not by an outside man of letters, but by the very man who had conquered
a front place in this political world, and who had more or less
realised his ideal development. They are almost the only pictures of
the inner parliamentary life we have; and they are painted by an artist
who was first and foremost a great parliamentary power, of consummate
experience and insight. If the artistic skill were altogether absent,
we should not read them at all, as nobody reads Lord Russell's dramas
or the poems of Frederick the Great. But the art, though unequal and
faulty, is full of vigour, originality, and suggestion. Taken as a
whole, they are quite unique.
_Coningsby; or, the New Generation_, was the earliest and in some ways
the best of the trilogy. It is still highly diverting as a novel, and,
as we see to-day, was charged with potent ideas and searching
criticism. It was far more real and effective as a romance than
anything Disraeli had previously written. There are scenes and
characters in the story which will live in English literature.
Thackeray could hardly have created more living portraits than "Rigby,"
"Tadpole," and "Taper," or "Lord Monmouth." These are characters which
are household words with us like "Lord Steyne" and "Rawdon Crawley."
The social pictures are as realistic as those of Trollope, and now and
then as bright as those of Thackeray. The love-making is tender,
pretty, and not nearly so mawkish as that of "Henrietta Temple" and
"Venetia." There is plenty of wit, epigram, squib, and _bon mot_.
There is almost none of that rhodomontade which pervades the other
romances, except as to "Sidonia" and the supremacy of the Hebrew
race--a topic on which Benjamin himself was hardly sane. _Coningsby_,
as a novel, is sacrificed to its being a party manifesto and a
political programme first and foremost. But as a novel it is good. It
is the only book of Disraeli's in which we hardly ever suspect that he
is merely trying to fool us. It is not so gay and fantastic as
_Lothair_. But, being far more real and serious, it is perhaps the
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