olitical ambition, Mr. Disraeli is actuated by no stronger passion than
hatred of Mr. Gladstone. To have been a warm admirer and _protege_ of
Sir Robert Peel would have laid a sufficient foundation for intense
personal dislike. But Mr. Disraeli has other and greater grievances to
complain of. This is not the place to enter at large into the history of
the political rivalry between these eminent men. Enough to say, that
in the spring of 1852 Mr. Disraeli realized the dream of his lifelong
ambition by being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Ministry
of Lord Derby. Late in the same year he brought forward his Budget,
which he defended at great length and with all his ability. This Budget,
and the arguments by which it was supported, Mr. Gladstone--who had
already refused to take the place in the Derby Cabinet--attacked in a
speech of extraordinary power, demolishing one by one the positions
of his opponent, rebuking with dignified severity the license of
his language, and calling upon the House to condemn the man and his
measures. Such was the effect of this speech that the Government was
defeated by a decided majority. Thus dethroned, Mr. Disraeli had the
additional mortification of seeing his victorious opponent seated in his
vacant chair. For, in the Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, which immediately
succeeded, Mr. Gladstone accepted the appointment of Chancellor of
the Exchequer. The Budget brought forward by the new Minister took by
surprise even those who had already formed the highest estimate of his
capacity; and the speech in which he defended and enforced it received
the approval of Lord John Russell, in the well-known and well-merited
compliment, that "it contained the ablest expositions of the true
principles of finance ever delivered by an English statesman." Since
that memorable defeat, Disraeli has lost no opportunity of attacking the
member for Oxford University. To weaken his wonderful ascendency over
the House has seemed to be the wish nearest his heart, and the signal
failure which has thus far attended all his efforts only gives a keener
edge to his sarcasm and increases the bitterness of his spirit. That
persistent and inflexible determination which, from a fashionable
novelist, has raised him to the dignity of leader of the Conservative
party in the House of Commons, that unsparing and cold-blooded malignity
which poisoned the last days of Sir Robert Peel, and those powers of wit
and ridicule whic