "trickster," a "shuffler," and has been taught to believe

that the one man of commanding political genius whom this century has produced was the incarnation of all that was mean and despicable. Even as I write I find the weekly organ of culture and of Liberalism describing the statesman who saved the honour of England at Berlin as "a bizarre and flashy novelist," "a quaint ideologue," a "charlatan," an “Israelite magician," and "a great mountebank "-all in the compass of a single newspaper article.

Nor have attacks of this kind been invariably the work of Lord Beaconsfield's opponents. They, it is true, have never treated him with common fairness or the most ordinary courtesy, and the leaders have followed the rank and file. That the orators of Trafalgar Square and of Clerkenwell Green should hate Lord Beaconsfield is natural enough, and would probably be considered an honour by the object of their detestation. That Mr. Gladstone and his immediate colleagues should emulate Mr. Bradlaugh in resentment of Lord Beaconsfield's genius and in begrudging his elevation, is less intelligible. Least admirable of all is, however, the treatment he has received from his own party. His worst foes have been they of his own household. The great body of the Conservative party -that party which he re-created, reconstructed, lifted out of the mire of failure and defeat, educated and placed on the pinnacle of power-have never known how to appreciate him. They have dared even to school and to lecture the chief whose

genius compelled them to follow him; and more than once, in time of storm and stress, when fidelity amongst his colleagues was an element of success for the party, he has been deserted by those who were most bound to support him. It has been said of the Great Commoner, Mr. Pitt, that, "constructing his policy on wise and liberal principles, he incorporated with a worn-out creed a new and vital element of strength and imparted to a powerless and unimaginative party the force and refinement of genius." No words could better describe the career of Lord Beaconsfield. He entered public life when Catholic Emancipation had just been carried and when Reform was the question of the hour. He found the great national party in-to quote his own words" a state of ignorant stupefaction," and the Whigs, who had caught that party "napping," at the commencement of a period of domination which, begun by force and continued by fraud, lasted for well-nigh a dozen years. He began at once the work of reconstructing his party. Whilst still young in years and in public life, he was called to its leadership, and from that day forward he led it with unconquerable courage through difficulties all but overwhelming, to eventual triumph. He has completed his work. He has re-established the patriotic principles for which, during well-nigh half a century, he contended with tongue and pen, and during all this long and weary struggle he has been alone-alone in spite of his great qualities. His tact, his courage, his readiness, his adroit

ness, his wit, his marvellous command of temper, his reticence, his patience and his cheerfulness in adversity, have passed all but unrecognised.

In the midst of all this detraction, calumny and misappreciation, however, there have been some who held to their faith in the leader of the Tories; some who recognized his genius; some who were fascinated alike by his public and personal qualities. His want of success did not frighten them. They remembered how the Great Commoner himself had been more often out of office than in, and how on many subjects he had been hopelessly at variance with both his sovereign and the people. They remembered also the reason for Lord Beaconsfield's long exile from office and that had he been more subservient he might from one point of view have been more successful. He had, they remembered, proudly refused to be a "Minister on sufferance," though by so accepting the situation he might have remained in place for an indefinite period. A Sir Charles Wood might alter his Budget four times in a Session and still remain Chancellor of the Exchequer with the full consent of the great united Liberal party. But when Mr. Disraeli presented to the House of Commons a well considered financial scheme at once the boldest and most statesmanlike Budget since the days of Peel-and found the House unwilling to accept it, he took a different course. He was told in so many words to take back his Budget and to reduce it to proportions