tic elements of life. Or was
he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to
apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his
satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies.
Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear
in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept
the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only
solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution,
by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to
pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes
us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either
aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of
fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener
enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed
lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we
had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are
blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria
of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew
doctors and classical artists, mediaeval monks and Anglican bishops,
perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from
Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws
dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley
actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as
arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking
cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and
original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest
realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere
mystification.

But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to
observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge
into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was
composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic
tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian
Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in
which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the
'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited
attempt to execute an impossible tas