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The Bill underwent all sorts of changes in Committee; but still it seemed to be Disraeli's Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, he is entitled to all the credit which he got, for it was his genius that first saw the possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy.
Ruskin. She has her own views on Venice and its Doges, her enthusiasm over Alps and artisans. The slow approach of autumn brings her to politics. She is deep in Mr. Disraeli's novels, and quotes Mr. Gladstone's Homer. She speculates on Charlie's chances for the county. She knows why the Home Secretary was absent from the last division. The drop of another petal warns her further afield.
Of course the Bishop and those who think with him throw off the authority of our excellent Thirty-nine Articles altogether, and ought to leave the Church to the Protestant clergy and laity. England just then, in Carlyle's judgment, was 'shooting Niagara, and Disraeli's reform proposals were making a stir in the opposite camp.
The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir William Fraser: 'I cannot say that Benjamin Disraeli at this period of his life exhibited any unusual zeal for classical studies; and I doubt whether his attainments in this direction, when he left the school for Mr. Cogan's at Walthamstow, reached higher than the usual grind in Livy and Cæsar.
But Disraeli never cherished a grudge; and only three weeks after he entered Parliament he risked his seat there by a pointed statement of the misgovernment of Ireland. Neither did O'Connell bear malice, and he said of one of Disraeli's speeches, somewhat later, that "it was all excellent except the peroration, and that was matchless."
The grand idea of Disraeli's life was to struggle against what he called the "Venetian Constitution," imposed and maintained by the "Whig Oligarchy." As Radical, as Tory, as novelist, as statesman, his ruling idea was "to dish the Whigs," in Lord Derby's historic phrase. And he did "dish the Whigs." The old Whigs have disappeared from English politics.
Froude gives no help in the solution of the problem. What he does is to portray the original genius which no absurdities could cover, and no obstacles could restrain. Disraeli the "Imperialist" had no more to do with building empires than with building churches, but he was twice Prime Minister of England. * Disraeli's contempt for italics is well known.
Gladstone from joining it in 1852. Disraeli's borrowed heroics in his pompous oration in the House of Commons on the occasion of the death of Wellington, and his errors in tactics and taste as leader of the House, heightened the prevailing impression that, even if the result of the General Election had been different, the Derby Administration was doomed to failure.
No doubt they have unfairly reacted so as to dim our sense of Disraeli's real genius as a writer. When we know Codlingsby by heart, as every one with a sense of humour must do, it is impossible for us to keep our countenance when we take up the palaver about Sidonia and the Chosen Race.
In the intervals of the electoral contests a series of letters to The Times, filled with biting sarcasm, under the signature of "Runnymede;" a novel "Henrietta Temple;" a "Vindication of the British Constitution," dedicated to Lord Lyndhurst; a contrasting presentation of the characters of Byron and Shelley, in the form of romance, under the title of "Venetia," sufficiently occupied Disraeli's time.
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