LORD BEACONSFIELD:

A BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS.

THERE are two stories with regard to the date of Lord Beaconsfield's birth: the one given by himself, the other by Mr. Picciotto. According to "Dod,"-that is, Lord Beaconsfield, the future Premier was born on December 21, in the year 1805; Mr. Picciotto fixes the date of the birth in 1804-a year earlier. 1 There is the same uncertainty as to where Lord Beaconsfield was born: some say it was in Hackney, and some, in Upper St. Islington; but the generally accepted tradition is that it was in the house at the south-west corner of Bloomsbury Square, facing Hart Street.

He was the son of Isaac D'Israeli, and of Maria, daughter of George (or Joshua) Basevi, of Brighton, and was the second of four children. His sister, Sarah, was the eldest child: Ralph and James were younger than he. Sarah accompanied her brother on one of his Eastern tours, and there are strong traces of her influence in "Alroy." She died in 1859, and her tomb may be seen in Willesden Cemetery, Paddington. 2 James was appointed by Lord Beaconsfield

1 "Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History," p. 300.

2 Miss D'Israeli plays an important part in the life of her father. "Towards the end of the year 1839, still in the full vigour of his health and intellect," writes Lord Beaconsfield of his father, "he suffered a paralysis of the optic nerve; and that eye, which for so long a term had kindled with critical interest over the volumes of so many literatures and so many languages, was doomed to pursue its animated course no more." "Unhappily," proceeds Lord Beaconsfield, "his previous habits of study and composition rendered the habit of dictation intolerable, even impossible to him. But with the assistance of his daughter, whose intelligent solicitude he has commemorated in more than one grateful passage, he selected from his manuscripts three volumes." ("Curiosities of Literature" of Isaac D'Israeli, edited by his Son. Introduction, lviii., lix.) Let me give one or two specimens from the "grateful passages" in which Isaac D'Israeli speaks of the "intelligent solicitude" of his daughter. In the Preface to the "Amenities of Literature" (Moxon, 1841), occurs the following passage:-"There is one more remark in which I must indulge: the author of the present work is denied the satisfaction of reading a single line of it, yet he flatters himself that he shall not trespass on the indulgence he claims for any slight inadvertencies. It has been confided to ONE whose eyes unceasingly pursue the volume for him who can no more read, and whose eager hand traces the thought ere it vanish in the thinking; but it is only a father who can conceive the affectionate patience of filial devotion." (ix.-x.) "Public favour," he writes again in the "Miscellanies of Literature" (Moxon, 1840, Preface vi.), "has encouraged the republication of these various works, which often referred to have long been difficult to procure. It has been deferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation; but I have delayed the task till it cannot be performed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision with me has suffered a singular disorder--a disorder which no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experience can expound; so much remains concerning the frame of man unrevealed to man! In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from

to a Commissionership in the Inland Revenue, and died, rather suddenly, in 1868. Ralph, who also owes his elevation to his better-known brother, still holds the office of Deputy Clerk of Parliaments.

was

The first of the family to settle in England was Benjamin D'Israeli, grandfather of the present bearer of the same name. As to the history of the family before their arrival in England, we have to rely wholly on the authority of Lord Beaconsfield; and his story is somewhat fanciful. His grandfather, he tells us, 1 "an Italian descendant from one of those Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced to emigrate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, and who found a refuge in the more tolerant territories of the Venetian Republic.' In their new home they dropped their "Gothic surname,' and "grateful to the God of Jacob who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and guarded them through unheard of perils, they assumed the name of DISRAELI, a name never borne before, or since, by any other family, in order that their race might be for ever recognised."

Continuing the story in the same strain, he tells us that the Disraelis belonged to the higher Jewish caste of the Sephardim, and that they were related to the very best Hebrew families. It is not explained to us why Disraeli should be considered a name so peculiar in a Jew: it is simply Israel, with a 'd' prefixed, and a vowel added: in other words, an Italianized form of one of the very commonest of Jewish names. Nor does Lord Beaconsfield explain why a name so peculiar, and by which the race was to "be for ever recognised," has been changed by himself. His father always spelled the name "D'Israeli," and

it. My unfinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit before me. The strucken deer has the sad privilege to weep when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those far-distant woods where once he sought to range. Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, these works notwithstanding have received many important corrections, having been read over to me with critical precision. Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor a present consolation; and to HER who has so often lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe the debt immense' of paternal gratitude."

Mr. H. G. Bohn, the eminent publisher, in a letter to the Richmond and Twichenham Times, August 3, 1878, gives the following interesting particulars with regard to Mr. Meredith, the bethrothed of Miss Disraeli: "The Mr. Meredith who was engaged to marry Miss Sarah D'Israeli was an accomplished and highly-educated gentleman, the nephew and adopted heir of Mr. William Meredith, a retired contractor of considerable wealth who had remained a confirmed celibate to an advanced age. His name had become familiar in literary circles in consequence of his liberal patronage of Mr. Thomas Taylor, the so-called Platonist, whose translation of Aristotle in ten volumes quarto, and many other translations from the Greek, he encouraged and paid for to the extent of several thousand pounds, besides granting him an annuity for life. Mr. Meredith's great enjoyment was literary society, to which end he used during the London season to give monthly dinners-literary symposia to parties of eight, rarely more, at which, besides myself, were usually present Mr. Thomas Taylor, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Day, the Poor Law Commissioner, Mr. Meredith, junior, and occasionally one or both the D'Israelis. There were others, but I don't remember their names. The eldest Mr. Meredith died late in the summer of 1831, and with the exception of the annuity already granted to Mr. Thomas Taylor, bequeathed all his property, including a fine library, to the nephew in question, who, however, died of fever at Gibraltar on his way home, a few days after his uncle, and before he could receive tidings of the event. In consequence of this, the property passed to his father's rather numerous family, which was by no means originally intended. Miss D'Israeli retired to Twickenham in 1832, where she resided till within a short time of her death, in one of the Ailsa Park villas, solacing herself with charitable pursuits and the cultivation of her small garden." The inscription on her monument is as follows: "In Memory of Sarah, only Daughter of Isaac D'Israeli, Esqre., Author of Curiosities of Literature. Born 29th Decr., 1802. Died 19th Decr., 1859." The monument consists of a Maltese Cross, which bears the letters I.H.S., and at the junction of the arms is the inscription "Thy will be done,” graven in old English characters.

1 "Curiosities of Literature of Isaac Disraeli," edited by his Son. I. Introduction, xx,— xxii, Fourteenth edition, 1849.

so, as a rule, did Lord Beaconsfield himself in his earlier years. And, finally, we have no mention here of a third variety of the name. We hear nothing-either in connection with the remarkable name itself, or in the catalogue of the family's grand relations-of a Mr. Benjamin Disraell, who, in the earlier part of this century, carried on business as a money-lender in the city of Dublin. This omission is the more strange if it be true that Mr. Benjamin Disraell, of Dublin, was the uncle of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.

Up to the publication of Mr. Picciotto's interesting book, to which I have already referred, the connection of Isaac D'Israeli with the Jewish faith was generally supposed to have been slight and brief, and certainly to have closed before the birth of his son. Mr. Picciotto has thrown, however, quite a different light upon this subject. It is true that Isaac D'Israeli, though he was for years a regular subscriber to the synagogue, 1 was never a regular attendant at its services, inherited religious indifference on both sides, 2 and abandoned all cornmunion with the faith on very small cause. But he remained in avowe communion with the creed till 1817, and did not completely break from it unti 1821.

As a consequence, Lord Beaconsfield was brought up during his earlier years in the Jewish faith; and he and his brothers were "all initiated into the covenant of Abraham." Mr. Picciotto even gives the name of the person who performed the "initiatory rite." 3

Lord Beaconsfield, however, did not long remain a member of his ancestral faith; but the circumstances of his entrance into the Christian Church are not clearly known. According to one story, Mr. Rogers was the author of the great work of regeneration. The tale goes that the poet, who was an intimate friend of Isaac D'Israeli, took a fancy to the bookworm's bright young child; and, anxious that religion should not be a bar to his success in life, asked whether he had been baptized. Finding that, though twelve years of age, the young hopeful was still outside the pale of the Church, the pious poet brought him off to the nearest church, and had him baptized. This tale ought certainly to be true; it would fit in dramatically with the rest of Mr. Disraeli's career. Fancy the champion-inchief of our Established Church owing his Christianity to the whim of a man unconnected with him in blood-and the whim of such a man! Heine says one ought to be very particular as to what grandfather he chooses; perhaps one ought to be even more particular in his choice of a godfather. It was certainly rather ominous to have as one's sponsor a man declared by the experienced Luttrell to be the greatest sensualist he had ever known. 4

According to the other account, Lord Beaconsfield owes his admission to the Christian Church to a Mrs. Ellis, the wife of a literary man well known some years

1 Picciotto, p. 296.

2 Ibid., p. 295; and Lord Beaconsfield gives similar testimony. His grandfather, he says (Curiosities of Literature, I. Int., xxiii.), "appears never to have cordially or intimately mixed with his community." And as to his grandmother, he writes: "My grandmother, the beautiful daughter of a family, who had suffered much from persecution, had imbibed that dislike for her race which the vain are too apt to adopt when they find that they are born to public contempt. The indignant feeling that should be reserved for the persecutor, in the mortification of their disturbed sensibility, is too often visited on the victim; and the cause of annoyance is recognised not in the ignorant malevolence of the powerful, but in the conscientious conviction of the innocent sufferer." He adds that she was 66 so mortified by his social position, that she lived until eighty without indulging in a tender expression." (Ibid. xxv.)

"It may be interesting," writes Mr. Picciotto, "to our Jewish readers to learn that the gentleman who performed the initiatory rite on the present Premier of England was a relative of his mother, the late David Abarbenel Lindo, an influential member of the Spanish and Portugese Congregation, and a merchant of high commercial standing." (Note, p. 300.. 4 "Luttrell was talking of Moore and Rogers-the poetry of the former so licentious, that of the latter so pure; much of its popularity owing to its being so carefully weeded of everything approaching to indelicacy: and the contrast between the lives and the works of the two men the former a pattern of conjugal and domestic regularity, the latter of all the men he had ever known the greatest sensualist.-Greville's Memoirs, iil 324. Fourth edition.

to a Commissionership in the Inland Revenue, and died, rather suddenly, in 1868. Ralph, who also owes his elevation to his better-known brother, still holds the office of Deputy Clerk of Parliaments.

The first of the family to settle in England was Benjamin D'Israeli, grandfather of the present bearer of the same name. As to the history of the family before their arrival in England, we have to rely wholly on the authority of Lord Beaconsfield; and his story is somewhat fanciful. His grandfather, he tells us, 1 was "an Italian descendant from one of those Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced to emigrate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, and who found a refuge in the more tolerant territories of the Venetian Republic." In their new home they dropped their "Gothic surname,' and "grateful to the God of Jacob who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and guarded them through unheard of perils, they assumed the name of DISRAELI, a name never borne before, or since, by any other family, in order that their race might be for ever recognised."

Continuing the story in the same strain, he tells us that the Disraelis belonged to the higher Jewish caste of the Sephardim, and that they were related to the very best Hebrew families. It is not explained to us why Disraeli should be considered a name so peculiar in a Jew: it is simply Israel, with a 'd' prefixed, and a vowel added: in other words, an Italianized form of one of the very commonest of Jewish names. Nor does Lord Beaconsfield explain why a name so peculiar, and by which the race was to "be for ever recognised," has been changed by himself. His father always spelled the name "D'Israeli," and

it. My unfinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit before me. The strucken deer' has the sad privilege to weep when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those far-distant woods where once he sought to range. Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, these works notwithstanding have received many important corrections, having been read over to me with critical precision. Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor a present consolation; and to HER who has so often lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe 'the debt immense' of paternal gratitude."

Mr. H. G. Bohn, the eminent publisher, in a letter to the Richmond and Twichenham Times, August 3, 1878, gives the following interesting particulars with regard to Mr. Meredith, the bethrothed of Miss Disraeli: "The Mr. Meredith who was engaged to marry Miss Sarah D'Israeli was an accomplished and highly-educated gentleman, the nephew and adopted heir of Mr. William Meredith, a retired contractor of considerable wealth who had remained a confirmed celibate to an advanced age. His name had become familiar in literary circles in consequence of his liberal patronage of Mr. Thomas Taylor, the so-called Platonist, whose translation of Aristotle in ten volumes quarto, and many other translations from the Greek, he encouraged and paid for to the extent of several thousand pounds, besides granting him an annuity for life. Mr. Meredith's great enjoyment was literary society, to which end he used during the London season to give monthly dinners-literary symposia to parties of eight, rarely more, at which, besides myself, were usually present Mr. Thomas Taylor, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Day, the Poor Law Commissioner, Mr. Meredith, junior, and occasionally one or both the D'Israelis. There were others, but I don't remem ber their names. The eldest Mr. Meredith died late in the summer of 1831, and with the exception of the annuity already granted to Mr. Thomas Taylor, bequeathed all his property, including a fine library, to the nephew in question, who, however, died of fever at Gibraltar on his way home, a few days after his uncle, and before he could receive tidings of the event. In consequence of this, the property passed to his father's rather numerous family, which was by no means originally intended. Miss D'Israeli retired to Twickenham in 1832, where she resided till within a short time of her death, in one of the Ailsa Park villas, solacing herself with charitable pursuits and the cultivation of her small garden." The inscription on her monument is as follows: "In Memory of Sarah, only Daughter of Isaac D'Israeli, Esqre., Author of Curiosities of Literature. Born 29th Decr., 1802. Died 19th Decr., 1859." The monument consists of a Maltese Cross, which bears the letters I.H.S., and at the junction of the arms is the inscription "Thy will be done," graven in old English characters.

1" Curiosities of Literature of Isaac Disraeli," edited by his Son. I. Introduction, xx.— xxii, Fourteenth edition, 1849.