and fretting their
little hour at Westminster. And therefore, too, I wish that Disraeli
could have stuck to his novels instead of rising to be Prime Minister of
England. This opinion is, of course, entirely independent of any
judgment which may be passed upon Disraeli's political career. Granting
that his cause has always been the right one, granting that he has
rendered it essential services, I should still wish that his brilliant
literary ability had been allowed to ripen undisturbed by all the
worries and distractions of parliamentary existence. Persons who think
the creation of a majority in the House of Commons a worthy reward for
the labours of a lifetime will, of course, differ from this conclusion.
Disraeli, at any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck
off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more
alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have
gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby
and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they
embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little
propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still
survives, must have lost many illusions; he must have herded with the
Tapers and Tadpoles, and prompted Rigby to write slashing articles on
his behalf in the quarterlies. He must have felt that his intellect was
cruelly wasted in talking claptrap and platitude to suit the thick
comprehensions of his party; and the huge dead weight of the invincible
impenetrability to ideas of ordinary mankind must have lain heavy upon
his soul. How many Tadpoles, one would like to know, still haunt the
Carlton Club, or throng the ministerial benches, and how many Rigbys
have forced their way into the Cabinet? That is one of the state secrets
which will hardly be divulged by the only competent observer. But at any
rate it is sad that the critic, who applied the lash so skilfully,
should have been so unequally yoked with the objects of his contempt.
Disraeli's talents for entertaining fiction may not indeed have been
altogether wasted in his official career; but he at least may pardon
admirers of his writing, who regret that he should have squandered
powers of imagination, capable of true creative work, upon that
alternation of truckling and blustering which is called governing the
country.

The qualities which are of rather equivocal value in a minister