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

changed along with them. The Oxford movement was already undermined, though Disraeli knew it not. The English upper classes were not to be persuaded to alter habits which had become a second nature to them, or the people to be led back into social dependence by enthusiasm and eloquence. Had any such resurrection of the past been on the cards, Disraeli was not the necromancer who could have bid the dead live again. No one had a keener sense of the indications in others than he had. Fuller selfknowledge would have told him that the friend of D'Orsay and Lady Blessington, of Tom Duncomb and Lytton Bulwer, was an absurd associate in an ecclesiastical and social revival. He seemed to think that if Newman had paid more attention to 'Coningsby,' the course of things might have been different. Saints had worked with secular politicians at many periods of Christian history; why not the Tractarian with him? Yet the juxtaposition of Newman and Disraeli cannot be thought of without an involuntary smile. It would be wrong to say that Disraeli had no sincere religious convictions. He was a Hebrew to the heart of him. He accepted the Hebrew tradition as a true account of the world, and of man's place in it. He was nominally a member of the Church of England; but his Christianity was something of his own, and his creed, as sketched in his 'Life of Lord George Bentinck,' would scarcely find acceptance in any Christian community.

I have mentioned 'Coningsby.' It is time to see what 'Coningsby' was. Disraeli's novels had been brilliant, but he had touched nowhere the deeper chords of enduring feeling. His characters had been smart, but trivial; and his higher flights, as in the 'Revolutionary Epic,' or his attempts to paint

more delicate emotion, as in 'Henrietta Temple' or in 'Venetia,' if not failures, were not successes of a distinguished kind. He had shown no perception of what was simple, or true, or tender, or admirable. He had been at his best when mocking at conventional humbug. But his talent as a writer was great, and, with a subject on which he was really in earnest, might produce a powerful effect. To impress the views of the Young Englanders upon the public, something more was needed than speeches in Parliament or on platforms. Henry Hope, son of the author of Anastasius,' collected them in a party at his house at Deepdene, and there first urged the expediency of Disraeli's treating in a literary form those views and subjects which were the matter of their frequent conversations.' The result was 'Coningsby' and 'Sybil.'

'Coningsby; or, the New Generation' carried its meaning in its title. If England was to be saved by its aristocracy, the aristocracy must alter their ways. The existing representatives of the order had grown up in self-indulgence and social exclusiveness; some excellent, a few vicious, but all isolated from the inferior ranks, and all too old to mend. The hope, if hope there was, had to be looked for in their

sons.

As a tale, 'Coningsby' is nothing; but it is put together. with extreme skill to give opportunities for typical sketches of character, and for the expression of opinions on social and political subjects. We have pictures of fashionable society, gay and giddy, such as no writer ever described better; peers, young, middle-aged, and old, good, bad, and indifferent, the central figure a profligate old noble of immense fortune, whose person was easily recognised, and whose portrait was also preserved by Thackeray. Besides

these, intriguing or fascinating ladies, political hacks, country gentlemen, mill-owners, and occasional wise outsiders, looking on upon the chaos and delivering oracular interpretations or prophecies. Into the middle of such a world the hero is launched, being the grandson and possible heir of the wicked peer. Lord Monmouth is a specimen of the order which was making aristocratic government impossible. To tax corn to support Lord Monmouth was plainly impossible. The story opens at Eton, which Disraeli describes with an insight astonishing in a writer who had no experience of English public school life, and with a fondness. which confesses how much he had lost in the substitutes to which he had been himself condemned. There Coningsby makes acquaintance with the high-born youths who are to be his companions in the great world which is to follow, then in the enjoyment of a delightful present, and brimming with enthusiastic ambitions. They accompany each other to their fathers' castles, and schemes are meditated and begun for their future careers; Disraeli letting fall, as he goes on, his own political opinions, and betraying his evident disbelief in existing Conservatism, and in its then all-powerful leader. He finds Peel constructing a party without principles, with a basis therefore necessarily latitudinarian, and driving into political infidelity. There were shouts about. Conservatism; but the question, What was to be conserved? was left unanswered. The Crown was to keep its prerogatives provided they were not exercised; the House of Lords. might keep its independence if it was never asserted; the ecclesiastical estate if it was regulated by a commission of laymen. Everything, in short, that was established might remain as long as it was a phrase and not a fact. The Conservatism of Sir Robert 'offered no redress for the