Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/111

 the reign of George I, was capable of being revived in the reign of Queen Victoria 'on a large sphere of action, and as a substantive religion.' He would pass over the long and dreary interval of psendo-toryism, the toryism of Eldon and Wetherall, which was purely materialistic and obstructive, and seek his inspiration at the fountain-head; among men who, while conforming themselves to the parliamentary constitution of the eighteenth century, still kept alive the chivalrous spirit of the seventeenth, and touched with one hand the traditions of the cavaliers.

It is impossible to say, even after the lapse of half a century and with Disraeli's whole subsequent career unfolded before us, to what extent these suggestions were intended to be practical, and how far they were prompted by that love of effect which he shared with Lord Chatham. That his earliest sympathies were with the Stuart monarchy, and that he firmly believed such a system to be better adapted for securing the happiness of the whole people than the oligarchical monarchy which succeeded it, seems to be indisputable. But how far he really believed in the possibility of restoring it is another question. He saw what others saw, that the downfall of the old constitution in 1832 had been followed, as all revolutions are followed, by an age of infidelity, and he wished, as others wished, to see a revival of political faith. Here, too, he was perfectly sincere. But who and what was to be the object of it? Disraeli said an emancipated sovereign. But did he really believe it? The Jews, he tells us, are essentially monarchical, and the instincts of his race, combined with the bias imparted to his mind by the researches of his father, may certainly have rendered him less sceptical of such a consummation than an ordinary Englishman. The very conservative reaction which followed the Reform Bill, instead of the revolution that was anticipated, may have contributed to the illusion. He makes Sidonia point out to Coningsby that the press is a better guarantee against abuses than the House of Commons. What experiments he might have tried, had power come to him twenty years sooner than it did, it is difficult to say. His speeches on Ireland during his earlier career in parliament are very remarkable. A starving people, an alien church, and an absentee aristocracy,' that, said he, in 1844, 'is the Irish question.' That he would in those days have preferred a solution of one part of this question by the establishment of the Romish church in Ireland is pretty clear. Even four-and-twenty years afterwards he spoke of that as an 'intelligible policy'—not one that he approved of himself, but one that might be entertained, and which at all event respected the sanctity of ecclesiastical property. But, whatever he may have believed forty years ago, he probably discovered soon afterwards that his favourite ideas could not be embodied in action, and he then seems to have made up his mind to do the best he could for the constitution as it actually existed.

There was, however, another side to Young England toryism which admitted of a far more practical application, and which has been attended by far other fortunes. What 'Coningsby' had to some extent done for the English peasantry by calling attention to their ancient rights, and to the degree in which they had been invaded by the new poor law, that 'Sybil' did far more effectually for both peasantry and artisans. 'Sybil' was founded on the experience of the factory system which Disraeli acquired during a tour through the north of England in 1844 in company with Lord John Manners and the Hon. G. Smythe. The graphic pictures of the misery and squalor of the factory population, which imparted to its pages so vivid a dramatic interest, lent a powerful impetus to the cause of factory reform first initiated by Mr. Sadler, and afterwards carried forward by Lord Ashley. Without it the working classes would probably have had longer to wait for that succession of remedial measures which realised his own prediction and 'broke the last links in the chain of Saxon thraldom.' But something more is still wanted to round off the Young England system. In 'Sybil' the church plays the part which is played in Coningsby by the crown. The youth of England see in the slavery of the church as potent an instrument for evil as in the bondage of the sovereign or the serfdom of the masses. All these things must be amended. This was the triple foundation—the church, the monarchy, and the people—on which the new toryism was based; and if it was a partial failure, it was certainly not a complete one, for it can hardly be disputed that the labouring classes are largely indebted to the sympathy inspired by Young England for their present improved condition, while both the monarchy and the church have profited to some extent by the novel and striking colours in which their claims were represent.

With the publication of 'Tancred' (1847) Disraeli bade farewell to fiction for a quarter of a century. On the death of Lord George Bentinck in the Septembter of 1848, he was chosen leader of the party in the House of Commons, in consequence, as he said himself, of a speech on the labours of the session, which was delivered on 30 Aug. It