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MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI.

THE first volume of Mr Monypenny's 'Life of Benjamin Disraeli' (London: John Murray) is an admirable piece of biography. It is written from beginning to end with perfect tact and sympathy. The materials, published and unpublished, which were at Mr Monypenny's disposal, are handled by him with the utmost skill. The art wherewith the documents are woven into the text cannot be too highly commended, and the author has shown 8 rare wisdom in allowing Disraeli to tell his own story. This is peculiarly important in the career of such a man as Disraeli, who was at once candid and sincere, who, however adroitly he may have masked his purpose to the world, was always sternly resolute not to deceive himself. What he was in life he was in literature. His novels, like his speeches, are but a clear expression of his own mind and purpose. As all those conversant with his works have observed, he harps continually upon the same phrases, the same ideas. If you compare his books with his speeches you will find continual repetitions, which are due neither to forgetfulness nor to parsimony of thought. They may be explained only by that unity of purpose which persuaded him

to declare always what was in his mind, to pack his own life into his novels, and to echo his novels in his pamphlets or on the hustings. This unity of

purpose Mr Monypenny has perfectly understood, and the result is that his 'Life of Benjamin Disraeli' is that rarest thing among political biographies-a living book.

And what a subject it is his to treat! No man of the nineteenth century had so keen a sense of romance as Benjamin Disraeli. He had the extraordinary faculty of colouring the smallest incidents of his life with the rainbow hues of fancy. That which to another might appear a trivial event seemed in his sanguine eyes a very miracle. His youth was a drama of hope and surprise. His happy temperament not merely made light of his misfortunes, which were neither few nor small, but persuaded him that his friends were the best in the world, his works the most brilliant, and the effect he was producing always irresistible. But the most wonderful of his gifts was his vitality. He lived with every sense and at every pore. Tireless in labour, tireless in pleasure, he easily achieved in the years of his splendid youth what the most of men would have spread over a long lifetime, and felt therein a proud

contentment.

Such, then, is the story which Mr Mony penny has to tell, and it does not flag from the first page to the last.

But if the youth of Benjamin Disraeli was long and triumphant, his boyhood was brief indeed. In the common sense he never was a boy at all. His education was fragmentary and accidental. Of Jewish birth, he received his first serious lessons in the Academy of Mr Potticany, an Independent minister, to whom succeeded as an instructor the Rev. Eli Cogan, an erudite Unitarian. These are not the masters who might have been expected to train the mind of the young Disraeli, and it is not likely that he carried away from them many valuable lessons. The truth is, that he took his own education in hand from the first, and preferred to indulge his own genius as he chose. In the strict sense of the word he was never a scholar. As Mr Monypenny says: "The truth would seem to be that he contrived at this time to make himself a fair Latin scholar, and retained in after life a moderate familiarity with the great Roman authors; but that his Greek was scanty in the beginning, and, in spite of his efforts after leaving school, remained scanty to the end." However, he made some progress in the study of the classics, and his youthful diary proves that he read Lucian with interest, and Demosthenes with varying approval. His comments show that if he were

not sensitive to the language, he was already a keen, if reckless, critic of oratory. Even at sixteen he had the wit to tear the meaning out of Greek, and to read the Greek authors as though they were living men. He is careless of grammar. It is characteristic of him that he speaks of "Demosthenes Tapa TOU σTepavov." It is characteristic also that at the age of sixteen, having bungled over the title of the speech, he is capable of the following tirade: "I have a prejudice against Demosthenes, and though his speeches are replete with Virtue, Patriotism, and Courage, history tells me he was a Villain, a Partisan, and a Poltroon."

To Disraeli his school-days were not as they are to the most of men. It was not for him to pass from Eton to Christchurch or Trinity, and to squeeze his talents into the common mould. Not that a formal education would have done him any harm. His was the genius that would not in any case have been profoundly affected by his environment. And the immediate result of his training was that at age when boys of his own age were playing cricket he was already a finished man of the world. A brief sojourn in a lawyer's office did him neither ill nor good. He was already determined upon adventure, and a first attempt to make a fortune by operating in Spanish - American shares ended in disaster. "What concerns us," says Mr Monypenny, "is that Disraeli at the age of twenty had incurred

a debt of several thousand pounds-a debt which was not finally liquidated till nearly thirty years later, when he had already led the House of Commons and been Chancellor of the Exchequer." His plight was grave, yet not grave enough to dismay his courage. Already on terms of friendship with John Murray, who had consulted "the precocious youth in the perplexities of business," Disraeli formed a magnificent project of a Conservative newspaper which should preach a sounder doctrine than 'The Times.' 'The Representative' it was to be called, and the story of its foundation, as told by Disraeli, both in his letters and in Vivian Grey,' is a brilliant piece of romance. That John Murray should have listened with enthusiasm to Disraeli's project is a clear proof of the youth's confidence and persuasiveness. The terms were soon drawn up and duly signed. The property in the paper was "to be vested as to one half in Murray, and as to the other half in equal shares in Powles [a solicitor] and Disraeli: the three contributed the capital in like proportions." Of the obligation to provide his share, Disraeli's hopefulness no doubt made light. He saw only the chance of an adventure, which he was resolute to follow to the very end.

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The story of his visit to Chiefswood has been often told. It will bear repetition. The first duty of the founders was to find a fitting editor for 'The Representative,' and Murray's choice fell upon Lockhart.

Nothing remained but to consult Sir Walter, and Disraeli was sent off to the north with two letters of introduction to Lockhart in his pocket, and a happy confidence in his heart. His journey was a kind of enchantment. Everything he saw by the way delighted him. He arrived at York in the midst of the Grand Festival; he Festival; he "never witnessed a city in such an extreme bustle and so delightfully gay. It was a perfect carnival." He was in the humour that admired everything. "York Minster baffles all description. Westminster Abbey is a toy to it." And the Minster was not the only thing that ravished his vision. "I witnessed in York," says he, "another splendid sightthe pouring in of all the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood and the neighbouring counties. The fourYorkshire in hands of the

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squires, the splendid rivalry in liveries and outriders, and the immense quantity of gorgeous equipages-numbers with four horses-formed a scene which you can only witness in the mighty and aristocratic county of York." There speaks Disraeli with his own authentic voice. And even when the day was done he did not find the hours hang heavy on him. "I find Froissart a most entertaining companion, just the fellow for a traveller's evening."

His humour to admire ceased not at York. The earth could not hold a better place than Edinburgh. "It is exactly what I fancied," said he, "and

means

certainly is the most beauti- pressionable Lockhart, whom ful town in the world." But within three weeks he carried Lockhart was at Chiefswood, to London, and whose agreeand thither Disraeli followed him. At the outset there was a disappointment. Lockhart, knowing nothing of the son, expected the father, and "everything looked as black as possible." Here was precisely the situation which the young Disraeli delighted to tackle. "Suffice it to say," he tells Murray, "that in a few hours we completely understood each other, and were upon the most intimate terms. He [ie., Lockhart] enters into our views with a facility and readiness which are capital. He thinks nothing can be more magnificent and excellent." That there were difficulties in the way could not be denied. The Chevalier, as Disraeli, already in love with mystery, called Sir Walter, thought that Parliament for Lockhart was indispensable, and feared that the editorship of a daily paper was compromising to the dignity of a man of letters. But Disraeli magniloquently explained that the whole world was at their beck, and that Lockhart would not be "the Editor of a newspaper, but the Director-General of an immense organ, and at the head of a band of high-bred gentlemen and important interests."

Thus were the obstacles overcome. "The young coxcomb, a sprig of the root of Aaron," as Sir Walter described him, succeeded in making a vivid impression both upon Sir Walter and upon the less im

ment with Murray he duly
witnessed. In the calmer air
of the metropolis there was
less talk of "immense organs
and "Director-Generals"; but
Lockhart was installed as editor
of 'The Quarterly,' and under-
took "to the best of his skill
and ability to aid and assist
Murray in the production of
his newspaper, and "by all
means consistent with his rank
in life" to promote its sale and
character. So much the young
Disraeli had achieved, and his
energy was by no
limited to the discovery and
appointment of an editor. He
took premises, arranged a
printing place, engaged re-
porters and sub-editors, ap-
pointed foreign correspondents,
telling one of them that the
newspaper was to be "the
focus of the information of
the whole world," and lightly
assumed the responsibility of
the whole enterprise. "Much,
my dear Lockhart," he writes
one day, "has happened since
we parted, I think, of im-
portance. In the first place,
Maginn is engaged." His de-
scription of this crowning ex-
ploit is like a page out of one
of his novels. When Disraeli
had unfolded his scheme "the
Doctor started from his chair
like Giovanni in the banquet
scene, and seemed as astounded

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mentioning the business, ended Murray was caricatured in by saying that 88 to the 'Vivian Grey' cannot now success of the affair doubt be determined. At least it could not exist, and that a must be said that the failure year could not elapse without of The Representative' was our being the first paper going. in no sense discreditable to ... In brief, the Doctor goes Disraeli, and if in after years to Paris." he did not care to recall the episode, it was because the mind of man dwells with the greatest satisfaction upon the memory of success. As Mr Monypenny truly says, "he had shown amazing energy, amazing self-confidence, and amazing power of winning to his views men older and riper in experience than himself. His faults had been the faults of youth, an over - sanguine temperament, and immaturity of judgment." Who knows

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From the first it seemed an unequal combat. On the one side was youth and life and faith, which laughed at difficulties. On the other were experience, distrust, and intrigue, which knew well how to invent stumbling blocks. Murray took fright at Croker's opposition to Lockhart, and sent Disraeli to Scotland once more that he might persuade Sir Walter to write to his friends in London. Sir Walter did what he could, and "administered a dose of physic" to Murray as well. In due course the ill-fated newspaper, 'The Representative,' made its appearance under the title selected by Disraeli, lingered infirm and undistinguished for a few months, and then died of inanition. For its career Disraeli was in no sense to blame. He had disappeared from the councils of Lockhart and Murray some weeks before the first number was printed. Perhaps he was submerged in the financial panic which smote London towards the end of 1826. Whatever the cause, he withdrew suddenly from the enterprise, in whose inception he had played the largest part, and incurred the lasting resentment of John Murray. Whether this resentment was due to any action of Disraeli's or to the suspicion that

but that, had he remained to stimulate Murray and Lockhart with his courage and high spirits, The Representative might have achieved a splendid triumph?

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Bitter as instant failure always is, the episode of Murray's newspaper was by no means unprofitable to Disraeli. Not merely did it give him excellent material for his first romance, but it taught him the lesson, learned in misfortune by Contarini Fleming, that imagination will always get the worst of it in a tussle with experience. It was more valuable to Disraeli than it might have been to another, because nothing was lost to his apprehensive brain. His early years were spent sedulously in the making of himself. It was as though he knew precisely the character and temperament which he meant to mould, as

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