Lady Forest were to call here some day | overlooked by everybody else. It was ever and have to put their feet absolutely on so nice of him, but it was not the kind of bare boards! I don't think we should ever compliment that encourages one to go out get Aunt Rivers into the sitting-room, she again, was it, mamma?" would faint in the hall; and I am sure no one in this house could carry her back into her carriage. We should never hear the last of it."

"My darling, it was of your own wedding day, not of Constance Rivers's, that I have thought, when I have many a time put back the necklace into its case, through sore needs of selling it we have struggled out of. Your father gave it me on the day you were christened, and I have a feeling that it is robbing you to send it away. I should have liked him to clasp it round your neck before he gave you away to any one."

"Mamma," said Emmie, after a moment's pause, with a richer flush than usual on her cheek, but a resolute tone of reasonableness in her voice, "Katharine Moore says it is quite time that girls left off looking upon marriage as the one object of their existence. She says it is an accident of life that occurs now to fewer and fewer women every year, and that girls should plan their lives without any reference to it whatever."

66

'My darling, you know I would spare you Aunt Rivers's parties if I could, since I can't dress you for them as I should like; but - but if Aunt Rivers took offence at my keeping you away, and your father were to begin to suspect her of slighting us —

"Ah, yes, I know; and besides, dear mamma, I generally like the thought of the party beforehand well enough; and Alma is sometimes kind; or if not, and the reality is worse than I looked for, I can always now run up to Air Throne' the next morning, and laugh over my mor. tifications with the two Moores, till I get not to care for them. I was not complaining, mother dear; but I want you to face the real state of things; give up impossi ble hopes, and sell the necklace. It won't be wanted ever for such a day as you fancied; but we shall have other happy days - great days for the boys perhaps, or even for me, in some other way than marriage. You should hear how the Moores talk. Till these good times come there is a great deal of pleasure to be got out of the world, "I am afraid very few of them will do even in shabby clothes, and with all our so, my dear, in spite of Katharine Moore." worries and troubles, if you, mother, would "But at all events I can, mamma," said only pluck up your courage again. Very Emmie, sitting a little more upright, and nice bits come in between whiles for us pushing her soft brown hair from her fore- young ones. Fun in the back sitting-room head, with a decided little gesture that had of evenings, while you and papa are sit perhaps been caught from Katharine ting here dolefully; and delicious talks Moore. "I can make up my mind to look with the Moores in Air Throne,' and cosy at things as they really are, and face them times with dear old Mrs. Urquhart in the resolutely without deluding myself withLand of Beulah.' Does it not sometimes vain expectations. Now let us consider, make you dread misfortune a little less dear. I hardly ever go anywhere except when you see that our great crisis- the now and then to drink tea in the 'Land of crisis that you thought would break your Beulah,' and that counts for nothing, as heart of our having to take lodgers into Mrs. Urquhart only asks me when she is our house, has ended in making us hapalone. And if by a rare chance I do get pier? At least, I know I am a great deal an invitation to an evening party, and ac- happier since the Moores came; and Harcept it, I am always sorry afterwards, for ry and the boys have quite got over the I don't feel at home among the other girls little mortification it was to them at first, when I am there. It can't be helped, in the fun of giving odd names to the new mother dear. I have not sat or stood in divisions of the house. If Aunt Rivers corners at Aunt Rivers's Christmas parties chooses to be ashamed of us, and to send without finding out exactly how everybody us to Coventry, we can bear it; and you looks at one when one has on the shabbi- won't think us unsympathizing, will you, est dress in the room. Last Christmas a dear, for being able to get a little amusegentleman found me out in my corner, and ment out of what seemed such a terrible sat talking to me a long time, and I thought sorrow at first?" perhaps he found me rather nice till Alma came and explained to me that Mr. Anstice was something of an oddity himself, and always made a point of talking to the person in the company most likely to be

Mrs. West thought of the contraction that came on her husband's brow whenever, in the course of their long, silent evenings, the sound of a bell from the upper story reminded him that he was no

longer sole master of the house in which | knee, and her eyes looked pleasantly exhe had been born, but she could not quench pectant, but her mother made a hasty negthe light in Emmie's beautiful eyes by such ative gesture. an allusion.

"Whatever makes you happy is good for me," she said gently, stroking her daughter's hair back into its usual becoming waves over her forehead, and thus obliterating the little attempt to look like Katharine Moore, that had its terrors for her, though she said nothing about it. "I am sure I hope the Moores' coming will prove good for us all. As your cousins keep so much out of the way, I like you to have other companions."

"No, no, dear, I don't want to look at it again. I said good-bye to all that it means for me a long, long time ago; and if you are not to wear it, I had rather never see it. Put the case into your pocket, and carry it to Katharine while papa and I are at dinner. If we women can manage the matter among ourselves, I shall be thank ful. My conscience will be easier for not having drawn Harry into our little conspiracy, since I must conceal it from your father for the present. There, is not that papa's step outside? — run away, dearest

run away, and put the jewel-box exactly in its usual place on my dressing table, so that there may be nothing to strike your father's eye when he goes into the room to dress for dinner. I shall tell him that I have been obliged to part with the necklace, some day, Emmie dear; but I want

"Friends," corrected Emmie eagerly; "friends who will do more for us than all the Riverses put together ever would. Mamma, if you do not mind my telling Katharine about the necklace, I believe her advice will be very useful. She gives lessons on two evenings in the week to a young man who is a working jeweller, and I dare say he could tell us what the neck-to spare him the pain of knowing exactly lace is really worth, or even manage the sale for us, if you liked to trust him. I know you don't wish Harry to have anything to do with it."

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My dear, I hope the young man does not come here! What would your father say if he met him, and heard that one of the young lady lodgers gave him lessons? He would think it a monstrous thing. would want us to turn the Moores out of the house at once. I had no idea myself that Katharine gave lessons to young men

- and shopmen too."

He

when it was done, and of following us in all the painful little details of the business. The loss is his as well as ours, but we can spare him part of the degradation. Yes, run away, Emmie dear, and leave me alone. Your father likes best now to find me alone here when he first comes in, weary and out of spirits."

From The Fortnightly Review.

"Dear mamma, she thinks nothing of THE POLITICAL ADVENTURES OF LORD

it. You must not judge the Moores as you would anybody else. They are to be judged in quite a different way; and no one but Katharine can explain it. However, you need not be at all uneasy. She never brings any of her pupils up to 'Air Throne' that is Christabel's shrine, to draw and write and paint in. Katharine would not desecrate it, she says, by bringing drudgery there. She goes out to give her lessons, and I believe this is one of the evenings. Let me take the jewel-case to her and speak about it now; in another minute papa will come in; and I am sure you will feel happier for having come to a decision. It may be a long time before you and I can have such another long uninterrupted talk, and it would be a pity to let it go for nothing. Would you like to look at the necklace, and say good-bye to it before it goes, mamma?"

Emmie's finger, as she spoke, was on the spring of the purple case which she had previously taken from the box on her

BEACONSFIELD.

III.

FROM 1837 TO 1852.

LORD BEACONSFIELD's political adventures have three stages. The first, extending from 1826 to 1837, exhibits his beginnings in literature and politics, and shows how he struggled with reluctant constituencies until at last he forced his way into the House of Commons. It is really the most important of all, for in it the man was formed and displayed, and the peculiarities of his character and genius were disclosed with less restraint than afterwards. He gambolled with unchecked license. The fierce play of an untamed nature gave itself free vent. Afterwards, Lord Beaconsfield found it necessary to clothe himself in Parliamentary, official, and social decorum. Only now and then in the wild sallies, and still oftener in the demure smile, do we see that the man is in disguise. Still,

every now and then the aboriginal savage | Such triumphs of the sciolist and the adlooks through his eyes, and occasionally venturer over the man of pure and public shrieks in his voice, and displays itself in purpose, of fixed principles, and of reahis excited gestures. The impish "nature soned convictions, are, however, incidents breaks at seasons through the gilded pale." of public life too common and natural to The next period is compressed within the attract much attention. It has been Lord years from 1837 to 1852. It records Lord Beaconsfield's purpose in life to advance Beaconsfield's struggles in the House of himself, and he has succeeded. It was Commons to Parliamentary toleration, to the purpose of Colonel Perronet ThompParliamentary recognition, to Parliamen- son to advance the doctrines which he tary eminence, through the spokesmanship believed to be true, and to promote the first of a rather ridiculous coterie, then of reforms which he deemed to be necessary. an angry faction, and afterwards of an or- Both have had the triumph which they ganized party, raising him into office, and most coveted. Each illustrates the value the ministerial leadership in the House of of singleness of purpose, be the purpose Commons. Lord Beaconsfield began by good or evil, in public or in private life. It wearing the livery of Peel; he then, with is natural to desire that a man who proribbons in his hat and tabor in his mouth, motes a great cause shall also promote masqueraded as a rural swain, dancing himself. But the conditions of human life with his young-England companions round and character do not often allow of this a Maypole; and finally in the breeches double victory; and the man who has this and top-boots of a stage squire, smacked twofold aim in view is not likely to realize his hunting-whip against his thigh, de- either part of it. Usually he must either nounced the villany of the traitor Peel, sacrifice himself to his cause, or his cause who had deceived him and other simple- to himself. To desire to be disinterested minded country gentlemen into a belief and rewarded is a state of mind logically that he was a protectionist, and a friend of contradictory, but in practice too easily the land and of the corn-laws, while he and too frequently realized. To strive was nothing but a manufacturer and free- only for principles, and to reap place and trader. Lord Beaconsfield's rapid changes power, titles and decorations, public honor of costume and character resemble those and public gratitude, is a combination very of the elder and younger Mathews in some flattering to that inward eye which is the of their startling transformations. The bliss of meditative and ambitious solitude. third period of his political adventures, in The internal delight of satisfied virtue, which England now has the perilous honor and the gratified vanity of external honors, and excitement of living, is that of his offi- are scarcely to be had together except in cial and ex-official life. It extends from the the fanciful forecast of a sentimental viryear 1852 to this present month of June, tue veiling personal greed. The man who 1878, and probably will extend consider- has no cause but himself, and the man ably beyond it. It is really that which who, if we may say so, has no self but his most interests the world; but the second cause, are alone likely to reach the goal period, which engages us now, must first that they set before them. The men who be rapidly surveyed. are a little for virtue and a great deal for themselves, will probably end by being all for themselves, and so sink into the first class. The men who are too virtuous to be unscrupulous, but not virtuous enough to lose sight of themselves, will probably share the misfortune of the dog that courses two hares at once. Lord Beaconsfield has had one steady and consistent purpose through life; and, to use Burke's expression, he has varied his means in order to preserve the essential unity of his end. To climb ever higher and higher, to fix more and more steadily the public gaze, to wield power, to receive and distribute honors, to be the talk of his coterie, of England, of Europe, of the world, has been his aim, and in this he has succeeded. No career ever illustrated more remarkably the virtues, if they be such apart

The year 1837 then saw Mr. Disraeli fairly launched in the career in which for more than forty years he has played a conspicuous, and for thirty of those forty, a distinguished, and on some questions a decisive part. The law, since altered, required that a new Parliament shall be summoned on the accession of a new sovereign; and he was a member of the first House of Commons that met under the reign of Queen Victoria. He had been elected for Maidstone. He won this victory not over his old enemies the Whigs, but over his former friends and allies, the Radicals, defeating the veteran Colonel Perronet Thompson. This Barrabean preference on the part of the Kentish borough has since been atoned for by wiser elections to subsequent Parliaments.

teenth centuries, the contest against the policy was possible in the eighteenth cendespotism of the later Stuarts and against tury. They were thus drawn into dangerthe pretensions of George III. to magnify ous alliances with Tory principle of perthe prerogatives and personal power of the sonal rule, and in the case of Pitt into a crown, could be waged with success only Tory policy both in home and foreign polby the great houses. An oligarchial char-itics. The Whigs were an oligarchical acter was therefore almost of necessity party, because the great families opposed impressed upon the defence of the prin- the only organization by which the pretenciples of the constitution. The three sions of the crown could be effectually statesmen whom, after Bolingbroke and combated, and the principles established Wyndham, Lord Beaconsfield most ad- in 1689 could be defended against the mires, are Chatham, Shelburne, and the court and against Church-and-king mobs. younger Pitt. He eulogizes their Liberal This strange combination of oligarchical doctrines with respect to constitutional rule and liberal principle, inevitable and liberty, to freedom of trade, and Parlia- useful though it was, had done its work in mentary reform, as genuine Toryism. But 1832. From that time it became an anachthey derived those doctrines from Whig ronism and an offence. A century and a traditions in the first case, to which in the half of struggle under these conditions two latter must be added the influence of has ineffaceably stamped its character upon Adam Smith's writings, and of personal the Whig aristocracy. A Whig is a Libintercourse with the Nonconformists Price eral who believes that Liberal principles and Priestley. There was nothing in To- can be only asserted under the guardianryism to make Chatham and Shelburne ship and by the representatives of certain advocates of American freedom, nor to old families. He imports the historic conmake Shelburne and the younger Pitt de- ditions of the eighteenth century into the fenders of free-trade. The men whom nineteenth. He does not perceive that Lord Beaconsfield calls Tories were known the Reform Act of 1832 in part, and that of in their own time more correctly as Chat- 1867 almost completely, abolished him; ham Whigs, that is to say, they were and that modern Liberalism, whether it be scarcely Whigs at all. They tried, with a moderate or advanced, exists under condireal though a premature and inopportune tions involving his transformation or his wisdom, a wisdom therefore rather of departure from the political scene. The speculation than of practice, to be Liberals hot-house protection of an oligarchical without being Whigs. Chatham was party, needful to the delicate plant of constrong enough in virtue of his wonderful stitutional freedom, is simply a hindrance ascendancy of personal character, and of to the health and development of the vighis transcendant success in foreign policy orous tree. The great noble in politics and the conduct of our European wars, to must share the fate of the patron in literahold his own against both the crown and ture. The Whigs deserve that historic the great families. Shelburne, theoreti- honor and political gratitude which Lord cally, and to some extent in practice, an Beaconsfield denies them. But the doom advanced Liberal of the modern type, was which falls on those who have done their obliged to strengthen himself by the sup- work, though it may have been a noble port of the crown against Whig oligarchy, one, cannot be avoided. If, however, the and as theory often follows practice, he aristocratic patronage of Liberal principles was led to formulate doctrines of a patriot is obsolete, the equal service of Liberals king ruling independently of parties, which of every class, patrician or plebeian, to the brought him dangerously near to the insid- common cause is still to be desired. The ious Tory democracy of Bolingbroke. principle of exclusion directed against men The domestic factions into which the of rank and lineage would of course be as French Revolution divided English parties absurd as the principle of exclusion assertmade Pitt, who never was a Tory, the headed by them. There is little danger in the of a Tory government and the agent of a Tory policy. But in all that does these men most honor, in all that makes party zealotry anxious to claim the sanction of their names, they were only not Whigs, because they were something more and better than Whigs. They were Liberals of a more modern type, endeavoring to emancipate themselves too soon from the conditions under which alone a Liberal LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 1146

present constitution of English society that any such proscription will be attempted. Name and birth and wealth will always have something more than their proper advantage, if any advantage be proper in English political life. If any thing could revive Lord Beaconsfield's pet aversion, the Venetian oligarchy, it would be the re-establishment of that personal power of the crown of which he has almost