grown a
great deal.'

"Then Lord Monmouth led the agitated Coningsby to the great lady,
who was a Princess and an Ambassadress, and then, placing his arm
gracefully in that of his grandson, he led him across the room, and
presented him in due form to some royal blood that was his guest,
in the shape of a Russian Grand Duke. His Imperial Highness
received our hero as graciously as the grandson of Lord Monmouth
might expect; but no greeting can be imagined warmer than the one
he received from the lady with whom the Grand Duke was conversing.
She was a dame whose beauty was mature, but still radiant. Her
figure was superb; her dark hair crowned with a tiara of curious
workmanship. Her rounded arm was covered with costly bracelets, but
not a jewel on her finely-formed bust, and the least possible rouge
on her still oval cheek. Madame Colonna retained her charms."

III

Nearly a quarter of a century passed, during which Disraeli slowly rose
to the highest honours in the State. Lord Derby died, and the novelist,
already Leader of the House of Commons, found himself called to be Prime
Minister of England. His first administration, however, was brief, and
in the last days of 1868 he resigned in favour of Mr. Gladstone. The
Liberals were in for five years, and Disraeli, in opposition, found a
sort of tableland stretch in front of him after so much arduous
climbing. It was at this moment, shortly after the resignation of the
Tory Minister, that the publisher of a magazine approached him with the
request that he would write a novel to appear in its pages. He was
offered, it is said, a sum of money far in excess of what any one, at
that time, had ever received for "serial rights." Disraeli refused the
offer, but it may have drawn his thoughts back to literature, and in the
course of 1869, after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was
completed, he found time to write what is unquestionably the greatest of
his literary works--the superb ironic romance of _Lothair_.

Eminent as he was and eminently successful, Disraeli was far, in 1870,
from having conquered public opinion in England. The reception of his
new novel was noisy, and enjoyed to the full the clamours of
advertisement, but it was not favourable. The critics laughed it to
scorn, and called it a farce and a failure. The _Quarterly Review_, in
the course of a savage diatribe, declared that