XII. Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop and
Cardinal 1808-1892 250
XIII. Edward Augustus Freeman 1823-1892 262
XIV. Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke 1811-1892 293
XV. William Robertson Smith 1846-1894 311
XVI. Henry Sidgwick 1838-1900 327
XVII. Edward Ernest Bowen 1836-1901 343
XVIII. Edwin Lawrence Godkin 1831-1902 363
XIX. John Emerich Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton 1834-1902 382
XX. William Ewart Gladstone 1809-1898 400

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD[1]

When Lord Beaconsfield died in 1881 we all wondered what people would
think of him fifty years thereafter. Divided as our own judgments
were, we asked whether he would still seem a problem. Would opposite
views regarding his aims, his ideas, the sources of his power, still
divide the learned, and perplex the ordinary reader? Would men
complain that history cannot be good for much when, with the abundant
materials at her disposal, she had not framed a consistent theory of
one who played so great a part in so ample a theatre? People called
him a riddle; and he certainly affected a sphinx-like attitude. Would
the riddle be easier then than it was for us, from among whom the man
had even now departed?

When he died, there were many in England who revered him as a profound
thinker and a lofty character, animated by sincere patriotism.
Others, probably as numerous, held him for no better than a cynical
charlatan, bent through life on his own advancement, who permitted no
sense of public duty, and very little human compassion, to stand in
the way of his insatiate ambition. The rest did not know what to
think. They felt in him the presence of power; they felt also
something repellent. They could not understand how a man who seemed
hard and unscrupulous could win so much attachment and command so much
obedience.

Since Disraeli departed nearly one-half of those fifty years has
passed away. Few are living who can claim to have been his personal
friends, none who were personal enemies. No living statesman professes
to be his political disciple. The time has come when one may discuss
his character and estimate his career without being suspected of doing
so with a party bias or from a party motive. Doubtle