, therefore, in my childhood to hear a good deal of the subjects
treated in Mr. Monypenny's brilliant volumes. I well remember--I think
it must have been in 1847--being present on one occasion when a relative
of my own, who was a broad-acred Nottinghamshire squire, thumped the
table and declared his opinion that "Sir Robert Peel ought to be hanged
on the highest tree in England." Since that time I have heard a good
many statesmen accused of ruining their country, but, so far as my
recollection serves me, the denunciations launched against John Bright,
Gladstone, and even the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, may be
considered as sweetly reasonable by comparison with the language
employed about Sir Robert Peel by those who were opposed to his policy.

I was only once brought into personal communication with Disraeli.
Happening to call on my old friend, Lord Rowton, in the summer of 1879,
when I was about to return to Egypt as Controller-General, he expressed
a wish that I should see Lord Beaconsfield, as he then was. The
interview was very short; neither has anything Lord Beaconsfield said
about Egyptian affairs remained in my memory. But I remember that he
appeared much interested to learn whether "there were many pelicans on
the banks of the Nile."

The late Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff was a repository of numerous very
amusing _Beaconsfieldiana_.

[Footnote 69: This passage occurs in _Coningsby_, and Mr. Monypenny
warns us that "his version of the quarrel between Charles I. and the
Parliament is too fanciful to be quite serious; we may believe that he
was here consciously paying tribute to the historical caprices of
Manners and Smythe."]

[Footnote 70: Mr. Monypenny says in a note that a hostile newspaper gave
the following translation of Disraeli's motto: "The impudence of some
men sticks at nothing."]

[Footnote 71: What Buffon really wrote was: "Le style est l'homme
meme."]

[Footnote 72:

Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore;
Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri
Telephus et Peleus.

_Ars Poetica_, 94-96.]

[Footnote 73: _Sir Robert Peel_. Charles Stuart Parker. Vol. iii. 425.]

[Footnote 74: _Sat._ iv, 101.]

[Footnote 75: _Life of Lord Goschen_, Arthur D. Elliot, p. 163.]

IX

RUSSIAN ROMANCE

_"The Spectator," March 15, 1913_

De Voguee's well-known book, _Le Roman Russe_, was published so long ago
as 1886. It is still well worth reading. In the first place, th