ing to himself the unquestionable advantage of a great social alliance. The romance which tinged the political and religious sentiments of Lord John Manners and Mr. George Smythe, their admiration for all that was splendid in the ceremonials of feudalism, for the grandeur and the picturesqueness of English medievalism, may also have had a congenial attraction for Mr. Disraeli, whose innate love of Oriental pageantry had been stimulated by recent experiences of travel in the land of his race. "Coningsby," which was published three years after Lord John Manners's poems, and in the same year as Mr. Smythe's "Historic Fancies," should be regarded rather as a tribute at the shrine of friendship than the exposition of political principles which it was seriously contemplated to translate into action. Mr. Disraeli did in admirable prose what Lord John Manners has done in very mediocre verse: he commemorated in a spirit of appropriate gratitude associations which had been to him of the utmost profit and importance. But the political significance of "Coningsby," as of Mr Disraeli's other novels, is critical only, and it is a pregnant commentary on their author's consciousness of the visionary nature of Young-England's projects that in "Coningsby" and in "Sybil" the story is prudently concluded before its dramatis persona have addressed themselves practically to the reforms which they have preached in periods of glowing antithesis and paragraphs of sparkling paradox.

The political union between the three chiefs of the Young England partytheir followers being Mr. Hope, Lord Granby, Mr. Baillie Cochrane, Lord Ellesmere, and Mr. Monckton Milnes-was of brief duration. The same year as that which saw the publication of "Coningsby," heard the

mal repudiation by George Smythe of the principles of protection; and in 1845 both Lord John Manners and George Smythe voted with Sir Robert Peel's majority and against Mr. Disraeli in the matter of the Maynooth Grant. George Smythe was always the

weakest link in a weak, because a purely sentimental, chain. The predominant idea in his mind was the necessity of maintaining an ancient territorial aristocracy. The predominant idea with Lord John Manners the necessity of maintaining, in addition to such an aristocracy, a not less aristocratic and a universally beneficent Church. The Ecclesiastical Counsellor of the coterie, to whom both Lord John Manners and Mr. Smythe dedicated various sonnets, was Frederick Faber of the Oratory, author of "The Water Lily on the Cherwell." His lordship had come to the conclusion that society might be regenerated by the instrumentality of monastic institutions and holydays, over which the Church should preside. But what Church? Not the Church of the Reformation; for that Lord John had as undisguised a detestation as for the Protestant Settlement of 1688. Not the Church of Rome either, which he admits may have deviated into extravagances, as Protestantism has undoubtedly into coarse excesses; but some Church superior to and independent of the State-such a Church system as that of our fathers, "which sanctioned and hallowed the every-day employments, the needful recreations, the birth, life, and death of the poorest and meanest artisan," and which is "holier and better and more politic than that state system of ours which places labour at the mercy of mammon, handing over with easy indifference the recreation of the people to Socialism and Chartism, and contents itself with rejecting the miserable birth, and the yet more miserable death, of the toiling being whose life it disregards." disregards." Lord John Manners's ideal Church was an institution designed to spiritualise the people in the aristocratic interest.

Just as "England's Trust was dedi. cated "most affectionately and admiringly, parvum, non parvæ pignus amicitia," "to the Hon. George Percy Sydney Smythe," so Sydney Smythe," so "Historic Fancies is inscribed "To Lord John Manners, M.P., whose gentle blood is only an illustration of his gentler conduct, and

whose whole life may well remind us that the only child of Philip Sydney became a Manners, because he is himself as true and blameless-the Philip "Historic Sydney of our generation." Fancies" is less ecclesiastical, more purely aristocratic in its tone, if that be possible, and aims at something more in the direction of philosophic history than Lord John Manners's volume of The opening essay is a vigorous panegyric upon the aristocracy of France, whom the author describes as "the most illustrious that the world ever saw." The spirit of the churchmanship, which was a vital article in the new Anglican Creed, soon asserts itself. The "Catholic Cavalier" is a lively lay supposed to be sung at the restoration of the second Charles :

verse.

"A hundred years of wrong shall make our vengeance strong,

A hundred years of outrage, and blasphemy and broil,

Since the spirit of Unrest sent forth on her behest

The Apostate and the Puritan to do their work of spoil!

Since the tyrant's wanton bride trode the truth done in her pride,

And God for England's sin gave power to a

lie

And through the land the light of Falsehood burnt all bright,

As each churl thought to see the day-spring dim on high."

The following extract from the note which follows the poem will illustrate the identity of Mr. Smythe's and Lord John Manners's ecclesiastical views:

“I have" (he writes), " in the foregoing ballad purposely made no distinction between the Churches of Rome and England, because if I had done so, I think I should have been untrue to the character and feeling of the Roman Catholics of the time. The limits which separated the Churches could not have been thought of by such men as Sir Kenelm Digby very broad, or the obstacles to union. very strong." There are several other poems in this volume, all emanating. from much the same inspiration, and. fashioned after the model of Macaulay and Praed. Generally, however, it may be said that the sentiment of these com

A more noticeable feature in the "Historic Fancies is the manifest influence of les idées Disraeliennes. The philo-Judaism or philo-Ottomanism, which occasionally colours the writings of Mr. Smythe, extends to the work of an author of whom more is known, Mr. Monckton Milnes, the present Lord Houghton: "Thy heart has been stirred within thee at the glories of Islam. Doubt not; truth is not mine only, but multiform. And benevolence is the disciple of truth." "The conquest of Egypt and Morocco, the invasion of Spain, the learning of Cordova, the politeness of Damascus, Charlemagne, and Haroun al Raschid, Saladin and the Crusades, Boab

dil and Granada! What animated associations! What themes for luxurious or thoughtful reflection! What inevitable incitement for future history among a race almost as numerous as that of Christendom, and far more susceptible to the legends of their faith." Such passages as these illustrate the degree to which the enthusiasm of Young England was interpenetrated by the associations of old Judæa. Inter alia the author of "Historic Fancies" suggests in all earnest that it might be desirable to revive the practice of

1 See Historic Fancies, p. 379.

"touching for the evil" on account of the "direct communication which it brought about between the highest and the lowest, between the king and the poor." "If," he adds, "the great only knew what stress the poor lay on the few forms which remain to join them, they would make many sacrifices for their maintenance and preservation. Dr. Johnson, a man of the people, if there ever was one, was yet prouder of having been touched by Queen Anne, when he was a child, of speaking about the great lady in black, of whom he had an indistinct recollection, than he was of all the heroism under misfortune and of all the erudition of his works."

Such were the vague aspirations which it remained for Mr. Disraeli to popularise in his novel. The task was not an easy one, but it was executed with consummate skill. Chief of the sect of Young England, as Mr. Disraeli had been unanimously nominated, he was without some of the qualifications for his new position which George Smythe and Lord John Manners each possessed. Though long since intimate with English society, he had never received the early training of an English statesman. He had neither been at a public school nor a university. "Born in a library," to use his own expression, his only knowledge of English boys and classical literature had been picked up at an "academy for young gentlemen," kept by a Nonconformist minister, Mr. Cogan, at Walthamstow. But Mr. Disraeli's genius triumphed over all these obstacles. He produced in Coningsby" not only a graphic picture of Eton life, and a complete synoptical epitome of the opinions. of Young England, political, social, religious; but, so far as its purely political and many of its descriptive passages were concerned, a telling impeachment both against the results of the Whig Reform Bill and against the principles of Modern Toryism as illustrated by Sir Robert Peel. "Coningsby" combined with the attractions of a fashionable novel the animus of a political pamphlet. It at once

served as the avatar of Neo-Anglicanism, by bringing the principal personages of the party into one focus, and took a brilliant place in the chronique scandaleuse of the period by its satirical portraits of some of the best known people of the time. More than this, its fruitful repertory of political aphorisms and constitutional maxims supplied Mr. Disraeli with an abundant justification for the attack which he had already commenced to make on Sir Robert Peel, and which he was shortly to renew with increased bitterness and effect.

In 1844 Mr. Disraeli was already known as a novelist of singular gifts, and he was still best known by "Vivian Grey." A "key" was published to this "book written by a boy"— as its author has since with an affectation of contempt called it-according to which the originals of the characters were as follows: Vivian Grey, the author; Sherborne, Disraeli the elder; Marquis of Carabas, Lord Lyndhurst; Stanislaus Hoax, Theodore Hook; Duke of Juggernaut, Duke of Norfolk; Prince of Little Lilliput, Prince Leopold; Mr. Million, Mr. Coutts; Foaming Fudge, Brougham; Lord Prima Donna, Lord Wm. Lennox; Prince Xtmnpqrtosklw, Prince Gortchakoff; Fitzborn, Sir Robert Peel; Charlatan Gas, Canning; Lord Past Century, Eldon; Marquis of Grandgout, Marquis of Hertford; Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Lady Caroline Lamb; Southey, Brummell, Esterhazy, and Metternich, and other celebrities, being the prototypes of the minor personages introduced into the panorama of this startling romance. It may be mentioned that another "interpretation" was current at the time the novel appeared. The ill-starred Representative started by Mr. John Murray (the elder) had just collapsed; its death speedily followed an article commencing "As we were seated the other night in our opera-box." It was declared that in "Vivian Grey" the ex-editor of the Representative had, as in a parable, depicted the fortunes of a newspaper, and that the Marquis of Carabas was none other than the enterprising publisher of Albemarle

Street himself. It was only about eight years ago that Mr. Disraeli condescended to correct the impression that he was connected with this organ, by stating that he had never written a line for it, and that he had at no period of his life acted as a journalist. This assertion, of course, settles the matter; and, so far as the editorship of the Representative was concerned, I believe I may state positively that it was assumed by Lockhart, the editor of the Quarterly. There is less dispute as to the identity of the human models who sate to Mr. Disraeli in "Coningsby." The hero, Coningsby himself, is none other than the author of the novel now before us.1 Lord Henry Sydney is Lord John Manners; Buckhurst, Mr. Baillie Cochrane, the present member for the Isle of Wight; Lord Monmouth represents the late Marquis of Hertford; "the Duke" is his late Grace of Rutland; Lord Eskdale, Lord Lonsdale; Lucian Gay, Theodore Hook; Mr. Lyle, the amiable and excellent Lord Surrey; Mr. Rigby, John Wilson Croker; Sidonia, a sublimation, one-half Mr. Disraeli himself, and the other half Rothschild; Lucretia, Madame Zichy; the Countess Colonna, according to a letter written by Lord Palmerston in 1844 to her brother, not "Lady Strachan, though the character is evidently meant to fill her place in the family party; Messrs. Earwig, Tadpole, and Taper, Messrs. Ross, Bonham, and Clarke. Mr. Ross, it may be said, subsequently married Lady Mary Cornwallis, was

a

famous whist-player, and a Parliamentary oracle in the matter of minute precedents and details of legislative etiquette. With Mr. Bonham Mr. Disraeli had, a few years before "Coningsby" appeared, had a quarrel. He accused him of high treason in the House of Commons, confusing him with his brother-a mistake which Sir Robert Peel was not slow to detect and to

1 "Angela Pisani," a novel, by the late Hon. George Sydney Smythe, seventh Viscount Strangford. London: Richard Bentley and Sons, 1875.

The

visit with a rebuke that Mr. Disraeli avenged with interest. It may be conjectured that Mr. Millbank was suggested by Henry Hope, and that Mr. Ormsby and Mr. Melton were rough likenesses of Mr. Irving and Mr. Harris respectively. It is unnecessary to say anything specially of the characters in "Sybil" or "Tancred." They are much more shadowy adumbrations than those of the fiction which introduced the series, with perhaps the single exception of Mr. Vavasour in "Tancred," who is a happy sketch of Mr. Monckton Milnes. reception accorded to "Sybil"- the unintelligible affectation, or the not less unintelligible ignorance, which induced Mr. Disraeli thus systematically to transpose the two vowels in the familiar Greek word Zíßulla is quite as intolerable as the affectation which leads him to write "and which" for "which" -was very different from that obtained by "Coningsby." Both novels. were successful-even brilliantly successful. Neither was made the subject of the hyperbolical praise, or the not less exaggerated condemnation which had been the meed of their predecessor; and for the simple reason that neither "Tancred" nor "Sybil " had a tithe of the bitterness or the personality of "Coningsby " condensed into their pages. Mr. Colburn, it is stated, paid two thousand pounds for the copyright of that novel: a critic of the day remarked that it was worth twenty thousand, but that he himself would not have written it for sixty. The truth is, no person but Mr. Disraeli could have written it at all. There is nothing in the whole range of fiction like the concentrated venom of the sketch of Rigby, alias the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, just as there is nothing in the whole history of the vituperative rhetoric of Parliament like Mr. Disraeli's consummately artistic onslaughts on Sir Robert Peel. It has been said that Wilson Croker repaid Mr. Disraeli with an article in the Quarterly on "Coningsby." No such article ever appeared, and it is worth notice that no mention whatever is made in that periodical of Young

ނ

"An

The

Ben

England from first to last. Embryo M.P.," in 1845, the year after "Coningsby" appeared, attempted a sort of literary reprisal on Mr. Disraeli in "Anti-Coningsby," caricaturing its author as Ben Sidonia. novel is deservedly forgotten, and the few moderately clever passages which it contains are some satirical criticisms on the fashionable novels of the period. The writer, being a lady, is true to the jealous traditions of her sex, and lashes Mrs. Gore with considerable severity. The second hero is Ben Sidonia's ally, Gym Customs-Lord John Manners. The novel concludes with the defeat of Ben Sidonia in England, and his flight to Syria, there to organise a Young Palestine party. The penultimate scenes are a poor attempt at fun. Sidonia and Gym Customs have had a temporary triumph. There is high carnival-a parody of the Christmas rejoicings at St. Geneviève in "Coningsby"-when "the buttery hatch was open for the whole week from noon to sunset; all comers might take their fill, and each carry away as much boiled beef, white-bread, and jolly ale, as a strong man could bear in a basket with one hand. For every woman a red cloak, and a coat of broadcloth for every man." Writes the author of "AntiConingsby :"-" Cock fights, wrestling matches, boxing, shooting at targets, hobby-horses, grinning through horse collars, were the order of the day: Bread and beef and beer were everywhere distributed (the sinking fund paid the piper); music and singing were heard at every inn. Dancing, too, there was, and no rick-burning, but plenty of fireworks." Finally comes a procession. First, "the whole operatic corps, Mosaic Arabs, to a man;" then "the Marquis of Wilton, with his head to his horse's tail, devouring the puddings with the most unremitting voracity;" then "fifty thousand of the new generation, in white chokers and vests, trying to look supercilious and sarcastic at the crowd." Last of all, "Lord Gymnastic Customs, on a hobby-horse, drawn by opera dancers in short petti

coats and high boots, balancing a cricket bat on the tip of his nose, with his hands tied behind him.” This sort of thing may provoke a passing smile, but it is poor stuff, and it stands in the same relation to Thackeray's "Codlingsby" that mere buffoonery always does to genuine satire.1

The absence of any attempt to caricature George Smythe in "AntiConingsby" is significant. He had already broken with the Young England clique. In October 1844, at Manchester, he expressed himself a convert to the principles of Free Trade. From the very first he had dissented from the views of Mr. Disraeli and Lord John Manners on foreign and domestic politics, alleging with perfect truth that they led logically to sheer and unmitigated absolutism. There is nothing in George Smythe's career to make us suppose that he ever occupied in the "Young England triumvirate the position assigned to him in "Coningsby." The identity between Lord Monmouth's grandson and the member

1 But of all the satires on Young England none can be more amusing than that which is to be found in "Coningsby itself. Buckhurst," remarks Mr. Melton, (Book viii. Chapter i.) "is not in that sort of way; he swears by Henry Sydney, a younger son of the duke, whom you don't know, and young Coningsby; a sort of new set, new of animal magnetism, or unknown tongues, I ideas, and all that sort of thing." "A sort take it, from your description," said his com panion."

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