saic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the
imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be
pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as
we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some
magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give
us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to
be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to
believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical
efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the
inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something
to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It
was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might
have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into
that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might
possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with
his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which
are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against
politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a
newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical
millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal
skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer
air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by
slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of
burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the
ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain
_aplomb_; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the
spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His
last book of 'Coningsby' opens with a Christmas scene worthy of an
illustrated keepsake. We have buttery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and
red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar's head
with a canticle.

Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino,

sing the noble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli
blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise
the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament.
He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a
passing blow at the util