Mr. Callander, his host, had taken, at Mr. Disraeli's request, some brandy to the meeting. It was he who poured some into a glass of water. Mr. Disraeli, on tasting it, turned to him and said in an undertone, "There's nothing in it." This wounded the pride of his host, who took it as an imputation of stinginess on his part, and he filled the next glass plentifully. This was the beginning of the orator's trouble. For the first fifteen minutes he spoke in his customary resonant voice. Then husky, sibilant and explosive sentences were unmistakable. Apprehensive reporters, sitting below him, moved aside lest the orator should fall upon them. Suspicious gestures set in. An umbrella was laid near the edge of the platform, that the speaker might keep within the umbrella range. For this there was a good reason, as the speaker's habit of raising himself on his toes endangered his balance. All the meeting understood the case. The orator soon lost all sense of time. He, who knew so well how to suit performance to occasion, was incapable of stopping himself. The audience had come from distant parts. At nine o'clock they could hear the railway bell, calling some to the trains. Ten o'clock came, when a larger portion of the audience was again perturbed by railway warnings. Disraeli was still speaking. Eleven o'clock came; the audience had further decreased then, but Disraeli was still declaiming hoarse sentences. It was a quarter-past eleven before his peroration came to an end; and many, who wished to have their guinea's worth of Parliamentary oratory, had to sleep in Manchester that night Everybody knew the speaker would have ceased two hours earlier if he could. His host in the chair was much disquieted. His house was some distance from the city, and he had invited a large party of gentlemen to meet the great Conservative leader at supper, which had long been ready. Besides, he was afraid his guest would be unable to appear at it. Arriving at the house Disraeli asked his host to give him champagne—"a bottle of fizz" was the phrase he used—which he drank with zest, when, to the astonishment of his host, he joined the party and was at his best. He delighted every one with his sallies and his satire.
The next morning the city Conservatives were unwilling to speak of the protracted disappointment of the evening before. The Manchester papers gave good reports of the long speech, which contained some passages worthy of the speaker at any time—as when he compared the occupants of the front bench of the Government in the House of Commons to so many extinct volcanoes. As some members of Her Majesty's Government were known friends of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the aptitude of the simile lives in political memory to this day. When the Times report arrived it was found that a considerable portion of the speech was devoted to the laudation of certain county families, which were not mentioned in the Manchester reports, and it was said that Disraeli had dictated his speech to Mr. Delane before he came down. But though he lost his voice and his memory, he never lost his wit, for he praised another set of families that came into his head.
Only in two instances has Mr. Disraeli been publicly charged with errors of vintage. In his time I heard members manifestly inebriated, address the House of Commons. On a memorable night Mr. Gladstone said Disraeli had access to sources of inspiration not open to Her Majesty's Ministers.
In the Morning Star there appeared next day a passage from Disraeli's speech, reported in vinous forms of sibilant expression. On that occasion Lord John Manners carried to him, from time to time during his oration, five glasses of brandy and water. I saw them brought in. There was the great table between the two front benches, which Mr. Disraeli said was fortunate, as he feared Mr. Gladstone might spring upon him. All the while it was not protection Mr. Disraeli wanted from the table, but support, for he clutched it as he spoke. Sir John Macdonald, Premier of Canada, whom I had the honour to visit at Ottawa, not only resembled Disraeli in features, in the curl of his hair, but in his wit. One night Sir John made an extraordinary after-dinner speech, which had the flavour of a whole vintage in it. When Sir John found he had astonished the whole Dominion, he sent for the reporter, who appeared, trembling with apprehension. "Young man," said Sir John, "with your talent for reporting you have a great future before you. But take my advice—never report a speech in future when you are drunk."
Connoisseurs in art who went to the sale of his effects at Disraelis Mayfair house were astonished at the Houndsditch quality of what they found there. Not a ray of taste was to be seen, not an article worth buying. The glamour of the Oriental had lain in phrases, not in art.
It was the Liberals who were the champions of the Jews, and who were the cause of their admission to Parliament. Mr. Disraeli must have had some generous memory of this. Mr. Bright would cross the floor of the House sometimes to confer with Disraeli. There must have been elements in his character in which Mr. Bright had confidence. It was believed to be owing to his respect for Mr. Blight's judgment that he took no part against America, when his party did all they could to destroy the cause of the Union in the great Anti-Slavery War. It ought to be remembered to Disraeli's credit, that he made what John Stuart Mill called a "splendid concession" of household suffrage, although he took it back the next night, by the pernicious creation of the "compound householder." Still, Liberals owe it to him that household suffrage came to prevail when it did.
Disraeli's attacks upon Peel were dictated by the policy of self-advancement. He was capable of admiring Peel, but he admired himself more. Standing outside English questions and interests, he was able to treat them with an airiness which was a political relief. Yet he could see that our Colonies might become "millstones round the neck of the Empire" if we gave them too much of Downing Street, or maybe of Highbury.
To say Disraeli had no conscience would be to say more than any man has knowledge enough to say of another; but he certainly never gave the public the impression that he had one. He devised the scheme of giving the Queen the title of "Empress." Mr. Gladstone opposed it as dangerous to the dynasty, lowering its dignity to the level of Continental Emperorship, and taking from the Crown the master jewel of law, which has been more or less its security and glory for a thousand years.
Disraeli seemed to care for the Queen's favour—nothing for the integrity of the Crown. He declared himself a Christian, and said in the presence of the Bishop of Oxford, with Voltairean mockery, that he was "on the side of the angels," and elsewhere described Judas as an accessory to the crucifixion before the act, and to that ignoble treachery all Christians were indebted for their salvation—an idea which could never have entered a Gentile mind. This was pure Voltairean scorn.
In his last illness he was reported to have had three different kinds of physicians—allopath, hydropath, homoeopath; and had he chosen the spiritual ministration of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, and Mr. Spurgeon, no one would have been surprised at his sardonic prudence.