Beaconsfield, that, once adopted, the policy of resistance to the Russian assault on Constantinople must be maintained to the end, and that Lord Derby's ambiguities and scruples were compromising the chance of peace.

In the correspondence between Lord Beaconsfield and the Queen, the Minister, although his letters are a literary delight, assumes a subordinate rôle. His embarrassments were manifest. Being a politician, he had to play the game of politics. It is certain, however, that, throughout the hazardous negotiations with Russia, his resolve was strengthened by the Lady on the Throne, who threatened to abdicate should her Minister prove too flexible in the hands of his nerveless colleagues.

There are still some who remember the turmoil of those years that preceded the Berlin Congress. In this country Schouvaloff was the centre of the diplomatic ring. He was typically Russian. Sprung from a handsome and gifted family, he used every artifice with a skill that recalled the diplomacy of the 18th century and the morals of the Court of Catherine. His influence at Knowsley was one of the social scandals of the time, although it was based on nothing more than an honourable but rather silly belief in the pacific influence of private intercourse. But Schouvaloff's machinations were a contributing cause to the fall of Lord Derby, whose political prospects vanished from the hour of his resignation. Lord Carnarvon-or Twiddles, as he was called in the highest spheres- was a loose gun in the ship of State. Until he was pushed overboard there was imminent danger of a catastrophe. As often before, during the time when he sat as Lord Cranborne in the House of Commons, Lord Salisbury baffled the Tadpoles and Tapers, and alarmed the Prime Minister. His handling of the Turks when sent on a special mission to Constantinople, his openly expressed hostility to their rule, his sympathy for the Gladstonian denunciations of atrocities, combined to terrify his colleagues and weaken their determination.

It was at this moment that there flared up in Society' that detestation of Mr Gladstone to which Lord Beaconsfield gives unduly strong expression in a letter quoted in these volumes, which, although it displayed the natural exasperation of a Minister hard pressed by

furious and unscrupulous criticism, did not represent Lord Beaconsfield's reasoned judgment. It soon, however, became apparent to the nation that it was not Turkish atrocities that were the vital question at issue. Moderate men of all parties realised that the interests of Great Britain were gravely compromised by the design of the Russian Emperor to occupy and hold Constantinople. From the moment when this became evident to Lord Salisbury he never wavered; and thenceforward his support of Lord Beaconsfield made the position of the Minister safe and the policy of the Government secure.

Although Lord Beaconsfield had lost the daily companionship of that clever lady who said with truth, that while she was aware he had married her for her money, if he had to marry her again it would be for love, he had found solace in the friendship of Lady Bradford and her sister. He began to move again in society after a restricted fashion. He liked small dinners, 'not more than the Muses, or less than the Graces.' Banquets bored him. A Prime Minister had no social precedence in those days; and he more often than not found himself sitting at dinner between two men, unless his hostess, like clever little Lady Holland, instructed a faithful groom of the chamber to place him, as he walked in last and alone, next to Lady Bradford.

He enjoyed social badinage because he loved to contrast the hidden motive with the public pretext of transactions; and he picked up scraps of gossip which, according to Lady Augusta Stanley, he cooked up to amuse the Queen.' He paid a few country visits, and once again he renewed his 'uncomfortable experience' at Balmoral, although his oriental blood froze in the Highlands. Unless one of his intimate friends was asked to meet him, he was not happy in country houses. He mentions in a letter how tiresome he found a certain house-party at Longleat in the autumn of 1874. One who was present, a youth at the time, noticed his prolonged silences at dinner-only an occasional flash-yet there were pleasant people present. During that visit the Prime Minister was silent and ill-humoured, and showed temper to Lord Malmesbury, his Privy Seal, whom he ordered about like a school-boy. It was on this occasion, when walking in the garden with a young

companion, that, remarking on personal attacks and political hatreds, he said, 'I never trouble to be avenged, but, when a man injures me, I put his name on a slip of paper and lock it up in a drawer. It is marvellous how men I have thus labelled have a knack of disappearing.'

But age and disease were creeping upon him, and in less than two years he suddenly quitted the House of Commons without a word of farewell. The secret of his translation to the Upper House was well kept at the time, and it is disappointing to find no reference in Mr Buckle's volumes to the inner story of that event. There is a letter extant written by Lady Derby to a friend in August 1876, and not mentioned by Mr Buckle, in which she says that 'Dizzy desired to retire altogether, and was only dissuaded by the strongly expressed wishes of the Queen.' His interest in Young England had never flagged. Before leaving the House of Commons he had noted and commented upon two members of the House who were destined to achieve fame. Of Hartington's leadership of the Liberal Party he spoke with warm commendation. He liked the blundering sincerity and honest dealing of his new opponent. Harty Tarty,' he wrote, 'was sensible, dullish and gentlemanlike, all good sense and no earnest nonsense.' No sooner had Lord Randolph Churchill delivered his maiden speech than the Queen was told of the new star. Impudent, which was a matter of small importance in a maiden speech,' he called it, remembering perhaps his own; but he added that the House was surprised and captivated by Lord Randolph's energy, natural flow, and impressive manner. 'With self-control and study he might mount.' Consummate Parliamentarian as Disraeli was, he rarely misjudged a situation or a man. He would stand in the lobby with his back to the fire, noting everything and everybody, and exchanging shots with any member, like 'Geordie Hamilton' or the 'Squire' (now Lord Chaplin), both of whom he loved, who had the boldness to approach him. Had he seen an article in the 19th Century'? No, my dear boy, I hate your new magazines, You will live to see the time when everybody can scribble and nobody write.' For forty years, and especially during his long leadership of his Party, he was rarely absent from the House of Commons. He was for ever

on the watch. But in those days the House of Commons, and not the Government, governed the country. Autres temps, autres mœurs.'

Mr Buckle paints the last five years of Lord Beaconsfield's life in vivid colours. The clever stroke by which the control of the Suez Canal passed to England, the rather ludicrous fuss over the Royal Titles Bill, and the glowing pageantry of the Berlin Congress are the final scenes of Lord Beaconsfield's career. When the Queen made one of her rare appearances, wearing for the first time her Crown as Empress of India, Lord Beaconsfield stood on her left hand holding aloft the sword of State. As Archbishop Tait remarked, 'All seemed founded on the model, What shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour?'

It was forty years, the mystic number of his race, from the day when the young Disraeli had first taken his seat in the House of Commons. Now from the red benches of the House of Lords he could survey the past. An aristocracy, he once said, hesitates before it yields its confidence, but it never does so grudgingly. Now he was its leader and its master. Like any prophet of Israel, he had foretold it all. Mr Buckle's pages bristle with Disraeli's prophecies, and record their fulfilment. Tancred had been shown the vision of a young Queen crowned as Empress of India, and her widening dominion over Egypt and Mesopotamia; while fifty years before the battle of Mukden this crystal-gazer had seen no reason why Japan should not become the Sardinia of the Mongolian East. He had educated his party. Like a great Tudor King, his policy was to establish a balance between the dull Party and the rash Party. Like Fabius Maximus, by bearing patiently the insolence and folly both of the common people and his colleagues, he had proved himself eminently serviceable to his party. He had never used the arts of the demagogue, or put his head under his girdle to please the plebs. Relying upon the conservative instinct, so ingrained in the English people, knowing that the depository of power is always unpopular, and that the long reign of his critics was bound to end, he had waited. When he induced his party reluctantly to yield a measure of Reform, he won his point by explaining to them how

impolitic it is to make it the interest of any powerful class to oppose the institutions under which they live. It is difficult to determine whether he was more eminent as a prophet or a politician.

Lord Beaconsfield's resolve to go to Berlin triumphed over the opposition of the Queen, who feared for his health, and of his colleagues, who mistrusted him as a linguist. His constitution stood the test, and his French was not put to the proof. His arrival was awaited with curiosity. It was at once recognised that at the Congress only two men counted, Bismarck and Beaconsfield. Odo Russell once described the high comedy as it was played when any conflict arose between these two elderly stars. If Bismarck was foiled, he would rise from the table saying, 'I'm off to Kissingen'; while, if Dizzy could not gain his point, he ordered a special train. Georg Brandes met him in crossing the Wilhelmsplatz on the narrow path between the flowerbeds leaning on the arm of Monty Corry on his way to the Congress. He noted the slow steps, and saw that over-exertion was written on every line of his face, while he acknowledged the respectful salutations of the German citizens with a weary mechanical movement.

'As I gazed into the pale and haggard face I thought of the conflicts this man had passed through, the disappointments, the agonies he had suffered, and the lofty courage with which he had triumphed over them all. I thought of his genuine sympathy with the common people and with the oppressed race to which he was never ashamed to belong, and I saw him in a more attractive and ideal light.'

The mise-en-scène of the Congress is described by Lord Beaconsfield in the voluminous letters he wrote to the Queen. The Dynasts of Berlin, like those of more recent days, were busy framing treaties and readjusting the parts of that inorganic organism which goes by the name of Europe. Bismarck and Beaconsfield were the dominant actors in the play, and the living world applauded their successes, while the Spirits of the Pities and the Years stood near, silently recording their failure.

The Berlin Treaty was made to be broken. Few of its provisions were intact in August 1914-while now