THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 464.-JULY, 1920.

Art. 1.-LORD BEACONSFIELD.

The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Vols v and VI. John Murray, 1920.

IF Sidonia was right in deeming that adventures are to the adventurous, Mr Buckle would pass the Sidonian test; for it was a notable adventure to take up the story of Disraeli's life midway, to complete the canvas half filled by another hand. Mr Buckle's achievement is the more meritorious inasmuch as the ground plan of the Biography was not his own, that the material was vast and unravelled, and that some measure of censorship has been imposed by persons whose claims could not be denied. Under such conditions Plutarch would have failed to compose a perfect biography, or Lockhart a great book.

Before Lord Morley began to write Mr Gladstone's Life, he discussed with a friend what form the perfect biography should take; and it was agreed that, in defiance of convention, a book in three volumes, the first of which should be an appreciation, on the lines of Lord Morley's own Cromwell, and the other two a selection of Papers and Correspondence, would satisfy the most fastidious taste, although a publisher for such a work might not be easy to find. Mr Buckle has been faced with no such problem. For him the task was plainly set, and he may rest satisfied with the result. He has reconstructed for those who never knew Lord Beaconsfield that strange figure of a Jew of Aragon, which Disraeli loved to think he was, clothed in the robes of the most ancient order of Christian chivalry Vol. 234.-No. 464.

In the two final volumes there is revealed, by judicious selection from his own inimitable letters, a wonderful picture of a weary but indomitable fighter, struggling against physical infirmities, who 'wrought in brave old age what youth had planned.'

Lord Beaconsfield left his papers to Lord Rowton, the Monty Corry of these volumes, his much-loved and devoted private secretary. A charming personality, of serious purpose, faithful in all things, Monty Corry's eminently practical habits and training unfitted him for literary effort. He was never able to bring himself to grapple with the formidable bequest. He got so far as to obtain from Queen Victoria the loan of Disraeli's letters to his Sovereign. These were copied, and after Lord Rowton's death the originals were returned to King Edward and handed by him to the Keeper of the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. They have been used with tact and discernment by Mr Buckle. But the numerous boxes full of unsorted miscellaneous correspondence remained at New Court, in charge of Lord Rothschild, and were ultimately given to Mr Monypenny much as they were left by Lord Beaconsfield.

The choice of a biographer was difficult. There were two men qualified above all others by eminence in literature and politics. Lord Morley, had he been free from the trammels of public life, would have revelled in the congenial task. Although a political opponent, his literary and artistic spirit yearned to handle so great an opportunity. Reluctantly he put the temptation aside. And Lord Rosebery, whom Disraeli liked and admired, and more than once tried to capture, could not be induced to make the sacrifice demanded of him. When Mr Monypenny was finally selected, he visited Windsor Castle in order to discuss, with one who had charge of the Queen's official papers, the plan of the Biography. He was aware how handicapped he was by his youth, his sojourn in South Africa, aloof from English public affairs, and his want of acquaintance with the political and social world in which Disraeli had always moved. But it soon became evident that no mistake had been made, and that the young journalist's judgment and insight were on a level with his literary capacity. His untimely death threw the biographical enterprise once

more into confusion. The choice of Mr Buckle was happy. Although he was too young a man to have known Disraeli, he could remember Lord Beaconsfield. When almost a youth he had, to the amazement of the journalistic world, been chosen to sit in the chair of Delane. For a good many years, with ability and with a high and disinterested sense of duty, he had edited the greatest newspaper in the world. His functions threw him into the inner ring of political life. His knowledge and judgment qualified him for the task he undertook, and has so successfully carried through to its conclusion. It is one of the most curious of life's little ironies that one who had been editor of The Times' should have been selected as the biographer of Lord Beaconsfield. For Disraeli was never a favourite with the Thunderer; there were moments in his life when 'The Times harassed him with venomous hostility. Rarely could he do right in the eyes of Delane. The two men were cast in different moulds. Delane was as typical an Englishman as Palmerston. Physically, morally, intellectually, Delane and Disraeli were at the opposite poles. Even when, in his later years, Lord Beaconsfield was seen to stand for theories of government and for British aspirations that were congenial to Delane, 'The Times' never gave a whole-hearted support to the man whom all his life Delane had mistrusted. Who,' wrote Lord Beaconsfield, 'shall rule the country, the Queen's Minister, or Printing House Square?' 'Never mind "The Times," he said on another occasion, to Lady Chesterfield, 'I will beat even your Times, which I know you are always afraid of; "The Times" may scold, it may rave and rant-but it will not daunt me.'

Delane was well aware of this attitude of defiance, to which he was not accustomed. The 'tricky politician' who had been described in the 'Quarterly Review,' by one who was to become his colleague and successor, as dishonest, a mere political gamester, characterised by baseness and perpetual political mendicancy, had no attraction for the ebullient editor of 'The Times.' Even if the Prime Minister occasionally made good points for England, he was not to be forgiven his origin and early peccadilloes.

Differences of political opinion are susceptible of adjustment, but differences of political temperament are

fundamental. Gladstone's personal dislike of Disraeli was temperamental. Gladstone, said a careful observer in 1870, looked a true-born Englishman, with noble clearcut profile, a piercing eye and an unconstrained manner. Disraeli, with curly black hair, dark skin, prominent under-lip and determined fiery glance, looked like a fire spirit confronted with the spirit of the ocean. 'It was evident when he began to speak,' he adds, ‘which was the more interesting man of the two.' Disraeli's Aragonese mannerisms, his clear monotonous voice and cold demeanour, repelled, with a physical repulsion, his impassioned adversary. Wilberforce, trying at one moment to be all things to both men, piqued, it is true, at the loss of the See of Canterbury, while he saw Gladstone as ever great, earnest and honest,' could only see in Disraeli a master of selfish cunning and unprincipled trickery, a mere mystery man.' Yet, now that 'Dizzy stands self-revealed in Mr Buckle's volumes, this judgment seems inept, and this comparison between the two statesmen crudely unfair.

Mr Buckle now brings us to the period of Disraeli's life, when at last the English people yielded him their confidence and gave him a majority in Parliament. Confidence indeed had been of slow growth. For a quarter of a century the party of which he was the real though not the titular head had been in opposition. His racial qualities, endurance, and patient tenacity—that supreme knowledge of how to wait-had stood him in good stead. And his party reaped the benefit of his Maccabean courage. The personal antipathies of his followers gradually vanished, and suddenly the party that has been called the stupid party appeared to understand their Sphinx. Yet his political opinions were manifest. Although he once said to Dicky Doyle, 'Owing to circumstances I have had to talk a great deal, but nature made me a listener,' his inclination had from his youth up forced him into the arena of literature; and in his political tracts and in his autobiographical confessions, cast in the original form of the political novel, Disraeli had over and over again revealed his political soul. The policy that he lived to carry out, and to inaugurate for his successors, had been clearly exposed in the trilogy of novels, 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred.' In the history of

our nation no political mind shows greater consistency He was flexible and accommodating, as every leader of a party should be, but from his political ideals he rarely swerved. Yet in 1867, when Lord Derby's retirement was imminent, the veteran Prime Minister wrote to Lord Malmesbury, As to Disraeli's personal unpopularity, I see it and regret it'; and it was problematic whether the Conservative Party would follow their titular chief. An Eton boy who was in the habit of spending his summer holidays at Lowther Castle, and who had acquired the precocious habit of keeping a Journal, noted in August, 1867 that old Lord Lonsdale-the Lord Eskdale of 'Coningsby '-whose fine judgment Disraeli had extolled, thought Disraeli's chances forlorn; and his doubts were shared by the prominent Tories who were his guests.

Nevertheless, in the early days of the following year, the Queen, when Lord Derby retired, solved the problem by sending for Mr Disraeli. She herself had a load of prejudice to put aside. The Prince Consort had disliked Disraeli. The Prince looked upon Peel as a noble English gentleman and broad-minded statesman, who had been slowly beaten to his knees by this satanic Jew. The Queen rarely reversed her husband's judgments. She had, two years before, accepted Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer without much demur, mainly because the holder of that office was not brought into contact with the Sovereign. Among Disraeli's personal conquests that over the Queen was the longest deferred. He has been accused of flattering her and of subservience to her lightest wish-pliancy Mr Lowe called it but the secret of his success did not lie in subservience to the monarch but in masculine appreciation of her sex. He once explained to a young acquaintance his method. 'I never contradict; I never deny; but I sometimes forget.' But though his memory at convenient moments failed him, he remembered in his dealings with the Tory Party the maxim of his own Vivian Grey,' Make them fear you, and they will kiss your feet.'

Thus in 1868 he became, in Mr Buckle's words, the titular head of the Conservative Party, as he had been for long its vital force. To the Liberal Party throughout the country, so deep was their mistrust, his elevation came as a shock. Mr Gladstone was confronted with the