effect, and was convinced that he had fully vindicated his consistency, and had confuted the charge of having abandoned his political principles. He told his sister, triumphantly, that his letters had 'made a great sensation,' as he was 'the first individual who had silenced the press with its own weapons.'

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Whilst engaged in this angry and exciting correspondence, he appears to have been contributing political articles to the 'Morning Post.' It is the only paper now read,' he wrote to his sister, and in its columns some great unknown has suddenly risen whose exploits form almost the sole staple of political conversation. All attempts at discovering the writer have been baffled, and the mystery adds to the keen interest which the articles excite.' The mystery he leaves her to solve.

In the winter and spring of 1836 appeared in the 'Times' the celebrated Runnymede Letters.' His love of mystification induced him to tell his sister that they were the only things talked of in London, especially the latter ones-the Author is unknown. One or two papers have foolishly ascribed them to me. There is certainly some imitation of my style, and the writer is familiar with my works.' We believe that he never publicly owned their authorship; but they bear ample evidence of his pen.

He had now achieved the objects for which he had so persistently laboured, notoriety and fame. He was the subject of general curiosity, and was everywhere talked about. He figured at Almack's, and appeared at fancy balls in whimsical costumes. He met at dinner, in great houses, the men of light and leading' of the day, and the rising statesmen, amongst whom was young Gladstone.' To his social success, and to the fashionable circles to which he had access, to his dress, and to the effect produced by his personal appearance, he constantly refers in his letters with womanish vanity and delight. He was specially pleased with the portrait which Count d'Orsay had made of him, and which had been published. In presenting a copy of it to his friend, Mrs. Austen, he advises her to 'let Cribb make for it a frame of maple wood according to a pattern which I have given him for a portrait of the Duke of Devonshire for Mrs. Norton.' He was certainly at that time a very handsome young man, with a countenance in which beauty of feature and intellectual expression were strikingly combined.

In the winter of 1835 he was concerned in some mysterious financial operation which he considered of great political importance. Circumstances,' he wrote to Mr. Austen, have placed me behind the curtain of financial politics.' What the precise nature of this operation was we have been unable Vol. 168.-No. 335.

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to ascertain. It was seemingly connected with the issue of a loan for a foreign Power in Holland, as he informed Mr. Austen that he was in frequent secret communication with the Secretary of the Dutch Legation in London, and twice went over to the Hague in connection with the affair. He was in expectation of making a considerable sum of money by it, at a moment when he was in serious monetary straits; but it came to nothing, and we merely mention the circumstance as it affords curious evidence that, in his description of Sidonia, in 'Coningsby,' he had himself in view in that great and all-knowing politician and financier, or that in Sidonia he sketched a character to which it was his ambition to attain. The purchase by him in after years, when Prime Minister, of the Suez Canal shares, affords a striking instance of his conception of ‘financial politics.'

It was not till late in 1836 that Disraeli returned to fiction, and published his novel of Henrietta Temple.' It was written under the pressure and anxiety of financial difficulties, from which he had in vain endeavoured to extricate himself, and which were daily increasing. They seriously interfered with his literary work; but he bore up against them with his usual courage and self-confidence. Henrietta Temple' was received by the public, and especially by London society, in a manner that afforded him the most intense gratification. He describes, in his letters, the compliments addressed to him upon it by fine ladies and men of fashion. Its success, indeed, was such as to induce Colburn, the publisher, to accept with great readiness a second novel, Venetia,' which was produced in the following year.

The dissolution of Parliament, which took place on the death of the King in 1837, at length afforded Disraeli the occasion so long and anxiously sought for to enter Parliament. He presented himself as one of the Tory candidates at Maidstone in company with Mr. Wyndham Lewis, a gentleman who had for some years represented the Borough. He was opposed by a wellknown Liberal, Colonel Perronet Thompson, and after a contest of no great severity was elected by a majority of 204 over his opponent, Mr. Wyndham Lewis being at the head of the poll. He has himself, in his letters, given a most graphic description of his first appearance in the House of Commons, and of the scene which occurred when he was howled down by a band of Radicals and Irish, in revenge for his attack upon O'Connell, and when he made the celebrated exclamation, that the time will come when you will hear me.' The manner in which he ended in gaining the ear of the House, by judiciously acting

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upon the advice of friends who, in face of a reputed failure, had discerned even in this first attempt his abilities as a Parliamentary orator, and foretold his future eminence, proves that he possessed those qualities-tact, temper, courage, and selfrestraint—which, in combination with genius, go to form a great Party leader.

The public career of Lord Beaconsfield belongs to history, and, as we have said at the commencement of this article, we do not think that the time is yet come to enter upon it. As to events of a personal character, we need only mention, that in the year following the Maidstone election his colleague, Mr. Wyndham Lewis, died, and that in supporting, before a Committee of the House of Commons, a petition against the return of Mr. Fector, who was elected in his stead, the famous Parliamentary counsel, Mr. Charles Austin, made statements which Mr. Disraeli considered offensive to his honour, as accusing him of 'public corruption and private dishonesty.' He consequently wrote an intemperate letter to the Morning Post,' declaring these statements to be utterly untrue, and stigmatizing them as the blustering artifice of a rhetorical hireling, availing himself of the vile licence of a loose-tongued lawyer, not only to make a statement which was false, but to make it with a consciousness of its falsehood.' Mr. Austin filed a criminal information against him for libel, and Mr. Disraeli, suffering judgment to go by default, appeared in person before the Court, over which Lord Denman presided, to receive it. In an able speech, in which he tendered to Mr. Austin an apology, satisfactory to that gentleman and to the Attorney-General, the matter ended by the prayer for judgment being withdrawn.

In 1839 he married the widow of Mr. Wyndham Lewis, 'the pretty little woman, a flirt and a rattle,' whom he had met several years before at Edward Bulwer's. His marriage may be said to have been, under the circumstances, a happy one. It relieved him from his pecuniary difficulties and their attendant cares and troubles, and left him free to pursue his career.* In one of his letters to his sister,† he had jokingly asked her whether she would like for a sister-in-law a lady who had 25,000l., adding, 'As for love, all my friends who married for love and beauty either beat their wives or live apart from them. This is literally the case. I may commit many follies in life, but I never

It has been stated, we know not on what authority, that his financial embarrassments were at one time so considerable that he was ready to accept a diplomatic appointment, but refused a consul-generalship in South America which Sir Robert Peel had offered him.

† May 22nd, 1833.

intend to marry for "love," which I am sure is a guarantee of infelicity.' Whatever may have been the motives for his marriage, there is no more amiable trait in the character of Lord Beaconsfield, no more convincing proof of his kindliness of heart, his affectionate disposition, and his honourable conception of duty, than his conduct to his wife throughout the many years they passed together.

We might here have brought our notice of the early life of Lord Beaconsfield to a close, but it would be incomplete, if we did not point out the marvellous manner in which the dreams and forecasts of his youth, as to his future greatness, were fulfilled in the closing years of his eventful career.

In 1868 Mr. Disraeli, on the resignation of Lord Derby, attained to the height of his ambition, as the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of England. But his tenure of office was too short to enable him to carry out any measures with which his name can be connected, and which are impressed with his political views. On the fall of Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1874, Mr. Disraeli was again called to the head of the Government. He was now in a position to put into practical execution many of the ideas and schemes which his fertile imagination had conceived before he had scarcely reached manhood. A notable occasion soon presented itself when, in consequence of the refusal of the Porte to accept the reforms for the amelioration of the condition of the Sultan's Christian subjects proposed to it by the Great Powers, Russia availed herself of the long-sought-for opportunity of invading Turkey, with the ultimate view of acquiring Constantinople and the

entrances into the Black Sea.

Lord Beaconsfield, following in the footsteps of our greatest statesmen, from Chatham to Lord Palmerston, had always accepted as a cardinal axiom of British foreign policy the maintenance of the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire. It was out of no love for the Turks, although, as we have seen from his early letters, he had formed a favourable opinion of the character of this much-maligned and misrepresented people-as, indeed, every impartial traveller who has acquired an intimate knowledge of it has done-but because he had convinced himself, that it was of vital importance to England that the rule of the Sultan should be maintained in his European Provinces, until it could be replaced by that of some Power not dangerous to her interests. At the same time, he was as desirous as any English statesman could be, both on the grounds of humanity and of policy, that the Turkish administration should be brought more into accordance

with that of civilized nations, and that the fullest protection for life and property should be secured to the Sultan's Christian subjects. This policy, he believed, afforded the best prospect of preserving the Turkish Empire, and of preparing the Christian populations of European Turkey to form a nation strong enough to maintain its independence, should the time arrive for the substitution of Christian for Mahommedan rule. These views were opposed to those of Russia, who was far from desiring that the Christians should be well governed, or that an independent State should be established to the south of the It was her object to keep the European Provinces of Turkey in a continual state of disorder, and to frustrate every attempt on the part of the Porte to improve the condition of, and to conciliate, the Christian populations. Whilst their misgovernment and consequent discontent furnished her the means of carrying on her intrigues and undermining the authority of the Sultan in time of peace, they afforded her an excuse for making war to promote her ambitious designs, when she thought the moment opportune for doing so. The occasion for the latter course was afforded by the cruelties alleged to have been committed by the Turkish authorities in suppressing an attempt on the part of the Bulgarians, to rise against the Turkish authorities. This insurrection was known to have been brought about by the intrigues of Russian agents, acting under the directions of the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople. Had it proved successful, it would have led to a general massacre of the Mohammedans, and to the burning and sacking of Turkish towns.

Russia availed herself of the sensation, which the enormously exaggerated reports of outrages perpetrated by the Turkish irregulars had excited in England, to separate herself from the other Powers, and, under the pretext of being their mandatory in compelling the Porte to accept their proposals for the improvement of the conditions of its Christian subjects, prepared for war against Turkey.

But

Lord Beaconsfield held, that this was but an insidious pretence for carrying out her design for the further dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and that her proceedings were a violation of the law of nations, of the treaty of Paris, and of the understanding come to with the other Powers, which would have justified England in going to war. his Cabinet being divided on the subject, he limited his action to the solemn and indignant protest against the conduct of Russia, contained in Lord Derby's despatch of 1st of May, 1877. This protest, as well as other efforts of Lord Beaconsfield to maintain peace, and to uphold the true in

terests