characters too much the grand personages of a theatrical representation, stiff, stilted, and bombastic with all their magnificence; and it is no less true that when he describes our aristocracy he exaggerates their wealth, and pays a slavish and offensive homage to it, measuring the refinement of every family by the gross and vulgar standard of money. It must also be conceded that, independently of his slavish adoration of money and rank he is emphatically an immoral writer. Nowhere does he seem desirous of inculcating any permanently ennobling views in his readers' minds, although he of all authors affects to arouse and inform the moral sentiment; in his books virtue is a dull subject that had better not be handled deliberately, but aristocratic vicesdebts, mistress-hunting, gambling, seduction, duelling, and political perfidy-are rendered alluring and pleasing enough. He and Thackeray alike leave the reader with an impression that the world of fashion is a wide scene of selfishness and evil passion, covered only by a thin veil of graceful affectations and the hypocrisies of good-breeding. But Thackeray makes us profoundly sad at the world being so constituted, so very unlike that good one which he takes care to show it might be; while the reader of "Vivian Grey” and “Coningsby" exults in the depravity of society, and acknowledges that any change for the better would be for the worse. But these drawbacks being made, and these defects set down to their right sources-the money-worship to the Hebraism, the rank-worship to the plebeian extraction, and the lax tone of morality to the singularly worldly career of the authorthere is an ample field still left wherein to exercise our admiration.

The political future of Mr. Disraeli is a curious subject of speculation. Will he rise to be greater than he is ? or will he sink to be less? Has he seen his day? Will he be allowed to retain the leadership of the country party? If not, will he be content to sink down into one of the led? or

will he seize the captaincy of another band of politicians? Unquestionably just at the present crisis he is behind a cloud, or his splendour has waned. His eloquence, at the best of a second-rate kind, and remarkable more for having produced an effect so disproportioned to its merit than for anything else, is generally asserted to be in sufficient for the leader of the house. There are many who do not hesitate to classify him amongst "the bores," "the wind-bags," "the endless talkers" of the Commons; and, whereas, at the height of the anti-Peel contest, his were the speeches which were listened to by friends and adversaries with breathless attention, and were interrupted with enthusiastic applause, there are now not a few of the foremost members who, immediately they see him rise on his legs, systematically leave the assembly for refreshment, or compose themselves for slumber. The comparative flatness with which his orations fall on the house may be learnt from the parliamentary reports of the daily journals, where long columns of dreary common-places are broken only by an occasional "hear, hear," and it is only at the concluding perorations, invariably containing a few personal "hits," or patriotic "points," that his adherents cheer to testify their fidelity. Out of doors Mr. Disraeli does not stand better. In the clubs and in the country it is manifest that he has no hold whatever, firm or feeble, on the affections of any class. Those of the educated classes, who are best disposed to him, praise his "cleverness," but they hesitate to speak well of his 'statesmanship, and are silent when allusion is made to his public morality. The adroitness with which he cajoles an audience of country bumpkins, his masterly stroke of once wearing top-boots at an agricultural meeting, and his satire, are the subjects on which his partisans expend their praise. In the provinces the esteem in which he is held is one of undisguised contempt; from the minds of honest farmers, the errors and obliquities of his early career will

never be effaced; slow to receive a new idea, and vehement in defending opinions when once embraced, they have agreed to regard Mr. Disraeli as an embodiment of all that is dishonest and ridiculous, and over this conviction Mr. Disraeli by no exercise of cunning, no blarney, no palaver, not even by persistence in honourable exertion-will ever triumph. The principal members of the Conservative party are alive to this, and know well that however useful Mr. Disraeli has been to them, and however well he performed the functions of a mouth-piece to their hatred for the renegade Peel, he has robbed them of respectability and weight in the eyes of the country-freeholders. The charlatanry of the Christianized Jew, the Radical-Tory, the pirate of other men's writings, and orator of stolen speeches, attaches to his followers, although they are country gentlemen of broad acres, and unimpeachable morality. They would get rid of him, if they were able; but he is too good a rider to be thrown by the steed which he caught, when running wild, and made obedient to spur and rein. They bear their fate, as a convict who has served half his term of slavery, looking with patience to a sure point of the future, and trusting that a ticket-of-leave may arrive even sooner than that expected time of release. In the mean time they follow in the tail of their singular commander; loyally support him in the house; and periodically make mention of him, in the long vacations, to gibing provincials, not as a British statesman, an Englishman of English sympathies, but "a gentleman whose transcendent talents have raised. him to the proud position of being called upon to take part in the counsels of his sovereign." It is remarkable that this form of apologetic claptrap is invariably used by Conservative members, addressing agricultural audiences whenever they allude to their chief.

Such is the aspect of things at the present time. But the future may have a different picture in store for us; and

it is possible for Mr. Disraeli, ere he die, to be a strong, if not a popular minister. He comes of a long-lived family, his father and grandfather retaining their faculties to extreme old age. He is not much over fifty. Perchance, after the expiration of another quarter of a century, he may be an octogenarian premier and the idol of the nation. For him to rise from his present position to such an eminence, would be a less step than the one already made from the hustings of High Wycombe to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Another crisis, similar to that of the CornLaws, may arise, and fierce denunciations may be required against another Sir Robert Peel; under such circumstances, Mr. Disraeli's peculiar faculty-his genius-will be needed, and he will not fail to use it. It is even just upon the cards that he may grow to be respected by the great body of the British people. As it is, he is not in respect of political versatility a whit blacker than half the conspicuous and admired statesmen of the present century. Indeed, by the side of some, who stand well enough in the eyes of the world, he is a pattern of probity and rectitude. At present he is (although twice a minister) a political adventurer." But the time may come, when the removal of corrupting influence from the respectable members of our constituencies will infuse a higher morality into the masses of electors in our boroughs and counties, and will enable the doctor who now sells his vote to his best patient, the lawyer who now sells his vote to his best client, and the entire British public, who now harangue with edifying horror against bribery but wallow in corruption-will enable all these, satisfied and at ease with themselves, and rendered charitable by a sense of individual honour, to view with greater leniency the failings and sins of "political adventurers."

CHAPTER XIII.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

"WHICH is your favourite-Thackeray or Dickens ?" is the ordinary question with which strangers, who are thrown together in a party and are casting about for a topic advance to a conversation on matters literary. To ask your friend whether he prefers grapes to olives, or curries to lemon ices, would be quite as much in accordance with common sense. Indeed the two great novelists of the day are so diametrically opposed, that it is impossible to compare them, and pass judgment on them as we could on any of the two same species. Winter and summer, an opera-dancer and an athlete, a steam locomotive and a musical snuff-box, are not more unlike than are these two writers, the monthly numbers of whose works bear no more mutual resemblance than do the sheets of fresh green and yellow sear in which they are enclosed. The writer of past times with whom the author of "Pendennis" is usually compared, is Fielding, and unquestionably the style, tone, and object of Thackeray's writings justify the comparison, although in no point do they lay him open to the charge of being an imitator of the author of "Tom Jones." That Thackeray himself feels that he in this generation occupies the place in literature which Fielding held more than a century ago, is evidenced by several passages in his writings, besides the memorable preface to "Pendennis," where he confesses that a timid regard for the prejudices of a society which "will not tolerate the Natural in our Art" restrained him from speaking as boldly as he desired, and where he laments that since the