[Power and Genius-Idols of Imagination.]

[From The Last of the Barons.]

The father and child seated themselves on the parapet, and saw, below, the gay and numerous vessels that glided over the sparkling river, while the dark walls of Baynard's castle, the adjoining bulwark and battlements of Montfichet, and the tall watch-tower of Warwick's mighty mansion, frowned, in the distance, against the soft blue sky.

"There,' said Adam quietly, and pointing to the feudal roofs-'there seems to rise power; and yonder (glancing to the river)-yonder seems to flow genius! A century or so hence, the walls shall vanish, but the river shall roll on. Man makes the castle, and founds the power-God forms the river, and creates the genius. And yet, Sybill, there may be streams as broad and stately as yonder Thames, that flow afar in the waste, never seen, never heard by man. What profits the river unmarked? what the genius never to be known?'

It was not a common thing with Adam Warner to be thus eloquent. Usually silent and absorbed, it was not his gift to moralise or declaim. His soul must be deeply moved before the profound and buried sentiment within it could escape into words.

Sybill pressed her father's hand, and, though her own heart was very heavy, she forced her lips to smile, and her voice to soothe. Adam interrupted her.

You

'Child, child, ye women know not what presses darkest and most bitterly on the minds of men. know not what it is to form out of immaterial things some abstract but glorious object-to worship-to serve it-to sacrifice to it as on an altar, youth, health, hope, life-and suddenly, in old age, to see that the idol was a phantom, a mockery, a shadow laughing us to scorn, because we have sought to clasp it.'

'Oh yes, father, women have known that illusion.' "What! Do they study?'

'No, father, but they feel!'

'Feel! I comprehend thee not.'

'As man's genius to him, is women's heart to her,' answered Sybill, her dark and deep eyes suffused with tears. Doth not the heart create-invent? Doth it not dream? Doth it not form its idol out of air? Goeth it not forth into the future, to prophesy to itself? And, sooner or later, in age or youth, doth it not wake itself at last, and see how it hath wasted its all on follies? Yes, father, my heart can answer, when thy genius would complain.'

WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH.

MR W. HARRISON AINSWORTH (born at Manchester in 1805) has written several novels and romances, partly founded on English history and manners. His Rookwood, 1834, is a very animated narrative, in which the adventures of Turpin the highwayman are graphically related, and some of the vulgar superstitions of the last century coloured with the lights of genius. In the interest and rapidity of his scenes and adventures, Mr Ainsworth evinced a dramatic power and art, but no originality or felicity of humour or character. His second romance, Crichton, 1836, is founded on the marvellous history of the Scottish Cavalier, but is scarcely equal to the first. He has since written Jack Sheppard, a sort of Newgate romance, The Tower of London, Guy Fawkes, Old St Paul's, Windsor Castle, The Lancashire Witches, The Star Chamber, The Flitch of Bacon, and The Spendthrift. There are rich, copious, and brilliant descriptions in some of these works, but their tendency must be reprobated. To portray scenes of low successful villainy, and to paint ghastly and hideous details of human suffering,

Benjamin Disraeli.

so arrogant, egotistic, and clever, that it became the book of the season and the talk of the town. Passages of glowing sentiment and happy description gave evidence of poetic feeling and imagination. In 1828, the young novelist continued his vein of sarcasm in The Voyage of Captain Popanilla, an adaptation of Swift's Gulliver to modern times and circumstances. He then sought out new scenes abroad, travelling over Italy and Greece, residing for a winter in Constantinople, and exploring Syria, Egypt, and Nubia. On his return to England, Mr Disraeli began to mingle in the political contests and excitement caused by the Reform Bill and the advent of the Whigs to power. He was ambitious of a seat in parliament, and made three unsuccessful efforts for this purpose-the two first as an extreme Reformer, and the third in the character of a Conservative. He quarrelled with O'Connell and Joseph Hume, wrote furious letters against all gainsayers, and sent a challenge to O'Connell's son. He then became the Coryphæus of the party denominated 'Young England, and professed to look for the

elements of national regeneration and welfare in the exertions and energies of the 'heroic youth' of the country. From 1830 to 1833 he produced several works of fiction-The Young Duke, Contarini Fleming, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, The Rise of Iskander, Ixion in Heaven, &c. The best of these is Contarini Fleming, which he afterwards termed The Psychological Romance. Though in the highest degree improbable as a story, and exaggerated in tone and sentiment, passages of fine imagination, satire, and description, abound in this romance. The hero seemed to be a self-delineation of the author-an idealised Disraeli, revelling in scenes of future greatness, baffling foreign diplomatists and political intriguers, and trampling down all opposition by the brilliancy of his intellect and the force of his will. In Alroy, the author's imagination ran to waste. It is written in a strain of Eastern hyperbole, in a sort of lyrical prose, and is without purpose, coherence, or interest. Nothing daunted by the ridicule heaped on this work, Mr Disraeli made a still bolder flight next year. In 1834 appeared, in quarto, The Revolutionary Epick, the Work of Disraeli the Younger, Author of The Psychological Romance. Such a title was eminently provocative of ridicule, and the feeling was heightened by the preface, in which the author stated that his poem was suggested on the plains of Troy, but that the poet hath ever embodied the spirit of his time.' He instanced the Iliad, the Eneid, the Divine Comedy, and the Paradise Lost, adding: 'And the Spirit of my Time, shall it alone be uncelebrated? For me remains the Revolutionary Epick.' Accordingly, the Genius of Feudalism and the Genius of Federalism are made to appear before the throne of Demogorgon, to plead in blank verse the cause of their separate political systems, and Faith and Fealty and 'Young England' are triumphant. No work of Mr Disraeli's was ever without some passage of originality or power, and a few of the monologues and descriptions in this epic are wrought up with considerable effect, but on the whole it is heavy and incongruous, and was universally considered a failure. Some political dissertations succeeded—The Crisis Examined, Vindication of the English Constitution, Letters of Runnymede, &c. These are strongly anti-Whiggish, written after the model of Junius, and abound in elaborate sarcasm and invective, occasionally degenerating into bombast, but with traces of that command of humorous illustration which afterwards distinguished Mr Disraeli as a parliamentary debater. The years 1836 and 1837 were marked by the production of two more novels-Henrietta Temple, a Love Story, and Venetia. The former is one of the most pleasing and consistent of the author's fictions; the second is an attempt to portray the characters of Byron and Shelley in connection with a series of improbable incidents. Shortly after the appearance of his tale of Venetia, its author was gratified by the acquisition of that long-coveted honour, a seat in parliament. He was returned for the borough of Maidstone. His first speech was looked forward to with some interest, for Mr Disraeli had menaced O'Connell with the threat, 'We shall meet at Philippi,' and had piqued the public curiosity by his political reveries and bold satire, so that a performance rich in amusement, if not one of high triumph, was anticipated. In style and delivery the speech resembled Mr Disraeli's Oriental magnificence; it was received with shouts of derisive laughter, in the midst of which the speaker fairly broke down, but in conclusion he thundered out with prophetic sagacity: 'I have begun several

times many things, and have often succeeded at last. I shall sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.' It was long, however, before he ventured on a second attempt; and when he did come forward again on that trying arena, it was obvious that he had profited by the failure and by the subsequent discipline it had led him to undertake. It is not within our province to review the political career of Mr Disraeli. He was eccentric, overweening, and inconsistent-ever aiming at personal distinction or notoriety-eager to dazzle, astonish, and strike. At length his talent, or rather genius, took a practicable shape; his taste and ambition were chastened, and his efforts as a politician and debater were crowned with brilliant success. 'It is a common opinion,' as he has himself said, 'that a man cannot at the same time be successful both in meditation and in action. But in life it is wisest to judge men individually, and not decide upon them by general rules. The common opinion in this instance may be very often correct; but where it fails to apply its influence may involve us in fatal mistakes. A literary man who is a man of action is a two-edged weapon; nor should it be forgotten that Caius Julius and Frederick the Great were both eminently literary characters, and yet were perhaps the two most distinguished men of action of ancient and modern times.' Before the novelist had succeeded in realising this rare combination, he continued his literary labours. In 1839 he produced a tragedy, Alcaros, which is alike deficient in poetic power and artistic skill. In 1844 and 1845 he was successful with two semi-political novels, Coningsby, or the New Generation, and Sybil, or the Two Nations. The former was a daring attempt to portray the public men of his own times-to delineate the excesses of the Marquis of Hertford, the subserviency and Irish assurance of Mr John Wilson Croker, the tuft-hunting and dissipation of Theodore Hook, and the political influence and social life of men like the Duke of Rutland and Lord Lonsdale. The lower class of trading politicians and supple subordinates was well drawn in the trio Messrs Earwig, Tadpole, and Taper; while the doctrines of 'Young England' were exemplified in the hero, Coningsby (the Hon. Mr Smythe), in Sidonia, the Jew (obviously Mr Disraeli himself), and in the various dialogues and episodes scattered throughout the work. Pictures of high life and fashionable frivolities vary the graver scenes, and defects in our domestic institutions and arrangements are commented upon in the author's pointed and epigrammatic style. These opinions of the new generation' are often false in sentiment and utterly impracticable—such as the proposed revival of May games and other rustic sports, with profuse hospitality on the part of landowners- -while the historical retrospects of public affairs and English rulers are glaringly partial and unjust. The same defects characterise Sybil, but with less interest in the narrative portions of the work. It is, indeed, more strictly a collection of political essays and conversations than a novel. One peculiarity in these works, and one which has become characteristic of Mr Disraeli, is his chivalrous defence of the Jews. Touched by hereditary associations and poetic fancy, he places the Hebrew race above all others. But even in their day of power the Jews yielded to various conquerors, and their depressed political condition cannot but be regarded as a proof of inferiority. The next flight of our author was towards the East. Tancred, or the New Crusade, 1847, is extravagant and absurd in its whole conception and plot, yet contains some

gorgeous descriptions of Oriental life and scenery. The hero, Tancred, a young English nobleman, desires to 'penetrate the great Asian mystery,' and travels over the Holy Land, encountering perils and adventures; he fights, loves, and meditates; but in the end, when the reader expects to be able to pluck the heart out of this great mystery,' the English father and mother appear in Jerusalem, and bear off the errant and enthusiastic crusader. With this second 'wild and wondrous tale' Mr Disraeli's career as a novelist seems to have closed. He was now immersed in politics, and conspicuous as a debater. When Sir Robert Peel avowed and acted upon his conversion to the principles of free-trade, he was assailed, night after night, by Mr Disraeli in speeches memorable for their bitterness, their concentrated sarcasm, and studied invective. No minister since Walpole had been so incessantly and perseveringly attacked. The Opposition at this time was led by Lord George Bentinck; and when the chief was cut off by a sudden and premature death, Mr Disraeli commemorated his services in a volume entitled Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography, 1851. A few months after this period the Earl of Derby was called upon to form a Conservative administration, and Mr Disraeli was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. He retired with his party after about nine months' possession of office, but when Lord Derby returned again to power, in 1858, Mr Disraeli resumed his former important appointment. In 1859, the defeat of the administration again led to his retirement.

[The Principle of Utility.]

'In this country,' said Sidonia, 'since the peace, there has been an attempt to advocate a reconstruction of society on a purely rational basis. The principle of utility has been powerfully developed. I speak not with lightness of the labours of the disciples of that school. I bow to intellect in every form and we should be grateful to any school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them; doubly grateful in this country, where for so long a period our statesmen were in so pitiable an arrear of public intelligence. There has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis of material motives and calculations. It has failed. It must ultimately have failed under any circumstances: its failure in an ancient and densely peopled kingdom was inevitable. How limited is human reason, the profoundest inquirers are most conscious. We are not indebted to the reason of man for any of the great achievements which are the landmarks of human action and human progress. It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the Crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. Even Mormon counts more votaries than Bentham.' 'And you think, then, that as imagination once subdued the state, imagination may now save it?' 'Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him; if you give him nothing to worship; he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.' But where can we find faith in a nation of sectaries? Who can feel loyalty to a sovereign of Downing Street?' 'I speak of the eternal principles of human nature; you answer me with the passing accidents of the hour. Sects rise and sects disappear. Where are the Fifthmonarchy men? England is governed by Downing Street; once it was governed by Alfred and Elizabeth.'

[The Hebrew Race.]

'You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews: that mysterious Russian diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organised and principally carried on by Jews; that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost monopolise the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the founder of spiritual Christianity, and who is regius professor of divinity in the university of Berlin, is a Jew. Benary, equally famous, and in the same university, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, when I was in Palestine, I met a German student who was accumulating materials for the history of Christianity, and studying the genius of the place; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl; then unknown, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the author of the life of Mohammed. But for the German professors of this race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at Berlin alone. I told you just now that I was going up to town to-morrow, because I always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of state were on the carpet. Otherwise, I never interfere. I hear of peace and war in newspapers, but I am never alarmed, except when I am informed that the sovereigns want treasure; then I know that monarchs are serious. A few years back we were applied to by Russia. Now, there has been no friendship between the court of St Petersburg and my family. It has Dutch connections which have generally supplied it, and our representations in favour of the Polish Hebrews, a numerous race, but the most suffering and degraded of all the tribes, has not been very agreeable to the czar. However, circumstances drew to an approximation between the Romanoffs and the Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St Petersburg. I had on my arrival an interview with the Russian minister of finance, Count Cancrin; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The loan was connected with the affairs of Spain; I resolved on repairing to Spain from Russia. I travelled without intermission. I had an audience immediately on my arrival with the Spanish minister, Senor Mendizabel; I beheld one like myself, the son of a Nuovo Christiano, a Jew of Aragon. In consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris, to consult the president of the French council; I beheld the son of a French Jew, s hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the Lord of hosts?' And is Soult a Hebrew?' 'Yes, and several of the French marshals, and the most famous: Massena, for example-bis real name was Manasseh. But to my anecdote. The consequence of our consultations was, that some northern power should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed on Prussia, and the president of the council made an application to the Prussian minister, who attended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. Favoured by nature and by nature's God, we produced the lyre of David; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel; they are our Olynthians, our Philippics. Favoured by nature we still remain; but in exact proportion as we have been favoured by nature, we have been persecuted by man. After a thousand struggles after acts of heroic courage that Rome has never equalled--deeds of divine patriotism that Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage have never excelled-we have endured fifteen hundred years

of supernatural slavery; during which, every device that can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny that we have sustained and baffled. The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to learn that he was the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to him the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion. Great poets require a public; we have been content with the immortal melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the waters of Babylon and wept. They record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. Great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies; we were permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. And as for great writers, the catalogue is not blank. What are all the schoolmen, Aquinas himself, to Maimonides? and as for modern philosophy, all springs from Spinoza! But the passionate and creative genius that is the nearest link to divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though it can divert it; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by its inspired sympathy, or governed senates by its burning eloquence, has found a medium for its expression, to which, in spite of your prejudices and your evil passions, you have been obliged to bow. The ear, the voice, the fancy teeming with combinationsthe imagination fervent with picture and emotion, that came from Caucasus, and which we have preserved unpolluted-have endowed us with almost the exclusive privilege of music; that science of harmonious sounds which the ancients recognised as most divine, and deified in the person of their most beautiful creation. I speak not of the past; though were I to enter into the history of the lords of melody, you would find it the annals of Hebrew genius. But at this moment even, musical Europe is ours. There is not a company of singers, not an orchestra in a single capital, that are not crowded with our children, under the feigned names which they adopt to conciliate the dark aversion which your posterity will some day disclaim with shame and disgust. Almost every great composer, skilled musician, almost every voice that ravishes you with its transporting strains, spring from our tribes. The catalogue is too vast to enumerate; too illustrious to dwell for a moment on secondary names, however eminent. Enough for us that the three great creative minds, to whose exquisite inventions all nations at this moment yield -Rossini, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn-are of Hebrew race; and little do your men of fashion, your "Muscadins" of Paris, and your dandies of London, as they thrill into raptures at the notes of a Pasta or a Grisi, little do they suspect that they are offering homage to the sweet singers of Israel.'

[Pictures of Swiss Scenery and of the City of Venice.]

It was in Switzerland that I first felt how constantly to contemplate sublime creation develops the poetic power. It was here that I first began to study nature. Those forests of black gigantic pines rising out of the deep snows; those tall white cataracts, leaping like headstrong youth into the world, and dashing from their precipices, as if allured by the beautiful delusion of their own rainbow mist; those mighty clouds sailing beneath my feet, or clinging to the bosoms of the dark green mountains, or boiling up like a spell from the invisible and unfathomable depths; the fell avalanche, fleet as a spirit of evil, terrific when its sound suddenly breaks upon the almighty silence, scarcely less terrible when we gaze upon its crumbling and pallid frame, varied only by the presence of one or two blasted firs; the head of a mountain loosening from its brother peak, rooting up, in the roar of its rapid rush, a whole forest of pines, and covering the earth for miles with elephantine masses; the supernatural extent of landscape that opens to us new worlds; the strong eagles, and the strange wild birds that suddenly cross you in your path, and stare, and shrieking fly-and all the soft sights of

joy and loveliness that mingle with these sublime and savage spectacles, the rich pastures and the numerous flocks, and the golden bees and the wild-flowers, and the carved and painted cottages, and the simple manners and the primeval grace-wherever I moved, I was in turn appalled or enchanted; but whatever I beheld, new images ever sprang up in my mind, and new feelings ever crowded on my fancy. ...

If I were to assign the particular quality which conduces to that dreamy and voluptuous existence, which men of high imagination experience in Venice, I should describe it as the feeling of abstraction, which is remarkable in that city, and peculiar to it. Venice is the only city which can yield the magical delights of solitude. All is still and silent. No rude sound disturbs your reveries; fancy, therefore, is not put to flight. No rude sound distracts your self-consciousness. This renders existence intense. We feel everything. And we feel thus keenly in a city not only eminently beautiful, not only abounding in wonderful creations of art, but each step of which is hallowed ground, quick with associations, that in their more various nature, their nearer relation to ourselves, and perhaps their more picturesque character, exercise a greater influence over the imagination than the more antique story of Greece and Rome. We feel all this in a city too, which, although her lustre be indeed dimmed, can still count among her daughters maidens fairer than the orient pearls with which her warriors once loved to deck them. Poetry, Tradition, and Love, these are the Graces that have invested with an ever-charming cestus this Aphrodite of cities.

enjoyed a high and deserved degree of popularity. His Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician, two volumes, 1837, contain many touching and beautiful