Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/19

Rh he had come to ask. But when he was leaving the presence, he expressed to his suite in very brief and emphatic terms his measure of Tewfik's intelligence, and the last word of his verdict was "hypocrite." This dictum went the round of El Azhar, and was long the talk of the learned Mahommedan clique of Cairo. How often has it not, since then, been quoted!

That Tewfik played the part of Louis XIII. to the Richelieu of Riaz, the evidence is too strong to allow of any doubt. So far as his abilities permitted, he favoured the schemes of the National party in order to deliver himself from the dictation and overbearance of his minister. But when he had attained his end, he proved too weak and incapable to lead the National party, and threw himself into the arms of Sir E. Malet. Then he sought to excuse himself to the National party by pleading the impossibility of resisting the pressure which England brought to bear upon him.

Thus flitting like the bat in the fable, and fluttering like a scared bird, Tewfik's conduct through the crisis of 1881-2 was a weak parody of his father's vacillation in the last days of his reign. But in the case of Ismail, through all the vacillating period, there were signs of will, of purpose, of resource—though the bad faith was too glaring for purpose to live, or for will to have effect; while with Tewfik there were neither will nor purpose, but only feebleness and shuffle, till at last he dropped nolens volens upon the bosom of England, where he found asylum, because there was no other refuge.