The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-26 00:00:00

MR. DISRAELPS GENERAL PREFACE.

MR, DISRAELI, the novelist, has written his apo-
logia. It is so interesting that we should like to
have the apologia of Mr. DISRAELI the politician. It
is in the latter capacity, far more than in the former,
that there is room for explanation, However, let us
be grateful for what we have, and hope for more
another day. We are grateful. We are pleased to
find that Mr. DISR kELI is So well pleased. A
man who has had five thousand favourable criticisms
in the United States, to say nothing of a good many
hundreds in the United Kingdom, must, one would
have supposed, have been surfeited with this fare.
But there was one critic, whose eulogy Mr. DISRAELI
desired to have, to wit, Mr. DISRAELI. And so we
find him contemplating with serene satisfaction
the " eminent personage" who has amused
and instructed British youth. There is a
MORDECAI in the gate, however; more than one, we
fear, for we are told that "there are critics who,
abstractedly, do not approve of successful books, par-
ticularly if they have failed in the same style" (the
reader of " Lothair " will recognise in these words
the sarcastic description of the critics in that novel) ;
"social acquaintances also of lettered taste, and
especially contemporaries whose public life
has not exactly realised the vain dreams
of their fussy existence, would seize the
accustomed opportunity of welcoming with affected
discrimination about nothing, and elaborate contro-
versy about trifles, the production of a friend; and
there is always, both in politics and literature, the
race of the Dennises, the Oldmixons, and Curls, who
flatter themselves that by systematically libelling
some eminent personage of their times, they have a
chance of descending to posterity; but, so far as lam
concerned, they have always been disappointed."
Let the galled jade of the Quarterly Review wince!
Our withers are un wrung. We have always enjoyed
Mr. DISRAELI'S novels, not excepting even that
"Vivian Grey" of whom its author speaks so
slightingly.
When Mr. DISRAELI comes to describe the objects of
his novels we are taken aghast. We had always
read them for amusement, and now we find that they
are recondite works full of theology, philosophy,
and science, besides politics, and intended for our
edification. True, there used to be disquisitions about
the Semitic race; but then we used to skip these.
Yet now we find that these were the real substantial
portions of the book, and that the love-making and the
political manoeuvring were all by the way. There is one
long paragraph in this apologia which fairly takes our
breath away. We find in it the following distin-
guished persons mentioned—GALlLEO, lIIIIPPAR-
CHUS, NEWTON, KEPLER, COPERNICUS, PYTHA-
GORAS, THALES, EPICURUS, also the pro-
cession of the equinoxes and the atomic
theory. All these in one paragraph out
of 26, and those 26 a preface to the novels that we
used to treat so irrevently ! Henceforth we shall
never dare to open the pages of " Coningsby,"
"Sybil," and " Henrietta Temple," for we feel that
we dare no longer be amused, and we are too old to
learn.— Western Morning News.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.