Chapter IV: ECAUDATA (22).--Frogs and toads. Four limbs and no tail. Radius (8)

In the parliament of 1841 he was member for Shrewsbury. In 1847 he was returned for Buckinghamshire, and never again had occasion to change his constituency. Up to this time his old debts still embarrassed him, but now his private and political fortunes changed together. Froude reports that he "received a large sum from a private hand for his _Life of Lord George Bentinck_" (published in 1852), "while a Conservative millionaire took upon himself the debts to the usurers; the 3% with which he was content being exchanged for the 10% under which Disraeli had been staggering." In 1848 his father Isaac D'Israeli died, leaving to his son Benjamin nearly the whole of his estate. This went to the purchase of Hughenden Manor--not, of course, a great property, but with so much of the pleasant and picturesque, of the dignified also, as quite to explain what it was to the affectionate fancy of its lord. About this time, too (1851), his acquaintance was sought by an old Mrs Brydges Willyams--born a Spanish Jewess and then the widow of a long-deceased Cornish squire--who in her distant home at Torquay had conceived a restless admiration for Benjamin Disraeli. She wrote to him again and again, pressing for an appointment to consult on an important matter of business: would meet him at the fountain of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Her importunity succeeded, and the very small, oddly-dressed, strange-mannered old lady whom Disraeli met at the fountain became his adoring friend to the end of her life. Gratitude for her devotion brought him and his wife in constant intimacy with her. There were many visits to Torquay; he gratified her with gossiping letters about the great people with whom and the great affairs with which the man who did so much honour to her race was connected, that being the inspiration of her regard for him. She died in 1863, leaving him all her fortune, which was considerable; and, as she wished, was buried at Hughenden, close to the grave where Disraeli was to lie.

As leader in the House of Commons.

It is agreed that the first three years of Disraeli's leadership in Opposition were skilfully employed in reconstructing the shattered Tory party. In doing this he made it sufficiently clear that there could be no sudden return to Protectionist principles. At the same time, however, he insisted (as he did from first to last) on the enormous importance to the country, to the character of its people no less than to its material welfare, of agricultural contentment and prosperity; and he also obtained a more general recognition of the fact that "the land" had borne fiscal burdens under the old regime which were unfair and unendurable under the new. So far he did well; and when in 1852 he took office as chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Derby's first administration, the prospect was a smiling one for a man who, striving against difficulties and prejudices almost too formidable for imagination in these days, had attained to a place where he could fancy them all giving way. That, however, they were not. New difficulties were to arise and old prejudices to revive in full force. His first budget was a quaint failure, and was thrown out by a coalition of Liberals and Peelites which he believed was formed against Mr Disraeli more than against the chancellor of the exchequer. It was on this occasion that he exclaimed, "England does not love coalitions." After a reign of ten months he was again in Opposition, and remained so for seven years. Of the Crimean War he had a better judgment than those whose weakness led them into it, and he could tell them the whole truth of the affair in twenty words: "You are going to war with an opponent who does not want to fight, and whom you are unwilling to encounter." Neither were they prepared; and the scandals and political disturbances that ensued revealed him as a party leader who could act on such occasions with a dignity, moderation and sagacity that served his country well, maintained the honour of party government and cost his friends nothing. The mismanagement of the war broke down the Aberdeen government in 1855, and then Disraeli had the mortification of seeing a fortunate chance of return to office lost by the timidity and distrust of his chief, Lord Derby--the distrust too clearly including the under-valuation of Disraeli himself. Lord Derby wanted Lord Palmerston's help, Mr Gladstone's, Mr Sidney Herbert's. This arrangement could not be made; Lord Derby therefore gave up the attempt to form a ministry and Lord Palmerston came in. The next chance was taken in less favouring times. The government in which Disraeli was again financial minister lasted for less than eighteen months (1858-1859), and then ensued another seven years in the cold and yet colder shade of Opposition. Both of these seven-year outings were bad, but the second by far the worse. Parliamentary reform had become a burning question and an embarrassing one for the Tory party. An enormous increase of business, consequent upon the use of steam machinery and free-trade openings to commerce, filled the land with prosperity, and discredited all statesmanship but that which steered by the star over Manchester. Mr Gladstone's budgets, made possible by this prosperity, were so many triumphs for Liberalism. Foreign questions arose which strongly excited English feeling--the arrangements of peace with Russia, Italian struggles for freedom, an American quarrel, the "Arrow" affair and the Chinese war, the affair of the French colonels and the Conspiracy Bill; and as they arose Palmerston gathered into his own sails (except on the last occasion) every wind of popular favour. Amid all this the Tory fortunes sank rapidly, becoming nearly hopeless when Lord Palmerston, without appreciable loss of confidence on his own side, persuaded many Tories in and out of parliament that Conservatism would suffer little while he was in power. Yet there was great despondency, of course, in the Conservative ranks; with despondency discontent; with discontent rancour. The prejudice against Disraeli as Jew, the revolt at his theatricalisms, the distrust of him as "mystery man," which up to this time had never died out even among men who were his nearest colleagues, were now more openly indulged. Out of doors he had a "bad press," in parliament he had some steady, enthusiastic friends, but more that were cold. Sometimes he was seen on the front Opposition bench for hours quite alone. Little conspiracies were got up to displace him, and might have succeeded but for an unconquerable dread of the weapon that destroyed Peel. In this state of things he patiently held his ground, working for his party more carefully than it knew, and never seizing upon false or discrediting advantages. But it was an extremely bad time for Benjamin Disraeli.

Reform Bill of 1867.

Premier, 1868.

Though Lord Palmerston stumbled over his Foreign Conspiracy Bill in 1858, his popularity was little damaged, and it was in no hopeful spirit that the Tories took office again in that year. They were perilously weak in the House of Commons, and affairs abroad, in which they had small practice and no prestige, were alarming. Yet the new administration did very well till, after resettling the government of India, and recovering from a blunder committed by their Indian secretary, Lord Ellenborough, they must needs launch a Reform Bill to put that dangerous question out of controversial politics. The well-intended but fantastic measure brought in for the purpose was rejected. The country was appealed to, with good but insufficient results; and at the first meeting of the new parliament the Tories were turned out on a no-confidence vote moved by Lord Hartington. Foreign affairs supplied the motive: failure to preserve the peace of Europe at the time of the Italian war of independence. It is said that the foreign office had then in print a series of despatches which would have answered its accusers had they been presented when the debate began, as for some unexplained reason they were not. Lord Palmerston now returned to Downing Street, and while he lived Disraeli and his colleagues had to satisfy themselves with what was meant for useful criticism, though with small hope that it was so for their own service. A Polish insurrection, the Schleswig-Holstein question, a commercial treaty with France, the Civil War in America, gave Disraeli occasions for speech that was always forcible and often wiser than all could see at the time. He never doubted that England should be strictly neutral in the American quarrel when there was a strong feeling in favour of the South. All the while he would have gladly welcomed any just means of taking an animated course, for these were dull, dark days for the Conservatives as a parliamentary party. Yet, unperceived, Conservatism was advancing. It was much more than a joke that Palmerston sheltered Conservative principles under the Liberal flag. The warmth of his popularity, to which Radical applause contributed nothing in his later days, created an atmosphere entirely favourable to the quiet growth of Conservatism. He died in 1865. Earl Russell succeeded him as prime minister, Mr Gladstone as leader of the House of Commons. The party most pleased with the change was the Radical; the party best served was Disraeli's. Another Reform Bill, memorable for driving certain good Liberals into a Cave of Aduilam, broke up the new government in a few months; Disraeli contributing to the result by the delivery of opinions not new to him and of lasting worth, though presently to be subordinated to arguments of an inferior order and much less characteristic. "At this rate," he said in 1866, "you will have a parliament that will entirely lose its command over the executive, and it will meet with less consideration and possess less influence." Look for declining statesmanship, inferior aptitude, genius dying off. "Instead of these you will have a horde of selfish and obscure mediocrities, incapable of anything but mischief, and that mischief devised and regulated by the raging demagogue of the hour." The Reform legislation which promised these results in 1866 was thrown out. Lord Derby's third administration was then formed in the summer of the same year, and for the third time there was a Tory government on sufferance. Its followers were still a minority in the House of Commons; an angry Reform agitation was going on; an ingenious resolution founded on the demand for an enlarged franchise serviceable to Liberals might extinguish the new government almost immediately; and it is pretty evident that the Tory leaders took office meaning to seek a cure for this desperate weakness by wholesale extension of the suffrage. Their excuses and calculations are well known, but when all is said, Lord Derby's statement of its character, "a leap in the dark," and of its intention, "dishing the Whigs," cannot be bettered. Whether Lord Derby or Mr Disraeli originated this resolve has been much discussed, and it remains an unsettled question. It is known that Disraeli's private secretary, Mr Ralph Earle, quarrelled with him violently at about this time; and Sir William Fraser relates that, meeting Mr Earle, that gentleman said: "I know what your feelings must be about this Reform Bill, and I think it right to tell you that it was not Disraeli's bill, but Lord Derby's. I know everything that occurred." Mr Earle gave the same assurances to the writer of these lines, and did so with hints and half-confidences (quite intelligible, however) as to the persuasions that wrought upon his chief. Mr Earle's listener on these occasions confesses that he heard with a doubting mind, and that belief in what he heard still keeps company with Mahomet's coffin. One thing, however, is clear. To suppose Disraeli satisfied with the excuses made for his adoption of the "dishing" process is forbidden by the whole tenor of his teaching and conduct. He could not have become suddenly blind to the fallacy of the expectations derived from such a course; and all his life it had been his distinction to look above the transient and trafficking expedients of the professional politician. However, the thing was done. After various remodellings, and amid much perturbation, secession, violent reproach, the Household Suffrage Bill passed in August 1867. Another memorable piece of work, the confederation of Canada, had already been accomplished. A few days after parliament met in the next year Lord Derby's failing health compelled him to resign and Mr Disraeli became prime minister. Irish disaffection had long been astir; the Fenian menace looked formidable not only in Ireland but in England also. The reconstructed government announced its intention of dealing with Irish grievances. Mr Gladstone approved, proposing the abolition of the Irish Church to begin with. A resolution to that effect was immediately carried against the strong opposition of the government. Disraeli insisted that the question should be settled in the new parliament which the franchise act called for, and he seems to have had little doubt that the country would declare against Mr Gladstone's proposal. He was mistaken. It was the great question at the polls; and the first elections by the new constituencies went violently against the authors of their being.

The history of the next five years is Mr Gladstone's. The Irish Church abolished, he set to work with passionate good intention on the Irish land laws. The while he did so sedition took courage and flourished exceedingly, so that to pacify Ireland the constable went hand in hand with the legislator. The abolition of the Irish Church was followed by a coercion act, and the land act by suspension of _Habeas Corpus_. Disraeli, who at first preferred retirement and the writing of _Lothair_, came forward from time to time to point the moral and predict the end of Mr Gladstone's impulsive courses, which soon began to fret the confidence of his friends. Some unpleasant errors of conduct--the case of Sir R. Collier (afterwards Lord Monkswell, q.v.), the Ewelme rectory case,[1] the significant Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill) episode (to help the government out of a scrape the ambassador was accused of exceeding his instructions)--told yet more. Above all, many humiliating proofs that England was losing her place among the nations came out in these days, the discovery being then new and unendurable. To be brief, in less than four years the government had well-nigh worn out its own patience with its own errors, failures and distractions, and would gladly have gone to pieces when it was defeated on an Irish university bill. But Disraeli, having good constitutional reasons for declining office at the moment, could not allow this. Still gathering unpopularity, still offending, alarming, alienating, the government went on till 1874, suddenly dissolved parliament, and was signally beaten, the Liberal party breaking up. Like most of his political friends, Disraeli had no expectation of such a victory--little hope, indeed, of any distinct success. Yet when he went to Manchester on a brief political outing two years before, he was received with such acclaim as he had never known in his life. He was then sixty-eight years old, and this was his first full banquet of popularity. The elation and confidence drawn from the Manchester meetings were confirmed by every circumstance of the 1874 elections. But he was well aware of how much he owed to his opponents' errors, seeing at the same time how safely he could lay his future course by them. He had always rejected the political economy of his time, and it was breaking down. He had always refused to accept the economist's dictum without reference to other considerations than the turnover of trade; and even Manchester could pardon the refusal now. The national spirit, vaporized into a cosmopolitan mist, was fast condensing again under mortification and insult from abroad uncompensated by any appreciable percentage of cash profit. This was a changing England, and one that Disraeli could govern on terms of mutual satisfaction; but not if the reviving "spirit of the country" ran to extremes of self-assertion. At one of the great Manchester meetings he said, "Do not suppose, because I counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favourable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a large part of my life."

Suez Canal shares.

But for the hubbub occasioned by the Public Worship Regulation Act, the first two years of the 1874 administration had no remarkable excitements till near the end of them. The Public Worship Act, introduced by the archbishop of Canterbury, was meant to restrain ritualism. Disraeli, who from first to last held to the Reformed Church as capable of dispensing social good as no other organization might, supported the Bill as "putting down ritualism"; spoke very vehemently; gave so much offence that at one time neither the bill nor the government seemed quite safe. For some time afterwards there was so little legislation of the kind called "enterprising" that even some friends of the government began to think it too tame; but at the end of the second year an announcement was made which put that fear to rest. The news that the khedive's Suez Canal shares had been bought by the government was received with boundless applause. It was a courageous thing to do; but it was not a Disraeli conception, nor did it originate in any government department. It was suggested from without at a moment when the possibility of ever acquiring the shares was passing away. On the morning of the 15th of November 1875, Mr Frederick Greenwood, then editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, went to Lord Derby at the foreign office, informed him that the khedive's shares were passing into the hands of a French syndicate, and urged arrest of the transaction by purchase for England. (The shares being private property their sale could not, of course, be forbidden.) Lord Derby thought there must be a mistake. He could not believe that bargaining of that kind could go on in Cairo without coming to the knowledge of the British consul there. He was answered that nevertheless it was going on. The difficulties of purchase by England were then arrayed by Lord Derby. They were more than one or two, and of course they had a formidable look, but so also had the alternative and the lost opportunity. One difficulty had already come into existence, and had to be met at once. Lord Derby had either to make direct inquiry of the khedive or to let the matter go. If he inquired, and there was no such negotiation, his question might be interpreted in a very troublesome way; moreover, we should put the idea of selling the shares into the khedive's head, which would be unfortunate. "There's my position, and now what do you say?" The answer given, Lord Derby drafted a telegram to the British consul-general at Cairo, and read it out. It instructed Colonel Stanton to go immediately to the khedive and put the question point blank. Meanwhile the prime minister would be seen, and Lord Derby's visitor might call next day to hear the reply from Cairo. It is enough to add here that on receipt of the answer the purchase for England was taken up and went to a speedy conclusion.[2]

Eastern question.

As if upon the impulse of this transaction, Disraeli opened the next session of parliament with a bill to confer upon the queen the title of empress of India--a measure which offended the instincts of many Englishmen, and, for the time, revived the prejudices against its author. More important was the revival of disturbances in European Turkey, which, in their outcome, were to fill the last chapter of Disraeli's career. But for this interruption it is likely that he would have given much of his attention to Ireland, not because it was an attractive employment for his few remaining years, but because he saw with alarm the gathering troubles in that country. And his mind was strongly drawn in another direction. In a remarkable speech delivered in 1872, he spoke with great warmth of the slighting of the colonies, saying that "no minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this island." However, nothing was done in fulfilment of this duty in the first two years from 1874, and early in the third the famous Andrassy note, the Berlin memorandum, the Bashi-Bazouk atrocities, and the accumulative excitement thereby created in England, reopened the Eastern question with a vengeance. The policy which Disraeli's government now took up may be truly called the national policy. Springing from the natural suggestions of self-defence against the march of a dangerous rivalry, it had the sanction of all British statesmanship for generations, backed by the consenting instinct of the people. It was quite unsentimental, being pro-Turkish or anti-Russian only as it became so in being pro-British. The statesmen by whom it was established and continued saw in Russia a power which, unless firmly kept within bounds, would dominate Europe; more particularly that it would undermine and supersede British authority in the East. And without nicely considering the desire of Russia to expand to the Mediterranean, the Pacific or in any other direction, they thought it one of their first duties to maintain their own Eastern empire; or, to put it another way, to contrive that Great Britain should be subject to Russian ascendancy (if ever), at the remotest period allowed by destiny. Such were the ideas on which England's Russian policy was founded. In 1876 this policy revived as a matter of course in the cabinet, and as spontaneously, though not upon a first provocation, became popular almost to fury. And furiously popular it remained. But a strong opposing current of feeling, equally passionate, set in against the Turks; war began and lasted long; and as the agitation at home and the conflict abroad went on, certain of Disraeli's colleagues, who were staunch enough at the beginning, gradually weakened. It is certainly true that Disraeli was prepared, in all senses of the word, to take strong measures against such an end to the war as the San Stefano treaty threatened. Rather than suffer that, he would have fought the Russians in alliance with the Turks, and had gone much farther in maturing a scheme of attack and defence than was known at the time or is commonly known now. That there was a master motive for this resolution may be taken for granted; and it is to be found in a belief that not to throw back the Russian advance then was to lose England's last chance of postponing to a far future the predominance of a great rival power in the East. How much or how little judgment shows in that calculation, when viewed in the light of later days, we do not discuss. What countenance it had from his colleagues dropped away. At the end their voices were strong enough to insist upon the diplomatic action which at no point falls back on the sword; Lord Derby (foreign minister) being among the first to make a stand on that resolution, though he was not the first seceder from the government. Such diplomacy in such conditions is paralytic. It cannot speak thrice, with whatever affectation of boldness, without discovering its true character to trained ears; which should be remembered when Disraeli's successes at Berlin are measured. It should be remembered that what with the known timidity of his colleagues, and what with the strength and violence of the Russian party in England, his achievement at Berlin was like the reclamation of butter from a dog's mouth; as Prince Bismarck understood in acknowledging Disraeli's gifts of statesmanship. It should also be remembered, when his Eastern policy in 1876-1878 is denounced as malign and a failure, that it was never carried out. Good or bad, ill or well calculated, effective existence was denied to it; and a man cannot be said to have failed in what he was never permitted to attempt. The nondescript course of action which began at the Constantinople conference and ended at Berlin was not of his direction until its few last days. It only marked at various stages the thwarting and suppression of his policy by colleagues who were haunted night and day by memories of the Crimean War, and not least, probably, by the fate of the statesmen who suffered for its blunders and their own. Disraeli also looked back to those blunders, and he was by no means insensible to the fate of fallen ministers. But just as he maintained at the time of the conflict, and after, that there would have been no Crimean War had not the British government convinced the tsar that it was in the hands of the peace party, so now he believed that a bold policy would prevent or limit war, and at the worst put off grave consequences which otherwise would make a rapid advance.

As if aware of much of this, the country was well content with Disraeli's successes at Berlin, though sore on some points, he himself sharing the soreness. Yet there were great days for him after his return. At the Berlin conference he had established a formidable reputation; the popularity he enjoyed at home was affectionately enthusiastic; no minister had ever stood in more cordial relations with his sovereign; and his honours in every kind were his own achievement against unending disadvantage. But he was soon to suffer irretrievable defeat. A confused and unsatisfactory war in Afghanistan, troubles yet more unsatisfactory in South Africa, conspired with two or three years of commercial distress to invigorate "the swing of the pendulum" when he dissolved parliament in 1880. Dissolution the year before would have been wiser, but a certain pride forbade. The elections went heavily against him. He took the blow with composure, and sank easily into a comparative retirement. Yet he still watched affairs as a great party leader should, and from time to time figured vigorously in debate. Meanwhile he had another novel to sit down to--the poor though highly characteristic _Endymion_; which, to his great surprise and equal pleasure, was replaced on his table by a cheque for ten thousand pounds. Yet even this satisfaction had its tang of disappointment; for though _Endymion_ was not wholly written in his last days, it was in no respect the success that _Lothair_ was. This also he could bear. His description of his grandfather recurs to us: "A man of ardent character, sanguine, courageous and fortunate, with a temper which no disappointment could disturb."

Death and influence.

As earl of Beaconsfield (failing health had compelled him to take refuge in the House of Lords in 1876) Benjamin Disraeli died in his house in Curzon Street on the 19th of April 1881. The likelihood of his death was publicly known for some days before the event, and then the greatness of his popularity and its warmth were declared for the first time. No such demonstration of grief was expected even by those who grieved the most. He lies in Hughenden churchyard, in a rail-enclosed grave, with liberty for the turf to grow between him and the sky. Within the church is a marble tablet, placed there by his queen, with a generous inscription to his memory. The anniversary of his death has since been honoured in an unprecedented manner, the 19th of April being celebrated as "Primrose Day"--the primrose, for reasons impossible accurately to define, being popularly supposed to have been Disraeli's favourite flower. Even among his friends in youth (Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, for example), and not improbably among the city men who wagered their money in irrecoverable loans to him on the chance of his success, there may have been some who compassed the thought of Benjamin Disraeli as prime minister and peer; but at no time could any fancy have imagined him remembered so enduringly as Lord Beaconsfield has been. It is possible that Sarah Disraeli (the Myra of _Endymion_), or that "the most severe of critics but a perfect wife," may have had such dreams--hardly that they could have occurred to any mind but a devoted woman's. Disraeli's life was a succession of surprises, but none was so great as that he should be remembered after death more widely, lastingly, respectfully, affectionately, than any other statesman in the long reign of Queen Victoria. While he lived he did not seem at all cut out for that distinction even as an Imperialist. Significant as was the common grief when he died, no such consequence could be inferred from it, and certainly not from the elections of 1880. It stands, however, this high distinction, and with it the thought that it would have been denied to him altogether had the "adventurer" and "mystery man" of the sixties died at the age of threescore years and ten. We have said that never till 1872 did he look upon the full cup of popularity. It might have been said that even at that time intrigue to get rid of him had yet to cease in his own party; and but a few years before, a man growing old, he was still in the lowest deeps of his disappointments and humiliations. How, then, could it be imagined that with six years of power from his seventieth year, the Jew "adventurer," mysterious and theatrical to the last, should fill a greater space in the mind of England twenty years after death than Peel or Palmerston after five? Of course it can be explained; and when explained, we see that Disraeli's good fortune in this respect is not due entirely to his own merits. His last years of power might have been followed by as long a period of more acceptable government than his own, to the effacement of his own from memory; but that did not happen. What did follow was a time of universal turbulence and suspicion, in which the pride of the nation was wounded again and again. To say "Majuba" and "Gordon" recalls its deepest hurts, but not all of them; and it may be that a pained and angry people, looking back, saw in the man whom they lately displaced more than they had ever seen before. From that time, at any rate, Disraeli has been acknowledged as the regenerator and representative of the Imperial idea in England. He has also been accused on the same grounds; and if the giver of good wine may be blamed for the guest who gets drunk on it, there is justice in the accusation. It is but a statement of fact, however, that Disraeli retains his hold upon the popular mind on this account mainly. The rekindling of the Imperial idea is understood as a timely act of revolt and redemption: of revolt against continuous humiliations deeply felt, redemption from the fate of nations obviously weak and suspected of timidity. It has been called rescue-work--deliverance from the dangers of invited aggression and a philosophical neglect of the means of defence. And its first achievement for the country (this is again a mere statement of fact) was the restoration of a much-damaged self-respect and the creation of a great defensive fleet not a day too soon for safety. So much for "the great heart of the people." Meanwhile political students find to their satisfaction that he never courted popularity, and never practised the art of working for "quick returns" of sympathy or applause. As "adventurer," he should have done so; yet he neglected the cultivation of that paying art for the wisdom that looks to the long future, and bears its fruit, perchance, when no one cares to remember who sowed the seed. So it is that to read some of his books and many of his speeches is to draw more respect and admiration from their pages than could have been found there originally. The student of his life understands that Disraeli's claim to remembrance rests not only on the breadth of his views, his deep insight, his long foresight, but even more on the courage which allowed him to declare opinions supplied from those qualities when there was no visible likelihood of their justification by experience, and therefore when their natural fate was to be slighted. His judgments had to wait the event before they were absolved from ridicule or delivered from neglect. The event arrives; he is in his grave; but his reputation loses nothing by that. It gains by regret that death was beforehand with him.

Character.

"Adventurer," as applied to Disraeli, was a mere term of abuse. "Mystery-man" had much of the same intention, but in a blameless though not in a happy sense it was true of him to the end of his days. Even to his friends, and to many near him, he remained mysterious to the last. It is impossible to doubt that some two or three, four or five perchance, were at home in his mind, being freely admitted there; but of partial admissions to its inner places there seem to have been few or none. Men who were long associated with him in affairs, and had much of his stinted companionship, have confessed that with every wish to understand his character they never succeeded. Sometimes they fancied they had got within the topping walls of the maze, and might hope to gain the point whence survey could be made of the whole; but as often they found themselves, in a moment, where they stood at last and at first--outside. His speeches carry us but a little way beyond the mental range; his novels rather baffle than instruct. It is commonly believed that Disraeli looked in the glass while describing Sidonia in _Coningsby_. We group the following sentences from this description for a purpose that will be presently seen:--(1) "He was admired by women, idolized by artists, received in all circles with great distinction, and appreciated for his intellect by the very few to whom he at all opened himself." (2) "For, though affable and generous, it was impossible to penetrate him: though unreserved in his manners his frankness was limited to the surface. He observed everything, thought ever, but avoided serious discussion. If you pressed him for an opinion he took refuge in raillery, and threw out some paradox with which it was not easy to cope. The secret history of the world was Sidonia's pastime. His great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive with the public pretext of transactions." (3) "He might have discovered a spring of happiness in susceptibilities of the heart; but this was a sealed fountain for Sidonia. In his organization there was a peculiar, perhaps a great deficiency; he was a man without affection. It would be hard to say that he had no heart, for he was susceptible of deep emotions; but not for individuals. Woman was to him a toy, man a machine." These sentences are separately grouped here for the sake of suggesting that they will more truly illustrate Disraeli's character if taken as follows:--The first as representing his most cherished social ambitions--in whatever degree achieved. The second group as faithfully and closely descriptive of himself; descriptive too of a character purposely cloaked. The third as much less simple; in part a mixture of truth with Byronic affectation, and for the rest (and more significantly), as intimating the resolute exercise of extraordinary powers of control over the promptings and passions by which so many capable ambitions have come to grief. So read, Sidonia and Benjamin Disraeli are brought into close resemblance by Disraeli himself; for what in this description is untrue to the suspected fundamentals of his character is true to his known foibles. But for a general interpretation of Lord Beaconsfield and his career none serves so well as that which Froude insists on most. He was thoroughly and unchangeably a Jew. At but one remove by birth from southern Europe and the East, he was an Englishman in nothing but his devotion to England and his solicitude for her honour and prosperity. It was not wholly by volition and design that his mind was strange to others and worked in absolute detachment. He had "none of the hereditary prepossessions of the native Englishman." No such prepossessions disturbed his vision when it was bent upon the rising problems of the time, or rested on the machinery of government and the kind of men who worked it and their ways of working. The advantages of Sidonia's intellect and temperament were largely his, in affairs, but not without their drawbacks. His pride in his knowledge of the English character was the pride of a student; and we may doubt if it ever occurred to him that there would have been less pride but more knowledge had he been an Englishman. It is certain that in shrouding his own character he checked the communication of others to himself, and so could continue to the end of his career the costly mistake of being theatrical in England. There was a great deal too (though little to his blame) in Lord Malmesbury's observation that he was not only disliked in the House of Commons for his mysterious manner, but prejudiced by a pronounced foreign air and aspect. Lord Malmesbury does not put it quite as strongly as that, but he might have done so with truth. No Englishman could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that he was in the presence of a foreigner.

Lord Beaconsfield has been praised for his integrity in money matters; the praise could have been spared--it does not rise high enough. It is also said to his honour that he "never struck at a little man," and that was well; but it is explained as readily by pride and calculation as by magnanimity. A man of extraordinary coolness and self-control, his faults in every kind were faults of excess: it is the mark of them all. But whatever offence they gave, whatever mischief they did, was soon exhausted, and has long since been pardoned.

AUTHORITIES.--The writer's personal knowledge is largely represented
in the above article. Among the biographical literature available
prior to the authoritative _Life_ the following may be cited:--Lord
Beaconsfield's Preface to 1849 edition of Isaac D'Israeli's works;
_Correspondence with his Sister_, and _Home Letters_, edited by Ralph
Disraeli; Samuel Smiles, _Memoirs and Correspondence of John Murray;
Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield_, by F. Hitchman; _Memoir_ by T.E.
Kebbel; _Memoir_ by J.A. Froude; _Memoir_ by Harold Gorst; Sir William
Fraser's _Disraeli and his Day; The Speeches of Lord Beaconsfield_,
edited by T.E. Kebbel. In 1904, however, the large collection of
material for Lord Beaconsfield's life, in the hands of his executors
Lord Rowton and Lord Rothschild, was acquired by _The Times_, and the
task of preparing the biography was assigned to Mr W.F. Monypenny, an
assistant editor of _The Times_ (1894-1899), who was best known to the
public as editor of the Johannesburg _Star_ during the crisis of
1899-1903. (F. G.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The crown had in 1871 appointed the Rev. W.W. Harvey (1810-1883),
a Cambridge man, to the living of Ewelme, near Oxford, for which
members of the Oxford house of convocation were alone eligible.
Gladstone was charged with evading this limitation in allowing Harvey
to qualify for the appointment by being formally admitted M.A. by
incorporation.

[2] For a detailed, if somewhat controversial, account of this
affair, see Lucien Wolf's article in _The Times_ of December 26,
1905, and Mr Greenwood's letters on the subject.

BEACONSFIELD, a town of Devon county, Tasmania, on the river Tamar, 28 m. direct N.W. of Launceston. Pop. (1901) 2658. From its port at Beauty Point, 3-1/2 m. distant, with which it is connected by a steam tramway, communication is maintained with Georgetown and Launceston. It is the centre of the most important gold-field in the island.

BEACONSFIELD, a town of South Africa in Griqualand West, about 3 m. S.W. of Kimberley, of which it is practically a suburb, though possessing a separate municipality. Pop. (1904) 9378, of whom 2780 were whites. Beaconsfield was founded in 1870 near the famous Dutoitspan diamond mine. The land on which the town is built belongs to the De Beers Company. (See KIMBERLEY.)

BEACONSFIELD, a town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England. 23 m. W. by N. of London, on the main road to Oxford, and on the Great Central & Great Western joint railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 1570. It lies in a hilly well-wooded district above the valley of the small river Wye, a tributary of the Thames. The broad Oxford road forms its picturesque main street. It was formerly a posting station of importance, and had a considerable manufacture of ribbons. The Perpendicular church of St Mary and All Saints is the burial place of Edmund Burke (d. 1797), who lived at Gregories, or as he named it Butler's Court, near the town. He would have taken his title from Beaconsfield had he survived to enter the peerage. A monument to his memory was erected in 1898. Edmund Waller the poet owned the property of Hall Barn, and died here in 1687. His tomb is in the churchyard. Benjamin Disraeli chose the title of earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, his wife having in 1868 received the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield. The opening of railway communication with London in 1906 resulted in a considerable accretion of residential population.

BEAD, a small globule or ball used in necklaces, and made of different materials, as metal, coral, diamond, amber, ivory, stone, pottery, glass, rock-crystal and seeds. The word is derived from the Middle Eng. _bede_, from the common Teutonic word for "to pray," cf. German _beten_ and English _bedesman_, the meaning being transferred from "prayer" to the spherical bodies strung on a rosary and used in counting prayers. Beads have been made from remote antiquity, and are found in early Egyptian tombs; variegated glass beads, found in the ground in certain parts of Africa, as Ashantiland, and highly prized by the natives as _aggry_-beads, are supposed to be of Egyptian or Phoenician origin. Beads of the more expensive materials are strung in necklaces and worn as articles of personal adornment, while the cheaper kinds are employed for the decoration of women's dress. Glass beads have long been used for purposes of barter with savage tribes, and are made in enormous numbers and varieties, especially in Venice, where the manufacture has existed from at least the 14th century. Glass, either transparent, or of opaque coloured enamel (_smalti_), or having complex patterns produced by the twisting of threads of coloured glass through a transparent body, is drawn out into long tubes, from which the beads are pinched off, and finished by being rotated with sand and ashes in heated cylinders.

In architecture, the term "bead" is given to a small cylindrical moulding, in classic work often cut into bead and reel.

BEADLE, also BEDEL or BEDELL (from A.S. _bydel_, from _beodan_, to bid), originally a subordinate officer of a court or deliberative assembly, who summoned persons to appear and answer charges against them (see Du Cange, _supra tit. Bedelli_). As such, the beadle goes back to early Teutonic times; he was probably attached to the moot as its messenger or summoner, being under the direction of the reeve or constable of the leet. After the Norman Conquest, the beadle seems to have diminished in importance, becoming merely the crier in the manor and forest courts, and sometimes executing processes. He was also employed as the messenger of the parish, and thus became, to a certain extent, an ecclesiastical officer, but in reality acted more as a constable by keeping order in the church and churchyard during service. He also attended upon the clergy, the churchwardens and the vestry. He was appointed by the parishioners in vestry, and his wages were payable out of the church rate. From the Poor Law Act of 1601 till the act of 1834 by which poor-law administration was transferred to guardians, the beadle in England was an officer of much importance in his capacity of agent for the overseers. In all medieval universities the bedel was an officer who exercised various executive and spectacular functions (H. Rashdall, _Hist. of Universities in the Middle Ages_, i. 193). He still survives in many universities on the continent of Europe and in those of Oxford and Cambridge, but he is now shorn of much of his importance. At Oxford there are four bedels, representing the faculties of law, medicine, arts and divinity. Their duties are chiefly processional, the junior or sub-bedel being the official attendant on the vice-chancellor, before whom he bears a silver mace. At Cambridge there are two, termed esquire-bedels, who both walk before the vice-chancellor, bearing maces.

BEAK (early forms _beke_ and _becke_, from Fr. _bec_, late Lat. _beccus_, supposed to be a Gaulish word; the Celtic _bec_ and _beq_, however, are taken from the English), the horny bill of a bird, and so used of the horny ends of the mandibles of the octopus, the duck-billed platypus and other animals; hence the rostrum (q.v.) or ornamented prow of ancient war vessels. The term is also applied, in classic architecture, to the pendent fillet on the edge of the corona of a cornice, which serves as a drip, and prevents the rain from flowing inwards.

The slang use of "beak" for a magistrate or justice of the peace has not been satisfactorily explained. The earlier meaning, which lasted down to the beginning of the 19th century, was "watchman" or "constable." According to _Slang and its Analogues_ (J.S. Farmer and W.E. Henley, 1890), the first example of its later use is in the name of "the Blind Beak," which was given to Henry Fielding's half-brother, Sir John Fielding (about 1750). Thomas Harman, in his book on vagrants, _Caveat or Warening for commen cursitors, Vulgarely called Vagabones_, 1573, explains _harmans beck_ as "counstable," _harman_ being the word for the stocks. Attempts have been made to connect "beak" in this connexion with the Old English _beag_, a gold torque or collar, worn as a symbol of authority, but this could only be plausible on the assumption that "magistrate" was the earlier significance of the word.

BEAKER (Scottish _bicker_, Lat. _bicarium_, Ger. _Becher_, a drinking-bowl), a large wide-mouthed drinking-cup or laboratory vessel. See DRINKING-VESSELS.

BEALE, DOROTHEA (1831-1906), English schoolmistress, was born on the 21st of March 1831 in London, her father being a physician of good family and cultivated tastes. She had already shown a strong intellectual bent and considerable force of character when in 1848 she was one of the first to attend lectures at the newly opened Queen's College for Ladies, London, and from 1849 to 1856 she herself took classes there. In 1857 for a few months she became head teacher of the Clergy Daughters' school at Casterton, Westmoreland, but narrow religious prejudices on the part of the governors led to her retirement. In 1858 she was appointed principal of the Ladies College at Cheltenham (opened 1854), then in very low water. Her tact and strenuousness, backed by able financial management, led to its success being thoroughly established by 1864, and as the college increased in numbers new buildings were erected from 1873 onwards. Under Miss Beale's headship it grew into one of the great girls' schools of the country, and its development and example played an important part in the revolution effected in regard to the higher education of women. Miss Beale retained her post till her death on the 9th of November 1906. Strongly religious by nature, broad-minded and keenly interested in all branches of culture, she exercised a far-reaching influence on her pupils.

Her _Life_ was written by Elizabeth Raikes (1908).

BEAM (from the O. Eng. _beam_, cf. Ger. _Baum_, a tree, to which sense may be referred the use of "beam" as meaning the rood or crucifix, and the survival in certain names of trees, as hornbeam), a solid piece of timber, as a beam of a house, of a plough, a loom, or a balance. In the last case, from meaning simply the cross-bar of the balance, "beam" has come to be used of the whole, as in the expression "the king's beam," or "common beam," which refers to the old English standard balance for wholesale goods, for several hundred years in the custody of the Grocers' Company, London. As a nautical term, "beam" was transferred from the main cross-timbers to the side of the ship; thus "on the weather-beam" means "to windward," and a ship is said to be "wide in the beam" when she is wide horizontally. The phrase "to be on one's beam-ends," denoting a position of extreme peril or helplessness, is borrowed from the position of a ship which has heeled over so far as to stand on the ends of her horizontal beams. The meaning of "beam" for shafts or rays of light comes apparently from the use of the word to translate the Latin _columna lucis_, a pillar of light.

BEAN (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. _Bohne_), the seed of certain leguminous plants cultivated for food all over the world, and furnished chiefly by the genera _Vicia, Phaseolus, Dolichos_ and others. The common bean, in all its varieties, as cultivated in Britain and on the continents of Europe and America, is the produce of _Vicia Faba_. The French bean, kidney bean, or haricot, is the seed of _Phaseolus vulgaris_; but in India several other species of this genus of plants are raised, and form no small portion of the diet of the inhabitants. Besides these there are numerous other pulses cultivated for the food both of man and domestic animals, to which the name bean is frequently given. The common bean is even more nutritious than wheat; and it contains a very high proportion of nitrogenous matter under the form of legumin, which amounts on an average to 24%. It is, however, a rather coarse food, and difficult of digestion, and is chiefly used to feed horses, for which it is admirably adapted. In England French beans are chiefly, almost exclusively, used in the green state; the whole pod being eaten as a table vegetable or prepared as a pickle. It is wholesome and nutritious; and in Holland and Germany the pods are preserved in salt by almost every family for winter and spring use. The green pods are cut across obliquely, most generally by a machine invented for the purpose, and salted in barrels. When wanted for use they are steeped in fresh water to remove the salt, and broiled or stewed they form an agreeable addition to the diet at a time when no other vegetable may be had.

The broad bean--_Vicia Faba_, or _Faba vulgaris_, as it is known by those botanists who regard the slight differences which distinguish it from the great majority of the species of the vetch genus (_Vicia_) as of generic importance--is an annual which has been cultivated fiom prehistoric times for its nutritious seeds.

The lake-dwellers of Switzerland, and northern Italy in the bronze age cultivated a small-fruited variety, and it was grown in ancient Egypt, though, according to Herodotus, regarded by the priests as unclean. The ancient Greeks called it [Greek: kuamos], the Latins _faba_, but there is no suggestion that the plant is a native of Europe. Alphonse de Candolle (_Origin of Cultivated Plants_, p. 320) concludes that the bean was introduced into Europe probably by the western Aryans at the time of their earliest migrations. He suggests that its wild habitat was twofold some thousands of years ago, one of the centres being to the south of the Caspian, the other in the north of Africa, and that its area has long been in process of diminution and extinction. The nature of the plant favours this hypothesis, for its seed has no means of dispersing itself, and rodents or other animals can easily make prey of it; the struggle for existence which was going against this plant as against maize would have gradually isolated it and caused it to disappear, if man had not saved it by cultivation. It was introduced into China a little before the Christian era, later into Japan and more recently into India, though it has been suggested that in parts of the higher Himalayas its cultivation has survived from very ancient times. It is a plant which will flourish in all ordinary good garden soil. The seeds are sown about 4 in. apart, in drills 2-1/2 ft. asunder for the smaller and 3 ft. for the larger sorts. The soil should, preferably, be a rather heavy loam, deeply worked and well enriched. For an early crop, seeds may be sown in November, and protected during winter in the same manner as early peas. An early crop may also be obtained by dibbling in the seeds in November, sheltering by a frame, and in February transplanting them to a warm border. Successional crops are obtained by sowing suitable varieties from January to the end of June. All the culture necessary is that the earth be drawn up about the stems. The plants are usually topped when the pods have set, as this not only removes the black aphides which often settle there, but is also found to promote the filling of the pods.

The following are some of the best sorts:--for early use, Early Mazagan, Long-pod, Marshall's Early Prolific and Seville Long-pod; for late use, Carter's Mammoth Long-pod and Broad Windsor.

The horse-bean is a variety--var. _equina_.