PREFACE.

SOME time ago, I published the first volume of a Biography of Lord Beaconsfield, intending to add a second volume of the same length and on the same plan. It has been represented to me that a different arrangement would be more suitable. I have received many assurances of the value of my work from competent authorities; and its reception in the Press was far more gratifying than I ventured to expect It was highly praised by many journals, which, perhaps, may be accepted as proof that it possessed some merit; it was attacked by others with a violence which, perhaps, as clearly proved that it had some force. But the plan I adopted in writing it was calculated, I now believe, to make the work valuable to the politician and the journalist, rather than popular with the general public. Instead, therefore, of adhering to my original intention, I accepted the representations made to me, and set about producing a new work on a new plan. I determined to give,

as before, copious quotations from the speeches and writings of Lord Beaconsfield, so as to afford the reader material for accepting or rejecting my conclusions; but I resolved that those quotations should for the most part be placed in foot-notes, instead of being embodied in the text. In that way I hoped to avoid interruption of the narrative; and to consult that liberty of choice which every reader demands in these days-the liberty to read or to skip as he may please. It was also part of my plan to omit everything that did not have important bearing on my subject. Another way in which I determined to make my new work different from the old one was in the arrangement of the incidents. Acting on those ideas, I have now written a book which, except in the general tendency of opinion, is almost completely different from my first. My first work consisted of 746 pages, and brought the life of Lord Beaconsfield down to the fall of Peel in 1846; the present work, carrying the narrative down to the entry of the Prime Minister and Lord Salisbury into London, after the conclusion of the Berlin Treaty, contains just 675 pages. This second book, retracing all the ground in my first, and dealing with thirty-two years of Lord Beaconsfield's life besides, contains 70 pages less than the first.

I regret having had to enter into these purely personal details, but they are made necessary by many

circumstances.

I have again to acknowledge the assistance I have received from previous writers on the same subject. I may mention the Biography of Lord Beaconsfield attributed to Mr. Macknight; the Life by Mr. MacGilchrist, published by Messrs. Cassell and Co.; the Life by the late Mr. G. H: Francis; and the short sketch in Mr. Jeafferson's "Novels and Novelists." I have likewise derived much assistance from two able pamphlets by Mr. Sedley Taylor, the one on the Reform Bill of 1867, the other on the Eastern question; and a series of brilliant Essays in the Fortnightly Review, under the title, "The Political Adventures of Lord Beaconsfield," have also given me many valuable suggestions. But the assistance I have received from books is small compared with that I have received from friends, who have helped me in collecting materials in my laborious task. Without the aid of Mr. Carey Taylor, Mr. D. MacSweeney, and my brother, Mr. John O'Connor, I should not have been able to finish my work within even the considerable period it has already occupied me.

One word, finally, as to the views expressed. I claim to have advanced no opinion, which has not

been tested by patient investigation of facts, and by candid consideration. At least, I can say that I have made no statement for which I do not give authority; that I have pronounced no judgment without supplying the facts by which it can be tested; and that I have endeavoured to convince the reader of nothing of which I have not convinced myself.