d in one of the great public schools, and that
they owe to its training their power of dealing with men and
assemblies. Such a superstition is sufficiently refuted by the
examples of men like Pitt, Macaulay, Bishop Wilberforce, Disraeli,
Cobden, Bright, and Cecil Rhodes, not to add instances drawn from
Ireland and Scotland, where till very recently there have been no
public schools in the current English sense.

Disraeli first appeared before the public in 1826, when he published
_Vivian Grey_, an amazing book to be the production of a youth of
twenty-two. Other novels--_The Young Duke_, _Venetia_, _Contarini
Fleming_, _Henrietta Temple_--maintained without greatly increasing
his reputation between 1831 and 1837. Then came two political stories,
_Coningsby_ and _Sybil_, in 1844 and 1845, followed by _Tancred_ in
1847, and the _Life of Lord George Bentinck_ in 1852; with a long
interval of silence, till, in 1870, he produced _Lothair_, in 1880
_Endymion_. Besides these he published in 1839 the tragedy of
_Alarcos_, and in 1835 the more ambitious _Revolutionary Epick_,
neither of which had much success. In 1828-31 he took a journey
through the East, visiting Constantinople, Syria, and Egypt, and it
was then, no doubt, in lands peculiarly interesting to a man of his
race, that he conceived those ideas about the East and its mysterious
influences which figure largely in some of his stories, notably in
_Tancred_, and which in 1878 had no small share in shaping his policy
and that of England. Meanwhile, he had not forgotten the political
aspirations which we see in _Vivian Grey_. In 1832, just before the
passing of the Reform Bill, he appeared as candidate for the petty
borough of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and was defeated by a
majority of twenty-three to twelve, so few were the voters in many
boroughs of those days. After the Bill had enlarged the constituency,
he tried his luck twice again, in 1833 and 1835, both times
unsuccessfully, and came before two other boroughs also, Taunton and
Marylebone, though in the latter case no contest took place. Such
activity in a youth with little backing from friends and comparatively
slender means marked him already as a man of spirit and ambition. His
next attempt was more lucky. At the general election of 1837 he was
returned for Maidstone.

His political professions during this period have been keenly
canvassed; nor is it easy to form a fair judgment on them. In 1832 he
had