Simeonite parsons, which he had himself so powerfully organised in
Parliament, in society, and on the platform. His successor to-day can
count on no ally so sure and loyal as the Church. But it was a
wonderful inspiration for a young man fifty years ago to perceive that
this could be done--and to see the way in which it might be done.
_Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ at any rate were active forces in the formation
of a definite political programme. And this was a programme which in
Parliament and in the country their author himself had created,
organised, and led to victory. It cannot be denied that they largely
contributed to this result. And thus these books have this very
remarkable and almost unique character. It would be very difficult to
mention anything like a romance in any age or country which had ever
effected a direct political result or created a new party. _Don
Quixote_ is said to have annihilated chivalry; _Tartuffe_ dealt a blow
at the pretensions of the Church; and the _Marriage of Figaro_ at those
of the old _noblesse_. It is possible that _Bleak House_ gave some
impulse to law reform, and _Vanity Fair_ has relieved us of a good deal
of snobbery. But no novel before or since ever created a political
party and provided them with a new programme. _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_
really did this; and it may be doubted if it could have been done in
any other way. "Imagination, in the government of nations" (we are
told in the preface to _Lothair_) "is a quality not less important than
reason." Its author trusts much "to a popular sentiment which rested
on a heroic tradition and which was sustained by the high spirit of a
free aristocracy."
Now this is a kind of party programme which it was almost impossible to
propound on the platform or in Parliament. These imaginative and
somewhat Utopian schemes of "changing back the oligarchy into a
generous aristocracy round a real throne," of "infusing life and
vigour into the Church as the trainer of the nation," of recalling
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