The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-13 00:00:00

THE REVIEWERS OF "LOTHAIR."

The London correspondent of the Glasgow herald
says the slashing criticism of Mr. Disraeli's book contained
in this month's Blackwood has been written by Mr. Law-
rence Oliphant, author of the recent " Piccadilly Sketches,"
and a well-known contributor to the Tory magazine. Mr.
Oliphant, who became known to fame by the record of
his travels in connection with Lord Elgin's mission
to China, entered Parliament as the representative
of the Stirling Burghs, having been elected at the general
election which took place immediately preceding Lord
Palmerston's death. A sudden whim, partly occasioned
perhaps by ill-health, caused him shortly after entering
Parliament to resign his seat, and he departed for America,
where he was next-heard of as one of the founders of a
new sect, whose peculiar principles seem to have been
a combination of religion and farming. Here he was for
some time, entirely lost to high-class society, of which he
had once been an influential member, and what little
was heard of him merely revealed the fact that he
was leading a life of traneemos....t.3. -
dine- Romance." tie v%ras---In o .e
forgotten in England, wlien, at the commencement
of the present year, his " Piccadilly Sketches " appeared
and brought him more prominently before the public.
They were very bitter and slashing in their tone, and,
as they satirised the more glaring of our social evils, in
the cynical vein of a man who, having probed their
depths, and found them vanity, had retired into
the wilderness, where he could rail at them with
authority, the book became the town's talk, and was ex-
tremely popular at the fashionable libraries. One of the
strangest features in connection with this publica-
tion, however, remains to be recorded. Having written,
as it were, from -the heart of his solitude, in the
most caustic and condemnatory terms, of modern
fashionable society, Mr. Oliphant left America and
came over to London to hear what that society
which he had so strongly ridiculed had to say about his
book. He has been haunting the clubs for some time
since, and " Lothair" having been opportunely given to
the world whilst he was idling, he had the opportunity of
feeding fat his grudge, ancient and otherwise, upon Mr.
Disraeli, and writing a review, which, at all events, has
created a sensation.
The Standard says :—" Some of our readers may recol-
lect that from the time the Peelite section purchased the
Morning Chronicle apparently for the purpose of writing
Mr. Disraeli down, there were published in that paper
year after year invectives against that gentleman
which far overstepped all the limits _ of political
discussion. No one knew at the time who wrote
them ; they were ascribed to various individuals • but at
last it came out that the slashing writer was Goldwin
Smith, then a man comparatively unknown outside the
walls of Balliol. Surely the Oxford professor must have
forgotten, in his irritation at the " venomless story " of
" Lothair," for how many years he libelled Mr. Disraeli
with impunity and anonymously.
The Court Journal prints the following :—lt is said that
the onslaught on "Lothair," in Blackuood, is by Colonel
Hamley ; thearticle in Macmillan, whichmay be described
asßlackwood and water, is by Mr. Hayward, the editor of
the Quarterly Review; and the one in the Fortnighly, Mr.
Kerrison's. In the forthcoming Edinburgh there is to be
an article on "Lothair" by Lord Houghton.