Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/127

 n s. vn. FEB. s, 1913 ] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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had retired." The life of Paris had a great charm for Disraeli : there were balls, dinners, and entertainments of all kinds, while the splendour exceeded anything he had then seen. His more serious moments were devoted to concluding, if possible, a commercial treaty with France.

To the exclusion of Disraeli from office in 1841 we owe ' Coningsby,' the popularity of which has proved to be lasting. This popularity was partly due to its being regarded as the manifesto of the Young England party, but " still more to the fact that it contained many references, some of them caustic, to living statesmen." In 1845 this was followed by 'Sybil,' portions of which he wrote with " the printers on his heels." have never been through such a four months," he wrote on May Day, " and hope never again." ' Sybil ' is dedicated, as will be remembered, to " the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife."

Mr. Monypenny quotes a passage from ' Sybil ' which eloquently defines Disraeli's wish as to the future : " That we may live to see England once more possess a free Monarchy, and a privileged and prosperous People, is my prayer ; that these great consequences can only be brought about by the energy and devotion of our Youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour* The claims of the Future are represented l>\- suffering millions ; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity."

The volume closes upon the overthrow of Peel in 1840 with the words : " From the moment that he [Disraeli] succeeded in driving Peel from office, he never uttered an offensive word against him." The consideration he showed to Peel was in long years to come to be shown to himself by his illustrious adversary Gladstone, who on the death of Lady Beaconsfield was among the first to offer sympathy. On the death of his old antagonist on the 19th of April, 1881, Gladstone rendered special praise to " the dead statesman's three great characteristics his courage, his loyalty to his own race, and his devotion to his wife," closing his tribute by recording it as his " firm conviction that in all the judgments ever .lelivered by Lord Beaconsfield upon myself, he never was actuated by sentiments of personal antipathy." There is a foot-note in the Life of Gladstone edited by Wemyss Reid: "It is interesting to recall that this conviction, which Mr. Gladstone often expressed in conversation, was explicitly confirmed by Sir Stafford Northcote."

We are glad to hear that Mr. Murray has arranged for the completion of the history of a life so full and crowded even to its close.

WITH some few exceptions, the articles in The, Fortnightly Review for this month are devoted to setting the world to rights. In the matter of drama we get a paradox which is instructive and sugges- tive. Mr. Warre Cornish, in his highly interest- ing discussion of 'Greek Drama and the Dance,' tells us, of the people from whose sense for drama our own is directly though not solely descended, that the Greek "scarcely regarded a play as litera- ture." Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, lecturing in New York, tells his audience emphatically that no effort and no expense in the production of plays will bring satisfaction or lasting honour "unless you get those plays passed and hall-marked as literature."

To mention a few of the opportunities for enlighten- ment here afforded, the President-elect of the United States utters burning words on the right of a free people to manage its own affairs apart from financiers ; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tells us what we ought to do in face of the stirring in German breasts of an enthusiasm for war ; Mr. Fielding Hall points out and illustrates the kind of mistakes we are making in the training of young men for the Indian Civil Service ; Mr. Baumann castigates the 'Madness of Party' ; Mr. Wadham Peacock brings before us our misconceptions concerning the Alba- nians, and enables us to correct them ; Mr. Herbert Vivian sets himself to correct yet other mis- conceptions concerning other peoples in the Near East ; Mr. Heathcote Statham offers principles by which to build the new Delhi; and Mr. Hudson Maxim comforts us with the assurance that those people are mistaken who expect to see all the strenuous efforts at improvement made by the different nations brought to an untimely end by the explosion of the world.

The Nineteenth Century for February deals with a great variety of subjects. The Near Eastern question is represented by Lady Blake's 'Santa Sophia and its Memories,' Mr. Noel Buxton's ' With the Bulgarian Staff/ and Sir Edwin Pears's ' Christians and Islam in Turkey ' the last a refutation of statements in Mr. Marmaduke Pickt hall's communication to this review in December. Mr. Yoshio Markino discourses on ' The Post-Impressionist and Others ' in a manner which, we confess, we found hardly witty enough to compensate for the.slightness of the matter. Two interesting articles, whose reference is to the future as well as to the present, are Mr. Eugene Tavernier's ' The Jew in France,' and Mr. R. F. Johnston's account of the formation of a new league for the better direction of the new develop- ment of China, ' A League of the Sacred Hills.' Miss Gertrude Kingston's ' Who Dictates ? A Question of Dramatic Demand and Supply,' is fairly effective as a criticism of critics, and of the Englishman's knowledge of the dramatic, but she leaves the main subject in the confusion in which she found it. Dr. Wickham Legg's article on the Ridsdale Judgment ought to give pause to some rash controversialists.

The most delightful contribution to The Cornhill Magazine for February, by reason of strangeness as well as charm, is Mr. E. D. Kendall's 'John Smith at Harrow,' which also, incidentally, throws pleasing side-lights on the possibilities in boys. Both the papers on the Near East Miss Edith Sellers's chat about Montenegro before the war, and Mrs. Philip Howell's account of Turkish women friends of hers are picturesque and pleasant to read. Miss Claudia Gale's story of a visit to Amiens with Ruskin contains several touches and small incidents which, though not exactly of importance, were well worth recording. The descendants of Goethe meet us in Mrs. Moberly's account of Weimar. The writer lived as a girl for a year or two in part of the poet's house. A paper interesting in itself, and worth consideration as to its practical suggestions, is Mr. A. F. Schuster's ' The Poor Man's Lawyer,' where it is proposed that the briefless barrister should enrol his name on a list of those who shall profess themselves ready when called upon to act as counsel for the poor without fee, in cases where litigation has proved unavoidable.