Irish history he knew as little as the rest of the House of Commons. He had heard, perhaps, of the Glamorgan Articles and Charles I.'s negotiations with the Kilkenny Parliament. Peel, when in opposition, had talked about conciliation. In office he had nothing to propose but force. Disraeli, when the Bill came before the House, gave the first sign of revolt; he said that it was one of those measures which to introduce was degrading, and to oppose disgraceful. He would neither vote for it nor against it; but as Peel had departed from the policy which he had led his party to hope that he meant to pursue before he came into power, he (Disraeli), speaking for himself and his friends, declared that they were now free from the bonds of party on this subject of Ireland, for the right hon. gentleman himself had broken them. They had now a right to fall back on their own opinions.

Something still more significant was to follow. A few days later (August 1843) the Eastern question came up. Disraeli, whose friendship for the Turks was of old standing, asked a question relating to Russian interference in Servia. Peel gave an abrupt answer to end the matter. Palmerston, however, taking it up, Disraeli had a further opportunity of speaking. He complained that Turkey had been stabbed in the back by the diplomacy of Europe; that the integrity and independence of the Turkish dominions were of vital consequence, &c. But the point of his speech was in the sting with which it concluded. Winding up in the slow, deliberate manner which he made afterwards so peculiarly effective, he reminded the House of his own previous question, 'couched, he believed, in Parliamentary language, and made with all that respect which he felt for the right hon. gentleman.' 'To this inquiry,' he said, 'the right hon.

gentleman replied with all that explicitness of which he was a master, and all that courtesy which he reserved only for his supporters.'

The House of Commons had much of the generous temper of an English public school. Boys like a little. fellow who has the courage to stand up to a big one, and refuses to be bullied. The Whigs were amused at the mutiny of a Tory subordinate. The Tory rank-and-file had so often smarted under Peel's contempt that the blow told, and Disraeli had increased his consequence in the House by another step. Those who judge of motive by events, and assure themselves that when the actions of a man lead up to particular effects, those effects must have been contemplated by himself from the outset of his career, see indication in these speeches of a deliberate intention on Disraeli's part to supersede Sir Robert Peel in the leadership of the Conservative party. The vanity of such a purpose, had it been really entertained, would have been exceeded by the folly of his next movement. In the following year O'Connell's monster meetings had become a danger to the State. Peel had again to apply to the House of Commons, with a general sense on both sides that the authority of the Crown must be supported. Disraeli, almost alone among the English members, took the same daring attitude which he had assumed on the Chartist petition. Being in reality a stranger in the country of his adoption, he was able to regard the problems with which it was engaged in the light in which they appeared to other nations. The long mismanagement of Ireland, its chronic discontent and miserable state, were regarded everywhere as the blot upon the English escutcheon, and the cause of it was the mutual jealousy and suspicion of parties at Westminster. If a

remedy was ever to be found, party ties must be thrown to the winds. What, he asked, did this eternal Irish question mean? One said it was a physical question, another a spiritual question. Now it was the absence of an aristocracy, then the absence of railroads. It was the Pope one day, potatoes the next. Let the House consider Ireland as they would any other country similarly situated, in their closets. They would see a teeming population denser to the square mile than that of China, created solely by agriculture, with none of those sources of wealth which are developed by civilisation, and sustained upon the lowest conceivable diet. That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an Established Church which was not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy the richest of whom lived in distant capitals. They had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. was the Irish question. Well, then, what would honourable gentlemen say if they were reading of a country in that position? They would say at once 'the remedy was revolution.' But Ireland could not have a revolution; and why? Because Ireland was connected with another and more powerful country. Then what was the consequence? The connection with England became the cause of the present state of Ireland. If the connection with England prevented a revolution, and a revolution was the only remedy, England logically was in the odious position of being the cause of all the misery in Ireland. What, then, was the duty of an English Minister? To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force. That was the Irish question in its integrity. . . . If the noble lord (Lord John Russell) or any other honourable

That

member came forward with a comprehensive plan, which would certainly settle the question of Ireland, no matter what the sacrifice might be, he would support it, though he might afterwards feel it necessary to retire from Parliament or to place his seat at the disposal of his constituency ('Life of Lord Beaconsfield,' T. P. O'Connor, 6th edition, p. 255, &c.).

Truer words had not been spoken in Parliament on the subject of Ireland for half a century, nor words more fatal to the immediate ambition of the speaker, if ambition he then entertained beyond a patriotic one; and many a session, and many a century perhaps, would have to pass before a party could be formed in England strong enough to carry on the government on unadulterated principles of patriotism.

CHAPTER VIII

Young England and the Oxford Tractarians-Disraeli a Hebrew at heart-Coningsby '-'Sidonia '-'Sybil; or, the Two Nations'The great towns under the new creed-Lords of the soil as they were and as they are- Disraeli an aristocratic Socialist - Practical working of Parliamentary institutions-Special importance of 'Sybil.'

ACCORDING to Disraeli's theory of government, the natural rulers of England were the aristocracy, supported by the people. The owners of the soil were the stable element in the Constitution. Capitalists grew like mushrooms, and disappeared as rapidly; the owners of the land remained. Tenants and labourers looked up to them with a feeling of allegiance; and that allegiance might revive into a living. principle if the aristocracy would deserve it by reverting to the habits of their forefathers. That ancient forces could be awakened out of their sleep seemed proved by the success of the Tractarian movement at Oxford. The bold motto of the 'Lyra Apostolica' proclaimed that Achilles was in the field again, and that Liberalism was to find its master. The Oxford leaders might look doubtfully on so strange an ally as a half-converted Israelite. But Disraeli and the Young Englanders had caught the note, and were endeavouring to organise a political party on analogous lines. It was a dream. No such regeneration, spiritual or social, was really possible. Times were changed, and men had