(1766-1848)
[Illustration: ISAAC D'ISRAELI]
Among the writers whose education and whose tastes were the outcome
of the classicism of the eighteenth century, yet whose literary life
lapped over into the Victorian epoch, was Isaac D'Israeli, born at
Enfield in May 1766. D'Israeli was of Jewish origin, his ancestors
having fled from the Spanish persecutions of the fifteenth century to
find a home in Venice, whence a younger branch migrated to England.
At the time of his birth his family had stood for generations among
the foremost English Jews, his father having been made a citizen by
special legislation. The boy, however, did not inherit the commercial
spirit which had established his house. He was a lover of books and a
dreamer of dreams, and so early developed literary tendencies that his
frightened father sent him off to Amsterdam to school, in the hope of
curing proclivities so dangerous. Here he became familiar with the
works of the Encyclopaedists, and adopted the theories of Rousseau.
On returning to England in his nineteenth year, he replied to his
father's proposition that he should enter a commercial house at
Bordeaux, by a long poem in which he passionately inveighed against
the commercial spirit, and avowed himself a student of philosophy and
letters. His father's reluctant acquiescence was obtained at last
through the good offices of the laureate Pye, to whom the youth had
already dedicated his first book, 'A Defence of Poetry.'
At the outset of his career he found himself received with
consideration by the men whose acquaintance he most desired. Following
the fashion of the day, and inspired by the books of anecdotes so
successfully published by his friend Douce, D'Israeli in 1791 produced
anonymously a small volume entitled 'Curiosities of Literature,' the
copyright of which he magnanimously presented to his publisher. The
extraordinary success of this book can be accounted for only by the
curious taste of the time, which still reflected the more unworthy
traditions of the Addisonian era. It was an age of clubs and
tea-tables, of society scandal-mongering and fireside gossip; and the
reading public welcomed a contribution whose refined dilettantism so
well matched its own. The mysteries of Eleusis and the origin of wigs
received the same grave attention. This popularity induced D'Israeli
to buy back the copyright at a generous valuation; he enlarged the
work to five volumes, which passed through twelve in his own lifetime,
and still serves to illustrate a curious literary phase.
Other compilations of similar nature met the same success: 'The
Calamities of Authors,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' and 'Literary
Recollections'; but the 'Amenities of Literature,' his last work, is
the most purely literary in form, and affords perhaps the best index
to D'Israeli's abilities as a writer. The reader of to-day, however,
is struck by the ephemeral nature of this criticism, which yet by a
curious literary experience is keeping a place among the permanent
productions of its age. The reader is everywhere impressed by the
human sympathy, by the wide if rather superficial knowledge, and by
innumerable felicities of expression and style, which betray the
cultivated mind. To lovers of the curious the books still appeal, and
they will continue to hold an honorable place among the bric-a-brac of
literature.
The spirit of curiosity which characterized the mind of D'Israeli
assumed its most dignified concrete form in the 'Commentaries on the
Reign of Charles I.' D'Israeli had an artistic sense of the values in
a historical picture, with a keen perception of the importance of side
lights; and although the book is not a great contribution to the
literature of history, yet it became popular, and in July 1832 earned
for its author the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.
D'Israeli's romances were tedious tales, but his hold upon the public
was secure, and the vast amount of miscellaneous matter which he
published always found a delighted audience. 'The Genius of Judaism,'
a philosophical inquiry into the historical significance of
the permanence of the Jewish race, showed the author's psychic
limitations. He designed a history of English literature, for which
he had gathered much material, but increasing blindness forced him to
abandon it. Much of D'Israeli's popularity was unquestionably due to
his qualities of heart. His nature was fine; he was an affectionate
and devoted friend, and held an enviable position in the literary
circles of the day. Campbell, Byron, Rogers, and Scott alike admired
and loved him, while a host of lesser men eagerly sought his
friendship.
Although brought up in the Jewish faith, D'Israeli affiliated early in
life with the Church of England, in which his three sons and one
daughter were baptized. He died in 1848, and was buried at Brandenham.
Twenty years later his daughter-in-law, the Countess of Beaconsfield,
erected at Hughenden a monument to his memory.
[Illustration: _OLD BLACK-LETTER QUARTO_.
Slightly reduced facsimile of title-page of first edition of
"THE POSIES."
London, about 1572. Original, 4-1/8 x 6-3/8 inches.
An example of title-page, typography, and spelling a hundred
years after the introduction of printing into England. The
Old English, Gothic, or Black-letter type was being superseded
by the modern "Roman;" and on this title page both forms were
used.
A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde vp in one small Poesie.
Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish
Gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others:
and partly by inuention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes
in Englande:
Yelding sundrie sweet fauours of Tragical, Comical, and
Morall Discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well
smellyng noses of learned Readers.
=Meritum petere, graue.=