Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/78



is not our intention in this notice to attempt any review of Mr. Disraeli's political career. As cartoons in this book are chiefly portraitures of men of letters, it is of the literary achievements of the leader of the Conservative party that we propose to speak. The ex-Premier is the author of a number of clever novels, with which most readers doubtless are perfectly familiar. The first of this series of works of fiction was 'Vivian Grey,' published when the author was quite a boy. It has been followed by 'The Young Duke,' ' Contarini Fleming,' 'Henrietta Temple,' 'Yenetia,' 'Tancred,' 'Alroy,' 'Ixion,' 'Sybil,' 'Coningsby,' and 'Lothair.'

'Vivian Grey' at once seized the attention of the town, and its successors maintained, if they did not increase, the reputation of the author. They have all been very popular, have been many times reprinted, and sold at all prices, from the conventional guinea and a half form down to the popular 'Companion Library' edition, at a shilling a novel.

Mr. Disraeli comes of an old Jewish family; and the pedigrees of such families are of a length compared with which those of the princes of the blood of any of our European reigning families become insignificant.

His grandfather, Benjamin Disraeli, settled in England in 1748. He was an Italian descendant from one of those Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced to emigrate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century. His ancestors, who were of the Sephardim, 'had dropped their Gothic surname' on their settlement in Italy; 'and, grateful to the God of Jacob, who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and guarded them through unheard-of perils, they assumed the name of a name never borne before or since by any other family in order that their race might for ever be recognised.' For two centuries they were merchants at Venice; but England offering many advantages, in the middle of the eighteenth century the present Mr. Disraeli's great-grandfather