enough to confess, By God! the fellow will do it yet.' And he meant to achieve his ambition by his own energies. He knew that he must fight his own battle, and that until he had won at least one round, nobody would help him. When he was asked upon what he stood, he replied, was a truer answer given.

'On my head,' and never

But, as I have said, he was
He was,

uncertain on which side to range himself. of course, a natural Tory, if as yet he knew it not. He had expressed something of his wavering uncertainty in The Young Duke. Am I a Whig or a Tory?' he asked. 'I forget. As for the Tories, I admire antiquity, and particularly a ruin; even the relics of the Temple of Intolerance have a charm. I think I am a Tory. But then the Whigs give such good dinners and are the most amusing; I think I am a Whig. But then the Tories are so moral, and morality is my forte; I must be a Tory. But the Whigs dress so much better; and an ill-dressed party, like an ill-dressed man, must be wrong. Yes, I am a decided Whig. And yet I feel like Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy.' It is excellent fooling. But Disraeli did not long share the Young Duke's uncertainty. If he did not at once declare himself a Tory, he lost little time in anathematising the Whigs.

When he stood first for High Wycombe his position was clear enough. I start in the high Radical interest,' he said, 'and take down strong recommendatory epistles from O'Connell, Hume, Burdett, and hoc

genus. Toryism is worn out, and I cannot condescend to be a Whig.' Standing firmly upon that platform, he showed at once his great oratorical gifts. 'I jumped up on the portico of the Red Lion,' he wrote, and it them for an hour and a quarter. I can gave give you no idea of the effect. I made them all mad. A great many absolutely cried.' But either the enthusiasts were not voters, or they did not vote for him. He was beaten at the poll, and instantly prepared for another contest. In all his speeches he struck with great effect the same note of hatred of the Whigs. 'Rid yourselves of all that political jargon and fatuous slang of Whig and Tory,' he tells his constituents, two names with one meaning, used only to delude you; and unite in forming a great national party, which alone can save the country from impending destruction.' Thus he appealed against the Whigs to Sir William Windham and my Lord Bolingbroke, and at each appearance drew nearer and nearer to the Tories. At Aylesbury he stood on the hustings as the supporter of the second Tory candidate, and he did not a little in these first contests to bring the Tories and the Radicals together, not such a hopeless task as it might seem. In less than two years his allegiance to Toryism was openly pronounced. Meantime he had met Lord Lyndhurst, who believed that the end of Whiggism was at hand, and who was 'looking about for a party to put in motion which might not seem factious.' Disraeli, who, though determined upon a political career, had then no

political relations, eagerly joined forces with Lyndhurst, and friends and allies they remained until the end.

Henceforth Disraeli's path was clearly marked. A few months later he was nominated for the Carlton Club, and became an acknowledged and official member of the Tory party. Unfortunately he had already given hostages to fortune on the other side, and had exposed himself openly to the attacks of his enemies. When he went as a candidate to Taunton, D'Orsay, the best of friends and the wisest of counsellors, told him that it was absolutely essential for him to explain that though a Tory he was a reforming one; because it was generally understood that he had committed himself in some degree with the other party.' Disraeli took the advice after his own fashion. He told his electors that if there was anything upon which he piqued himself, it was on his consistency. 'Gentlemen,' said he, here is my consistency. I have always opposed with my utmost energy the party of which my honourable opponent is a distinguished member. That party I have opposed for reasons I am prepared to give and to uphold. I look upon the Whigs as the anti-National party.' This explanation is perfectly just. Disraeli had always, even in the early days of Wycombe, supported the cause of England against the domination of the Whig tenants for life. But the charge of inconsistency, once made, stuck to Disraeli like a burr, and not for many a long year did he overcome the venial indiscretion of 1832.

6

is

piqu that than a the mat that th tions of Pitt, Bur and Glad consistent a record w a good part

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consistent of others he was reputation of Why was the scurrilou energetic tre whole worl view. And consistency opponents t opponents w result of his d ative in his a early days a

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any other you

Consistency is the very meanest of the virtues. It is not worth the while of any serious statesman to pique himself upon it. It happens by a strange irony that Disraeli can lay a sounder claim to consistency than almost any other ruler. Mr. Monypenny puts the matter clearly enough. It is no accident,' he says, that there is a certain ambiguity about the party affiliations of nearly all our greater statesmen: Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Canning, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, and Gladstone-none of these has an absolutely consistent party record; and indeed a man with such a record would be more likely to win distinction as a good partisan than as a statesman. If we are to measure consistency by ideas, Disraeli is the most consistent of them all, and yet more than any of the others he was to suffer throughout his career from the reputation of political time-server and adventurer.'

Why was this? In the first place, I think, because the scurrilous attacks of O'Connell and Disraeli's energetic treatment of that demagogue called the whole world's attention to Disraeli's change of view. And then the charge of adventure and inconsistency was an easy charge for Disraeli's many opponents to bring. That he should have had opponents was essential to his career and the natural result of his character. There was something provocative in his attitude and demeanour. He was in those

early days a fighter, who gave no quarter and expected Of course he was no more an adventurer than any other young man of gentle birth and good breeding

none.

who essays to make a name for himself in politics. But he did not come of one of the great families. He dared to put a new construction upon old principles, to vivify the dead bones of controversy, to skip the centuries and to go back for guidance to Bolingbroke. And so he made enemies with his bitter tongue and his quick intellect, and his enemies found no retort more ready to their hand than the taunts of inconsistency and adventure.

was.

However, at last Disraeli is coming into his kingdom. The man who neither complained nor explained' is better understood to-day than ever he To justify Disraeli's conduct, to appreciate his genius, nothing is necessary save knowledge, and an end has at last been put for ever to the injurious legends which have gathered about his name. That he was an honourable gentleman, in spite of the web of debt in which he was caught while still a boy, the wise have always believed. It is now certain. The pose, which exasperated the foolish, was the pose of perfect sincerity. Disraeli fashioned himself, as he thought he should be fashioned, with the same detachment wherewith he fashioned his works of literary art. His candour was absolute. He made no secret of his qualities either to himself or others. It was wholly impossible for him to do or say anything unconsciously. If he seemed a mystery, as he hoped, it was because a triple brass of self-consciousness involved him : never was he taken off his guard; seldom did he descend to the natural or expected deed or word. For all that