ed whereas Disraeli,
with singular magnanimity, had offered to the author of Shooting
Niagara a pension and a Grand Cross of the Bath.

It was, however, as a man of letters rather than as a politician
that Disraeli fascinated Froude, so much so that he is betrayed into
the paradox of representing his hero as a lover of literature rather
than politics. Disraeli sometimes talked in that way himself, as
when he was persuading Lightfoot to accept the Bishopric of Durham, and
remarked, "I, too, have sacrificed inclination to duty." But he
was hardly serious, and even in his novels it is the political parts
that survive. Although Froude had found it impossible to review
Endymion, the book is very like the author, and can only be
appreciated by those who have been behind the scenes in politics.
Froude's idea of Disraeli as a man with a great opportunity who
threw it away, who might have pacified Ireland and preferred to
quarrel with Russia, was naturally not agreeable to Disraelites, and
as a general rule it is desirable that a biographer should be able,
to write from his victim's point of view. Yet, all said and done,
Froude's Beaconsfield is a work of genius, the gem of the series.
Professional politicians, with the curious exception of Gladstone,
thought very little of it. It was not written for them. Disraeli was
a many-sided man, so that there is room for various estimates of his
character and career. Of his early life Froude had no special
knowledge. He was not even aware that Disraeli had applied for
office to Peel. He shows sometimes an indifference to dry details,
as when he makes Gladstone dissolve Parliament in 1873 immediately
after his defeat on the Irish University Bill, and represents Russia
as having by her own act repealed the Black Sea Clauses in the
Treaty of Paris. Startling too is his assertion that the Parliament
of 1868 did nothing for England or Scotland, on account of its
absorption in Irish affairs. But he was not writing a formal
history, and these points did not appeal to him at all. He drew with
inimitable skill a picture of the despised and fantastic Jew, vain
as a peacock and absurdly dressed, alien in race and in his real
creed, smiling sardonically at English ways, enthusiasms, and
institutions, until he became, after years of struggle and obloquy, the
idol of what was then the proudest aristocracy in the world.

Disraeli's peculiar humour just suited Froude's taste. Disraeli
never laughed.