could not. Sybil, which was written in the following year (1845), is still more remarkable for the faculties celebrated in the preceding paragraph. When Sybil was written a long historic day was ending in England, a new era beginning; and no eyes saw so clearly as Disraeli’s the death of the old day, the birth of the new, or what and how great their differences would be. In Coningsby the political conditions of the country were illustrated and discussed from the constitutional point of view, and by light of the theory that for generations before the passing of the Reform Bill the authority of the crown and the liberties of the people had been absorbed and extinguished in an oligarchic system of government, itself become fossilized and soulless. In Sybil were exhibited the social relations of rich and poor (the “two nations”) under this régime, and under changes in which, while the peasantry were neglected by a shoddy aristocracy ignorant of its duties, factory life and a purblind gospel of political economy imbruted the rest of the population. These views were enforced by a startling yet strictly accurate representation of the state of things in the factory districts at that time. Taken from the life by Disraeli himself, accompanied by one or two members of the Young England party of which he was the head, it was the first of its kind; and the facts as there displayed, and Disraeli’s interpretation of them—a marvel of perceptive and prophetic criticism—opened eyes, roused consciences, and led direct to many reforms.
These two books, the Vindication, published in 1835, and his speeches up to this time and a little beyond, are quite enough to show what Disraeli’s Tory democracy meant, how truly national was its aim, and how exclusive of partisanship for the “landed interest”; though he did believe the stability and prosperity of the agricultural class a national interest of the first order, not on economic grounds alone or even chiefly. And if Disraeli, possessed by these views, became aggressively insubordinate some time before Peel’s proclaimed conversion to Free Trade, we can account for it on reasonable and even creditable grounds. Spite, resentment at being passed over when Peel formed the 1841 government, is one explanation of these outbreaks, and a letter to Peel, lately published, is proof to many minds that Disraeli’s denial to Peel’s face in 1846 that he had ever solicited office was daringly mendacious. The letter certainly reads like solicitation in the customary half-veiled form. All that can be said in doubt is that since the ’41 government came into existence on the 6th of September, and the letter was written on the 5th, its interpretation as complaint of being publicly neglected, as a craving for some mark of recognition, is possible. More than possible it is if Disraeli knew on the 5th (as he very well might from his friend Lyndhurst, Peel’s lord chancellor) that the appointments were then complete. The pecuniary need of office, if that comes into the question, had been lightened, if not extinguished, two years before by his marriage with Mrs Wyndham Lewis. Mrs Lewis—a lady fifteen years his senior—brought him a considerable fortune which, however, was but for her life. She lived to a great age, and would gladly have lived longer, in any of the afflictions that time brings on, to continue her mere money-worth to her “Dizzy.” Her devotion to him, and his devotion to her, is the whole known story of their private life; and we may believe that nothing ever gratified him more than offering her a coronet from Mr Disraeli.
Disraeli made Peel’s acquaintance early in his career and showed that he was proud of it. In his Life of Lord George Bentinck he writes of Peel fairly and even generously. But they were essentially antipathetic persons; and it is clear that the great minister and complete Briton took no pains to understand the dazzling young Jew of whom Lyndhurst thought so much, and wished to have little to do with him. Such men make such feelings evident; and there is no reason for thinking that when, after 1841, Disraeli charged at Peel in obedience to his principles, he gave himself pain. It was not long after it had settled in office that Peel’s government, the creature of an anxious Conservative reaction, began to be suspected of drifting toward Manchester. That it was forced in that direction we should say rather, looking back, for it was a time of dire distress, especially in the manufacturing districts of the north; so Politics. 1841–67. that in his second session Peel had to provide some relief by revising the corn laws and reducing import dues generally. His measures were supported by Disraeli, who understood that Protection must bend to the menacing poverty of the time, though unprepared for total abolition of the corn tax and strongly of opinion that it was not for Peel to abolish it. In the next session (1843) he and his Young England party took up a definitely independent rôle, which became more sharply critical to the end. Disraeli’s first strong vote of hostility was on a coercion bill for perishing and rebellious Ireland. It was repeated with greater emphasis in the session of 1844, also in a condition-of-Ireland debate; and from that time forth, as if foreseeing Peel’s course and its effect on the country party, Disraeli kept up the attack. Meanwhile bad harvests deepened the country’s distress, Ireland was approached by famine, the Anti-Corn-Law League became menacingly powerful, and Peel showed signs of yielding to free trade. Disraeli’s opportunity was soon to come now; and in 1845, seeing it on the way, he launched the brilliantly destructive series of speeches which, though they could not prevent the abolition of the corn-laws, abolished the minister who ended them. These speeches appeal more to admiration than to sympathy, even where the limitations of Disraeli’s protectionist beliefs are understood and where his perception of the later consequences of free trade is most cordially acknowledged. That he remained satisfied with them himself is doubtful, unless for their foresight, their tremendous effect as instruments of punishment, and as they swept him to so much distinction. Within three years, on the death of Lord George Bentinck, there was none to dispute with him the leadership of the Conservative party in the House of Commons.
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.
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
