Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1908-02-29
DISRAELI PHRASES.
Maxims and Wittieisms Which Appear
to Have Been Borrowed.


to Have Been Borrowed.
A writer in the London Spectator
draws up a list of ''maxims and wit
ticisms ascribed to Disraeli which
have the appearance of being de-
rived from external sources" or, in
other words, borrowed. The bill
of indictment is specific:
The phrase "men of light and
leading" used by Disraeli in
speech in 1853, came from Burke.
Disraeli's assertion that only those
nations that behaved well to the
Jews prospered had been made long
before by Frederick the Great. Dis
raeli said, "Youth is blunder, man
hood struggle, old age regret"
This is based on Seneca's famous
saying, 'Gnitium coecitas progressio
labor, error omnia." In 1864 Dis
raeli said of the French revolution,
''When the turbulence was over,
when the shout of triumph and the
wall of agony were alike stilled;
when, as it were, the waters had sub
sided, the sacred heights of Sinai
and Calvary were again revealed"
etc. This smile had been used by
other orators again and again. Can
ming used it in proposing the vote
of thanks to the Duke of Yelling
ton after the battle of Vittoria, and
Shiel used it in his speech on the
Irish state trials in the house of
commons in 1874. Sir Walter Scott
also introduced it in his 'Life of
Napoleon" Disraeli's phrase Estates
woman" comes from Swift. "Anec-
dotage" was derived by Disraeli
from his father, who in his turn de-
rived it in conversation from Rog-
ers. Z
In "Sybil" Disraeli compares Fox
to Catiline. Canning described Fox
as "the Catiline of modern times"
in the Anti-J acobin. Disraei COM
pared the ministers of Mr.. Glad
stones government to ga range of
exhausted volcanoes" This was an
image used by Wilkes. GLOW is it,
Wilkes" said somebody to the
demagogue, chat you sat silent
through all the French revolution
debates" "The fact u.s." replied
Wilkes, 'T am burnt out volcano"
Somebody once pointed out the CO
incidence to Disraeli, and he is said
to have remarked, 'It looks like a
crib, but it is the first time knew
that Wilkes had ever said anything
worth repeating and fit for publica-
ton" The advice given to Conta-
RIM Fleming by his father is based
on that of Lord Chesterfield to his
son. Chesterfield, like Contarini
Fleming's father, advised his son
to "read Rochefoucault," and study
French writers and cultivate the
society of women. Disraeli wrote
of Bolingbroke as "the glory Of his
order and the shame" This is
probably from Pope's description Of
Erasmus in his essay on Crit
icism"--
At length Erasmus, that great injured
The glory of the priesthood and the
shame
but still older writer, Sir George
Mackenzie, the "Bluidy Mackenzie"
of Scottish Presbyterian hagiology,
described Montrose in his "Coelia's
Country House and Closet" as
His country's glory and It's shame
Caesar in all things equaled but his fame.
Disraeli's phrase Emporium ct
libertas" was suggested by Boiling
broke, from whom Disraeli derived
so many of his ideas. The words
''imperio ct hbertate" are used by
Cicero in the fine passage at the
end of his fourth grafton against
Catiline.
Some Of the ice fields of Greenland
are said to be mile and a half in
kh,rlynaee