CHAPTER XVII_The Earl of Beaconsfield

Retirement from office--Dignity in retreat--Hughenden--Lord

Beaconsfield as a landlord--Fondness for country

life--'Endymion'--Illness and death--Attempted estimate of Lord

Beaconsfield--A great man? or not a great man?--Those only great who

can forget themselves--Never completely an Englishman--Relatively

great, not absolutely--Gulliver among Lilliputians--Signs in 'Sybil'

of a higher purpose, but a purpose incapable of

realisation--Simplicity and blamelessness in private

life--Indifference to fortune--Integrity as a statesman and

administrator.

'Was man in der Jugend wünscht, davon hat man im Alter die Fülle' (What

one desires in one's youth one has enough of in one's age).

Disraeli had won it all, all that to his young ambition had seemed the

only object for which it was worth while to live. Yet he had gained the

slippery height only, perhaps, to form a truer estimate of the value of

a personal triumph. It was his to hold but for a moment, and then he

fell, too late in life to retrieve another defeat. When the shadows

lengthen and the sun is going down, earthly greatness fades to tinsel,

and nothing is any longer beautiful to look back upon but the

disinterested actions, many or few, which are scattered over the

chequered career. Disraeli, like many other distinguished men, had to

pay the penalty of his character. A fool may have his vanity satisfied

with garters and peerages; Disraeli must have been conscious of their

emptiness.

[Sidenote: FATE OF THE CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT]

When the result of the elections of 1880 was known he again accepted his

fate, as Mr. Gladstone had done six years before, without waiting for

the meeting of Parliament. He submitted with dignity, though with the

fatal consciousness that at his age he could not hope to witness a

reversal of the judgment upon him. He did not talk petulantly of

retiring from politics. He took his place again as leader of the

Opposition in the House of Lords, and showed no signs of weakened power.

But he had always been impatient of the details of business, and his

chief pleasure was now to retire to Hughenden, with or without

companions, most frequently alone. For a fortnight together he would

remain there in solitude, wandering through the park or through the

Bradenham woods, which in his youth had been the scene of so many

ambitions or moody meditations. His trees, his peacocks, his swans, his

lake and chalk stream were sadly associated with the memories of his

married life. He was so fond of his trees that he directed in his will

that none of them should be cut down. He was on pleasant terms with his

tenants and labourers; he visited them in their cottages, and was

specially kind to old people and to little children. The 'policy of

sewage,' with which he had been taunted as a Minister, was his practice

as a landlord. No dust-heaps, or cesspools, or choked drains, or damp

floors were to be seen among the Hughenden tenements. To such things he

looked with his own eyes, and he said he never was so happy as when left

to himself in these occupations.

Of his reflections at this period some may be found hereafter in the

papers which he bequeathed to Lord Rowton. No particular traces appear

in the last literary work which in his final leisure he contrived to

accomplish. He had left 'Endymion' half finished when he took office in

1874; he went on with it when office had left him, perhaps because he

had thought himself obliged to buy a house in London on retiring from

Downing Street and wanted money.

There is nothing remarkable in 'Endymion' except the intellectual

vivacity, which shows no abatement. It is in the style of his earlier

novels, and has little of the serious thought which is so striking in

'Sybil' and 'Lothair.' There are the same pictures of London fashionable

life and fashionable people, in the midst of them a struggling youth

pushing his way in the great world, and lifted out of his difficulties,

as he himself had been, by a marriage with a wealthy widow. As before

many of the figures are portraits. Myra, the heroine, impatient,

restless, ambitious, resolute to raise herself and her brother above the

injuries of fortune, is perhaps a likeness of himself in a woman's

dress. But the calm mastery of modern life, the survey, wide as the

world, of the forces working in English society, the mellow and

impartial wisdom which raises 'Lothair' from an ephemeral novel into a

work of enduring value, all this is absent. It is as if disappointment

had again clouded his superior qualities and had brought back something

of his original deficiencies. The most interesting feature in 'Endymion'

is the exact photograph of the old manor house at Bradenham, and the

description of the feelings with which a fallen and neglected statesman

of once brilliant promise retired there into unwelcome poverty. Except

for this the book might have been unwritten and nothing would have been

lost of Disraeli's fame. It throws no fresh light upon his own

character. He wanted money and it brought him ten thousand pounds.

[Sidenote: ILLNESS AND DEATH]

The sand ran rapidly out. Lord Beaconsfield was in his place at the

opening of the session of 1881. The effects of the return of the

Liberal party were already visible in all parts of the Empire. He spoke

with something of his old force on the state of things which was to be

expected in Ireland. He spoke on India and foreign politics. He could

not foresee the bombardment of the Alexandrian forts, the conquest of

Egypt, to be followed by the disgrace of Khartoum. He escaped the

mortification of the surrender to Russia on the Afghan frontier. But he

lived to hear of the conclusion of the annexation of the Transvaal. He

saw the enemies of England again at their work across St. George's

Channel, and a Government again in power whose rule was to purchase

peace by concession. His own part was played out. He had not succeeded,

and it was time for him to be gone. In the middle of March he had an

attack of gout, which was aggravated by a cold. At first no danger was

anticipated, but he grew worse day after day, and on the 19th of April

Benjamin Disraeli had taken his last leave of a scene in which he had so

long been so brilliant an actor. When an English statesman dies,

complimentary funeral orations are spoken over him in Parliament as part

of the ordinary course; but Disraeli had been so uncommon a man that the

displays on this occasion had more in them than they often have of

genuine sincerity. He had been so long among us that his name had become

a household word. The whole nation, of all shades of politics, felt that

a man was gone whose place could not be filled, who in a long and

chequered career had not only won his honours fairly but deserved

affectionate remembrance.

He was infinitely clever. In public or private he had never done a

dishonourable action; he had disarmed hatred and never lost a personal

friend. The greatest of his antagonists admitted that when he struck

hardest he had not struck in malice. A still higher praise belongs to

himself alone that he never struck a small man.

The Abbey was offered, and a public funeral; and if honour there be in

such interments he had an ample right to it. By his own desire he was

buried at Hughenden, by the side of his wife and the romantic friend who

had conceived so singular an attachment to him. There those three rest

side by side, Disraeli and his faithful companion disguised as Earl and

Viscountess, but thought of only by the present generation under their

own familiar name, and the eccentric and passionate widow who had

devoted her fortune to him. In life there had been a peculiar bond

between these three. Disraeli had innumerable admirers, but there were

not many to whom he trusted his inmost confidence. Gratitude was

stronger in him even than ambition, and as to his wife and to Mrs.

Willyams he owed the most, to them, perhaps, he was most completely

attached. It was a strange union, but they had strange natures, and they

lie fitly and well together--far away from the world, for which neither

of them cared, in a quiet parish church in Buckinghamshire.

[Sidenote: CONDITIONS OF HUMAN GREATNESS]

A biography, however brief, must close with a general estimate. What

estimate is to be formed of Disraeli? We have a standard by which to

measure the bodily stature of a man; we have none by which to measure

his character; neither need we at any time ask how great any man is, or

whether great at all, but rather what he is. Those whom the world agrees

to call great are those who have done or produced something of permanent

value to humanity. We call Hipparchus great, or Newton, or Kepler,

because we owe to them our knowledge of the motion of the earth and the

stars. Poets and artists have been great men; philosophers have been

great men. The mind of Socrates governs our minds at the present day.

Founders of religion have been great men; reformers have been great men:

we measure their worth by the work which they achieved. So in society

and politics we call those great who have devoted their energies to some

noble cause, or have influenced the course of things in some

extraordinary way. But in every instance, whether in art, science,

religion, or public life, there is an universal condition, that a man

shall have forgotten himself in his work. If any fraction of his

attention is given to the honours or rewards which success will bring

him there will be a taint of weakness in what he does. He cannot produce

a great poem, he cannot paint a great picture, he cannot discover

secrets of science, because these achievements require a whole mind and

not a divided mind. The prophet will be a prophet of half-truths,

because the whole truth will not be popular. The statesman who has not

purified himself of personal motives will never purify a disordered

Constitution. Even kings and conquerors who are credited with

nothing but ambition--the Alexanders and the Cæsars, the Cromwells

and Napoleons--have been a cause in themselves, have been the

representatives of some principle or idea. Their force, when they have

succeeded, has been an impulse from within. They have aimed at power to

impress their own personality outside them, but their operations are

like the operations of the forces of nature, working from within

outwards rather than towards an end of which they have been conscious. A

man whose object is to gain something for himself often attains it, but

when his personal life is over his work and his reputation perish along

with him.

In this high sense of the word Lord Beaconsfield cannot be called

great, either as a man of letters or as a statesman. 'Vivian Grey' is

nothing but a loud demand on his contemporaries to recognise how clever

a man has appeared among them. In every one of his writings there is the

same defect, except in 'Sybil' and in 'Lothair.' It is absent in 'Sybil'

because he had been deeply and sincerely affected by what he had

witnessed in the great towns in the North of England; it is absent in

'Lothair' because when he wrote that book his personal ambition had for

the time been satisfied, and he could look round him with the _siccum

lumen_ of his intellect. He had then reached the highest point of his

political aspiration, and money he did not care for unless required for

pressing necessities. It is clear from 'Sybil' that there had been a

time when he could have taken up as a statesman, with all his heart, the

cause of labour. He had suffered himself in the suffering and

demoralisation which he had witnessed, and if the 'young generation' to

whom he appealed would have gone along with him he might have led a

nobler crusade than Cœur de Lion. But it was not in him to tread a

thorny road with insufficient companionship. He had wished, but had not

wished sufficiently, to undertake a doubtful enterprise. He was

contented to leave things as he found them, instead of reconstructing

society to make himself Prime Minister.

[Sidenote: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS]

Thus it was that perhaps no public man in England ever rose so high and

acquired power so great, so little of whose work has survived him. Not

one of the great measures which he once insisted on did he carry or

attempt to carry. The great industrial problems are still left to be

solved by the workmen in their own unions. Ireland is still in the

throes of disintegration. If the colonies have refused to be cast loose

from us their continued allegiance is not due to any effort of his.

From Berlin he brought back peace with honour, but if peace remains the

honour was soon clouded. The concessions which he prided himself on

having extorted are evaded or ignored, and the imperial spirit which he

imagined that he had awakened sleeps in indifference. The voices which

then shouted so loudly for him shout now for another, and of all those

great achievements there remain only to the nation the Suez Canal shares

and the possession of Cyprus, and to his Queen the gaudy title of

Empress of India. What is there besides? Yet there is a relative

greatness as well as an absolute greatness, and Lemuel Gulliver was a

giant among the Lilliputians. Disraeli said of Peel that he was the

greatest member of Parliament that there had ever been. He was himself

the _strongest_ member of Parliament in his own day, and it was

Parliament which took him as its foremost man and made him what he was.

No one fought more stoutly when there was fighting to be done; no one

knew better when to yield, or how to encourage his followers. He was a

master of debate. He had perfect command of his temper, and while he ran

an adversary through the body he charmed even his enemies by the skill

with which he did it. He made no lofty pretensions, and his aims were

always perhaps something higher than he professed. If to raise himself

to the summit of the eminence was what he most cared for, he had a

genuine anxiety to serve his party, and in serving his party to serve

his country; and possibly if among his other gifts he had inherited an

English character he might have devoted himself more completely to great

national questions; he might have even inscribed his name in the great

roll of English worthies. But he was English only by adoption, and he

never completely identified himself with the country which he ruled. At

heart he was a Hebrew to the end, and of all his triumphs perhaps the

most satisfying was the sense that a member of that despised race had

made himself the master of the fleets and armies of the proudest of

Christian nations.

But though Lord Beaconsfield was not all which he might have been he

will be honourably and affectionately remembered. If he was ambitious

his ambition was a noble one. It was for fame and not for fortune. To

money he was always indifferent. He was even ostentatious in his neglect

of his own interests. Though he left no debts behind him, in his life he

was always embarrassed. He had no vices, and his habits were simple; but

he was generous and careless, and his mind was occupied with other

things. He had opportunities of enriching himself if he had been

unprincipled enough to use them. There were times when he could set all

the stock exchanges of Europe vibrating like electric wires in a

thunderstorm. A secret word from him would have enabled speculating

capitalists to realise millions, with no trace left how those millions

were acquired or how disposed of. It is said that something of the kind

was once hinted to him--once, but never again. Disraeli's worst enemy

never suspected him of avarice or dishonour. As a statesman there was

none like him before, and will be none hereafter. His career was the

result of a combination of a peculiar character with peculiar

circumstances, which is not likely to recur. The aim with which he

started in life was to distinguish himself above all his contemporaries,

and wild as such an ambition must have appeared, he at least won the

stake for which he played so bravely.

INDEX

Adventures in Spain, 30-35

Afghanistan, war with, 251

'Alabama' claims, the, 201

Albania, 36-40

'Alroy,' an Eastern story, 45, 49

Alvanley, Lord, fight with O'Connell, 62

American Civil War, 158, 159, 163, 183, 194, 201

Anecdote of the Prince of Wales's wedding, 184, 185

Angels, on the side of, at Oxford, 17

Annexations, 244

'Arabian Nights,' offer to edit, 64

Aristocracy of England, the, 86, 107, 109, 112, 113, 187, 192-194, 217

Arms, 186, 187

Arta, 37

Arundel, Miss, in 'Lothair,' 226-230

Athens, 40, 42

Austen family, the, 20-24, 28, 48

Baillie Cochrane, 102

Banditti in Spain, 30-34

Bar, Disraeli and the, 22, 24, 27

Baring, Sir Thomas, 54-56

Batoum, 249

Beaconsfield, Lord (see Benjamin Disraeli)

Beckford and 'Alroy,' 49, 53

Bentinck, Lord George, 140;

and Peel, 142-146;

death of, 147 (see also 'Life of Lord Bentinck')

Berlin Conference, 249, 250, 252, 261

Billault, death of, 185, 186

Birth and early days, 12-14, 69

Bismarck, Prince, and Russia, 233, 243;

and Berlin Conference, 249, 250

Blessington, Lady, 50, 52, 54, 108, 156

Bolingbroke, Lord, 97, 98

Bradenham, 24, 25, 28, 34, 44, 58, 255, 256

Briggs, Mr., 43

British Empire, the, 238-241, 244, 245, 250

Buckle, 203

Buller (Yarde), 68

Bulwer, Lytton, 40, 49, 51, 55;

and Disraeli's speeches, 65, 108

Burdett, Sir F., 55;

and O'Connell, 70

Burghley, Lord, 237

Burke, 69

Burns, Robert, 187

Byron 21, 23, 36, 65

Cadiz, 32

Campbell, Sir J., and D.'s maiden speech, 72, 73

Canning, death of, 132;

lines on 'A Candid Friend,' 134;

Peel and, 143-146

Carlton Club, 60;

elected at, 64;

dinner at the, 68, 69

Carlyle on Lord Beaconsfield, 1-3, 130;

'Shooting Niagara,' 1-3, 195;

and Reform, 55;

and the 'Disraeli' science, 79;

and the Corn Laws, 80;

and Jews, 84;

'Past and Present,' 92, 93;

and Puseyism, 95;

and Free Trade, 151;

on Parliamentary Reform, 160;

and 'Lothair,' 218;

honours for, 252, 253

Carnarvon, Lord, 195, 249

Carriage incident, the, 89

Carringtons, the, 54-56

Carthage, the Jews in, 4

Catholic emancipation, Peel and, 131, 143-146, 203

Catholic question, the, 22

Chandos, Lord, 57, 72

Charles I. and Ireland, 60, 98, 102, 103

Chartists and Chartism, 59;

petition of 1839, 85, 86, 93, 94, 101

Chatham, Lord, 243

'Childe Harold' compared to 'Contarini,' 46, 49

Christianity, 169-172

Church of England, revival of, 94-99, 102;

and State, 170-177, 200, 204, 206, 245-247

Church of Ireland, the, 204-211

Civil War in America, 158, 159, 163, 183, 194, 201

Clay, James, 35, 36

Cobden, Mr., 81, 82;

and Free Trade, 136, 150;

and the Crimean War, 157

Coercion Bills, 102, 142-146, 209

Cogan's school, Dr., 15-17

Colenso, Bishop, 170, 173, 175

'Coningsby; or, the New Generation'--Sidonia, 88;

married life in, 89;

Dr. Newman and, 108;

outline of, 108-119, 127, 128, 215;

the Reformation in, 226

Conservative constitution, in 'Coningsby,' 110-112, 117;

35 years out of office, 192, 251, 252

Constantinople, 40

'Contarini Fleming,' school-days pictured in, 15-19, 28;

passages from 45-48, 49, 215

Corfu, 36

Cornish, Dr., 29

Corn Laws, 79-82, 93, 94, 130;

Peel and, 137-143;

Bill for repeal of, 140, 141;

league, 150

Crimean War, 157, 242, 243, 247

Croker, Wilson, 22

Cuddesden, B. D. at, 173

'Curiosities of Literature,' by Isaac D., 10

Cyprus, 41, 250, 261

Darwin, followers of, 172, 173;

'Origin of Species,' 173

Death, 257

Democracy, 192

Derby, Lord, 149, 157, 188, 191, 193, 196, 249

Devilsdust in 'Sybil,' 121-123

Dickens and 'Pickwick,' 23

D'Israeli, Isaac, and the Jewish people, 5, 6;

boyhood of, 8-11;

family of, 12, 13;

abandons Judaism for the Church of England, 13, 14;

pictured in 'Vivian Grey,' 18;

and High Wycombe election, 55;

death of, 179

Disraeli, Benjamin, the elder, 7-11

-- James, son of Isaac D., 13

-- Ralph, son of --, 13, 36

-- Sarah, daughter --, 12, 13;

and Wm. Meredith, 44

Disraeli, Benjamin, birth and education, 12-16;

baptism of, 14;

school days, 16-19;

and London society, 19, 50, 58;

enters a solicitor's office, 22;

first novel, 23-25;

travels abroad, 24-44, 99;

Bradenham, 24-25;

satires of, 25-27;

dress and manners, 29, 39, 53, 55;

improved health, 34, 35;

the poetical life, 45-49;

prose writings, 49;

political ambition, 50, 51;

portraits of, 52-54;

financial embarrassments, 52, 64, 65, 69, 178, 179;

a Radical, 54;

High Wycombe election, 55-57;

on marriage, 58;

takes seat in H. of C., 68, 119;

maiden speech in the House, 70-73;

outset of Parliamentary career, 74;

a Conservative, 94, 95;

political and religious belief, 83, 84;

Carlyle and, 84, 92, 93, 130, 252, 253;

and dinner at Whitehall Gardens, 85;

marriage of, 88-90;

Church views of, 94-99;

creed, 108;

as Sidonia in 'Coningsby,' 113;

and Sir. R. Peel, 131-137, 144-147;

and Tory party, 139, 140;

leader of Opposition, 149-156;

remarkable speeches of, 160-164;

literary work, 165-168;

religious views, 168-172;

at Oxford, 173-177;

and Mrs. Willyams, 179-187;

Chancellor of the Exchequer, 188;

arms and motto, 186, 187;

and Parliamentary Reform, 199, 202;

Prime Minister, 196-198, 235-242;

wife, 211;

and Ireland, 211;

writings, 216;

return to power, 235;

on the abolition of slavery, 236;

and Russia, 248, 249;

retirement from office, 254, 255;

illness and death, 257;

general estimate of, 258-262.

See also _Novels_, _Speeches_, _Satires_ and _Elections_

D'Orsay, Count, 50, 58, 62, 92, 108

Dress, 29, 39, 53, 55, 70, 92, 173

Ducrow speech, 65

Dufferin, Lady, and D.'s dress, 53

Duncombe, Tom, 86, 108

Durham, Lord, 57

Early ambition, 18, 21

Eastern Question of 1843, the, 103, 104;

of 1877, 244-250

Education, 13-19

Effects of Mr. Gladstone's policy, 213, 214

'Egremont,' 88

Egypt, 43

Eldon, Lord, and Toryism, 68

Elections, see High Wycombe, Taunton, Maidstone, Shrewsbury

Eliot, Lord, 50

'Endymion,' Ferrars in, 24, 25, 88, 178, 255, 256

England, the Jews in, 5, 7;

past and present, 74-82;

trade, 76;

Christianity, 81;

progress in, 91, 92;

and economists, 93, 94;

revival of Church of, 94-99, 102;

feudal system of, 97;

the aristocracy of, 86, 107, 109, 112, 113, 187, 192-194, 217;

Constitution in 'Coningsby,' 114-119, 127, 128;

working of English Government, 125, 126;

party government in, 153-156;

wealth of, 161;

warning against playing with the Constitution, 162-164, 188;

and Protestantism, 203

English Constitution, a satire on, 26, 27

Evangelicals, the, 204

Exhibition of 1851, Mrs. Willyams and, 180;

of 1862, 183

Family history, 6-11

Fenian Rebellion of 1867, 201, 202

Feudal system in England, 97

Financial embarrassments, 64, 65, 69, 178, 179

Fleuriz, governor of Cadiz, 32

France, and L. Napoleon, 156, 157;

revolution in, 163;

and Germany, 232

Franchise Bill, a, 195

Free Trade, 78-82, 92, 100, 125, 131;

and Progress, 149-152;

effects of, 160, 161, 193, 238

Frere, Sir Bartle, 251

'Genius of Judaism,' by Isaac Disraeli 5-6, 13, 14

Germany and Carlyle, 25

Gibraltar, 29-31;

Government House at, 29, 30

Gladstone, Mr. W. E., speech on Ireland, 202;

Irish policy, 204-214, 235;

and Turkey, 247

'Globe' and O'Connell, 64, 70

Gore, Mrs., 50

Gospel, the new, 129, 130

Granada, 33, 34

Grandison, Cardinal in 'Lothair,' 220-230

Grant, Chas., 50

Greece, 36, 39;

and Lord Stanley, 184

Greville, Chas., 57

Grey, Lord, 54, 59, 162;

Reform Cabinet, 191;

----'s son, 55, 56

Hanover, King of, 101

Hartington, Lord, 212, 235

'Henrietta Temple,' 65, 109, 215

Herbert (Sidney), 135, 136

High Wycombe election, 54-58, 60, 65

Holland, the Jews in, 7;

Isaac Disraeli sent to, 9

Holy Land, the, 28

Hope, H., 102, 108

House of Commons, first visit to, 50, 51, 65, 69;

maiden speech in, 70, 71;

power in the, 100, 101;

and Ireland, 104-106;

and Disraeli, 139, 140

Hughenden Manor, 179;

life at, 182, 183, 255;

buried at, 258

Human greatness, condition of, 258-260

Hume, 55, 56

Hunting, 58

India, 234, 238-240, 261

Indian Mutiny, the, 158, 183

'Infernal Marriage,' 26, 27, 217

Inquisition, the, and the Jews, 6

Ireland, 59;

in 'Popanilla,' 60, 65, 70, 71, 98, 102-106, 136;

famine in, 138, 142;

Fenianism in, 200-203;

Church of, 204-211, 233, 237, 238, 242, 260

Irish Education Bill, 235

Irving's (Washington) story of the Inn at Terracina, 33

'Ixion in Heaven,' 26, 27

Jaffa, 41

Jerusalem, visit to, 41-43, 230

Jews, the, 4;

of Spain, 5, 6;

in Venice, 6, 7;

in Holland, 7;

Carlyle and, 84;

in Parliament, 155;

Europe and the, 166;

Judaism, 169, 170;

and decoration, 216;

in Parliament, 234;