easiness of comprehension in a writer is a quality to be suspected; for, probably, it arises from his leaving out a partfrequently the most difficult part-of the subject. Mr. Cairnes never does this; he takes his readers through the subject, just as it seemed to him to be. He did not make it artificially easy, or attempt to please them by lessening its intricacies. And he showed himself even more careless of popularity in another way. The curiosity on such subjects is now far greater than the capacity for gratifying it; severe and abstract reasoning is necessary before they can be mastered, and there are many who dislike severe and abstract reasoning. Accordingly, something else is often put forward, as if it would do as well. 'Figures' are used instead of reasoning. But, as Mr. Cairnes always contended, the figures of an instance do not of themselves prove anything beyond that instance. They are most valuable in illustrating a distinct argument, but that argument must accompany them. But, as the argument is often more difficult than the illustration, it is apt not to be used, and 'political economy' is in danger of dissolving into 'statistics,' which is much as if anecdotes of animals were substituted for the science of biology.

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The constant rigour with which Mr. Cairnes withstood these temptations, has given his writings a very peculiar character. There is a Euclidian precision about them which fits them for a tonic for the mind, and which makes much other writing seem but soft stuff' after we have been reading them;-at any rate, you feel that you have seen, in all likelihood, the worst of the subject. You have been in company with one who did not spare himself anything, and who despised readers that wished to be spared anything. Reading his works is like living on high ground; the thin air of abstract truth' which they give you, braces the mind just as fine material air does the body.

The wonder that this incessant intellectual vigour was

for years by a wasting invalid, hardly able to move,

and often in the most intense pain, has long been familiar to his friends, and has now been published to the world. Much as those who read his writings valued his life, they felt almost forbidden to grieve when they heard of his death; for it seemed selfish to wish that their instruction should be purchased at the cost of such pain as his. Why a mind like his should have been created, and then the power to use it at all fully withheld, is one of the mysteries of which in this world we have no solution.

By far the most remarkable of Mr. Cairnes's writings, in our judgment, are his Logic of Political Economy' and his essays on some of the Unsettled Questions,' recently published. In the first he defines better, as we think, than any previous writer, the exact sort of science which political economy is, the kind of reasoning which it uses, and the nature of the relation which it, as an abstract science, bears to the concrete world. Those who know how many different opinions have been held on this, and how difficult a part of the subject it is as a rule, prize, we think, most highly what Mr. Cairnes has said on it. In his recent essays on Unsettled Questions' in political economy, Mr. Cairnes takes up the hardest parts of the subject and discusses them with a consistent power-it might almost be said with an enjoyment-which is scarcely given to any one who now remains to us. As the questions with which he deals are unsettled,' it would be premature to assume the truth of his conclusions; but this may be said, that all who hereafter write on these problems, not only ought to study what he has said, but also to reply to it, if they do not agree with it, a process which-if we may speak from some experience they will not find at all easy.

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We do not mean that Mr. Cairnes has conclusively solved these problems; there are several on which our opinions are not his. And all will agree that the recluse life which his health compelled him to lead, deprived him of information, and especially of a sort of easy familiarity with the course of

business, which the greatest ability could not wholly make up for. But under such circumstances the wonder is, not that what he did was sometimes imperfect, but that he was able to do anything.

We have spoken of Mr. Cairnes principally as an economist, partly because that is more especially our own province, but partly also because we think that was the capacity in which his powers were best fitted to work, and by which he will be most remembered. But his other writings have much and characteristic merit, though this is not the time to attempt an estimate of them. In the presence of great difficulties, silence is better than many words;' and there are few greater difficulties than that a mind so strong and pure should have been so thrust aside from life and subjected to so much pain.

MR. DISRAELI AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

[1876]

NOTHING could be more out of place or premature than to review as yet Mr. Disraeli's career. That career is not yet ended. But some remarks may be made on him as a member of the House of Commons, in which he has sat for forty years, and where he obtained his political eminence and power. That part of his career is certainly over, for he has chosen to leave its peculiar scene.

During this long period Mr. Disraeli has filled four parts. First-that of a political free-lance or outsider. And it was in this that he first obtained fame. The best opportunity for such a man is, when parties are breaking up; when secret feelings are in many minds; when cautious men do not know what to say. The latter part of Sir Robert Peel's ministry was such a period. From the time when he became conspicuously and obviously a Free-trader, there was always a secret anger in the Conservative ranks which craved for an outlet, but which no regular man' could express. This Mr. Disraeli spoke out. From the time of Mr. Milne's sugar amendment, in 1844, till the completion of the disruption of the Tories, in 1846, Mr. Disraeli poured epigram upon epigram and innuendo on innuendo on the organised hypocrisy' of his professed leader; and there is no doubt that Sir Robert Peel suffered exceedingly under the smart. He was, in every way, a most sensitive man, and he was especially sensitive in all that related to the House of Commons, which was the scene

of his life, and to his position there. But now he was, for the first time in his life, exposed to a style of attack to which he had not the sort of power to reply, but which was for the moment the most effective style of any; and he was pained accordingly. No 'free-lance,' perhaps, has ever achieved so much and so suddenly as Mr. Disraeli then did. Upon this part of his career an historical examiner would give him first-rate marks-much greater than he would give to any competitor.

The next, and far the longest, of Mr. Disraeli's Parliamentary parts is that of Leader of Opposition. And in this he showed eminent mind-not equal to that of his free-lance period, but still very great. His powers of epigram and amusing nonsense gave infinite aid, year after year, to a party. that was to be beaten. And, after his fashion, he showed a high magnanimity and conscience in not opposing or hampering the Ministry on great questions-say of foreign policy, when his so doing would hurt the country. But this praise must end here. On all minor Parliamentary questions, Mr. Disraeli has simply no conscience at all. He regards them as a game-as an old special pleader regarded litigation, to be played so as to show your skill, and so as to win, but without any regard to the consequences. Indeed, Mr. Disraeli, at bottom, believes that they have no consequences-that all is settled by questions of race, 'Caucasian or Semitic,' and that it is simple pedantry in such things to be scrupulous. And still worse than this, which is an amusing defect after all, and excusable (for there are many deeper issues and causes than are dreamed of in Parliamentary philosophy)-Mr. Disraeli often showed in Opposition a turn for nonsense, which was not amusing. He has many gifts, but he has not the gift of thinking out a subject, and when he tries to produce grave thought he only makes platitudes. And some of his 'mares' nests,' like his difficulty in the Franco-German War, arising out of our guarantee to the Saxon provinces of Prussia, have been