chool of Cobden had been potent factors. These forces were, in the
later part of Disraeli's life, tending to decline. The working-class
vote was vastly increased in 1867. The old Whig light gradually paled,
and many of the Whig magnates, obeying class sympathies rather than
party traditions, drifted slowly into Toryism. A generation arose
which had not seen the Free Trade struggle, or had forgotten the Free
Trade arguments, and which was attracted by ideals other than those
which Cobden had preached. The grievances which had made men
reformers had been largely removed. The battle of liberty and
nationality in Continental Europe had been in the main won, and
Englishmen had lost the enthusiasm for freedom which had fired them in
the days when the memory of their own struggle against the Crown and
the oligarchy was still fresh. With none of these changes had
Disraeli's personal action much to do, but they all enured to the
benefit of his party, they all swelled the tide which bore him into
office in 1874.

Finally, he had the great advantage of living long. Many a statesman
has died at fifty, and passed from the world's memory, who might have
become a figure in history with twenty years more of life. Had
Disraeli's career closed in 1854, he would have been remembered as a
parliamentary gladiator, who had produced a few incisive speeches, a
crude Budget, and some brilliant social and political sketches. The
stronger parts of his character might have remained unknown. True it
is that a man must have greatness in order to stand the test of long
life. Some are found out, like Louis Napoleon. Some lose their balance
and therewith their influence, like Lord Brougham. Some cease to grow
or learn, and if a statesman is not better at sixty than he was at
thirty, he is worse. Some jog heavily on, like Metternich, or stiffen
into arbitrary doctrinaires, like Guizot. Disraeli did not merely
stand the test, he gained immensely by it. He gained by rising into a
position where his strength could show itself. He gained also by so
impressing his individuality upon people as to make them accept it as
an ultimate fact, till at length they came, not so much to blame him
for what he did in accord with his established reputation, as rather
to relish and enter into the humour of his character. As they
unconsciously took to judging him by a standard different from that
which they applied to ordinary Englishmen, they hardly complained of
deflecti