sought and obtained recommendations from Joseph Hume and Daniel
O'Connell, and people had therefore set him down as a Radical.
Although, however, his professions of political faith included dogmas
which, like triennial parliaments, the ballot, and the imposition of a
new land-tax, were part of the so-called "Radical" platform, still
there was a vague and fanciful note in his utterances, and an
aversion to the conventional Whig way of putting things, which showed
that he was not a thorough-going adherent of any of the then existing
political parties, but was trying to strike out a new line and
attract men by the promise of something fresher and bolder than the
recognised schools offered. In 1834 his hostility to Whiggism was
becoming more pronounced, and a tenderness for some Tory doctrines
more discernible. Finally, in 1835, he appeared as an avowed Tory,
accepting the regular creed of the party, and declaring himself a
follower of Sir Robert Peel, but still putting forward a number of
views peculiar to himself, which he thereafter developed not only
in his speeches but in his novels. _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ were
meant to be a kind of manifesto of the "Young England" party--a party
which can hardly be said to have existed outside his own mind, though
a small knot of aristocratic youths who caught up and repeated his
phrases seemed to form a nucleus for it.

The fair conclusion from his deliverances during these early years is
that he was at first much more of a Liberal than a Tory, yet with
ideas distinctively his own which made him appear in a manner
independent of both parties. The old party lines might seem to have
been almost effaced by the struggle over the Reform Bill; and it was
natural for a bold and inventive mind to imagine a new departure, and
put forward a programme in which a sort of Radicalism was mingled with
doctrines of a different type. But when it became clear after a time
that the old political divisions still subsisted, and that such a
distinctive position as he had conceived could not be maintained, he
then, having to choose between one or other of the two recognised
parties, chose the Tories, dropping some tenets he had previously
advocated which were inconsistent with their creed, but retaining
much of his peculiar way of looking at political questions. How far
the change which passed over him was a natural development, how far
due to mere calculations of interest, there is little use discussing