The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-17 00:00:00

LITERA TURE.

Lord George Dentiack : a Politic?' Biography. fly 13.
DISRAELI, Member of Parliament fur the county of
Buckingham. Culburn and Co.
Mr. Disraeli has produced a work the merit of
which—though it is called a biography—is not at
all biographical: there is no picture of Bentinck
which Ilentinek's rural admirers can hang over their
mantelpieces. The book takes him up when he en-
tered politics, three years before his death, and deals
only with his public career. To be sure, it is called
a "political biography," but properly it is not a bio-
graphy at all. It is a long "parliamentary sum-
mary." It begins with corn, and ends in the middle
of sugar ; records all the political events of the time,
still fresh in our memory. Of these, Lord George's
career naturally becomes a part, and what he does
and says—his projects and his speeches—are part of
this narrative—as they would be of any other nar-
rative of the same period. We don't blame Mr.
Disraeli for writing any history he pleases. We
only say that the outline of lientinck, drawn for us
in this " biography," is a meagre one. Surely there
existed the materials of making a more lively,
loveable figure of this brave, energetic, English gen-
tleman. As it is, though we arc told continually of
his qualities, and hear in the story, of a hundred in-
teresting characteristics of him which we long to
see in the biographical mirror -the impression car-
ried away is but a vague, faint one. The
imago of the protectionist warrior wanders through
the Elysian fields of rhetoric bekre us. We recog-
nise the protectionist figure, indeed, but it vanishes
as we draw closer to it. Here, then, is the failure of
the book as a " biography," and it is just the one
which Bentinck's admirers must the most regret.
That he made gigantic atruggl, s that he went sud-
&nip into political training, and yet made such a won-
derful fight against the old hands—we all knew, and
with more or less admiration, admitted. It was the
biographer's part to give poetic life and personal
dramatic charm to this fighting figure. By only
dealing with him as apolitical character, and harping
on his leadership of the " great " country party, he
forces us to remember that his fight was unsuc-
cessful.
As a political narrative, this book possesses Dis-
raeli's usual charm of style—his style being one
which is both smart and stately. It is far from
being as brilliant and picturesque as he sometimes
is, but we don't know that he ever was inure dig-
nified or graceful. It begins with the gathering
storm of the close of 'l5; records in detail the events
of next year's eventful session :—indeed, this detail,
we may observe, is occasionally prolonged even to
tedium. 'rho hopes and fears and struggles of
protectionist gentlemen during Protections dying
hours arc so minutely prolonged, that you feel
that Protection ought to imitate Charles 11.
and aologise for the tardiness of its dissolution.
Promising young county members arc dragged front
the obscurity of past " Hansards," and receive the
writer's dignified encouragement. Indeed, we
may observe that throughout the volume a cer-
tain consciousness of increased importance of
the author is apparent. There is less of the gaiety
and vivacity of old days about Mr. Disraeli. His
style here is actually suffering from what Juaeph
Surfitcs• might call a plethora of respectability. If
he means to keep up his satirical fame, he will have
to adopt that worthy's advice to Lady Tea:le, and
" sacrifice his virtue to preserve his reputation
It has been complained that English literature is
deficient in biography, and that too often a dead hero
only begins to move about again in the capacity of a
" bore." If, indeed, he escapes this bodily transmi-
grntion, it only too frequently happens that lie ap-
pears, like hamlet's father, as u ghost. A dim
image of him only revisits us. The consciousness
of this want of all .personal reality—all pictorial
vividness—in biographical writing has been
so strongly felt within the last few years that a new
vitality has been given to the writing of lives. We
are now in a fair way to see biographers not dealing
with a man as if he was a fossil dodo. Forster's "Life
of Goldsmith " is both human and classical ; and it
was only the other day that Mr. Carlyle—a writer
whose genius is essentially biographical (for what are
his essays on individuals but little biographies?)—
showed us, that the life of an obscure man-of-letters
might be made as interesting as anything that
remains about Agamemnon or Alexander. NVlten Mr.
Disraeli writes his next " biography," he may per-
haps think of this.
In making sonic extracts we naturally avoid select-
ing those passages where the author expresses
known opinions of his own on matters daily dis-
cussed in another portion of our columns. Mr.
Disraeli has abundant opportunities of commu-
nicating such opinions to the public at large, and
in the present plentifulness of food in the country
—we can postpone sentimentalities about the landed
interest till there is something really to bewail.
We were nearly picking out a passage where the
stately march of the country gentlemen past Peel to
vote against him, almost rises into pathos, and in
which even Sir John Yarde Buller is invested with
a romantic melancholy. But this might disturb the
feelings., if it spared the gravity, of our readers, and
we begin by giving them a glimpse of Mr. Disraeli's
notions about
LoCIS PHILIPPE AND SIR It. PEEL.
About this time, Louie l'hilippe of Orleans, King of the
French, exercised a great influence over public affairs. This
prince had entirely identified himself with the Peel admi-
nistration. There existed between his Majesty and the
English minister not only a sentiment of sympathy but one
of reciprocal admiration. Each believed the other the
ablest man in their respective countries: their system of
government was the same, to divert the public mind from
political change by the seduction of physical enjoyment,
and to neutralise opinion in the pursuit of material pro-
sperity; finally, they agreed in another point, that their
tenure of power was as interminable as the nature of things
admitted, and that it was insured by mutual co-operation.
No one was more amazed and more alarmed by the
breaking up of the conservative government in November,
'id, than the King of the French. With the quickness of
perception which with him always seemed rather instinct
than thought, he instantly trembled before a long vista of
war and revolution. His fears of Lord Palmerston were
fed by all the diplomacy of Europe, and especially by
the connections of the late conservative cabinet, who
still hoped that the repugnance of the European courts
to the appointment of that minister might, in con-
junction with the domestic weakness of the whig party, yet
king back the game to Sir Robert. • • • • The ex-
citement of the King was very great on the return of Sir
Robert Peel to power. Ilia Majesty looked upon all the
intervening incidents which had occasioned him so much
disquiet and perplexity merely as dexterous tactics preli-
minary to a crowning triumph. Ile thought that the sove-
reign, the parliament, and the nation had combined to give
the minister carte blanche. A member of the British par-
liament who was then at Paris presume d, with great hunsi-
litK,itz question the tthhei4i,stntreno!: the. J. V. coil%
gusi?,nstiat
Sir
Robert you
will carry his measures ? "
" Yea sir."
" And what then ?"
" And then, sir, he will be turned out."
" Who is to turn him out? Lord John Russell has had
the offer, and has refused. I can tell you, the Duke of
Wellington says, the government is established. I remem-
ber," the King added, with a smile of confidence, "when
they said that Mr. Pitt would not remain in for six weeks,
and he was minister for 20 years."
The diffidence of his Majesty in the star of Sir Robert
Peel remained unfaltering until, at Ea-ter, he was apprised,
from a quarter that could not be deceived, that the admi-
nistration tottered.
Mr. Disraeli's allusions to Lord Bentinck's early
sporting pursuits arc not very frequent. The follow-
ing paragraph. however,seems to express with clever-
new his real relation to the turf:
Loma GEORGE AND THE TURF.
He could scarcely have quitted the turf that day without
a pang. He had become the lord paramount of that strange
world, so difficult to sway, and which requires for its go-
vernment both a stern resolve and a courtly breeding. He
had them both; and though the blackleg might quail
before the awful scrutiny of his piercing eye, there never
was a man so scrupulously polite to his inferiors as Lord
George Bentinck. The turf, too, was not merely the scene of
the triumphs of his stud and his betting-book. He had purified
its practice and had elevated its character, and he was
prouder of this achievement than of any other connected
with his sporting life. Notwithstanding his mighty stakes
and the keenness with which he backed his opinion, no one
perhaps ever cared less for money. His habits were severely
simple, and he was the most generous of men. He valued
the acquisition of money on the turf, because there it was
the test of success. He counted kis thousands after a great
rue as a victorious general counts his cannon and his pri-
soners.
We extract, also, from different parts of the vo-
lume, the author's observations on Lord George Ben-
tiuck's character which he necessarily had many op-
portunities of observing
INDUSTRY OF LORD GEORGE DINTINCK.
It should here perhaps be remarked as illustrative of the
capacity. of labour by which Lord George Bentinck was
distinguished, that the conduct of the sugar and coffee com-
mittee which seemed alone to require the devotion of his
time, did not prevent him from simultaneously acting as a
member of the secret committee on commercial distress of
which he was a regular attendant, and where ho examined
at great length the governor of the Bank of England. Nor

was he ever more regular in his attendance Nn the house
than throughout thi: laborious spring, always ready ha his
place to vindicate his own peculiar views or to assail those
who differed from hint whenever the opportunity muse. It
should also be recollected that every morning :before he at-
tended the committee he had preliminarily to receive at home
and to hear the statement: of those who were to give their
evidence, and whom in the great majority of instances he
had afterwards to examine in chief. None of the,e wit-.

nesse, left him without being impressed with admiration
and astonishment at his knowledge of the subject and the
perseverance which he displayed. Nor must it be omitted
that during all this period he was also laboriously digesting
the evilenee received, and preparing that ronarhahle re-
port which remains one of the most singular and valuable
productions of our parliamentary literature, pouring a flood
of light upon the position of our sugar colonies which they
never hail received, and which concluded with no less than
two hundred and thirty-four resolutions, in none of which
is there any repetition, sad in all of which are references to
the evidence where anythi-ig, however minute, is all god or
asserted. This was the per:Yl of his life when he was fre-
quently in the habit of working eiithteen hours a day.
That might indeed be said of llett:inck which Tully said of
Marcus Brutus, Quidquid cull, tatde cult.

OPINIONS Loin) GEORGE lIENTINCK.

Although he hail not much eustained his literary culture,
and of late years at any raw had nut given his mind to poli-
tical study, he had in the course of his life seen and heard a
great deal, and with profit. Nothing escaped his observa-
tion ; he forgot nothing and always thought. So it was
that on all the great political ikuestions of the day he had
arrived at conclusions which guided him. Ile always took
large views and hail no prejudices about things whatever ho
might indulge in as to peisons. lie was always singularly
anxious to acquire the truth and would spare no pains for
that purpose ; hat when once his mind was made up, it was
impossible to influence
In politics, he was a whig of 161, which became him,
modified however by all the experience of the present age.
He wished to see our society founded on a broad beds of
civil and religious liberty. He retained much of the old
jealousy of the court, but hail none of popular franchises.
He was fur the established Ina reh , but for nothing more,
and very repugnant to priestly domination. As fur
the industrial question, he was sincerely opposed
to the 3lluichester scheme, because lie thought that its full
development would impair and might subvert our territo-
rial constitution, which he held to he the real security of
our freedom, and because he believed that it would greatly
injure Ireland, and certainly dissolve our colonial empire.
Ile had a great respect for merchants, though he looked
with some degree of jealousy on the development of our
merely foreign trade. His knowledge of character qualified
him in a great degree to govern turn, and if some draw-
backs from this influence might be experienced in his too
rigid tenacity of opinion, and in some quickness of temper,
which, however, always sprang front a too sensitive heart,
great compensation might he found in the fact that there
probably never was a human being so entirely devoid of
conceit, and KO completely exempt trim selfishness. No-
thing delighted him more than to assist and advance others.
All the fruits of his laborious investigations were always
at the service of his friends, without reserve or self con•

ridcration. Ile encouraged them by making occasions for
their exertions, and would relinquish Ins own opportunity
without a moment's hesitation, if he thought the &Volition-
mews might aid a better man.
Although the principal interest of this work is ne-
cessarily purely political—perhaps we should rather
say merely parliamentary—Mr. Disraeli does not
leave us without those high generalisations in which
he dearly loves to indulge. The truth is—as all who
know his writings well know,—he is essentially a
sentimentalist. He has produced an epic as well its
epigrams. If he acts like " Vivian Grey," he also
dreams like " Contarini Fleming." And not satisfied
with parliamentary success, and the notoriety of a
brilliant man, his nature demands always some-
thing more lofty, more mysterious, than prac-
tical polities supply. Hence his dark allusions
to the " Asian mystery ;" his theories regarding
the Hebrew people, which once figure more remark-
ably than ever in Chapter Zith of the present work.
This book is not the place to discuss matters involving
ethnology and theology—op./cs particularly of thu
life of a most homely, straightforward English gen-
tleman ; and we put it to Mr. Disraeli whether it is
quite fair to look on the French Revolution as thu
" revolt of the Celts against the first and second tes-
tament ?" If he can pee nothing more in the changed
opinions of Europe Clan a " revolt of the Celts "—we
are sorry for him : to say that there is nothing mom
in them is to state what is scientifically untrue.
Let-us remark also that it shows no great consistency
to complain of the persecutions of Jews in one page,
and affect to undervalue the principle of religious
liberty in another. Nor is it fair to appeal
triumphantly in one book to Spinosa as
the father of modern philosophy, and a
noble specimen of the Ilebrew mind, and
then in another to charge the northern nations
with opposition to the religious principles pre-
. served by the Jews—when this very Spinosa Lacs
notoriously done more harm to the " Jewish tradi-
tion" than any modern writer. We have no wish to
• deny the intellectual merits of eminent Hebrews
more than those of any other people. But we aro
not to deduce wholesale results from a few cases.
Bunyan has been supposed to be of gypsey descent
by very good authorities; but nobody thinks of look-
ing for their superiors among the gypsey-eamps—
even on the strength of the "Pilgrims Progress."
Paradoxes easily slide into cants. And both am
out of place in a work like there psent—well written,
amiable in intention, and full of a certain class
of information.