The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-08-26 00:00:00

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

The Athenceum Rays :—" Whether the motive of Mr.
Dipaeli in retiring to the House of Lords were per-
sonal or political, there is no room for doubt that he
contemplated the movement nearly half a century ago.
In a passage of The Young Duke' he boldly an-
nounces the intention he has fulfilled before our eyes.
Mr. Disraeli, however, is one of those, of whom Prince
Bismarck is another, whose frankness in declaring their
intentions is often so emphatic that people at the time
find it difficult to believe in the sincerity of their utter-
ance. So long ago as the year 1829, in the juvenile pro-
duction alluded to, will be found (Book v., chapter 6)
what, by the light we now have, must be regarded as a
remarkable passage. It does not come from behind
the mask of one of the characters of the novel, but
from the author in his own person, in criticizing the
orators of the day, and discussing the difference appro-
priate to the two Houses of Parliament. The audacity
of the phrase if I have time' approaches sublimity
'One thing is clear, that a man may speak very well
in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in
the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles
requisite. I intend, in the course of my career, if I
have time, to give a specimen of both. In the Lower
House, Don Juan' may, perhaps, be our model; in
the Upper House, Paradise Lost."
The Field says :—" As the leader of what is some-
times called the Country Party—for the simple reason,
we suppose, that all who have a considerable stake in
the country are interested in the preservation of their
possessions, and, therefore, to some extent dislike
change—it is somewhat singular that Mr. Disraeli
should in so many respects be so completely the oppo-
site of those who are supposed to put their faith in
him, and that nevertheless, in spite of this drawback,—
for such it must be held to he,—he should yet main-
tain his hold over them. The Premier has often
essayed the rte of a country gentleman, and he has acted
the part with his accustomed cleverness. He has
talked knowingly at agricultural meetings of Oxford
Down sheep, and he has summed up the wants of
the farm labourer in the three essentials—a tank,
a porch, and an oven; but, for all this, there is
very little of the country squire about him. His
tastes and pursuits are not those that give a man an
influence and a position in rural society. He does not,
we believe, hunt, shoot, or fish, nor are we aware that
he was ever a rroficient in the manly pastimes which in
these days engross so much of the time of our golden
youth. In Mr. Disraeli's youth the taste for manly
pursuits, which has increased with the facilities for
following them that wealth gives, was by no means so
general as it is now, and he had made his mark before
the era of muscular Christianity had set in. Con-
sequently, the disedvantages which his education had
placed him under were not such barriers to his advance-
ment as they would now be. The same argument
applies with almost equ Al force to his great rival, whose
only physical relaxation known to the public is that of
felling trees."