Thus it was that perhaps no public man in England ever rose so high and acquired power so great, so little of whose work has survived him. Not one of the great measures which he once insisted on did he carry or attempt to carry. The great industrial problems are still left to be solved by the workmen in their own unions. Ireland is still in the throes of disintegration. If the colonies have refused to be cast loose from us their continued allegiance is not due to any effort of his. From Berlin he brought back peace with honour, but if peace remains the honour was soon clouded. The concessions which he prided himself on having extorted are evaded or ignored, and the imperial spirit which he imagined that he had awakened sleeps in indifference. The voices which then shouted so loudly for him shout now for another, and of all those great achievements there remain only to the nation the Suez Canal shares and the possession of Cyprus, and to his Queen the gaudy title of Empress of India. What is there besides? Yet there is a relative greatness as well as an absolute greatness, and Lemuel Gulliver was a giant among the Lilliputians. Disraeli said of Peel that he was the greatest member of Parliament that there had ever been. He was himself the strongest member of Parliament in his own day, and it was Parliament which took him as its foremost man and made him what he was. No one fought more stoutly when there was fighting to be done; no one knew better when to yield, or how to encourage his followers. He was a master of debate. He had perfect command of his temper, and while he ran an adversary through the body he charmed even his enemies by the skill with which he did it. He made no lofty pretensions, and his aims were always perhaps something higher than he professed. If to raise himself to the summit of the eminence was what he most cared for, he had a genuine anxiety to serve his party, and in serving his party to serve his country; and possibly if among his other gifts he had inherited an English character he might have devoted himself more completely to great national questions; he might have even inscribed his name in the great roll of English worthies. But he was English only by adoption, and he never completely identified himself with the country which he ruled. At heart he was a Hebrew to the end, and of all his triumphs perhaps the most satisfying was the sense that a member of that despised race had made himself the master of the fleets and armies of the proudest of Christian nations.

But though Lord Beaconsfield was not all which he might have been he will be honourably and affectionately remembered. If he was ambitious his ambition was a noble one. It was for fame and not for fortune. To money he was always indifferent. He was even ostentatious in his neglect of his own interests. Though he left no debts behind him, in his life he was always embarrassed. He had no vices, and his habits were simple; but he was generous and careless, and his mind was occupied with other things. He had opportunities of enriching himself if he had been unprincipled enough to use them. There were times when he could set all the stock exchanges of Europe vibrating like electric wires in a thunderstorm. A secret word from him would have enabled speculating capitalists to realise millions, with no trace left how those millions were acquired or how disposed of. It is said that something of the kind was once hinted to him—once, but never again. Disraeli’s worst enemy never suspected him of avarice or dishonour. As a statesman there was none like him before, and will be none hereafter. His career was the result of a combination of a peculiar character with peculiar circumstances, which is not likely to recur. The aim with which he started in life was to distinguish himself above all his contemporaries, and wild as such an ambition must have appeared, he at least won the stake for which he played so bravely.

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[FOOTNOTES:]

[1] Quarterly Review, January 1889, p. 30.

[2] May 24, 1832.