Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/122

 known or as much admired as they deserve to be. His three best novels, considered only from a dramatic point of view, are the two just mentioned and 'Henrietta Temple,' published in 1837. Of these three the plots are skilfully constructed, the characters admirably drawn, and the style in the more colloquial and humorous passages fresh, lively, and piquant. In 'Henrietta Temple,' indeed, there is not much character, except perhaps in the Roman catholic priest, Glastonbury, a portrait which we would not willingly have missed. But the story of the lovers is told with great sweetness and beauty, though the author does not affect to touch those deeper chords of passion which awaken tears and pity. In 'Sybil' he may have intended to do so; and in the passion of Stephen Morley for the heroine he has made the nearest approach to it which we find in any of his works. But he has only partially succeeded even here, and it is evident that his strength did not lie in the delineation of this class of emotions. The plot in 'Coningsby' is perhaps the best of all, but both in this story and in the one which immediately succeeded it we have a procession of characters which would have amply atoned for the worst plot that ever was constructed. The best painters of character in our literature might be proud of two such portraits as Lord Marney and Mr. Ormsby.

In 'Coningsby' Disraeli first gave to the world that eloquent vindication of the Jewish race which has been rightly considered to reflect so much honour on himself. In 'Tancred' he leads his readers into 'the Desert,' the cradle of the Arabs, from which they spread east and west, and became known as the Moors in Spain and the Jews in Palestine. Nothing can be more interesting than his account of the manners and the men, of which neither are much changed since the days of the patriarchs—nothing finer than his picture of the rocks and towers of Jerusalem, or the green forests of the Lebanon.

His other novels, both his earlier and his later ones, are decidedly inferior to these. Of 'Vivian Grey' neither the plot nor the characters are really good. In this, far more than in either 'Coningsby' or 'Sybil,' it was the political satire which took the world by storm; but we doubt if any one could read it now without weariness. 'Venetia' and the 'Young Duke' are not political, and they narrowly miss being dull. 'Lothair' (1870) and 'Endymion' (1880) are of very different degrees of merit, and though we cannot call the latter dull, most of Disraeli's admirers will wish that it had never been published.

Of those which have not already been mentioned, 'Contarini Fleming' has been the most admired. Neither this, however, nor 'Alroy' (1833), nor the 'Rise of Iskander,' nor 'Count Alarcos' (1839), nor the 'Revolutionary Epick' (1834), are worthy of the author's genius. He seems at one time to have fancied that nature had intended him for a poet. But even as a writer of poetical prose he is not to be admired. His writings where he essays this style afford too many instances of the false sublime, and of stilted rhetoric mistaken for the spontaneous utterance of the imagination, to be entitled to any but very qualified commendation. Of a style exactly suited to the description of what we call society, of its sayings and its doings, its sense and its folly, its vices and its virtues, Disraeli was a perfect master. In the three burlesques which he wrote in his youth, 'The Infernal Marriage,' 'Ixion in Heaven,' and 'Popanilla' (1828), this talent is displayed to great advantage. The second is perhaps the best. The dinner party at Olympus, with Apollo for Byron, and Jupiter for George IV, is excellent. Proserpine in Elysium, where she developed a taste for society, and her receptions were the most brilliant of the season, is also most diverting.

In private life he is said to have been kind and constant in his friendships, liberal in his charities, and prompt to recognise and assist struggling merit wherever his attention was directed to it. In general society he was not a great talker, and few of his witticisms have been preserved which were not uttered on some public occasion. He usually had rather a preoccupied air, and though he was a great admirer of gaiety and good spirits in those who surrounded him, he was incapable of abandoning himself to the pleasures of the moment, whatever they might be, like Lord Derby or Lord Palmerston. He was no sportsman; and though he records in his letter to his sister that he once rode to hounds, and rode well, he seems to have been satisfied with that experience of the chase. Though a naturalist and a lover of nature in all her forms, he had neither game nor gamekeepers at home. He preferred peacocks to pheasants, and left it to his tenants to supply his table as they chose. In his own woods and gardens he found a constant source of interest and amusement, while few things pleased him better than a walk or drive through the beautiful woodland scenery of the Chiltern Hills, with some appreciative companion to whom he could enlarge on the great conspiracy of the seventeenth century which was hatched in the midst of them. He has added one more to the historical associations in which they are so rich; and no tourist who pays his homage to Great Hampden and Checquers