. Disraeli's origin, who looked on
Englishmen from outside, and never felt himself, so to speak,
responsible for their habits or ideas.

As leader of his party in Opposition, he was at once daring and
cautious. He never feared to give battle, even when he expected
defeat, if he deemed it necessary, with a view to the future, that the
judgment of his party should have been pronounced in a formal way. On
the other hand, he was wary of committing himself to a policy of blind
or obstinate resistance. When he perceived that the time had come to
yield, he knew how to yield with a good grace, so as both to support a
character for reasonableness and to obtain valuable concessions as the
price of peace. If difficulties arose with foreign countries he
claimed full liberty of criticising the conduct of the Ministry, but
ostentatiously abstained from obstructing or thwarting their acts,
declaring that England must always present a united front to the
foreigner, whatever penalties she might afterwards visit on those who
had mismanaged her concerns. As regards the inner discipline of his
party, he had enormous difficulties to surmount in the jealousy which
many Tories felt for him as a new man, a man whom they could not
understand and only partially trusted.[9] Conspiracies were repeatedly
formed against him; malcontents attacked him in the press, and
sometimes even in Parliament. These he seldom noticed, maintaining a
cool and self-confident demeanour which disheartened the plotters, and
discharging the duties of his post with steady assiduity. He was
always on the look-out for young men of promise, drew them towards
him, encouraged them to help him in parliamentary sharp-shooting, and
fostered in every way the spirit of party. The bad side of that spirit
was seen when he came into office, for then every post in the public
service was bestowed either by mere favouritism or on party grounds;
and men who had been loyal to him were rewarded by places or titles to
which they had no other claim. But the unity and martial fervour of
the Tory party was raised to the highest point. Nor was Disraeli
himself personally unpopular with his parliamentary opponents, even
when he was most hotly attacked on the platform and in the press.

To know England and watch the shifting currents of its opinion is a
very different matter from knowing the House of Commons. Indeed, the
two kinds of knowledge are in a measure incompatible. Men who enter
Parlia