"Tancred" afterward embodied,
together with a foreshadowing of much of his policy in the East. The
journey made him acquainted with the theatre of his intentions, and with
the prepossessions which it gave or fostered, doubtless had a great
influence upon his life and action. The close of the journey was
darkened by the death of his companion, for whom his sister mourned as
long as she lived.

After his return home he wrote a new novel, "Contarini Fleming," a
wonderful and poetical study of temperament, which Milman pronounced the
equal of "Childe Harold," which Goethe and Heine and Beckford, the
author of "Vathek," praised with delighted warmth. The "Wondrous Tale of
Alroy," also, published a little later, with "The Rise of Iskander,"
Beckford found stirring and full of intensity and charm.

In 1832 Disraeli offered himself as an independent candidate for the
borough of High Wycombe. The Government of course defeated him; and not
until after several hot contests during the next few years, did he gain
his end, taking his seat, then at the age of thirty-three, in Queen
Victoria's first Parliament. The character of the struggle at these
elections may be inferred from O'Connell's declaration in one of them,
that in all probability this "Disraeli was the heir-at-law of the
blasphemous thief that died on the cross." Disraeli challenged
O'Connell's son, who failed to accept the challenge. But Disraeli never
cherished a grudge; and only three weeks after he entered Parliament he
risked his seat there by a pointed statement of the misgovernment of
Ireland. Neither did O'Connell bear malice, and he said of one of
Disraeli's speeches, somewhat later, that "it was all excellent except
the peroration, and that was matchless." Not only in O'Connell's case
was this impossibility in Disraeli's nature of doing anything ignoble
shown; he secured, when in power, a life-pension to the widow and
children of the artist Leech, who had for half a lifetime showered him
with the cruel ridicule of the caricaturist; and he offered the Grand
Cross of the Bath, and a life-income suitable to the maintenance of its
dignity, to Carlyle, who had pursued him now with contempt and now with
malignity. In the intervals of the electoral contests a series of
letters to _The Times_, filled with biting sarcasm, under the signature
of "Runnymede;" a novel--"Henrietta Temple;" a "Vindication of the
British Constitution," dedicated to Lord Lyndhurst; a contrasti