From the British Quarterly Review. BENJAMIN D'ISRAELI. Coningsby; or, the New Generation. By B. D'ISRAELI, ESQ., M.P. Fifth Edition. London: 1849. CONINGSBY has reached a fifth edition, and its author has almost achieved the ambition of his life, and secured his position as the leader of a party and a place in the Cabinet. Is it the disgrace of our literature, or the disgrace of our parliament, that the only man who has risen into political eminence through literary ability is that clever, sarcastic, extravagant, reckless, disrespectable and disrespected person who formerly styled himself D'Israeli the Younger? In France, men point with some degree of pride to a Guizot, a Thiers, a Lamartine, a Villemain -not to mention numerous lesser namesas men in whom the aristocracy of intelligence has achieved its due political recognition. In England we must be content to point to the author of "Coningsby"-a fact which the present writer contents himself with stating, leaving to others the task of moralizing on it. As an author, in spite of a certain notoriety and undeniable talents, his value is null. He has written books, and these books have been immensely successful; but they have no place in our literature-they are indubitable failures or fleeting ephemerides. He has taken many leaps, but has gained no footing. He has written a quarto epic; he has written a tragedy; he has written novels, pamphlets, and a political treatise on the constitution; but all these works are as dead as the last week's newspaper. The most insignificant niche in the temple is denied them. If anybody looks at them, it is not on their account, but on his account. The noise they made has passed away like the vacuous enthusiasm of after-dinner friendships. They have achieved notoriety for their author, oblivion for themselves. Let him write a novel, and "all the world" will read it, quote it, laugh over it, talk about it; and among its hundreds of There is, we believe, a point of view readers not one will have felt his heart from which D'Israeli's career may be ex-stirred, his soul expanded, his experience amined with considerable interest. As a man of letters or as a statesman, he has small if any intrinsic value; but the combination is curious, and his success is a lesson. His position in the political world is analogous to his position in the literary world, with this enormous difference-that in the House of Commons he is in competition with a set of men for the most part greatly his inferiors in ability, and hampered by all sorts of routiniary prejudices; whereas in the world of literature he has rivals in the past and in the present, and is deficient in every quality which could sustain that rivalry with effect. The genesis of a statesman from an author is, however, here rendered doubly piquant as a subject of study, no less from his deficiencies than from the serious defects in our political world which his success implies. 66 deepened, his hopes exalted, his moral na- no heart pulsing beneath that eloquence; there is no earnest soul looking through those grand words. It is all a show "got up" for the occasion; and the showman, having no belief in his marionnettes, you have no belief in them. The bitter satirist of Grecian infidelity-Lucian-makes Timon the Misanthropist tell Jupiter that all the godlike epithets with which the poets dignify him, are not the utterances of reverent belief but the necessities of rhythm, not what their souls pour forth, but what the halting verse requires-órs yàp aurois Toλυώνυμος γινόμενος ὑπερείδεις τὸ πίπτον τοῦ μέτρου, καὶ ἀναπληροῖς τὸ κεχηνὸς τοῦ ρυθμοῦ. Just the same lip-worship of great principles covering practical disregard of all principles, do we meet with in D'Israeli's writings. This renders them null. He writes solely for effect, and no man who writes for effect can be permanently effective. Earnestness always commands respect. No qualities will compensate for its absence. Without it, nothing can be done well, nothing can gain the tribute of mankind. Believe in a lie, and if you believe it you will be respected; but repeat a Gospel truth, if you only repeat it, and pretend to believe in it, no honest man will open his heart to you. For we all feel that in this life it is not the rightness but the uprightness of our views which distinguishes the honest man. Humanum est errare. for he never was a radical. All that can fairly be brought against him is, that he allowed himself to be mistaken for a radical; allowed the false appearance of his enmity to the Whigs to be interpreted as radicalism. The dandy adventurer, Vivian Grey, never was or could have been a radical. He would if he could have entered Parliament through the radical interest, for he wanted a seat, and was unscrupulous how he attained it. Burning with the desire of political distinction, and firmly convinced that he had only to take his seat, to astonish Europe with his eloquence, all means were good which secured so great an end. There was a want of straightforwardness in this; but political morality is not collet monté, and he might easily have lived that down, if his whole career, the whole tone of his mind, had not confirmed the impression. That impression indelibly is, that D'Israeli is an adventurer. It is not very easy to define the varied minutia which go to form the impression which men make upon us; but we may, perhaps, convey our meaning by an illustration. We all know what is meant by the "look of a gentleman;" yet who shall define it? The man before us is far from handsome, nothing less than graceful, and is dressed so as to drive tailors to despair, yet he impresses every one, high and low, with the indisputable fact that he is a "gentleman." Compare such a man with one of those 66 striking" specimens of modern society, who, with radiant waistcoat, resplendent jewellery, and well-oiled whiskers, lounges through the public promenades "the observed of all observers ;" him you do not mistake for a gentleman. The waistcoat may be of the newest fashion, the jewellery genuine, and the whiskers perfectly oiled; nevertheless the impression created is not, perhaps, one of great sympathy and respect. Now, in D'Israeli's works, we note as a decided characteristic the absence of all earnestness a want of truthfulness. There is no gratitude in our admiration. An invincible feeling of distrust poisons our enjoyment. Knowing nothing of the author, you nevertheless pronounce him to be a charlatan, and one who has not even the grace to believe in his own charlatanerie. This it is which has damaged Benjamin D'Israeli; this feeling accompanies us in our estimate of him as a public man, and makes us all regard him as an adventurer in politics, no There are minds of analagous contrast. less than as an acrobat in literature. This Some there are which, even in their negliand only this. Many persons suppose that it gence and awkwardness, have still this "look was his sudden conversion from radicalism to of a gentleman." They produce works, sintoryism which made his public career equiv-ning, it may be, against the rules of the craft ocal. But other men have changed, and yet survived the suspicion excited by the change. There is nothing really equivocal in a change of party; it may be very sudden and perfectly honest, and the world, which loves fair play, and tolerably well discriminates honesty of purpose, is willing enough to credit such things. Moreover, in D'Israeli's case, we believe there never was a change, heavy, digressive, pedantic, perhaps, or feebly vivacious-works which act but slightly as levers towards helping the world forwards, and yet they impress you as being the products of manly, truthful minds; preferring to be dull rather than to be false; if they cannot be brilliant, not choosing to be flashy. There are others of the opposite kind; minds without grace or dignity in their BENJAMIN D'ISRAELI. splendor, without heartiness in their mirth, without charm in their familiarity. These produce works of beggarly magnificence, in which the jewelled ring sparkles on a dirty finger; here glitter is mistaken for light, paradox and mysticism for philosophy, rant for passion, sarcasm for humor. As alcritic you cannot but admit the brilliancy of the glitter, the cleverness of the paradox, or the pungency of the sarcasm; but what is the sum total of the impression made upon you? do you sympathize with or greatly respect those works? No: they may amuse you, they may arrest you for a moment, but they want the substantial excellence of truth. D'Israeli's mind has not this indefinable something which we have been trying to describe. He has not the "look of a gentleman. His talents fail to win respect. His coxcombry is without grace; his seriousness without conviction. He has an active fancy, surprsing command of language, no inconsiderable knowledge, especially of history, powers of massing facts into a symmetrical appearance of generalization, and a keen sense of the ludicrous and humbug in others; he is a shrewd observer of men and things, but he has neither the eye to see nor the soul to comprehend anything much below the surface. There is little depth in him of any kind-thought or feeling. Hence the want of vitality in all he does. He cannot paint, for he cannot grasp, a character; his sole power in that line consists in hitting off the obtrusive peculiarities, the juttings out of an individuality. In his books you meet with nothing noble, nothing generous, nothing tender, nothing impassioned. His passion is mere sensuality, as his eloquence is mere diction; the splendor of words, not the lustre of thoughts. Imagination, in the large and noble sense, he has none, for his sensibility is sustained by no warmth. Humor he has none, for humor is deep. It is something to say for him that he has realized the ideal of his youth. By dint of indomitable perseverance and confidence in himself, unshaken by failure, he has trodden with considerable success the path which his imagination sketched. He early conceived the idea of a political adventurer, rising into eminence through literary ability, and leading a party by means of dashing rhetoric and polished sarcasms. Vivian Grey was the hero of his youthful soul; the ideal to attain which his life has been given. What a hero, and what an ideal! If there is anything in his career which touches us with a feeling of pitiful sadness, it is to think that here was a [Oct. young man, richly gifted, who at a time when, if ever, the soul is stung with resistless longings for high and noble things; at a time when, if ever, the soul is caressed by dreams which, even in their extravagance, have the redeeming grace of purity, and that exaltation which the love of the True and Noble inspires; at a time when conceptions err in their unworldliness, and our ideals are only extravagant because above the exigences of practical life; at such a time this man forms no other ideal of human nature, than that of a clever, sarcastic, unscrupulous adventurer, using men as tools wherewith to construct the miserable edifice of his notoriety! That, quent part of his careeer. we say, is a sadder spectacle than any subseyouthful ideal, what will be the worked-out If this be the alist to solve; with Vivian Grey as an ideal, manhood? There is a problem for the morhow may a man work out this life of ours? that it is the absence of earnestness which is not simply inordinate, it is preposterous. adjusting the focus of mental vision as to distinguish the real proportions of thingsarises, we believe, from his fundamental deficiency, the want of truthfulness. He cannot appreciate the truth. He neither rightly sees what is within him, nor what is around him. He fancies that the world can be made plastic to his wishes; that he has only to wish to do something great, and to do it. To write epics, to revive a fallen drama, to rule states-these may be accomplished at once, and by a mere exertion of the will to do it! This is laughably shown in his early attempts. An inhabitant of Bedlam never had less misgivings respecting his right to the throne of England, than D'Israeli had to his power of assuming the position of the great English poet. No one remembers, because no one ever read, his "Revolutionary Epick;" but many remember with a smile, the magniloquence of its Preface. He who has laughed so much at others, has there afforded a more than equivalent return; he has never made others half so ridiculous by his satire, as he has made himself by his seriousness. Open this epic: it is worth the trouble. The very title page of this quarto volume has such an exquisite disregard of the "eternal fitness of things"-such a compound of puppyism and pomposity, that it deserves a place among the facetia of literature: THE REVOLUTIONARY EPICK. THE WORK OF D'ISRAELI THE YOUNGER. No wonder it was received with a shout of derision; especially when the preface heralded the poem in this magnificent style: "It was on the plains of Troy that I first conceived the idea of this work. Wandering over that illustrious scene, surrounded by the tombs of heroes and by the confluence of poetic streams, my musing thoughts clustered round the memory of that immortal song to which all creeds and countries alike respond, which has vanquished Chance and defies Time. 66 Deeming myself, perchance too rashly, in that excited hour, a Poet, I cursed the destiny that had placed me in an age that boasted of being antipoetical. And while my Fancy thus struggled with my Reason, it flashed across my mind like the lightning which was then playing over Ida, that in those great poems which rise the pyramids of poetic art, amid the falling and the fading splendor of less creations, the Poet hath ever imbodied the spirit of his Time. Thus the most heroic incident of an heroic age produced in the 'Iliad' an Heroic Epick; thus the consolidation of the VOL. XVIII. NO. II. most superb of Empires produced in the Æneid a Political Epic; the revival of Learning and the birth of vernacular genius presented us in the Divine Comedy with a National Epick; and the Reformation and its consequences called from the rapt Lyre of Milton a Religious Epick; "And the spirit of my Time, shall it alone be uncelebrated?" This home-thrust of a question has all the force of an epigram. What! shall Greece boast of a Homer, Rome of a Virgil, Italy of a Dante, and shall England, in her nineteenth century, big with events more glorious than any by-gone era, be uncelebrated while D'Israeli the Younger lives, who can imbody the spirit of his Time? The age, indeed, is unpoetical-as all ages are to unpoetical minds; but the spirit of the Time demands imbodiment, and when the lightning plays round Mount Ida, and a D'Israeli the Younger is watching it, something considerable must result. "Standing upon Asia," continues the inspired rhapsodist," and gazing upon Europe," with the broad Hellespont alone between us, and the Shadow of Night descending on the mountains, these mighty continents appeared to me as it were the Rival Principles of Government that at present contend for the mastery of the world. What!' I exclaimed is the Revolution of France a less important event than the siege of Troy? Is Napoleon a less interesting character than Achilles?' 'For me remains the Revolutionary Epick!" 66 It was quite supererogatory to read a dozen lines of a poem thus prefaced; the man whose taste and judgment could have written, printed, and corrected proofs of such prose as that without any misgivings as to its exquisite absurdity, was assuredly the last man to write a poem of any worth whatever, much less a poem which was to rank beside Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton. Accordingly, this "Dardanian reverie," as he styles it, which proposed to "teach wisdom both to monarchs and multitudes," was received by the ungrateful age which it was to render illustrious, with such contempt and derision, that the poet broke his lyre, and forbore to sing again. It is, indeed, a pitiable performance; it is worthy of its preface! Convinced that there was but little chance of his taking his place as the epic poet of his age, he made one gallant dash at the dramatic laurel wreath, feeling himself called upon to "revive English tragedy." "Count Alarcos" is many degrees better than the "Revolutionary Epick," because less fatuous and presumptuous; but it is in nowise better than the hundreds of unreada. 12 BENJAMIN D'ISRAELI. ble, unactable tragedies which fatigue the "Years have flown away since, rambling in the "That was the season of life, when the heart is quick with emotion and the brain with creative fire; when the eye is haunted with beautiful sights and the ear with sweet sounds; when we live in reveries of magnificent performance, and the future seems only a perennial flow of poetic invention [the season in which we write Vivian Greys!'] "Dreams of fantastic youth! Amid the stern realities of existence, I have unexpectedly achieved a long lost purpose." All this was very unpromising in a dramatic poet; and again an ungrateful age refused to be delighted. D'Israeli does the age the justice, however, of saying that it is "full of poetry, for it is full of passion." Indeed, the common ory about the time being unpoetical, is only the cry of incapacity, and forces one to remember Gibbon's strange assertion, that the age of history was pastan assertion uttered on the eve of the French Revolution! These two attempts are, we believe, the only attempts D'Israeli has made to win for himself a name among our poets; they are evidences of that want of self-knowledge, and of due estimate of his powers, which meet us at every turn in his career. man who could so easily delude himself into the idea that he was a Homer might very easily persuade himself he was a Pericles, or, at the least, a Canning. And as he thought to reach the heights of Parnassus at one bound, and make himself immortal without toil, so did he fancy that he had only to get a seat in Parliament to sway with his impassioned oratory the destinies of the nation. He had always hankered after political distinction. During the political excitement of the reform agitation, he was wandering over the plains of Troy, watching the lightning playing over Ida, standing upon Asia, and gazing upon Europe, and being looked down upon by forty centuries from the heights of the Pyramids. But he came back in 1832, [Oct. prepared to astonish Europe as a poet and a statesman. The want of the age was a Great Man, and lo! from the Pyramids came D'Israeli the Younger. Historians will note with surprise that his return did not perceptibly affect the funds. Readers would not read the "Revolutionary Epick," constituents would not elect the great statesman. He was forced to bide his time. squabbles, kept him before the public. At time. Novels, pamphlets, and newspaper last, he did secure a seat. Now, assuredly, Europe will be astonished; now, if ever, the house will shake. taken his seat. The tories have their Orlando; a tottering cause has its Mirabeau. He rose, he spoke, and the house did shake-but it was with laughter. The failure was as signal as that of his "Epick;" and from a similar cause. The great orator has ation, which prevented his seeing the misThe utter want of discrimintake he committed in his poetic grandiloquence, prevented him from estimating aright the means by which an audience could be moved. He meant to be eloquent, and was ludicrous; his ornate periods only made ceeded in the same strain, until the laughter men titter; instead of being warned, he prothe courtesies which usually surround a was so uproarious, that, breaking through all maiden speech, it forced him to set down uttering an energetic prophecy, that the time would come when they should listen to him! We remember one passage which created great mirth at the time: he was alluding to back Sir Robert Peel, and that simple matter Mr. Hudson's having gone to Rome to bring swept into the chambers of the Vatican." was spoken of as "when the hurried Hudson This was the "Revolutionary Epick" over again. they have listened to him, and now they list- genius; in truth he is only the prospectus of |