The Sun. — London, England, 1852-06-07 00:00:00

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. We have received the Paris journals of Saturdry and of yesterday. The Legislative Body held a public sitting yester dayat two o'cl oc k, M . BILL.aTJLT in the chair. The RESIDENT informed the deputies that a Bill had been ,transmitted to him by the Minister of State, relative to ea- •cg into , Lryt execution the punishment of hard labour (travaux forces.) The measure was referred to the Bureaux for examination. M. Revnecx pre vented the report of the Committee appointed to ex -1 '. 4111 1e the Bill h av i ng f or object the definitive regula ,l I ° ll of the bud ge t o f 1849: or d ere d t o b e p r inted and uis tributed. The order of the day was the dis eussion on the Bill relative to offences com hlitted by French subjects in foreign countries. BOUIIIER DE L'EceusE spoke against the measure. • VERNIER, the reporter, defended the Bill, main tamlog that an omissi on at present existed in the French le g i s l a ti on , w hi c h th e Bill now under consi meration , would supply. The articles were then brought for Ward, and, after a few remarks, severally ado Pted• The- Biil was then adopted in its ensem ble by 191 votes to 5. The President next rose, and Rated that, during the sitting, six Bills bad been tra ne l : ll itted to him by the Minister of State, one pro posing to grant a credit of 170,000 f. fur the restora k"ln of the church of St. Ouen, at Rouen ; another to authorise an exchange of forest land between the State a nd M. DE S ACRES DE L'AIGLE ; and the four others rasrely. relating to local matters. All these Bills Were referr e d t o the Bureaux for examination, and w the sitting terminated at four o'clock. The Moniteur contains the followiog note on the B u b he of the articles against Belgium in the Consti tutionnel:—"When the Government wishes to make known 'its real thoughts it confides them to the 2t/Oniteur, its only organ. Any publication in any ° the,r paper cannot engage its .responsibility, Th e article in the Constiblionnel of to-day obliges us t o Zaake this declaration." We read in a latter from Paris in the Independance of .Brussels,' dated! -Thursday :—"lt has been ru moured to. day in the political circles, that it is the in tention of the Government not to prolong the session of the Legislative Body beyond the 29th instant, but to assemble the deputies in the month of September for an additional session to last to the end of Oc tober. In this last session several important Bills !ill be submitted to it, after being prepared by the Council of State; amongst them, it is said, will be that for placing taxes on dogs, carriages, livery ser 'ants Carri • age and riding horses, of which there has b een a talk for some time past, and which have long be en applied i n England. The taxes referred to are t °' l o which the PRESIDENT, alWays favourable to the libti ff ering classes, has often manifested, both in his ° °ks and el sew here, the desire to see adopted." u A decree of the PRINCE PRESIDENT of the Repub e P r omulgates the treaty of commerce and navigation recently concluded betweea France and Sardinia. MICRELET has refused to take the oath to the Cons titution, and has given in his resignation as chief be hadthe historical section at the Archives, which post I filled si nce th e y ea r 1830. • I:IGEN E RENDU has returned to Paris from a ( 1 , 0 81 °a) with which he was charged by the French thth!eratoent, to inquire into the state of education of e p e ople in Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, and Bavaria. grtnt e PRINCE PRESIDENT Of the Republic has ed a pardon to eight soldiers confined in the eases alY prison in the Rue du Cherche-Midi, their by, th ' la ving been recommended to his consideration eata blisAhm rchbishoP of PARIS, after his late visit to that n umber b m co, of iron-masters of the Vosges, Doubs, e riv t "l'Or, have petitioned the PRINCE PRESI- ad in i t lainet the clause in the Customs' Bill, which Played free of duty iron and other metals to be ern -141 in ship-b u ildi ng. On priA p li a.bialt, the celebrated sculptor, died suddenly ,13 - u sp , 4 S evening a t B oug ival, near Paris. " DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE a Ore t LOS DON STOCK EXCHANGE, JUNE 5. 1 , ndian P• • a4B slid enlusuia. 5 1 / 2 —Namur and Liege, 6% L Yous, 10 7 / 2 —Rouen and Havre, 125/8. der 1,1 PORTUGAL. c Altt M A steam-frigate Retribution , Captain l ee lll, arri ve d at S p i t h ea d l as t eveni ng , a t seven left k • With mails from Lisbon to the Ist inst. She gathe n rh fl exible agus her MAJESTY'S vessels Archer and .i.h e n !bias' •°t and KING were still the, and no ' s',"' importacce bad oecurred in Cortes. r GERMANY. i nt 8 time for the importation of corn free of duty the tro na A States of the Zollverein has been extended 43,uguit • until the lat of next October. oe th e e 14 -impress of RUSSIA arrived at Schlangenbad pcliei afternoon of the 2d, from Wiesbaden, accom bY the D u k e o f NAssau. Prince lawmen _ (li sp° has placed his chateau of Johannisberg at the Th 'al of her Imperial MAJESTY. Viet: Incl'ependance of Brussels, under date of Ord e a rc a d a Y 3 The new edition of the . Penal Code ' 1. ° 4 1 the bY Imperial decrees to come into operation Willb lst September next. Offences of the press th e tried according to the new law. The law on be, of 1841 is abrogated, and replaced by a , auth, r ° ; journals are subjected to a prey' 'ous of lzat t lon and to a caution-money, the maximum which 1 5 fixed at 10,000 florins (about 22,0000 It is sta ted DEN MARK. ult the , ja a letter from Copenhagen of the 31st has e S'p rn „, i - "dependance of Brussels, that the KING w u decree dissolving the Diet, and ordered hi s general electiooson the 4th August; also, that e07, -- '""I'Y intends to promulgate without delay the cl'eution concluded between the great Powers at tti e : l - r , d°4 On the Bth ult., relative to the suc cess io n t o throne. A N PLAYS, ST. JAMES'S THEATRE...—. Tier tri - t h esAY and his Royal Highness Prince Albert, his Royal P r reas the Prince of Wales, and her Royal Highness the o ees s Royal, attended by the Marchioness of Ely, the 1 . Miss Kerr, ,Lord Galway, General Buckley. and Col. „ oaverie, honoured the German Plays with their presence '43 Saturday evening. Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston gave a grand enter tainment on Saturd a y even i ng, at t h e i r mans i on i n C arlton -ga r d ens , to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cam bridge and a distinguished circle. PATAL RENCONi'RE.--Mr. Edward Stevenson, son O a uf Mr. Evan Ste venson ,' was killed at Georgetown, on the th ult., by Captain C arr i c k. It appears that Stevenson made some publication in the .Herald in re l at i on to C arrick's attention to a young lady, at which Mr. Carrick took offence. This led to some hostile messages between them, an d on Wednesday they met in G . eorgetown. Both . drew r.tnis at nearly the same time. Stevenson fired first, and is a b i all passed through Carrick's hat. Carrick fired im- Ilke e - L a i , l Y afterwards, shooting Stevenson through the heart. il eaa - e T i c t l ead intantl He was a young married man, and esteemed N vire s and Both of the parties were much b those who knew them.—Frankfort (Kentucky) Conononiveavthl. ACOIDENT ON THE RivEn,.—Yesterday v i 7 ern°o n, between three and four o'clock, a party of youths se l l i t o had hired a small boat for an excursion, when off Chel dinMarshes, nearly facing Battersea Church, commenced ing and splashing each other with their oars, and in so Ling capsized the boat. The whole of them, four in num were immersed ; t wo o f th em were got out safely ; thee 79 othe e rs rose once, clinging to each other when thy sunkecover, were not seen again ; every effort was , made to r he bodies, but without effect. QreltlcKET.- - ENGLAND v. SURREY 'WITH THRE E f.vEN PLAYERS.—This match ended in favour of Su rre y a minutes before three o'clock on Saturday, by 7 wickets. r e —England, fi rst i nn i ngs, 86 ; second ditto, 77. Surrey, ---s1 innings, 106 ; second ditto; 53. N , ..[.DVERTISEMENT.]—THE R ACES AND -FETES.— VltiltOlS to these fashionable resorts would do well to pro `fide themselves with Rowland's Aqua d'Oro. This fra grant and spirituous perfume refreshes and invigorates the fo and atm during the heat and dust of summer, and will be an essential accompaniment for the opera, the public c and the promenade. In all cases of excitement, ad ia tude",' or over exertion, it w . ill prove of great advantage v"en as ,a beverage, diluted with water. Price 3s. 6d per treoestthle.. '"_Rowland's Kalydor " will also prove -a most re ele„TlZ preparation for the complexion, dispelling the l ay s . of langour and relaxation, allaying all heat and eat' and immediately ailording the pleasing sen ttie-441 :attending restored eDsticity and healthful state of and Diecolorations Art a ' i n• Freckles, Tan, Spots, Pimples, 4 04 r a e n e d filsilly preventedunabnuirine,radicated by its applica stings of insects, or in inflatna maaaateiaono,fitss virtues are universally l a d ck n n v ow: ek e Z : Od. and Sons, Itoa, t l . Price 4s. 6d. and Bs. 6d. per bole. London, S `st B and Perfumers. wr Its 20, Hatton-Garden, and- A. of this • aosrrrara— - It fa Tne anniversary festival 'harit where, upon shwas held on Saturday at the London Tavern, excel' as about 150 gentleinen . h;.. ant dinner The Earl of Carlisle presided, and, in usu a l ration 151)3, manner, enforced the claims of . the ins '- has 'm a r ', Public benevolence. Sr. Mary's Hospital, which co tn ^ ueeu open for about a year, was built to afford ac by .?iodation for 400 beds, and the object at present sought 30Zpvernors is to increase the über occupied from zags f ' l3 . The chairman appealed to m the charitable feel e,,en?... the assemblage with such effect that during the noeneuega 'subscriptions to the amount of 3,3001. were an among ", and the hospital will henceforth take its rank year 72,0ther similar metropolitan institutions. Withi n th e and 1 in-pati en t s have been admitted; 1,985 out-patients toa rrie ' c r casual patients, have been relieved ; 228 oor 4, aa e s . have been attended in sickness at their own at e& making a total of from 4,000 to 5,000 persons bone kette - t... Greene, M.P., Mr. la emshead, General d e l a th e alr• Martineau, and Mr. George Bird took part in aantr °ceed in L gs of th e even i ng , w hi c h passed off very pl ea - Y The musical arrangements were under the direction Smith, and Mr. Harker was toastmaster. lipBE IRIS H SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.—The cabl e t c o ) " Ttle aday last b e t ween H o lyh ea d an d ll ow th we i g h ed hours. le baaaj,a v , was 70 mil es l ong, an d was su b merge d i n eighteenng e in the greatest exploit yet in connexion with sub arnics. 1444 ThIINSTE R - BRIDGE.—It is stated in a Par- Porar ntar Y Paper printed on Saturday that a new tem year?' brid ge would coat 12,0001., and could be built in a Tri t that the 1 :". 00 13ts OF SCOTLAND.--It is said °tilt:lth ave not for many years past been so numerous and th e r i d as they a . re at present, and that the disease amopgst tali o:ruse Argyleshire seems now to have entirely 4444 itself. THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, BENJAMIN DISRAELI. Since the death of George Canning, no more re markable instance has Eeen witnessed of a man of the people elevating hiuri'self to the dignity of a Cabinet Minister than that afforded by the career of the Right Honourable Gentleman, now . her Majesty's Chan cellor of the. Exchequer. It becomes - interesting, therefore, to trace the .progress of one who, without any adventitious assistance, has already in the flower of his manhood risen from private . life to public distinction —or, at any rate, to observe the development of those intellectual powers whicb have at last constituted him one of the leaders of the Bri tish Government. Benjamin Disraeli, born in London during the December of 1805, is the descendant of one of those Hebrew families known by the venerable title of the Sephardim. According to the meet simple definition, the Sephardim where those among the children of Israel who never deserted the shores of the Mediterranean until driven ihence by adverse circumstances. The inejority of these took up their abode in the cities of Arragen and Andalusia, where they continued to re- . side until expelled by the authority of Torquitnada- The ancestors of the Member for b'eckingham were, in this manner, compelled to emigrate from thePe aineula tow ar d s the close of the fifteenth century, in consequence Of th e ex t raor di nar y severities in flieted by the lequisition. Thereupon they se lected the Venetian Republic for their place • of residence, and--heaving igsurned, instead of their Gothic surname, the more suggestive and appropriate one of Disraeli—flourished as merchants, under the banners of St. Mark, for upwards of two centuries. A little mere than a hundred years ago the great grandfather of the subject of this biographical sketch sent his youngest son Benjamin to these islands, in order that he might push his fortunes under the shelter of a more liberal and enlightened system of administration. Mr. Pelham being then Prime Minister of England and favourably disposed towards the descendants of Abraham, Benjamin Disraeli—grandfather of the present leader of the House of Commons—became, in 1748, an English denizen. Having married, in 1765, he appears to have ultimately settled down at Enfield in compara tive luxury. There it was that he continued fur many years to amuse himself during the Lntervals - of leisure snatched from commercialavoca. ions sufficiently profitable in their results—occa sionally playing whist with Sir Horace Mann, or sauntering through an Italian garden he bad planted, or eating macaroni prepared by the hand of the Venetian Consul—surviving until 1817, the year of his dissolution. There is a pleasant story told of the parent of Bartholdy, the . composer, whose grandfather had previously been scarcely less renowned as a metaphysician—namely, that he used to remark not long before his decease, "I am, as it were, a link of mediocrity connecting together the genius of two distinct generations—in my youth I used to be pointed out as the 509, as now in my old age I am pointed out as the father of the Great Men delssohn !" Although different in some respects, the position of Benjamin Disraeli the elder might in others have been somewhat analogous to the position of the elder Mendelssohn. At ninety he was cheered by the celebrity of his son ; had he passed yet further beyond the allotted age of man he might have found still greater reason to exult in the reputation of his grandson. At the period of his arrival in England, about the middle of the eighteenth century, he had discovered in this country representatives of other families of the Sephardim, such as the Medium, and the Villa Reels, and the Laras (kinsmen of the Disraeli;) and the Mendez da Costas. At the time of his demise, only the last mentioned are believed to have left survivors, whereas, with himself, his name has not only been perpetuated through two genera tions, but imperishably inscribed upon the scroll of our national literature, and emblazoned even upon the records of the national administration. I His son, Isaac Disraeli, besides giving to the world many other luminous volumes in which he analyzed with so much perspicacious subtlety of intelligence the joys, and the sorrows, and the pe culiar and hitherto bewildering idiosyncrasy of the student, has written the most classic miscellany in the language, " The Curiosities of Litera ture." Hi s grandson and namesake, on the has combined a b r illi ant success i n lettersother hand, with the most undeniable triumph over the almost countless difficulties besetting a political gladiator in the arena of the Legislature. A popular novelist, he h a s, neverthel ess , ven t ure d t o asp i re t o the highest offices within the grasp of a statesman— and, what is yet more, his aspirations have been so far realized already, that he is acknowledged to be perhaps, of all, the most skilful debater in Par liament, while the chief of the new Cabinet testified in an extraordinary manner the sense entertained of his capacities when nominating him— (although hitherto principally celebrated as a romance writer)—Minister of Finance to the most wonderful commercial empire either of modern times or of the most enterprizmg ages of antiquity. During his minority Disraeli had not only travelled through the principle cities of Germany, but had pub lished his novel of Vivian Grey, which, by the freshness of its manner and the originality of its very imperti nence—girding as its stripling author had done throughout, sometimes at the most venerable foibles, and sometimes even at the most venerated absurdities of the social system—at once fixed upon him the attention, if it failed to secure to him per manently the admiration, of his contemporaries. The sparkling vivacity of the work rendered it " the rage" for more than one season and called forth a sequel, which extended it to five volumes altogether. Sub sequently, on attaining his majority, in 1826, he tra versed the classical ground of Italy and Greece, wit nessing some of the incidents of the civil war then desolating Albania. Having wintered at Con• stantinople in 1829.30, he travelled through Syria in the spring, crossing the desert into Egypt, an d proceeding up the Nile until he had penetrated into Nubia. During these oriental wanderings he drained not unfrequent draughts of inspiration —but more peculiarly in the country regarded by him, not unnaturally, as his ancestral fatherland, the land which had been governed by the tetrarch and sung by the troubadour. From these dreams, however, he was recalled immediately on his return homewards, where, in 1831, he found the people of England agitated by the influence of a great political movement. It was at this time he aspired ineffectually to represent the borough of Wycombe in the House of Commons, the electors rejecting him, from a preference for the two other Liberal candidates, notwithstanding the Cir cumstance of Joseph Hume having introduced him to the notice of the constituency : Disraeli having thus, from his animosity towards the Whigs, associated his own name w ith th a t o f th e veteran Reformer. Twice, he had the mortification of appearing on the local hustings in the character of a discomfited candidate : and from a recollection of these incidents, we may presume that he turned with additional zest from the dusty highroad of politics to the cool and sequestered garden of litera ture. Contarini Fleming appeared in 1833, and was designated a " Psychological Romance." Appearing in the form of an autobiography, it en deavoured to pourtray the gradual and almost im perceptible development, not merely of a generous and passionate nature, but of an elevated and poetic temperament. It was suggested, we cannot but con jecture, not so much by the marvellous pages of Wilhelm Meister, as by that more sombre effu sion of the genius of Go the, "The Scrrows of Werter," in which it is impossible not to discover the germ of what subsequently expanded into the Apprenticeship. There is discernible, moreover, a wonderful resemblance between the diplomatic career of Werter before he first had the rapturous happiness of beholding Charlotte, and those passages in the life of Fleming which involved him for a, while in the subordinate avocations of Government --the , same distaste for office, the same volatility, and the same restiveness. There is a graceful reminiscence of Disraeli's own origin in the genealogy of his hero—deriving the name of Fleming from the Saxons and that of Contarini from the Venetians. In th e y earn i ng o f t l h t e o y o o w u i n l g l fi c y h t i lod Egeriaf for Nature th when he exclaim s , " A n d the sylvan dream of Pom e author dreams again of the pure and the be P a :t u i t ti *P i the spirit When, however, exquisite dream he imagines that the Egeria becomes incarnated in the woodlands he he do o e f s t more than revive ~ es those leeeiitch the visions of antiquity, he entic ing revelations "D'Outre Tonabiinatmomong seen in in which was bate a o u r b e_ r than long afterwards recognised the soli tude, and loved with an un ß u e t n te e rab d l e e a c n earthly tenderness by. Contarini's affection in his childhood for Chris tiana, and his attachment in his schooldays. to the rustic MUS9CUP, are described with sin gu l ar intensity of feeling. His frantic fight in the play ground and his subsequent reflections are incidents depicted in colours so marvellously true to nature, that it is evident the author spoke in them from the depths of his own emotional experience. More agree able than these are the vicissitudes of Fleming when he encounters the Chevalier de Winter, or, previously when he falls in with the itinerant actors, including the frolic Thalia and the pensive Melpomene. The most enthralling portions of the narrative, however, are those which treat of the brigand expedition of the students, led by Contarini, terminating with the abandon ment of the Castle in the Forest, and thejourney under taken by the hero to Venice, ending in his elopement with Alceste. I n th e course of his peregrinations he wanders, naturally enough, in the precincts of Par nassus. His tragedy he wisely burns in manuscript, as is unhappily related of poor Gerald Griffin the author of " Gissippus.' novel, His entitled " Mst I on the contrary, is publishedandwidelyciarenulenatted, but, eulogised while anonymous, the author, when once discovered, is deliberately " scarified and scalped" by the reviewers. The whole story terminates with an_ : epicurean episode in his existence at Candle, closed by the death of Alceste and the desolation of Contarini. More remarkable in every respect than the foregoing production was The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, which appears to have been written almost eimultaneously, and which,' al though replete in several parts with rhetorical extravagance and overladen with the barbaric pomp of a gorgeous and even at times meretricious deceretion—must be considered as perhaps the most remarkable contribution made by the younger Dis raeli's hand to the treasures of our romantic literature. Its style was a mistake—blending prose with rhythm, and interrupting this rhythm with an occasional jingle of rhymes—a style calculated more than any other to alternate between the vapid and the ' hyperbolical. Otherwise "Alroy,"in the splendour of its descriptions, might be regarded as the finest oriental fiction writ ten in our language since the incomparable " Vathek" of Beckford. It was a noble and touching tribute, moreover, offered by the romaocist to the memory of his Hebrew aocestors—recounting, by events dating back to the twelfth century, the 'rise and fall of David Alroy, the Prince of the Captivity. The story °pees, after an explanatory dialogue, in the burial• ground at Hamsdan, by the " sue of the traditionary tomb of Esther and Mordecai. The time is evening, and the Jewish maidens come, ac cording to their national wont, to draw water at the fountain. They are insulted by the g,overnor of the city, Alschiroch, who is slain upon the spot by David Alroy, the latter flying, not merely to save himeelf from destruction, but to wreak a more comprehensive vergeance upon .the op pressors of the children of Abraham. Such is-the dramatic commencement of a narrative which as it proceeds gathers interest as an avalanche gathers im petus—carrying the attention onwards with it in breathless suspense until the moment of the crowning catastrophe. The Prince of the Captivity discovers Jabaster the Cabalist, and, being warned in his cave by the Daughter of the Voice (the Beth Kol or Filia Vocis, according to the Rabbinical and Tal mudic annotators) advances towards the completion of his destinies. In crossing the wilderness, Alroy arrives at a ruined city, and while traversing its apparently deserted streets, is seized and carried before the Captain of the Robbers, Scherirab. Escaping from his captors, he is overtaken in the desert by the aimoom, and saved from this yet more formidable peril by the Mecca Caravan returning to Bagdad, David is happily befriended, in the latter city by Honain, the Sultan's Hakim or Physician. Honsio, who proves to be the- brother of Jabaster, conducts the Prince of the Captivity into the kiosk of the suburban garden of the palace, where he beholds the favourite daughter of the Caliph, the beautiful Princess Schirene. Assisted by the influence of Honain, and protected by the talisman of Jabaster, Alroy at length suc ceeds in reaching the object of his destination— Jerusalem. There it is that, reposing one night in the tombs without the walls, he listens to the ghouls conversing, penetrates the dread mysteries of the Cave of Genthesme, and thereby obtains, in spite of innumerable difficulties, the venerable and consecrated sceptre of Solomon. With this assur ance of ultimate victory in his possession, he speedily gains over to his cause the robber-captain Scherirah. His lawless followers are thereupon brought into something like discipline, and, incited by the valour of athletic ruffians like Kisloch the Kourd and Calidas the Indian, • utterly rout the forces decoyed into the ruined city of the desert under the banners of Hassan Sabah, the newly. appointed Governor of Hamadan. Thereupon, King D av id makes his triumphal entry into Hamadan, where he is welcomed by his sister Miriam and his uncle Bostenay ; and subsequently takes possession of Bagdad, where he is united in marriage to the Princess Schirene. Here, however, the crowning triumph is followed by a rapid and overwhelming catastrophe. The Prince of the Captivity, elevated into the King of Israel, dwindles into the Caliph of Bagdad. The hero de generates into the voluptuary. How the mar vellous successes of Alroy are followed by a series' of terrible and (some of them) 'pte terhatural calamities; how the very met eors p or t en d " Merle, Tek e l, Uph ars i n " i n th e thunderbolts; h ow E s th er :thehd i e s a a y s e t n e s r b with w t h r t ilni living n g Prophetess attempts' the assassination of David at midnight, her dagger splintering into fragments aga i n st the talisman ; how Jabaster. is strangled while the serail is being destroyed by a confla gration ; and how—most 'perilous of all—while the tempest is roaring over the palace roof the . storm-bolt is beard clanging in the armoury, from which the sceptre of Solomon is found immediately afterwards to have vanished—the original narrative can alone adequately describe. The fascination of the story towards its conclusion becomes altogether absorbing, and almost as irresistible as the downfall of the modern Sesostris. Flying into the wilderness -timing a brief interval _after his discomfiture, Alroy is ultimately betrayed by Kisloch the Kourd and Calidas the Indian, being conducted to Bagdad as a prisoner. Confined in a eubterraneous dungeon, the Lord of Asia there undergoes a variety of temp- Wiens. Ultimately he is brought into the public square to expiate his former triumphs by being impaled before the Cadi and the King of Kerasme. From this ap palling punishment, however, he is redeemed by so enraging Alp A'rslan by his taunts that—dreading lest his once puissant antagonist may be snatched by his suspected sorceries from execution—the monarch strikes off the head of David Alroy with a single blow of his scimitar. Such is a rapid epitome of the gorgeous romance in which a descendant of a family of the Sephardim has celebrated the career of a Hebrew Adventurer. Its barbaric pomp is not the least appropriate characteristic of a narrative the glow of which is a reflex from th e Arabian Nights' Entertainment s. Over the stirrin g fortunes of Alroy, his love for the beautiful Schirene hangs like the roseate haze eaveleping the magic the precious s t ones on the pave ment, the ceilings palace of Aladdi n =investing with a new s p lendour of epicewood, an d the column s of por phyrypassages relating to 'this tenderness b e t we en the Prince ss of Ba g dad an d the Princ e o f t h e C a ptivity The var i o us a re coloured with a truly oriental m agn ifi cenc e. The Love tha t ins p ired them, one might con j ec t u re, was not the offspring of the Cyprian Venus, b u t rather that Hi ndoo Cu p id, the gaudy and fantastic Monmadi, with a bow of sugar-cane, and a r r ows tipped with flowers , sailin g among the branch es o f th e palm and the cyp ress, between' the wings o f a parro t! Singularly inferi or to t h e f o regoing was the neat production—given to the world, we cannot but think, in a moment when judgment was suffering eclipse from,ambition. The author must long since, we be lieve, have repented the publication of the quarto volume entitled The Rbvolutionciry Epick, regarding it, as he infallibly must, as the ill-fated fruit of an unlucky hallucination. Although the prefatory remarks commenced with the somewhat pretentious declaration, " It was on the plains of Troy that I first conceived the idea of this work," and closed with the seemingly arrogant assumptiOn that if read aright it might " teach wisdom both to monarchs and to multitudes ;" the writer, in another part of his ob servations, candidly and modestly confessed that, in the event of the " Epick" being condemned by his contemporaries, he should "without a pang hurl his lyre to Limbo." Three Books, constituting we may presume merely a quarter of the entire composition, were issued in 1834, since when 'no further instal ment has been demanded even by the curiosity of the. reviewers. Demogorgon is 'revealed upon a throne surrounded by celestial beings " with amethystine wings and starry. crowns," in the opening of the poem, which subsequently relates to 'the rivalry exercised on earth by Msgros, the Genius of Feudal ism, and Lyridon, the Genius of Federalism. The in terest, as was btltnatural, breaks down under the weight of a cumbrous allegory. Against , its deadening and depressing influences are required either the elevating expansiveness of a faith like that of Bunyan, 'or the vivifying sensuousness of a genius like that of'Spens ser. Discouraged as a poet, Disraeli adventured upon the more homely labours of a pamphleteer. In a letter addressed to a Noble and Learned Lord [meaning Lyndhurst]'he pronounced what he designated on the title-page a Vindication ofthe English Constitution, the argument extending over upwards of 200 pages, and claiming, for itself, not without reason,. the importance of a political treatise. Besides vindicating the Eng lish Constitution, it comprised two subordinate yin dications, namely a viudication (pp.' 193.197) of the Tories, and a vindication (pp. 199 7 201) of Sir RObert Peel and his colleagues. ,With a variety of shrewd comments upon the relative value and diversity of our institutions, the volume fails to combine what would have at once constituted it an authority—a concise and specific, definition of the manifold forces . of Government. 'Clever as one . of the more remarkable among the "paper pellets" of Party, the volume afforded no insight into what may be termed the science of political dynathios. During the same year, which witnessed, the ap pearance o f his letter oLord ,L 't • yndburst, 1835, Disraeli became a _ cendidat e f or th e b oroug h o f Taun ton, the Tori es of government. Again more resumed the reins Again his-. attempt-to enter the House of C omm ons ' proved signally unsuccessful, his opponeut i , M r . Laboueheree obtaining a majority of `nearly two to one : but, what was brOughthim into nate, the election eer i ng excitement yet more unfortu collision with the Irish Liberator, all but Tending to a duel, and productive of an angry correspondence ending in a series of the mo s t bitter recriminations. Atlength, in 1837, Benjamin Di srae li, t h n thirty-two, entered Parliament as the representative of Maidstorte ' Wyndham Lewis being his colleague in 'the repre sentation of that Conservative constituency, The failure of his maiden speech—extorting from him the prediction that the time would come when he would be listened to by the Members of the Legislature (reminding one of Sheridan's exclamation under • cacuottincel) It is iw ple, And by it shall sonie.ont I"), is not the least interesting among the many similar anecdotes connected with the English Parliament.. Already- the time has arrived, - 14nd:the unappreciated Member of Maidstone has, by his own unaided abilities, come, at length, after fifteen years' experience in legislation, to be recognised as one of the most accomplished debaters living, to be representative of the shire for which John Hampden sat before the Commonwealth, to be a member of the Privy Council, the leader of the House of Commons, and her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer. As he himself observes (" Tancred," B. IV., c. 11), " A failure is nothing ; it may be deserved, or it may be remedied : in the first instance, it brings self-know ledge; in the second it develops a new combination, usually triumphant." His failure being of the second class produced accordingly a new combination, and that combination, it must ba admitted, has proved un usually triumphant. A tragedy was the next literary effusion penned by Disraeli, who selected as the theme of his "five acts" the story narrated in the old Spanish ballad of " The Count'Alarcos and the Infanta Solisa." Pub lished in 1839, Count Alamos was dedicated to Lord Francis Egerton, now the Earl of Ellesmere. Fami liar though Vat) ballad had been rendered, not merely by the accurate version of Dr. Bowring,- but by the nervous and impassioned paraphrase of Mr. Lockhart, it was agreeable to remark the skilful employment in a dramatic form of the materials analysed with so much subtlety by Bouterwek in his "History of Spa nish Literature." Whatever vagueness there was in the ballad became necessarily dissipated in the tragedy. Time and place had alike to be selected—the time chosen was the thirteenth century, the scene Burgos and its picturesque vicinity, Burgos being at that period the capital of the kingdom of Castilla. Among the characters introduced it is amusing 'to observethe name of Sidonia, a name after wards rendered sufficiently famous by the pen of Disraeli as that -of a Hebrew Crichton with the wealth of a Rothschild, the knowledge of a Hum boldt, and the'capacity for langua ges o f a M ezzo f a nte. Distinguished as the year w hi c h w i tnesse d th e appearance of his tragedy, 1839 was rendere d more agreeably remarkable to the dramatist by witnessing his marriage with Mary Anne, daughter of J. Evans, Esquire, and relict of that Wyndham Lewis whom we have already mentioned as his Parliamentary col league. His happiness from this union he has him self gracefully celebrated by that tribut e to " A per fect ivife,!' which constitutes one of his most charming dedications. - i a n nineteen Grey,",' a ti d consequentlyhi s Returned for Shrewsbury in became more than 'ever assiduous in st 4 his application to Parliamentary business, but fortunately did not altogether absorb the energiesacacivainted himself a t a l el of letters. Having thoroughly acceptable pf h tt e hatebh a lee u m t mi h n. a o rn r s. (by' practice) with the qualities y m ea o h after t he when'ap ' novelist, Disraeli, of ~viv intoaving doubled his faculties had been matured by the age at which he first adventured immediate and sustained popularity, arena, issued a work from the press, the literary lhe e, insignificance. e e n ius writ w te r n itte v n en i e l ti e a n , r i i n etta wh T icehmp, which, by its reduced all his previous successes to had s li to a ry; he hadalready a love of two ideal persobages of the last great Age of Eng lish poetry hadbeen again idealized; a n d, in addition to this, he had written The Young Duk e, the fore shadow, one might fancy it, of a subsequent and more popular production. But the happiest of all these efforts was surpassed in 1844, on th e publication of Coningsby, designated, by an after-title," The New Generation." Within three month s from I the day of its appearance, three considerable editions were exhausted, and, besides commanding an exten sive circulation on the continent, the work secured for itself the exportation of no less than 50,000 copies to what e United States exclusively. It must be allowed obtained for "Coningsby" its almost instant rep u tation na at was the fact of its pages being crowded with sketches of well-known characters not less unmistakabl e than the caricatures of H. 8., with as much eccentricity and as little exaggeration. Nor were the individuals thus pourtrayed simply politicians, although th e fic tion itself (was eminently political in its te n dency. Lucian Gay, whom "Nature had) intended for scholar and a wit," -but "Necessity had made a a scrib bler and a buffoon," w a s no less true to the life than Messrs. Taper and T a dpole, and the rest of th e mo b of placehunters frequenting the lobbies at West minster. But the merit of " Coningsby" is far from being reatricted to that of mere exactitude in the resemblance traceable through these singularly cun ning delineations. People laughed heartily, of course, at that silhouette of the Right Hon. Nicholas Rigby, burnt in, so to ,speak, with lunar caustic—th e pencil of your more unmerciful satirist. They were no less amused with his " harsh voice , and arrogant manner" than with the courtly selfishness of that patrician sybarite the Mar quess o f M onmou th. Pl easa ntest of all the pleasant scenes in his new work, however, were those in which Disraeli described Coningsby and his stripling cont em p orar i es a t Eton—peopling the playgrounds and th e green haunts of with such beings as Buckhurst, or as Lord Henry Sydney, or as Oswald Millbank, who is not sin gular, by the way, in regarding Harry Coningsby with a passionate and affectionate admira tion. The brief but animated account of their school days, terminates with a dea • eription of Montem, a description which, in its turn, closes with a warning of evil days to the new on generation. Several amusing interviews are at prepared for Ca ningsby, perhaps the most sug ge s ti ve cie of which is the A one accidentally held at the elphi Hotel, Man chester, with a gentleman wh ose Mr. G. 0. A. Head, of Staleyh train goes a t 9.15 ridge. The meeting, however, between Coningsby and Sidonia must be dignified with the name of a u event incident. With Sidonia site becomerather than of an _ :n afterwards better acquainted; ,but from the ' in the "Daughter of the Star," 'ent of his reining it is not difficult to detect the arities of his character. n .extraordinary peculi preference at the frugal repast for perry and cr us t : of England,,gives the first_ inkling 89 the corn and wine Corn and wine, he .reminds of his originality. been deified— but the Ch s . Coningsby, have raised temples , to tea, nor th e lneee have never Then his declamation upon th e t Irish to potatoes. young is divine"—deriving th„,ext—" Genius when accuracy from the careers of such- illustrations of its Hannibal or Napoleon, as Gas youthful heroes as tavus Adolphus I And last of t, Oll de Foix or Gus. of his religion at the porch of the the announcement departing—‘' I am of the faith that farm-house when pro fessed before they followed their hat the Apostles indications consonant with the Master." All are later on revealed—in Sequin nature e of Sidonis, as financier in Europe, and in Carlton oust as the greatest luxurious but not efleminated millionaire. Gardens as the the political *sketches in ~ con Clever as cleverness of what usually degenerates are with the experience, the love passages have into a heartless freshness of youth and the animation about them all the We remember few more exquisite scenes of romance. the master-passion than that in the expressive of Hellingsley, where, in the deliciousnesse fishing cottage at solitude and in the midst of theme of the sylvan "Sound of vernal shoe On the twinkling gr ass " ` the hero reveals his devotion to the-- Millbank. 'The droll : embarrass heroine—Edith their return, having 'kept the di nner ensuing on 'unner " conscionably, only imparts au additions ig un means disagreeable piquancy to ti and by no narrative. Atnong the startling 0 that portion of the lend their attraction to the story, th e nurrences which the liveliest spirit are—the dissapp°oB.6 depicted with by the marriage of the Marquess e t. intinents caused the Princess Lucretia Colonna . Monmouth with • th e driving Oswald with Harry to the thunder-storm castle, are discovered, regaling themselves, by where they the misapprehended interview 0 Mr. Rigby Sidonia during , the ball in of Edith and St. Germain : and, above all, e Faubourg dent immediately preceding that f the acci- Lady Monmouth is thrown from her ecanttity, when Avenue Marigny. Nothing can b e m — rvlage in the finished than the last-mentioned description—the admirably Marcinese TprAeiving his' courtly self.ponription—the wonderful equanimity, while Lucretia i e st ` e "ion with tender Sentiments towirds Sidonia. Adta"wing her Marquaas of Monmouth is in the Whologether, the most ingeniously elaborated delineatioe work the g lanee,.' every attitude, every syllable n. Ever LIM y pulously, but without an effort, chaetteteriatie • A i ` selfish - voluptuary from the commen c ement, but princely withal in - his habits, he has the L tbe " grande seigneur," and the . temperamentmannera of • of epicurean. He receives' his grandson f or an time with the bow of Louis Quatorze : and the first assisted up a flight of steps at Paris by . " La 1 he is petite, it is with an acknowledgment of no less tilious courtesy. Hence, to the unravelment Pune ' of the plot, the reader suspects not for an instant that Mademoiselle Flora is no other than Lord Monmouth's natural daughter by Marie Estelleii Matteau, - an actress of the The a t re Francais_ impression throughout being that she is the child Of Armand Villebecque. Once onl y the he art of the - man seems to throb somewhat pe rce p tibl y under the robe of the luxurious patrician. It is when Harry, h av i ng M s n arrived at Coningsby Ca stle, g reets the --sarquea in the midst of a crowde d and distin g uished assembly, with the inquiry—gg HOW do you do, grandpapa ?" Yet oven then, says the author with a subtle sense of truthfulness in the p ortraiture, " It would be exaggeration to say that Lord Monmouth's .heart was touched—his good nature effervesced and his, fine taste was._ „ d ee ply gratified." Proud of the handsome stripling, 'he' places his arms round Coningsby w i t h " a dignity o f affection that would have become the "Grande Mo n arque," kissing him on both c h eeks with unwonted cordiality. It is at St. Genevieve, the residence of Eustace Lyle, situated near Beaumanoir and in the thick of the revels at Christ! I mas, when he is bearing the boar's bead - 011 4 1 0 the ball- to the chgu l t in g o f the old Latin versicles, that Conin P by receives a letter an nouncing the d ea th o f his grandfather. Thereupon ensues the reading of that extraordinary will the original of which not ma a ny t s ho y r ear . s back was " the talk" of all Mayfair and expected in . the side of Bel gravia, Deprived of his c inheritance, Co nings.by is consoled by the refle tbat be has neither lost en arm nor a front to oth , suggested . by Sidonia. Utterly down in the worl, with his name erased from the clubs, hi s h orses sold by auction, ) himself a student in the Temple, and —cut-by n l- one * y—a g b ray of light suddenly dawns upon the hero evening through a "third edition" of The Sun, wherein. be 'finds that Mr. Milibank has proposed as Mersber for Dartford. Ulti ma t e l y theu him unfortu nate nate Rigby is defeated, and Coningsbyeshortly after wards,- having hurried down with Oswald, enters the town . as the successful candidat e , " like P au l us Emehus returning from .Maceeion." The narrative terminates with his marriage with Edith, and Flora, dying almost before the honeym oon h as . e l apsed' leaves the whole of her wealth t o th e young M ember of Parliament. " Coningsby" was followed, in 1845 by Sybil, or "The Two Nations," a fiction of a loftier purpose, illustrative not only of the diversities of party, but of the civic agonies of the poor, and of The social privations and political miseries of an entire population. 'Beginning as the story does, with the gambling at the West-end, in the spring of 18317,ina mediately before the winning of the Derby by Phos phorus, the reader is startled by the motley scenes of wretchedness afterwards opened up to examination. Almostevery phase of society , finds in " Sybil," its appropriate representative. Almost every moral blain in the community is laid bare to our abhorrence. Guided' by the novelist, we penetrate the drawing rooms of Mowbray Castle, where Altamont Belvidere Fitz-warene flourishes with his two sandy daughters, the Ladies Maud and Joan, the latter ugly and doctrinal, the former ra th er pre t ty but inquisitive : or wander into the Cat and Fiddle, where Chaffing Jack, the landlord, has manufactured the Temple of the Muses out of stucco, plate glass, gilding, and veneer. We wander under the same spell—a spell more powerful than that of a romancist, the spell of a minute delineator of reality—through the squalor of the rural town of Marney, hard by the Abbey ruins, where the priors of another century had withstood the encroachments of pauperism by their blending of thrift and munifi cence. We travel into the mining districts even as far as the heathenish town of Wodgate, where surely it were infinitely better to send missionaries than to the wilds of Patagonia. We behold the selfishnesg of the " butty" or middleman, the knaveries of the "doggy or manager, and the sordid influence of the " tommy" or truck-shop, where the scanty wages are doled out in goods of the worst imaginable descrip tion. We inspect the mills; we attend a torchlight meeting ; we take part in th e trades' union ; we are involved at one moment in a street row, and at another in a general insurrection. The manifold. wants and th e multiform woes of the industrious are here enumerated with the eloquence of one who has observed with no superficial glance the aspirations of the age and the peculiarities of the existing generation. What Disraeli unsuccessfully attempted in his "Epick" he ac complished in "Sybil"—he therein depicted not merely '' the age and body of the time" in vivid colours, but described with occasionally , almost painful distinctness its form and pressure." With all its tragic elements, the fiction was nevertheless as remarkable for vivacity at its predecessor—possibly, on occasion, more remark able. The denizens of Belgravia moved as g ai ly though in a more sombre atmosphere : and the epi grammatic wit with which each person was sketched in s sentence, or an epithet,, rendered the work no less acceptable than " Coningsby" to the admirers of what is merely sparkling in light li▪ terature. Walter Gerard, the father of Sybil, although an . h um ble workman at Mr. Trafford's factory, recognised from the first as one of nature's gentlemen : but not so Lord Marney, "a man who was coascious you were trying to take him in., and rather 'respected you for it, but the working of whose cold unkind eye defied you," and from whom accordingly you shrink instinctively, notwithstanding the allurements of the ermine and the coronet I Disagreeable though several of the patrici▪ an cha racters are represented as being, others of course are proportionably delightful—from Alfred Mountches ney " the Cupid of Mayfair," to Captain Grouse, strutting over the product of the looms of Aiminster "in very tight pantaloons to show his very celebrated legs;" from Kremlin "who had only one idea—and that was wrong," to Wriggle "who went with the times, but took particular good care to ascertain their complexion ;" from Floatwell who swore by Lord Dunderhead, to Mr. Ormsby, demurely observing, as a diplomatist moves past highly starred and rib boned, " The only stars L have got are four stars in India stock." Several of the plebeian characters introduced are scarcely less attractive. Poor Devilsdust, "dark and melancholy," at once secures our interest,. while Dandy Mick Radley, "as brilliant as his com plexion," on the instant of his appearance commands our sympathy. About the most original creation in the three volumes, is unquestionably Baptist Hatton, the heraldic antiquary of the Inner Temple, who— strange to tell—can accept as his guiding principle, the old maxim of the, Church, " Qui laborat, orat," even when munching his devilled biscuit at his favourite table in the Atheneenm. As unquestion ably, the most detestable personage in the work is Stephen Morley, the Secretary of the Mowbray Tee total Association, and editor of the local newspaper. His infamy towards the conclusion o f th e narrative, when betraying his intimate friend in a kind of impish vengeance for the rejection of his suit by the daughter, is almost too pai n f u l f or con t em plation. Even the minor characters introduced, such as Mother Carey the costerrnonger, or as Mr. St. Lys the good vicar of Mowbray, or as Harriet the child of the handloom weaver, are occcasion ally sketched with a singularly nice discri mination.. Among these, is pleasantly conspicuous Sir Vavasour Firebrace, ever enthusiastic in his ad. vocacy of the rights of baronets, and ever babbling about his badge, his collar of SS, his sword, his gilt spurs, and his plume of white feathers. Pre eminently distinguishable, however, in the midst of an the motley figures crowded i❑ artistic groupes into the canvass are—the younger brother of Lord Marney, the gentle-hearted and chivalric Charles Egremont, and Sybil (with whom he is of course ultimately united), queen-like in beauty, and angelic in benefi cence, wandering through regions of crime and squa lor, attended only by Harold the bloodhound. Al though the writer discourses at times, as the nature of his undertaking required, about t waddlers like Botnbastes Rip, and about such themes of tedium as debates in the House, when " Wisby is up, and Washy follows," the narrative repeatedly becomes in vested with an absorbing interest, rising at inter- vacs into a strain - of solemn and pathetic eloquence. The closing passage of the first book, relating to the young Queen's accession is, in this manner, elevated to the dignity of a noble and affecting peroration. Enthralling though other in cidents in the fiction undoubtedly are, such, for ex- ample, as the quarrel between Lord Marney and his brother Egremont, or as the frightful scene in the Tommy shop kept by Diggs, where an unfortunate boy falls a victim to Master Joseph's tyranny, or as the yet more frightful scene where this same Tommy shop and its keepers are burnt in a spirit of hideous retribution, the most powerfully described of all is that relating to the crowning misfortunes of Sybil (B. IV., c. 4), beginning " The clock of St. John's Church struck three, and the clock of St. John's Church struck four; and the fifth hour sounded from St. John's Church ' • and thq clock of St. John's was sounding six—and Gerard bad not yet returned." His daughter is waiting for him in their lodgings in Westminster, panic-stricken lest some calamity may have befallen the leader of the popular movement. After an odious interview with Morley, followed by the consequences already mentioned, Sybil, maddened with fear for her father, goes in search of him to warn him against some impending calamity. Accompanying her in her midnight expedition through the streets of London, the reader watches the course pursued by Sybil with a feeling of breathless trepidation. Every circum stance in her progress appears at first environed with impassable and insurmountable difficulties, from the impertinence of the waiter in the Coffee-house kept by Tanner, where she is at length reluctantly directed to " 22, Hunt street going out of Silver-street," or from the cab wheel flying off in the centre of one of the most abandoned rookeries, to the proposition made by Splin terlegs and and Hell-fire Dick to carry her away to Mother Poppy s, until her despairing cjacula. tion, " 0 holy virgin aid me !" secures for her the assistance of a poor Irishman whose heart warms on discovering in her a sister 'Catholic. The passionate interest of the whole adventure is ab sorbing, up to the arrest of Maclast, Wilkins, aad Gerard, and their conveyance, together with Sybil, to the Bow -street Police-station. As a climax to the tragic occurrences in the story, comes the general riot leading to the incursion of the mob into Mow bray-park and their attack upon Mowbray Castle, where Morley is killed in the inuniment room, a n d Lord Marney stoned to death at the head of his yeomanry. While the building is still roaring and crackling in the flames, Sybil is rescued by Egre mont. Such are the romantic and yet homely ele ments of which the fiction is composed—a fiction which has legibly stamped upon it the imprint of an age the matrix of which was a revolution. There was a wonderful felicity in the very motto affixed to the titlepage of Sybil, a sentence culled from old Bishop Latimer, "The Commonalty murmured, and said, There never were so many Gentlemen, and so little Gentleness.' " It was one among the bitt e rest evils of t he time, an d one therefore to which the novelist did wisely, as we ll a , _ genercusli , 41 giving utterance. instead of effecting JUNE 7, 1852. this, moreover, by setting class against class, he ac• complished his purp eie more effectually by imparting simultaneously to the poor and the rich a better ap • preciation of each other —revealing the pure in the midst of the sordid and the heart under the ermine, Returned to the House of Commons, at the general election of 1847, as knight of the shire for Bucking ham, Disraeli, in the same year, published his novel of Tancred, otherwise called " The New Crusade," a work expressing some of his most cherished views upon religion and some of the loftiest among his po litical aspirations. Incongruous though its materiels were, and though they were in some measure con nected somewhat inartistically, the work nevertheless commanded attention by its singularity, while it won respect by its enthusiasm. Beginning with the " chefs de cuisine" of Mayfair, with Papa Prevost and his Pupil t Leander, the story wanders off to su c h g mighty and puissant personages as George the Duke p aje or d sn l z i , 40thfariiie, the Duchess of Bellamont, in the • 1 , !: , s ose only son is discovered the hero Tancred, Marquess of Mentacute. Thereupon, rov 'ng into the hi g h circles, where we are again intro duced to several of our' favourites in " Sybil" and " Coniogshy," the thread T the narrative strays off departure formo among Palestine, into-the remoteness of - the ° A Asiatic ild . Con spicuoust he transmuted into a sarcasoaTtnrcaics f i ny l l t e i a s h a rd r a a e. 76 t d f , l a ac s o to c whi f ew tah s yt ' E o ' k d c s h e .a e l : Te n : I: : : , b s, S b e t l d ' r b o e a r es n e cc g or o ti m n b l Edith—strangely in a sentence and phrase." In the employment of this two-fold capacity a author himself prove: personify proficient. as satirist, the more than ever Valentine, for example, he depicts 4,w a n her after a e ft f er L t a n d i y s and once been amusing fashion, as a personage a beauty, with the reputation of a wit, up for behag a wit on th e reputation of havinghhbewenseat beauty;" while of Lady Hampshire heoontents him self with remarking that she " spoke in a sawne y voice of factitious enthusiasm ." As a c oup l e of titled "parvenus," Lord and Lady Mount joy are in like manner branded as persons " who, with a large fortune, lived i n a wrong square, and asked to th e i r house everybody, who was nobody." Colonel Brace is humorously de lineated as " robust, a little portly, but, well-buckled, still presenting a grand military figure," while the clever and beautiful Lady Constance Rawleigh, who is said to have "guanoed her mind with French novels," is described as having possessed the reputation of " breathing scorpions as well as brilliants and roses." Even Hillel Besso, although an Asiatic, and, what is more, a Caucasian, does not escape the accusation of " uttering common-places, as if they were poignant originalities." It is in the more serious portions of the romance, however, that its principal attraction is discoverable, where the writer illustrates anew with an impassioned and persuasive rhetoric hie sympathies for that sacred and ancient race of whose descendants he had already mournfully asserted that they had too long " laboured under the odium and stigma of me dieeval malevolence." His veneration for the memory of his forefathers may surely be compre hended by those who, like the Gentile nations of Christendom, are indebted to the Hebrew prophets for the light, and the music, and the poetry of so many august revelations. Remind ing his readers how profoundly they are under obli gations to the children of the Chaldean Abraham, the author, himself a descendant of the Sephardim, conducts his hero to the tomb where the Prince of the house of David has for eighteen centuries been adored by pilgrims from the remotest quarters of the earth, in Jerusalem. Tancred adventures upon his "new crusade," impelled by a sense of those lofty Asian principles which Disraeli had already designated as "of divine origin and of universal and eternal ap plication." His exploits carry him not only into the desert but into Damascus, bringing him into contact with the Druse, and the Bedoueen, and the Maronite, besides conducting him to the mountain palaces of the Lebanon, and at last even as far as the secluded cities of the Ansayrii. By a singular coincidence, almost immediately after the appearance of " Tan crecli" a young officer in the British Navy, the Hon. Frederick Walpole, penetrated for the first time those regions which had been hitherto inexorably closed against an European. Describing the Ansayrii principally, therefore, if not altogether, from conjecture, the novelist acquitted himself of the task with sagacity. Sometimes, however, his guesses at the reality have proved, of course, erro neous ; as, for instance, in reference to the theology of the Syrian Chinese. The worship of the Ansayrii appears unhappily to be somewhat more obscene than that which would have induced them to adore, ac cording to the graceful supposition of Disraeli, the beautiful and majestic divinities of Olympus. As an episode to the main story, the his tory of the Family of Baroni is eminently ingenious, developirig at once the idea of Sidonia's character and of the importance of the Hebrew race— ubiquitous in spite of persecution, and flourishing al though expatriated—that venerable race, out of which grew originally, like the leaves, and the flowers, and the fruit of a tree, the virtues, and the precepts, and the beneficence of Christianity. " Nalla eilva talem profErt Fronde, flute, germine I" Principally because of its earnest advocacy of the race of his progenitors, " Tancred" may be said to have confirmed rather than extended its author's reputation. Its abrupt conclusion destroyed the interest it might otherwise have retained; insomuch that, in spite of their beauty, little is cared, on closing the last volume, for either va or Astarte, the destinies of the heroines being left altogether in a state of indecision. In 1849 a Life of Isaac Disraeli appeared as an in troductory chapter to his delightful " Curiosities of Literature." Although of course necessarily brief, restricted, indeed, within the compass of a moderate pamphlet (pp. 63), it constitutes one of the most charming of all our author's compositions. A s a tribute to the memory of a father, declared to have been without" a single passion or prejudice," it se cures a respect which, before the concluding pa ssages are read, has become heightened into admiration. At the commencement of this literary biography, the memorialist has written, among others, two golden sentences, true in significance and beautiful in ex pression—" The pen is a weapon as puissant as the sword "_" A book may be as great a thing as a battle" —reminding us that the life of Sholtspere, for example, would not be less interesting or less valuable than that of Alexander. After recounting how his father, before the age of fifteen, had dipped in Bayle and Voltaire, remaining for an interval at Amsterdam, under a tu.or, who was " a great impostor," the biographer records the return of Isaac Disraeli to England, when eighteen—a disciple of Rousseau. Here, moreover, is mentioned that touching incident so simply and yet so exquisitely told, of the poem submitted to the judgme.it of Dr. Johnson by the future author of the " Curiosities of Literature." It occurred after his return in 1788 from his travels in France — when he left the manuscript himself, at Bolt-court, in the hands of Mr, Francis Barber, the Doctor's black servant, and on calling a week later for the reply, had the packet returned unopened. Isaac Disraeli was informed that the Doctor was too ill to read any communication. Ile paned out into Fleet street, anxious and doubtful. "Alas !" exclaims 1 his son in recounting the circum stance, " the cause was too true ; and a few weeks after, on that bed beside which the voice of Mr. Burke fal tered,f nquitted Langton ,a se nvearvdigitlhaent,tethnedegrreat spirit so o soul of f J ohnson earth." By this graceful memorial of Disraeli the Elder, Disraeli the Younger proved himself emi nently qualified in a literary sense, to produce in 1851 his latest work, entitled Lord George Bentinck: a political biography. During several years previously he had qualified himself, in other respects, to compile a volume consisting chiefly of the record of events in which he himself bad prominently participated. Aosup porter of Sir Robert Peel's Government for some time, he ultimately withdrew from the encour , a a ge o m r e g n a t ai o z f e - a d Cabinet which he boldly reprobated 114 "an n hypocrisy." It was not so much the policy com menced in 1842 which estranged him from those who s till owned allegiance to that illustrio us statesman, as it was the very method, according to which, in 1834, by his celebrated Tamworth Manifesto, Sir Robert m ay be said to have created the system of it Conser vatism. Alluding to that document, Disraeli observed in Coningsby (Book 11., c. 5) that " an attempt to construct a partywithoutprincipwle a s s ; administrati veb . its basis, theref o r e , was necessarily Latitudina rianism bee and d e l i t i s t y .”Instead of inevitable consequence aan b Political ; Infi experiment lik e th a t, h e deelared be enamour e d w i t h t h e Toryism "bre a th e d i n the intrepid eloquence and ier patriot himself fl to William Wyndha m ," th e believed to b e " vindicated 37 i ll ism which he golden sen tences" by the "f erven t argutnenta and ; logic " of B o li ng b ro k e . S m i tten with laorrivepafossriotaheids i b d e e: b l y of tb h e is v p e o r l y iti s c e a o l se da o y f -dreams, incited it may his enterprize, the Member for brilliancy:Buek Buckingham am daring o oal o! mencA in 1844 those memorable attacks upon the Prime lSlinister which eventually led to his retirement from the administration. attack F, in which every For the acerbity of these since the death of his great antagonist sentence had the point of t ar! epigram, Disraeli has magnanimously t tribute to his genius, expressed Yet —as , . in the language of ad miration. y c o a rn g p e e n u e s r a4o s Wilmot says in the Comedy — "'Gad, if I were a i statesman ' I'd rather, instead, Nave the epitaph living—the' epigram dead." Howbeit, those passages in the political biography o f Lord George Bentinck in which the character of Sir Robert Peel is discriminated, are scarcely less ad mirable than th e port i ons o f the same w ork relating to the gallant -hearted and chivalrous leader of the Protectionists. If there is one peculiarity, however, more conspicuous than anothe r in the tempera ment of the present Chancellor o f the Ex chequer) i t is that p o f a magnanimous ap preciation of his P a rliamentary antagonists. Witness this, not mer e ly his - panegyri c on Sir Robert m Peel, but hi s no bl e eu l og i um on Lord Pal erston in one of the chapt ers o f " T ancred, " and hi ff a graceful but earnest enco m i um on Mr. Hume in the earlier r pages of of his latest comp os it ion . A s t h e utterance of ship for one pr e m a t ure ly snatc h e d from life,thisenvo lume must be regard e d in th e lit erature of politics' poets were not less touchingly comm emora ti ve t h an, in were the " Lycidas " of Milton, th e " Adonais " Shelley, or the " In Memoriam" of Tennyson. Among the miscellaneous productions of Disraeli— besides the opening number of a daily newspaper, under his editorship, entitled The Representative— must be enumerated, of course, his electioneering Addresses to his Constituents, arid those Speeches deli vered in the House of Commons which were subse quently revised for separate publication. From these, hardly less frequently than from his more pretentious effusions, might be culled evidences of his genius as a wit, and his ability as a satirist. Several of his ready phrases—nicknames, soine of them as humorous as those of O'Connell, without revealing the slightest tincture of vulgarity—have stuck like burrs in the popular remembrance. In this manner his allu sion to Lord Melbourne as "The Arch Me diocrity," has not been forgotten, any more than his mock respectful reference to a well-known annalist—(according to some more vo.lumineus than luminou , )—as "Mr. 'Wordy the Historian." Neither is his epithet for Italicised Writers, that of "The Forcible Feeble:," lost to recollection, any more than his calling the Derby " The Blue Ribbon of the Turf," or his designating Hansard "The thinciad of Politici." Not unfrcqueutly, moreover, the sparkling sentence will be found accompanied by some other of a more sober complexion thoughtful. and sententious. What can be finer in this respect, than that remark in " Conipgsby" (B. VII, c. 2.), " Lire is too short to be little," or than that passage in " Sybil," where he terms the youth of a nation " the trustees of posterity ? " If we were required, however, to adduce a crowning testimony of our author's capacity as a wit—we should at once refer to that suggestion in " Tancred " v t i o o i n d o that h the attribute t o w o i t f h g a r l a l n i d t its vastness,grandeur, either (. • sae c 10) with which he follows up his lamenta tion architectural. It " a great city after a reflection some- OMITS what similar to h' Rome of Conquest, Athens IV., 1), as Paris of Manners, London of Commerce, even now investing Faith. Whereupon, alluding o Art, and Jerusalem of to the possibility of of majesty, he write ad ministration of justice dates ere asw banged Bever achieved a great victory our r til ‘ s i The purest tion of Macclesfield. s ith well l e shot an ad miral. toyupre remark metropolis ofn .sino egreat previousrewati idea"Pwwag rhonalklPya i c oe e a a nc - t i .t Eve : from the deposi tion. as P c”ompetie Suppose Terror has an its architect inspiration w Than this we know scarcely any more delightful example of wit—an example perfect o f it s k ind, being ductive of precisely that surprise whi c h i s declared pro_toe essential by the more subtle among our metaphysicians. In addition to the various writings already enume rated, there are others which, from internal evidence, tend to prove that Disraeli has given play to his industry under the shadow of the anonymous. H e has long been regarded as the reputed author of The Letters of Runnymede, of The Gallomania, and of The Spirit of Whiggism, together with other papers, which would seem to reveal his skill as a pate. phleteer. Any further development of these politico-literary capacities, it is to be feared, is hopeless, now that the writer of fiction for the people has been nominated a Privy Councillor by his Sovereign. The novelist has thrown aside the pen which was the wand of his divination, and has taken up instead the red box of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And while his literary admirers may have been regretting with Horace— " Cur perrdet niche fistula cum ly far his Parliamentary , followers were listening on the 30th of April, 1852—the year in which Benjamin Disraeli became a Cabinet Minister, and in which he was thereupon elected for the second time representative of the county of Buckingham—to his first, and, in many respects, masterly Financial State ment. Leader of the House of Commons, under the Derby Administration, the Right Hon. Gentleman is one of the most popular members in that the popular branch of Parliament. His interest is with the tyro . and his sympathy with the aspirant. As he has written of his own Sidonia" he liked to give ability of all kinds its scope : nothing was more apt to make him melancholy than to bear of persons of talent dying without having their chance"—he might have ; , written of himself with truth, if not altogether without arro gance, according to the feeling generally entertained in the Lower House of the Legislature. Beginning life as the son of a secluded scholar, Ben jamin Disraeli has already in the bloom of his maturity, by his own unassisted abilities, rendered himself so fir distinguished among the public men of our gene ration as to become Leader of the English House of Commons and, in many respects, the presiding intel lect in the councils of the British Government. To the superficial this might appear to be the crowting epoch of a career, marked throughout rather by its successes than by its vicissitudes. The discerning, however, must view it, on the contrary, as a com.: mencement instead of a consummation. The man of letters who has fixed the attention of his contempo- raries may now secure to himself the grateful re membrance of posterity—by revealing sagacity as a statesman and patriotism as an administrator. Master bis position, he has at this moment within his grasp a rare and gulden opportunity. Kt VT. HIYMARKET "THEATRE. -- - A piece of unadulterated, extravagant, screaming fun was produced on Saturday evening under the extraordinary appellation of Keeley worried by . Buckstone. The ecstacy of the audience was unmeasured, being testified by continuous roars of laughter from beginning to end. The i n t ense mini _ calitv of the thing re.ulted from the oddity of Keeley and BuAstone personating themselves, appearing in their own individualities on the stage. The former is the victim, the latter the tormentor. The victim being aggrieved by the vigilant imposition of a fine, for politely inquiring how much the prompter—a great authority, in the French s ense of the, semi-hermitical solitude in word, behind the scenes—would charge for being called a muff secedes from a theatre, and gives himself up to the enjoy ment of a species of pastoral and Brornpton-square. Where Mrs. Keeley is we do not for a moment dare to inquire; but if she does not appear, Mr. Buckstone does, and dire is the uproar lie contr b iv y e a s ; love to a lady out of Mr. Keeley's windows—respecting which what is Mrs. Keeley possibly to think ?_altering the conveyance whole disposition of Mr. Keeley's furniture in the most o h f er in —and the ' a fly, in broker's•mandike fashion; flinging things out of window, seo,, Reelev's which causes Mr. Keeley to be summoned t %le r rk ead a e s r J police; causing that small but intrepid comedian to that he has been struck deaf—" i poor deaf devil'" I, ‘ making believe to speak and not utter a word ; a n d , fin --- -/ being challenged by the justly-indignant Keeley to ally, themselves le B le ir t . tight a which l oncecei s t l ( ,: r e i l i - b e r i o d u g t e s — i d e m , t e i % s o t witness to be, a noted old cock-pheasant 1 principal Jacob these : e r r t r i s a t n s , t, with sus t a t i h n e addit glorious stage frolic, which web elieve has imagine. This Mr. Mark Lemon and Mr. Webs:er, must bean concocted b preciated, and is sure to attract crowds ' be seen to be y to the Haymarket. for Dart , aP y an evening HER MAJFSTY's THEATRE —Her Roy the Duchess of Kent, attend Suffield, Lady presence. ier iai.jieesrt Fanny Howard,pSerirfoGraleoarngeeeo:tir, ed____7___........bv Lady al Highness and Lord James Murray, Saturday evening, with her honoured the the Duchess of Cambridge high ness the Princess Mar ', ccompanied by her Royal yof Cambridge,also h tired the theatre with her presence .. Their Loyal Ilighnesses were attended " this Occasion. . ~_ Y R 's oy T al h gi tte ne ° s a s Royal Highness the D by the Baron lineseheck% l ?-!! uke of Cambridge,attended by Major the HAI. James Macdonald Amongst the noble and distinguished individuals also presen s t a . ing the theatre were the following :—HisGreco also ke vi of we . 13 Ili gton and the Marquis of Ailesbur 2theßighttnell-n. the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Blra Y ß. Disraeli, the Duke and Dnchess of Bedford, the Dukeand Duchessf Leinster, the Duke of Cleveland, the M . d the Marquis of arquis of Clanricar e, the Earl and Donegal, the AI h arc ioness of conYnhgalu , I Countess of S tamford. the Earl o f L o nsda e, the Earl the Earl and Countess of Glengall. the Earl of Shelburne , Mountcharle, r he Secre the Right Hon. t - iscount Anson, tary for Foreign Affairs, and the Countess of Malmesbury, Lord Ward, B.r.c. , 8-PARE • ROYAL B OT A NI CAL GARDEN:, REGENT The second e x hibiti on of American flowers took place at these consequence of the unfavourable gardens on Saturday. In conseeious ,i - days of exhibition, the state of the weather on the previous attended than is usually gardens on this occasion wenre,ays. The great attraction of the case upon the Americars,a was the collection of rhododen the day, in respect of flowers, not yet fully blown, were drons and azaleas, which,The fragrance of the different flowers exceedingly beautiful in bloom was delicio us. Amongst the company p re se n t were the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Stam ford and Warrington _ L i eu tenant-General Sir Joh n Doveton, Lady March, Si r I. Murchison, Major-General Bourchier, p hes t e r, Lord Blaney, Lady Desert, Lady the Bishop '' of ordShelburne, Sir Charles Slingsbv, Lieute- Adela Norton, L ir _. E•Bowater, Hon. Lady Hislop, * Sir James nant-General S• ' Lushingto, , B:.c. r MR. ROEBUCK. •-- Our readers will ILLIsEss °- with a measure of regret which cannot exceed that learn ° with w hich we slake the melancholy announcement ,— that Mr. Roebuckanxiet y is so seriously ill as to create no small the partof his friends. Under the most the resu lt on , a s to c ircumstances, itis to be feared that there is little favourable cir he Honourable Gentleman ever again being probability of t . or public pro- e the active duties of Parliamentary a ble to resume to bean visited with a pare a He has, we are sorry say, life- which, at any rate for the present, entirely Iy tic affection, un fits him for attending to business of any kind. —Advertiser, SELOUs ' PICTURE OF TUE GREAT EXHIBITIO'N.— deserved well a vivid reproduction The opening ceremony . this painted • tthe • linnier's art, amid in picture, a in by the f Messrs. Lloyd, Brothers, and Co., all is accomplished stthsantceco°uld be desired. A group of nearly 100 illustrious persons is set before us as palpably as on the m emora b le Ist of May. As a painting, few will deny their weed o f appro bation; but probably more will look critically at the por traits, and these, we Tenture to affirm, will bear their strict est scrutiny. All have been taken at sittings kindly given, from her Majesty downwards, and the result is not alone a tine work of art, but a memorial valuable because truthful. The Master and Wardens of the Mercers' Company have invited General Sir Harry Smith to dine with them, at their hall, early in the ensuing month. ArPROACHING MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.—We We are enabled to announce that the preliminaries are arranged for a matrimonial alliance between the Right Hon. H. Labouchere, M P ---- o and the amiable and accomplished 1 Lady Mary Howard, yo ungest s i ster o f the Duchess of ' §l4eil4lld.