cruel, and always clean, healthy, and
decent. His heroines are ideal fairy queens, his heroes are all
visionary and chivalrous nincompoops; and even, though we know that
much of it is whimsical banter and nonsensical fancy, there is an air
of refined extravaganza in these books which may continue to give them
a lasting charm.

The short juvenile drolleries of his restless youth are the least
defective as works of art; and, being brief and simple _jeux d'esprit_
of a rare order, they are entirely successful and infinitely amusing.
_Ixion in Heaven_, _The Infernal Marriage_, and _Popanilla_, are
astonishing products of a lad of twenty-three, who knew nothing of
English society, and who had had neither regular education nor social
opportunities. They have been compared with the social satirettes of
Lucian, Swift, and Voltaire. It is true they have not the fine touch
and exquisite polish of the witty Greek of Samosata, nor the subtle
irony of Voltaire and Montesquieu, nor the profound grasp of the Dean.
But they are full of wit, observation, sparkle, and fun. The style is
careless and even incorrect, but it is full of point and life. The
effects are rather stagey, and the smartness somewhat strained--that
is, if these boyish trifles are compared with _Candide_ and the
_Lettres Persanes_. As pictures of English society, court, and manners
in 1827 painted in fantastic apologues, they are most ingenious, and
may be read again and again. The _Infernal Marriage_, in the vein of
the _Dialogues of the Dead_, is the most successful. _Ixion_ is rather
broader, simpler, and much more slight, but is full of boisterous fun.
_Popanilla_, a more elaborate satire in direct imitation of _Gulliver's
Travels_, is neither so vivacious nor so easy as the smaller pieces,
but it is full of wit and insight. Nothing could give a raw Hebrew lad
the sustained imagination and passion of Jonathan Swift; but there are
few other masters of social satire with whom the young genius of
twenty-three can be compared. These three satires, which together do
not fill 200 pages, are read and re-read by busy and learned men after
nearly seventy years have passed. And that is in itself a striking
proof of their originality and force.

It is not fair to one who wrote under the conditions of Benjamin
Disraeli to take any account of his inferior work: we must judge him at
his best. He avowedly wrote many pot-boilers merely for money; he
began to write