nected with the race to which he belonged, and of which he was so proud. It enabled him to indulge to extravagance his descriptive powers, and to combine with skill and effect the supernatural with the possible. He had completed by the end of 1832 the Wondrous Tale of Alroy,' which was published in March, 1833. It is written in a kind of rhythmical style, neither prose nor verse, and, although containing some fine passages, is frequently so turgid and bombastic as to lend itself to ridicule. Beckford, himself the author of a well-known Oriental tale, and consequently competent to judge of such a production, wrote him a laudatory letter about it which afforded him the greatest delight. In writing to Mrs. Austen to thank her for a charming letter' about the book, he says:

'It is delightful to be understood and appreciated. I have received a great many letters, but none are to be placed with yours, except one from Beckford, in which you will rejoice. As far as I can infer in so early a stage of his career, "Alroy" is pre-eminently successful.'

It was read with interest and pleasure by the public; the critics, for the most part, spoke favourably of it, and it speedily went into a second edition; but it has not held a place in our literature, and has been long forgotten.

The Wondrous Tale of Alroy' was followed by the 'Rise of Iskander,' a story of the wars of Amurath II., which again enabled him to make use of his experiences in Albania and Constantinople in descriptions of men, manners and costumes, and which being historical would, he thought, form a contrast to Alroy.' At the same time, in order to meet the pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself involved, he entered into an arrangement with two booksellers' for publishing an edition of the Arabian Nights' to be brought out in six or eight monthly volumes, very splendidly illustrated, with notes, and with a preliminary essay on the work and on Oriental life. He was to add a supplementary volume, consisting of an original tale called An Arabian Nights' Entertainment by the Author of "Vivian Grey." He described the undertaking as a job which would not take up more than a month of his time,' but by which he hoped to sack' 1200l. or 1500l., as he counted upon the sale of many thousand copies. The scheme, for some reason, fell through.

6

Whilst employed on these works he was also contemplating the composition of a poem, the first idea of which came to him, he says, when on the windy plain of Troy.' On the 2nd of September (1833) he informed Mrs. Austen that he had written about 4000 lines of a 'Revolutionary Epic,' which was all that

he

he would then venture to print, although the whole of it was matured in his mind, though probably it could not be completed under 30,000 lines:

'What do you think of it?' he asked. The conception seems to me sublime. All depends on the execution. I have finished the three first books. The two first cost me much the most trouble: the rest is play-work. I thought to have been out in February, but many petty annoyances disturb the serenity of my mind, and I cannot write unless I am fairly inspired.'

On the 15th of January (1834) he informed her that he intended to dine with her on the following day, and that he should put a canto of his work into his bag, and would perform the part of the Importunate Author, and bore her with a grand recitation:

'I have got,' he adds, 'a grand simile about a S.-Wester, I think they call it. I am perfectly ignorant of the geography of the wind, and have no atlas here-I mean that wind that blows, I think, about the Cape, and knocks the Hon. Com. ships about. Daniel has a famous picture about it, consisting only of one ship and one wave. Is it a S.-Wester that I mean, and whence does it blow?'

He accordingly read the first canto from the MS. to a few friends assembled at Mrs. Austen's. To them he thus explained its object :

'All great works that have formed an epoch in the history of the human intellect have been an embodification of the spirit of the age. An heroic age produced in the Iliad an heroic poem; the foundation of the Empire of the Caesars produced in the Eneid a political poem; the Reformation and its consequences produced in the Paradise Lost a religious poem. Since the revolt of America a new principle has been at work in the world, to which I trace all that occurs. This is the Revolutionary principle, and this is what I wish to embody in the Revolutionary Epic, and I imagine the Genius of Feudalism and the Genius of Federation appearing before the Almighty Throne and pleading their respective and antagonistic

causes.

Standing with his back to the fire, he proceeded in his usual grandiloquent style and with his usual solemn gesture to ask why, as the heroic age had produced its Homer, the Augustan era its Virgil, the Renaissance its Dante, the Reformation its Milton, should not the Revolutionary epoch, in which we live, produce its representative Poet? The scene was one not to

* He has explained, in nearly the same words, the conception and object of the poem, in his published introduction to it.

be

be forgotten by those who witnessed it. There was something irresistibly comic in the young man dressed in the fantastic, coxcombical costume that he then affected-velvet coat of an original cut thrown wide open, and ruffles to its sleeves, shirt collars turned down in Byronic fashion, an elaborately embroidered waistcoat whence issued voluminous folds of frill, and shoes adorned with red rosettes his black hair pomatumed and elaborately curled, and his person redolent with perfume--announcing himself as the Homer or Dante of the age! After he had left the room, a gentleman who excelled as a mimic, assuming the attitude and voice of the poet, declaimed an impromptu burlesque of the opening lines, which caused infinite merriment to those present.

The conception of the Epic, as he described it, was not wanting in grandeur and originality; and its aim, it must in justice to the author be added, was, as in all his early works, lofty and magnanimous. But the execution was not equal to the conception, although the poem undoubtedly contains some fine lines and noble sentiments, mixed with much that is stilted and even grotesque in style. It fell flat upon the public, although he declared that its success had exceeded his most sanguine expectations, and had been almost forgotten until some lines supposed to justify regicide were quoted from it, in debate in the House of Commons, against the author many years after its publication.

The vast amount of brain-work upon which he had been engaged since his return to England-the Epic, two novels, political pamphlets and newspaper controversies-must have severely taxed his mental powers. Few men have been engaged at one time in more multifarious and arduous labours. He was working harder, he wrote to Mr. Austen, than any man in the kingdom. His pecuniary difficulties, which he described as overwhelming,' caused him, at the same time, serious anxiety, and impeded the full exercise of his imaginative faculties. A poet suddenly disturbed in the midst of the rapture of creation by a dunning letter,' was, he pleaded, an object of pity; and he complained of the cruelty of having his powers of creation marred at the moment when he believed that he was about to produce something great and lasting. He even feared to leave his house on account of the Philistines' who were lying in wait for him. These manifold troubles could not fail to have a very serious effect upon his health, and he began to suffer from a return of the symptoms which had caused him so much alarm in 1830. He was seized in August with a determination of blood to the head when mounting his horse, which

obliged

obliged him to throw himself on the floor of the hall,' and led to a strange illness,' which confined him to the sofa for two months. However, by the end of October his health was completely restored, and he was hard at work again. In the following February he was hunting with Sir Henry Smythe's hounds, and although not in pink, the best mounted man in the field, riding an Arabian mare which he nearly killed—a run of nearly thirty miles and stopping at nothing.' He was then living at Southend, solely on snipes, and riding a good deal.*

6

Between 1833 and 1836 he appears to have abandoned poetry and works of fiction-with the exception of contributions of a light character to Lady Blessington's Book of Beauty'-for political treatises, and for political controversies in the press, frequently of a very angry and irritating nature. In 1834 he published, under the title of The Crisis Examined,' the substance of a speech delivered at High Wycombe on the occasion of a third unsuccessful attempt to represent that borough. It was followed in 1835 by the Vindication of the English Constitution, in a letter to a noble and learned Lord' (Lyndhurst). This treatise contains a sketch of Lord Bolingbroke, which is evidently intended to represent what he aspired to be, and his own political opinions. It drew from Lord St. Germans the prophetic remark, that he could not help thinking that, if opportunities were not withheld, the author might become what Bolingbroke might have been.'† In acknowledging a copy sent to him by the author, Sir Robert Peel wrote of it that he was 'gratified and surprised to find that a familiar and apparently exhausted topic could be treated with so much of original force of argument, and novelty of illustrations,'-praise of which Disraeli was not a little proud as coming from a statesman, whom he not unjustly describes as 'the most jealous, frigid, and haughty of men.' +

On the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the accession to office of the Whigs under Lord Melbourne, Mr. Labouchere, the high-bred gentleman as well as Liberal politician, having been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, was under the necessity of vacating his seat at Taunton and of seeking reelection. Disraeli availed himself of the opportunity to present himself to the electors as the opposition 'Blue' candidate. He was supported by the Tory party, and aided by a subscription opened for him at the Carlton Club headed by Lord Chandos. He was received in the borough with an enthusiasm to which

* Letter to his sister, Feb. 15, 1834. † Ibid. Jan. 9, 1836. Ibid. Dec. 1836.

he

he declared that High Wycombe was 'a miniature,' and in point of energy, eloquence and effect, far exceeded all his former efforts.' He obtained the show of hands at the hustings; but all his energy and eloquence were of no avail against the influence of various kinds brought to bear in favour of the Whig nominee. He was beaten by a considerable majority; but was consoled in his defeat by assurances that, at the next general election, he would be certain of success, twothirds of the electors having promised to vote for him-promises usually made on such occasions, and as usually not kept.

It was in a speech at Taunton that he stigmatized the notorious 'Lichfield House compact' in terms which led to his celebrated quarrel with Daniel O'Connell, who retaliated by bespattering him with that foul and virulent abuse of which he was the acknowledged master, denouncing him as the descendant of 'the impenitent thief on the Cross,' and as a political apostate, whom he had been induced to recommend to the electors of High Wycombe as a Radical, but who had turned Tory to serve his personal interests. On being called out,' after the custom of those days, he refused to fight, alleging that having once killed a man in a duel, he had made a vow never to engage in another. Disraeli then challenged O'Connell's son, Mr. Morgan O'Connell, who had already acted as his father's substitute in an affair of honour with Lord Alvanley, but who declined to do so a second time. Failing to obtain the satisfaction he required, either from the father or the son, he revenged himself by publishing in the Times' an insulting letter addressed to O'Connell, warning him that they would meet at Philippi,' and that 'confident in a good cause and in some energies which had not been altogether unimproved, he would seize the first opportunity of inflicting upon him a castigation which would make him remember and repent the insults lavished upon Benjamin Disraeli.'*

His quarrel with O'Connell, and the charges brought against him by the Whigs and Radicals of political apostasy, led to a correspondence with the Globe' newspaper, in which both sides indulged in vituperation which could not be now employed, except by Irishmen, in political controversy. All that can be said in favour of Disraeli is that his invective had a higher polish, more finish' in his own words, than the coarse abuse of his opponent. He was himself highly satisfied with its

It would appear from a letter to Mr. Austen that Disraeli had, on some occasion, been summoned out as a second in an affair of honour of the most disagreeable and difficult nature.' As the letter is without date, we cannot fix the time of this occurrence.

effect,