ishments that swelled their
fame. Reade stood somewhat more definitely for literature; and
Trollope, although his living was gained for years as a public
servant, set his all of reputation on the single throw of
letters. He is Anthony Trollope, Novelist, or he is nothing.

I

Thinking of Disraeli as a maker of stories, one reads of his
immense vogue about the middle of the last century and reflects
sagely upon the change of literary fashions. The magic is gone
for the reader now. Such claim as he can still make is most
favorably estimated by "Coningsby," "Sybil" and "Tancred," all
published within four years, and constituting a trilogy of books
in which the follies of polite society and the intimacies of
politics are portrayed with fertility and facility. The earlier
"Henrietta Temple" and "Venetia," however fervid in feeling and
valuable for the delineation of contemporary character, are not
so characteristic. Nor are the novels of his last years,
"Lothair" and "Endymion," in any way better than those of his
younger days. That the political trilogy have still a certain
value as studies of the time is beyond argument. Also, they have
wit, invention and a richly pictorial sense for setting,
together with flamboyant attraction of style and a solid
substratum of thought. One recognizes often that an athletic
mind is at play in them. But they do not now take hold, whatever
they once did; an air of the false-literary is over them, it is
not easy to read them as true transcripts from life. To get a
full sense of this, turn to literally contemporaneous books like
Dickens' "David Copperfield" and "Hard Times"; compared with
such, Disraeli and all his world seem clever pastiche. Personal
taste may modify this statement: it can hardly reverse it. It
would be futile to explain the difference by saying that
Disraeli was some eight years before Dickens or that he dealt
with another and higher class of society. The difference goes
deeper: it is due to the fact that one writer was writing in the
spirit of the age with his face to the future and so giving a
creative representation of its life; whereas the other was
painting its manners and only half in earnest: playing with
literature, in sooth. A man like Dickens is married to his art;
Disraeli indulges in a temporary liaison with letters. There is,
too, in the Lothair-Endymion kind of literature a fatal
resemblance to the older sentimental and grandiose fiction of
the eightee