The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-30 00:00:00

MR. DISRAELI AND " LOTHATR."

The controversy over Mr. Disraeli's novel grows more
fierce and bitter as it proceeds. It was always so with
everything Mr. Disraeli did. People set to work tearing
and rending each other about him in a way which some
times suggests the thought that a sinister influence is
exercised in Mr. Disraeli's lot, and that he is doomed to
be a " bone of contention " all his life. Blackwood's Maga-
zine has signalised itself by publishing an attack on him
which journals of all parties concur in describing as infa-
mous. The Spectator is an old foe of Disraeli, but even that
protests with energy ag-ainst the freshly furbished-up in-
sults directed against the Conservative leeder on the score
of his Jewish extraction. " Sprinkling vitriol," says
the Spectator, "is not war, but attempted murder; and
the practice should be left to the ruffianly lads who in-
vented it, not as a weapon, but as a means of insulting
the weak." The truth is that the vile attack in Black-
wood bears internal evidence of being the work of a man
whom Mr. Disraeli once °ailed a literary louse!"—a most ob-
jectionable epithet, we admit, but it was generally thought
at the time to be very descriptive, like most of the Dis-
raelian epithets, of the person on whose back he pasted.
it. The parasite " in question never forgave Mr. Dis-
raeli, and it is pretty clear that he has been trying to pay
off his old score in Blackwood. At such a moment an
article conceived in a very different spirit in the forth-
coming number of Putnam's Magazine, will be read
withinterest by the public. It corrects two
or three popular misconceptions relating not only to Mr.
Disraeli's latest novel, but to his life and character. The
writer in Putnam is able to express an intelligent opinion,
because he has obviously been at the pains to make him-
self acquainted with the facts concerning Mr. Diwaeli's
life, and with his speeches and writings. Many in this
country have taken up a cry against Mr. Disraeli at
second hand. They have accepted the aspersions of his
enemies as facts fully proved—not knowing or
not remembering that this man is more
bitterly hated in England than any living
statesman. He has offended the aristocracy
by treating them with scorn. He has of-
fended his own party, the Tories, by constantly
advocating liberal measures. People here forget
that England is indebted for the last Reform Bill
to Mr. Disraeli. The English Tories, however, will never
forget or forgive it. The Liberals do not like him because
he is too clever, and is fond of exposing any " shams " in
which they may be interested. Thus it happens that in
England Mr. Disraeli is friendless, so far as the press is
concerned. Every new writer begins his career with an
attack on " Dizzy. This may be deemed fair play in
England, but in this country it would only be natural for
people to inquire for themselves into Mr. Dis-
raeli's career before joining in the hue and cry
after him. The able writer of the article in
Putnam has done this, and the result is that he
has produced the best criticism of " Lothair " which has
yet appeared in any of our periodicals. He points out
that the novel " suggests, where it does not positively
embody, the results of well-nigh half a century of hard
thinking on all the perplexing proplems that have
entered into the recent political and religious
agitations of England and of Europe." On one point
only is the writer mistaken. He is under the impression
that Mr. Disraeli took side against the North in
the recent rebellion. The truth is that he
carefully avoided this error. While Mr. Glad-
stone was declaring that " Jeff. Davis had made a
nation," Mr. Disraeli was treating the question
in a spirit worthy of a responsible public man.
Perhaps the certificate given by Mr. Bright on this point
will satisfy even the most implacable opponents of Dis-
raeli. In a speech delivered in the House of Commons
on March 13, 1865 Mr. Bright told the Tory party to
" learn from the example set them by the right hon.
gentleman, (Mr. Disraeli.) With a thoughtfulness and
statesmanship which you do not all acknowledge, he did
not say a word likely to create difficulties with the
United States. I think his chief (Lord Derby) and his
followers might learn something from his example."
People have objected to " Lothair " on the ground that it
" toadies" the British aristocracy. That shews how tho-
roughly they have misunderstood the book, and how
ignorant they are of all that relates to Mr. Disraeli. He
has been " chaffing" the aristocracy all his life, and he
renews the pastime in " Lothair." Do those who accuse
him of worshipping rank remember that he refused a
peerage the other day—a peerage pressed upon him by the
Queen herself? Do they forget that when he was Premier
everybody in England went about making merry over the
way in which Mr. Disraeli " snubbed the Duke ?" Did
he not dismiss the Lord Chancellor much as other people
turn kitchen maids out of their employment ? The
Spectator disposes of the charge we have referred to in a
passage which we commend to the notice of those who
call " Lothair " " snobbish

"As to his snobbishness, if there is a speciality in his
intellect, which shines out in every book he ever wrote,
it is his deep concentrated scorn for those parochial gran-
dees, these county magnates, aered up to their lips, con-
soled up .to their chins,' his certainty that their one real
claim to distinction is their cash. He has said over and
over again that they are barbarians, men without blue
blood, who `did not conquer the land and do not defend
it, and who are, as in " Lothair," feeble dandies as to
ideas, as their forefathers were feeble dandies as to dress ;
who ' excel in athletic sports, speak only one language,
and never read.' So deep is this scorn, so
incisive, and so peculiar in tone—for it is not,
the reviewer will pardon us for saying, the scorn
of envy, but rather the scorn of a white noble for a
Hindoo rajah, of a Chinese mandarin for a white officer,
a scorn leading each to exaggerate ceremonial reverence
to the other—that it has been attributed to Mr. Disraeli's
aristocratic pride, pride in the only pedigree except that
of the Roman nobles, and perhaps that of the Boreish,
which in his eyes has any validity, any claim to the pre-
ferential reverence of mankind, to a certain loathing of
men so meanly born as the Percies or the Seymour Um-
ways whom he has held up to ridicule."
Perhaps the article in " Putnam's " may lead some
people to read "Lothair " again in an intelligent manner.
If it also induces the readers of the novel to study Mr.
Disraeli's life for themselves, the writer will have served
the cause of justice, without injuring the cause of liberal
ideas.—New York Times.

It has been remarked that in the adverse division
on the Irish Land Bill, which took place in the House of
Lords on Monday night, the Bishops of Carlisle, Chester,
Chichester, Down, Exeter, and Manchester voted with
the Government. No prelate went into the lobby with
the Opposition.

A RASH VENTURE.—The City of Ragusa, an ar-
gosy twenty feet long, manned by two sailors and a dog,
and bound on a voyage across the Atlantic to New York,
has put into Queenstown for repairs, having sprung a leak.
It is to be hoped the necessary plugging will give the ad-
venturers on board time for consideration, and that they
.will abandon their foolhardy purpose. If they meant to
risk their lives in a new attempt to find a convenient
North-western passage, there would be some justification
for the enterprise. But as it is, the voyage is simply an
outrage upon the confiding nature of the Newfoundland
dog.-1V ew York Times.
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