Chapter I: Front Matter

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THE QUEEN'S PRIME MINISTERS,

A SERIES OF POLITICAL BIOGRAPHIES

EDITED BY STUART J. REID,

AUTHOR OF 'THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SYDNEY SMITH.'

_The Volumes will contain Portraits, and will be published at periodical intervals._

=THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G.= By J. A. FROUDE, D.C.L.

=VISCOUNT MELBOURNE.= By HENRY DUNCKLEY, LL.D. ('Verax.')

=SIR ROBERT PEEL.= By JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P.

=VISCOUNT PALMERSTON.= By the MARQUIS OF LORNE, K.T.

=EARL RUSSELL.= By STUART J. REID.

=THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.= By G. W. E. RUSSELL.

=THE EARL OF ABERDEEN.= By Sir ARTHUR GORDON, G.C.M.G. &c.

=THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY.= By H. D. TRAILL, D.C.L.

=THE EARL OF DERBY.= By GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, Limited, St. Dunstan's House, FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.

The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria

EDITED BY STUART J. REID

_LORD BEACONSFIELD_

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

LORD BEACONSFIELD

BY J. A. FROUDE

_He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again_

Hamlet, Act I. Scene 2

SECOND EDITION

LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON _LIMITED_ St. Dunstan's House FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1890

[_All rights reserved_]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

Carlyle on Lord Beaconsfield--Judgment of the House of
Commons--Family history--The Jews in Spain--Migration to
Venice--Benjamin D'Israeli the elder--Boyhood of Isaac
Disraeli 1

CHAPTER II

Family of Isaac Disraeli--Life in London--Birth of his
children--Abandons Judaism and joins the Church of
England--Education of Benjamin Disraeli--School
days--Picture of them in 'Vivian Grey' and 'Contarini
Fleming'--Self-education at home--Early ambition 12

CHAPTER III

The Austen family--Choice of a
profession--Restlessness--Enters a solicitor's
office--'Vivian Grey'--Illness--Travels abroad--Migration of
the Disraelis to Bradenham--Literary
satires--'Popanilla'--Tours in the
East--Gibraltar--Cadiz--Seville--Mountain
adventures--Improved health--Malta--James
Clay--Greece--Yanina--Redshid
Pasha--Athens--Constantinople--Plains of Troy and
Revolutionary epic--Jaffa--Jerusalem--Egypt--Home
letters--Death of William Meredith--Return to England 20

CHAPTER IV

'Contarini Fleming'--The poetical life--Paternal advice--A
poet, or not a poet?--'Revolutionary Epic'--Disraeli submits
to an unfavourable verdict--Success of the novels--Disraeli
a new star--London society--Political ambition--Mrs. Wyndham
Lewis--Financial embarrassments--Portraits of Disraeli by N.
P. Willis--Lady Dufferin and others--Stands for High
Wycombe--Speech at the Red Lion--Tory Radicalism--Friendship
with Lord Lyndhurst--Self-confidence--Vindication of the
British Constitution--Conservative reaction--Taunton
election--Crosses swords with O'Connell--The Runnymede
Letters--Admitted into the Carlton Club--'Henrietta Temple'
and 'Venetia' 45

CHAPTER V

Returned to Parliament for Maidstone--Takes his place behind
Sir R. Peel--Maiden speech--Silenced by violence--Peel's
opinion of it--Advice of Shiel--Second speech on Copyright
completely successful--State of politics--England in a state
of change--Break-up of ancient institutions--Land and its
duties--Political economy and Free Trade--Struggle on the
Corn Laws 67

CHAPTER VI

Disraeli's beliefs, political and religious--Sympathy with the
people--Defends the Chartists--The people, the
middle-classes, and the aristocracy--Chartist Riots--Smart
passage at arms in the House of Commons--Marriage--Mrs.
Wyndham Lewis--Disraeli as a husband 83

CHAPTER VII

The enthusiasm of progress--Carlyle and Disraeli--Protection
and Free Trade--Sir Robert Peel the Protectionist
champion--High Church movement at Oxford--The Church as a
Conservative power--Effect of the Reform Bill--Disraeli's
personal views--Impossible to realise--Election of 1841--Sir
Robert Peel's Ministry--Drift towards Free Trade--Peel's
neglect of Disraeli--Tariff of 1842--Young England--Symptoms
of revolt--First skirmish with Peel--Remarkable speech on
Ireland 91

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' 107

CHAPTER IX

The New Gospel--Effect on English character--The Manchester
School--Tendencies of Sir Robert Peel--The Corn Laws--Peel
brought into office as a Protectionist--Disraeli and
Peel--Protracted duel--Effect of Disraeli's speeches--Final
declaration of Peel against the Corn Laws--Corn Laws
repealed--Lord George Bentinck--Irish Coercion Bill--The
Canning episode--Defeat and fall of Peel--Disraeli succeeds
to the Leadership of the Conservative Party 129

CHAPTER X

Disraeli as Leader of the Opposition--Effects of Free
Trade--Scientific discoveries--Steam--Railroads--Commercial
revolution--Unexampled prosperity--Twenty-five years of
Liberal government--Disraeli's opinions and general
attitude--Party government and the conditions of it--Power
of an Opposition Leader--Never abused by Disraeli for party
interests--Special instances--The _coup d'état_--The Crimean
War--The Indian Mutiny--The Civil War in America--Remarkable
warning against playing with the Constitution 149

CHAPTER XI

Literary work--'Tancred; or, the New Crusade'--Modern
philosophy--The 'Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation'--'Life of Lord George Bentinck'--Disraeli's
religious views--Revelation as opposed to Science--Dislike
and dread of Rationalism--Religion and statesmanship--The
national creed the supplement of the national law--Speech in
the theatre at Oxford--Disraeli on the side of the angels 165

CHAPTER XII

Indifference to money--Death of Isaac Disraeli--Purchase of
Hughenden--Mrs. Brydges Willyams of Torquay--An assignation
with unexpected results--Intimate acquaintance with Mrs.
Willyams--Correspondence--Views on many subjects--The Crown
of Greece--Louis Napoleon--Spanish pedigree of Mrs. Willyams 178

CHAPTER XIII

Fall of the Whigs in 1867--Disraeli as Chancellor of the
Exchequer--Reform Bill, why undertaken--Necessities, real or
fancied, of a Party Leader--Alternatives--Split in the
Cabinet--Disraeli carries his point--Niagara to be
shot--Retirement of Lord Derby--Disraeli Prime
Minister--Various judgments of his character--The House of
Commons responsible for his elevation--Increasing popularity
with all classes 188

CHAPTER XIV

Reply of the Liberals to the Tory Reform Bill--State of
Ireland--The Protestant Establishment--Resolutions proposed
by Mr. Gladstone--Decay of Protestant feeling in
England--Protestant character of the Irish Church--The Upas
Tree--Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy--General effect on
Ireland of the Protestant Establishment--Voltaire's
opinion--Imperfect results--The character of the Protestant
gentry--Nature of the proposed change--Sprung on England as
a surprise--Mr. Gladstone's resolutions carried--Fall of
Disraeli's Government 199

CHAPTER XV

The calm of satisfied ambition--A new novel--'Lothair'--Survey
of English society--The modern aristocracy--Forces working
on the surface and below it--Worship of rank--Cardinal
Grandison--Revolutionary Socialism--Romeward drift of the
higher classes--'Lothair' by far the most remarkable of all
Disraeli's writings 215