carried on. The fact is, the conduct and opinions of public men at different periods of their career must not be too curiously contrasted in a free and aspiring country. The people have their passions, and it is even the duty of public men occasionally to adopt sentiments with which they do not sympathise, because the people must have leaders. . . . . I laugh, therefore, at the objection against a man that, at a former period of his career, he advocated a policy different to his present one: all I seek to ascertain is whether his present policy be just, necessary, expedient; whether, at the present moment, he is prepared to serve the country according to its present necessities."

Ibid. 16-17. In this speech was contained the famons Ducrow simile-one of the first specimens of that power of satirical illustration which Lord Beaconsfield has found so useful in his career. "The Reform Ministry, indeed!" said Mr. Disraeli. "Why, scarcely an original member of that celebrated Cabinet remained. You remember, gentlemen, the story of Sir John Cutler's silk hose. These famous stockings remind me of this famous ministry; for really between Hobhouse darns, and Ellice botchings, I hardly can decide whether the hose are silk or worsted. The Reform Ministry! I dare say now some of you have heard of Mr. Ducrow, that celebrated gentleman who rides upon six horses. What a prodigious achievement! It seems impossible, but you have confidence in Ducrow ! You fly to witness it; unfortunately, one of the horses is ill, and a donkey is substituted in its place. But Ducrow is still admirable; there he is, bounding along in a spangled jacket and cork slippers! The whole town is mad to see Ducrow riding at the same time on six horses; but now two more of the steeds are seized with the staggers, and lo! three jackasses in their stead! Still Ducrow persists, and still announces to the public that he will ride round is circus every night on six steeds. At last, all the horses are knocked up, and now there are half-a-dozen donkeys. What a change! Behold the hero in the amphitheatre, the spangled jacket thrown on one side, the cork slippers on the other! Puffing, panting. and perspiring, he pokes one sullen brute, thwacks another, cuffs a

A third time Mr. Disraeli was defeated, both Mr. Smith and Colonel Grey having again received more votes.*

But, still unconquered, he showed in the very hour of defeat that spirit of elastic self-confidence, and that patient steadiness of purpose, to which he owes so much of his life's success.

"He had," he said at a Conservative dinner about a fortnight after his defeat-" He had made two struggles for the independence of Wycombe, and he was prepared, if the opportunity offered, to make a third. (Cheers.) He was not at all disheartened; he did not in any way feel like a beaten man. Perhaps it was because he was used to it. (Cheers and laughter.) He would say of himself with the famous Italian general, who being asked in his old age why he was always victorious, replied, it was because he had always been beaten in youth. (Loud applause.)"†

third, and curses a fourth, while one brays to the audience, and another rolls in the sawdust. Behold the late Prime Minister and the Reform Ministry! The spirited and snow-white steeds have gradually changed into an equal number of sullen and obstinate donkeys. While Mr. Merryman, who, like the Lord Chancellor, was once the very life of the ring, now lies his despairing length in the middle of the stage, with his jokes exhausted and his bottle empty!"-Ibid. 29-31. In the title-page of the "Crisis Examined." as well as in that of other works of his youth, Lord Beaconsfield describes himself as "Disraeli the Younger."

The numbers were-Smith, 288; Grey, 147; Disraeli, 128. † Bucks Herald, Jan. 31, 1835.

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CHAPTER V.

REACHING THE NADIR.

THE year 1835 is one to which Mr. Disraeli must look back occasionally with feelings of poignant pain. In that year he reached his nadir.

In 1834 he published "The Revolutionary Epick." He had already given the world abundant proof of a conceit, both political and literary, that was almost superhuman. But "The Revolutionary Epick" eclipsed all previous performances.

The preface to that poem is perhaps the most extraordinary piece of writing that has ever been penned by "It any man, not admittedly a lunatic or an imbecile. was on the plains of Troy," it begins, "that I first conceived the idea of this work."*

Mark, first, the mise en scène. The plains of Troy ! Mr. Disraeli is so impressed with the greatness of his work, and himself, that he must select as the birthplace of his poem the most remarkable spot on the whole earth: he stands with his epic in his hand, the central figure, at the centre of the universe!

"Wandering," proceeds Mr. Disraeli, "over that

* Preface, i.

illustrious scene, surrounded by the tombs of heroes. and by the confluence of poetic streams, my musing thoughts clustered round the memory of that immortal song, to which all creeds and countries alike respond, which has vanquished Chance and defied Time. Deeming myself, perchance too rashly, in that excited hour, a Poet, I cursed the destiny that had placed me in an age that boasted of being anti-poetical. And while my Fancy thus struggled with my Reason, it flashed across my mind, like the lightning which was then playing over Ida,"-thus Nature, in one of her sublimest moods, is pressed into service: flashes of lightning; Mr. Disraeli; the plains of Troy-these are the magnificent stage directions-"it flashed across my mind, like the lightning which was then playing over Ida, that in those great poems which rise, the pyramids of poetic art, amid the falling and fading splendour of less creations, the Poet hath ever embodied the spirit of his Time. Thus the most heroic incident of an heroic age produced in the Iliad an Heroic Epick; thus, the consolidation of the most superb of Empires produced in the Eneid a Political Epick; the revival of Learning, and the birth of vernacular Genius, presented us in the Divine Comedy with a National Epick; and the Reformation and its consequences called from the rapt lyre of Milton a Religious Epick. And the spirit of my time, shall it alone be uncelebrated? Standing upon Asia, and gazing upon Europe, with the broad Hellespont alone between us, and the shadow of Night descending on

the mountains "-Nature pressed into service again -“these mighty continents appeared to me as it were the Rival Principles of Government, that at present contend for the mastery of the world. 'What!' I exclaimed, 'is the Revolution of France a less important event than the siege of Troy? Is Napoleon a less interesting character than Achilles? For me remains the Revolutionary Epick."*

Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, and Mr. Disraeli-the Iliad, the Æneid, the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and the Revolutionary Epick!-was there ever such strangely assorted company?

We can imagine the effect such a preface produced in 1834. Up to that year Mr. Disraeli had practically given proof of little beyond his own conceit. "Contarini Fleming" was in great part nonsense,

Alroy" was nonsense, "Vivian Grey's" cleverness was obscured by extravagance and vanity; and the author of all this mediocre stuff declares himself the successor of the Father of Poetry!

Let us remember, in addition to all this, the corresponding pretentiousness of appearance and tone, the flowing ringlets and the D'Orsay garments, the affectation of keeping the best company and drinking the finest wines: let us remember this, and we can well understand the bitter dislike and contempt which were excited by the Disraeli of 1834.

The "Revolutionary Epick" fully carries out the promise of the preface. Like the preface, void of

* Ibid. i.-ii.