castigated the Whigs alternately with the bitterest vehemence and the broadest sarcasm, And all this was done with an energy and animation that must have been very effective.*

We have already seen that appearance was a matter to which Mr. Disraeli evidently paid a great deal of attention; and that other people repaid this, by founding their admiration or contempt for his abilities and character to some extent on their impressions of his exterior. The Liberal journal of the district, at all events, found a most convincing proof of Mr. Disraeli's unworthiness in his appearance.†

The nomination took place on the 26th June, and naturally excited Wycombe to its shallow depths. The occasion, apart altogether from the character of the candidates, was deeply interesting. On Thursday, June 7,—that is, about three weeks before this day,

The estimates formed of the speech by the Liberal and the Tory journals, amid apparent difference, agree on the whole. "After this harlequinade," writes the chronicler already alluded to, "had been performed,"-meaning the kissing of hands, etc.,-"Mr. Disraeli addressed the populace . . . . . and, in a speech of some ability and much gesticulation, amused the gaping throng for a little more than an hour." "Mr. Disraeli," said the Tory journal, "concluded a speech replete with talent, delivered with great energy, and producing a powerful effect."

.....

Having first characterised Mr. Disraeli as an "Adonis of the sable cheek," he "challenges attention to himself," continues the Bucks Gazette, "by adorning his wrists with cambric, his bosom with lace;" he "puts a blue band round his hat, when the vulgar wears a black one;" he "carries a black cane with a gold head;" his coat is lined with pink silk," and "before he essays to speak on the hustings," he "formally adjusts his ringlets," whose "duty is assigned them on his brow." "Such a man,"-and here we must apologise for the indecorous language of our authority-" such a

-the Reform Bill had received the Royal assent. The Act had not yet come into operation; but this was at all events the last election under the old form.

The Mayor and Corporation, who had so long enjoyed the exclusive right of election, were about to exercise their power for the last time, and the townsfolk were about to witness the last scene in the oligarchical rule, which had been abolished for

ever.

Mr. Disraeli's speech was just such as one might expect from a Radical candidate; and many of its passages are paraphrases of the sentences in some of the letters of recommendation which he had presented from the Radical leaders.

The Radicals or Reformers, as I have said, complained of the existence of sinecures, and of the nepotism of the Premier. Mr. Disraeli said that "he had never received one shilling of public money," and that "he belonged to a family who never had." Then he spoke of the Reform Act, in almost the very words of Daniel O'Connell and Joseph Hume. He regarded it as "a means to a great end;" and, finally, he made the

man-we had said, such a popinjay-appears to deliver himself something as follows: 'Look on my antagonist, and look on me. See bim, plain in his attire, plain in his speech. Behold me; will you not vote for a person of my blandishments? and the author of the novel?'" "The short fact is," says the same unfriendly critic, "that he is as artificial a speaker as he is a reformer; that his novel-his 'Vivian Grey-is as meretricious as are the ornaments with which he bedizens himself."-June 30, 1832.

truly Radical boast that he was sprung from the people," and had "none of the blood of the Plantaganets or Tudors in his veins."

One other point in this memorable speech is worth notice. It has already been seen that the Radical candidate, as is so often the case, received a certain amount of Tory support. The plain reason of this circumstance, on the present occasion, has been stated in a passage of the Tory organ already quoted. It was not that the Tories loved Liberalism more, but that they hated Radicalism less than Whiggery. The explanation which Mr. Disraeli gives is pretty much the same. "The support he received from the Tories," he said, "was easily to be accounted for. The people supported him first, and the Tories, finding that it was useless to attempt to check their wishes, resolved to promote a general feeling of friendliness. It was to this he owed the support of his friends the Tories, and he trusted this union. would be lasting. It would be, for the Tories must now lean on them: they need not lean on the

Tories."

However, neither the support of the Radicals nor of the Tories was of any avail. Let me not spoil, by interpolating a word of my own, the splendid though unconscious humour of the paragraph in which the paper of the period announces the result of the election:

"The polling then commenced. At about five o'clock Mr. Disraeli retired. The poll at the close

was-Grey, 23; Disraeli, 12; majority, 11. Mr. Disraeli says in a bill that he had a majority of resident voters, but the numbers were-Grey, residents, 11; Disraeli, 7; majority, 4. There were two more to poll in the Grey interest."*

* Bucks Gazette, June 30, 1832. The same journal, in the same issue, also says Mr. Disraeli's "principal supporters were the Radicals."

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECOND ELECTION AT WYCOMBE.

MR. DISRAELI received his defeat at High Wycombe with neither patience nor despair.

Immediately after the declaration of the poll, he again ascended the rostrum, and again delivered a lengthy speech. In those days of hard hitting, no man, perhaps, had much chance of prominence in the political arena without using strong language. Mr. Disraeli, at all events, had determined at a very early stage in his career that the bitterness of his tongue should be one of his principal means of success.

Some of the assertions made in this speech afforded subject for a controversy between Mr. Disraeli and his opponent in the interval between the first and second elections. Of these things, however, there is but one which interests us nowadays. In a speech to his constituents in December, Colonel Grey accused Mr. Disraeli of having made use of the words,