The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-23 00:00:00

The Prime Minister's Novels.

Novels and Tales. By the Right Hon. Benjamin
Disraeli, M.P. The Disraeli Edition. Five
Volumes. Frederick Warne and Company.
A brilliant Novelist having become Prime Minis-
ter of England, small wonder that his publisher
should issue from the press a new edition of his
['ales and Romances. The occasion and coinci-
lence are alike exceptional. Literary First Lords
of the Treasury there have been, of course. The
two ex-Premiers, for eximple, are both of them
distinguished as Men of Letters. One of them,
indeed, has rendered himself illustrious, at once as
I scholar and as a pet, as a Greek scholar and as
.in English poet, by his noble version, in our Anglo-
iaxon tongue, of the grand heroic epic of the
Iliad." Other Prime Ministers before the two

iarls, before Lord Russell, the friend of Tons
[core, and before Lord Derby, the translator of

tiomer, have, to employ a hackneyed eupheuism,
3ultivated the fields of literature. Canning, indeed,
ong after sowing his literary au _1 political wild-
)ats in the fertile furrows of the Anti-Jacobin,
udulged his ineradicable predilection for rhyth-
,nical epigrams and rhyming jeu de'sprit, even to
the penning of instructions to a diplomatic agent in
the Netherlands. But there is no recorl, until
now, in the history at once of Politics and of Letters,
of a popular novelist winning first of all SUCCJS3
after success as a purely imaginative writer, and
afterwards as the sequel to a series of bril-
liant triumphs in the House of Commons as a
great master of Debate, as an Orator of the highest
distinction, and as the undisputed leader during
fully twenty years of the Tory Party, that is to
say of the party consisting chiefly of the country
gentlemen of England, winning his way to the
very pinnacle of power by assuming his place upon
the Treasury Bench as the First Minister of the
Crown, or, in other words, as the Head of Her
Majesty's '4G-overnment. This exceptional distinc-

tion has, as• we all know well enough, been achieved
by the now First Lord of the Treasury, the
right hon. gentleman the member for Buckingham-
;hire. With his achievements as a politician,
however, with his position as a statesman, with
his eminence as a debater, with the power and
splendour of his oratory, with the pig fancy of his
rhetorical sarcasms, with his consummate skill as a
Parliamentary tactician, with his inexhaustible
energy, whether in attack as leader of the Opposi-
tion or in defence as leader of the Adtuinistration,
we have here nothing whatever to do. It is, in
another sense than ordinary, with Disraeli the
Younger, it is with the Novelist rather than with
the Statesman, that we have now more imtnediately
to deal, when we come to an examination of this
latest and most interesting among all the numerous
editions of his works of fiction " The Disreali EE-
itel)." of these fourteen distinct products of his
►nimated and animating imagination. It extends
—this new edition—to the length of Five handsome
volumes, three of them containing two imaginative
works in each, one three, and another five. A mere
enumeration of these fourteen imaginative works of
the now Prime Minister of England will be suffi-
cient here simply as a reminder—the works them-
selves being thoroughly well known by this time
to the majority of novel readers. Subdividing
the Premier's age into three score, however,
it may at once be remarked, in general terms,
that the first twenty years of his life were given up
to education and preparation generally for his after
career, as one who had to make his way in the
world, and who was determined, and at the same
time qualified, to make it ! That the second twenty
years were devoted to literature and to the prelimi-
nary labours of a politician who was resolved upon
making good his claim to be regarded eventually
as both a statesman and an administrator. That
the third twenty years were dedicated absolutely
And exclusively to the vindication of his position as
a Leader of Party, and ultimately, as we all see, as
the Chief Minister of the Crown, and as such, Head
of her Majesty's Government. Twenty years a
Student—twenty years a N avenst —twenLy y
Great Party Leader—and, at the close of these three
score years, Prime Minister of Euglan 1. Sach, in
brief, has been the career of the present Ent Lord
of the Treasury. It is with the middle perio 1
of his life that we have now to do. It
is with the fruit of that central score of
sears that we have here to deal exclusively,
aVithin that interval, his fourteen works, as a ma❑
,f letters, were produced. " Vivian Grey " was
the first, "Tancred" the last, of his novels. The
former, published anonymously, was, at one time,
reputed to be a posthumous work of Lord Byron's.
the latter—closing abruptly, and altogether giving
one the notion of a pursuit suddenly and absolutely
abandoned, rather than of an individual task left
incomplete-"" Tancred," that is to say, marks the
period at which the Novelist disappeared, and the
Parliamentary Chieftain assumed his place. In the
collective reissue of these remarkable fictions, it is
especiallyworthy of note that in the Prefatory remarks,
or "Advertisements," so called, prefixed to two or
three of these works, the author, casting a retrospec-
tive glance back at his youthful productions, refers
to them almost as though they were the produc-
tions of somebody else—leaving them to be regarded
and treated simply as they deserve. The Advertise-
ment to "Vivian Grey," indeed, is distinctly depreca-
tory of criticism, referring to books written by boys,
as, each of them, a kind of literary /uses, and as in-
variably founded on affectations. To this it may
here be added that what constituted the prominent
charm of that celebrated novel when it first male
its appearance was the sublime impertiaeace with
which it was written throughout. As to the love
story of " Henrietta Temple," which appeared nice
or ten years afterwards, it was significant of the
entourage of the young novelist that the work was
inscribed, and still stands inscribed, to Count Alfred
D'Orsay, by his affectionate friend the Author.
"The Young Duke," a novel descriptive of a
frivolous age, when George the Fourth was King,
is referred to by Mr. Disraeli himself as a juvenile
production full of affectation and conceit, and yet
is vindicated by him, in a manner, as such, by the
extraordinary dictum that " every man has a right
to be conceited until he is successful." " Venetia,"
which was published originally in 1837, was
then, as it is still, inscribed to a very different
personage indeed—namely, to Lord Lyndhurst,
"as a record of respect and affection." " Con-
tarini Fleming," a psychological romance,
penned some half-dozen years previously, was issued
from the press, like " Vivian Grey," quite anony-
mously. Several works of a minor or miscellaneous
character, it is only necessary here to particularise
by name—one carrying us into the empyrean, the
other conveying us to the nether regions, one of
them being entitled " Ixion in Heaven," the other
" The Infernal Marriage," the latter having rela-
tion, in fact, to the espousals of Pluto and Pro-
;erpine. " Captain Popanilla " being descrip-
ive of an imaginary voyage, belongs in a manner,
o that especial category of works of which Capt.
Lemuel Gulliver's record is the most memorable ex-
emplar, and to which, after a fashion belongs the
•' Robinson Crusoe" of Defoe, the " Utopia" of Sir
Chomas More, and the " Arcadia" of Sir Philip
Sydney, or its author would have us call it by pre-
ference, of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke.
Besides these lesser works of Disraeli just now enu-
merated, three others have yet to be mentioned.
There is the five act tragedy of " Count Alarcos"—
the period of which is in the thirteenth century,
and the scene of which is at Burgos, the capital of
Castille, and its immediate vicinity. Then, too,
there is " The Rise of Iskander," the King of Epirus•
And, of more importance still, there is the won-
drous "Tale of Alroy," of David Alroy, the Prince
of the Captivity. In 1844, however, there was
published for the first time what was certainly Mr.
Disraeli's most successful work, what we ourselves
must always regard as his literary masterpiece—
" Coningsby." Three considerable editions of
" Coningsby" were sold off within three months
from the date of its first appearance : as many as
fifty thousand copies being quickly bought up in the
United States of America. Then again, there was
Sybil, or the Two Nations," meaning the Rich
and the Poor here in England. And finally there
was the Premier's lut novel of "Tancred, or the