THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF

DrSRAEL!.* (TJVs Weekly.)

During the lifetime of Disraeli it was not -easy to obtain many particulars with regard to his early days. He was >not very communicative on the subject himself ; perhaps, like .many men who have risen, to emineaice from obscurity, there was a esrtam pain in the recollection of early squalor ; and there was, therefore, no inclination to dwell upon it in memory- or in reminiscence. !A. touching anecdote of his old age is that, when once he was pass- ., ing Bsadenhom House — the xesidence of his father in Buckinghamshire — .with agreat ladiy, 'he- being then Prime Minister, j he gpoke of the house as the place where he had spent his "miserable youth." 3£ew . men care to recall a "-miserable youth." especially -in the tune of a prosperous ma-., turity. Disraeli, too, -was not above the vanity of genealogy — and even of a genealogy that owed its splendour to his own inspiration. ! He had a jpreat deal of racial pride. Among the many anecdotes witU which the papers, have lately been ■filled there is one which refers to him as quizzically complaining to laord (Rowtdn that the ,. papers were so lacking in originality of invective — they had called him an adventurer in his youth, and they could find -no, newer epithet ipr him in his old age than } this same one of adventurer. "Fancy," he is reported as adding, "calling a man an adventur.ir -wliose ancestors were pro-^ bably on familiar terms with the Queen of Sheba." But-, not satisfied with this glorious heritage of an ancient and powerful civilisation, and) of a brilliant and energetic race, Disraeli created for himself a genealogy which had no foundation in fact.

I. Everybody familiar with his writings will remember the passage in which he gives the history of his tame. He describes his family as having lived' for generations in Spain, and then as having fled from the Inouisition to Venice :

"There they dropped their Gothic surname, and, grateful to the God of Jacob, who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and' guarded thmn through unheard-of perils, they assumed the name of Disraeli, a name never borne before or since by any other family, in order that their race might be for ever recognised." On the very first occasion on which I read this passage it struck me as sounding false. The name "Disraeli" nas nothing in it which makes it an uncommon name for a member of the Jewish race. Mr Lucien Wolf has told the story of the .name and a good deal of the family history of Disraeli in a very valuable and" interesting preface which "he -has lately written for the centenary edition of- Disraeli's works, now being" published. The edition has started with "Vivian Grey," the .first of -Disraeli's novels. .Mr Wolf's preface is decidedly one of the most valuable, as well as one of the most interesting, chapters that has been added in Jecent years to the large literature that centres around Disraeli's picturesque personality and extremely romantic career. From* these pages of Mr Wolf we are able to reconstruct the family to which Disraeli belonged, and — what is much more important — to reconstruct Disraeli as he was in his youth.

Dealing with the question of Disraeli's claim to an original name, Mr Wolf shows in the first place that Disraeli was nothing more nor less than Israili, which was the common Arabic designation for a Jew. In fact, Israili was no more uncommon than Israil or Israels, or any other form of a very usual Jewish ' name. Nor are there any traces of that prominence of position in the life of Venice which Disraeli attributed to his ancestry. As a matter of fact, the first Disraeli of whom we hear ;n; n England' came from Fersara. He was evidently an adventurous and brave spirit. His emigration to England from Italy was partly due to the election of an Italian to the position of Chief Rabbi in London. His fortunes were also influenced by the fact that fashion had decreed in London that Leghorn hats should be worn ; and it was as an importer of Leghorn hats and other Italian products that Benjamin D'lsraeli — for so the name was then spelt — first started his life in England. He afterwards became connected with the Stock Exchange. There his fortunes varied ; at one time he seems to have failed ; at another to have been in possession of a considerable fortune. He married twice. By his second marriage he advanced both his commercial and social position. His wife was connected

* " Vivian Grey," By the Earl of Beacon&&eld. Lenjton ; The P$ La More Pres*

with the powerful Jewish family of the Villareals, was the daughter of a wealthy family, and had the comfortable dowry of £2000.

Such, th/m, was the founder of the D'lsraeli family in England — evidently a pushful, sanguine, active man of affairs. There could not have been a type of character and temperament much more unlike this than that of his son, Is-aac Disraeli ; and it is as curious -that Isaac Disra.eli should have been the father of such a man as the Benjiman Disraeli we know as that he should have be&n the son of that other D'lsraeli who left Italy as a youth, and was able to fore.? his way to some prominence and some wealth in the fierce competition of London's commercial life. Isaac Disraeli was a, scholai ardi almost a recluse from his earliest years. Perhaps his career and character were shaped on lines so different from those of the energetic business man of whom he was the child by the fact that he 'never had known severe -struggle. Apart from the fortune that was due to him from his father, he was given considerable wealih from his maternal grandparents, who, as has been seen, wero prosperous ; and, indeed, was made independent of his father even while still a young man.

But though Disraeli never knew what the Irish call — in an expressive phrase — ''black poverty," he diid have a youth, which knew all the poignant bitterness of that vast gulf that lies between ambitious dreams and sparse means. The Jewish

race has little patience with penniless dreamers, and doubtless ther.3 were many of the Disraeli family who looked askance at the conceited, self-assertive, brilliant youth who had such an opulence in ideas and had not earned a penny in the practical work of making a living. The youth who wants to make letters his profession is -rarely a favourite with relatives — especially if "those same .relatives have known the bitterness of poverty and the ferocities of straggle. It was, perhaps, a, misfortune from the point of view ofsuch worldly-wise people "that Disraeli was brought up from childihood! in an atmosphere at once literary and political. Hjs father's position as an amiable, a fairiy - opulent, and a somewhat unique man of letters undoubtedly 'helped the boy in the ' ultimate result, and at the >same time, perhaps, impeded and spoiled ±iim in the s .early struggles for a career and a liveli-. hood. His ardent temperament, -his boundless and) voracious ambition, his thirst for power, all these appetites were fed fat ' by Jiis association, while still a youth,- with ! the men and women of distinction in the life of London. 33orn and reared in a provincial town, the youth might have r borne with less impatience the modesty of his lot ; with his temperament brought into association so close with distinction, it was impossible that he should be anything but a dreamer of great and apparently impossible dreams. 0

One can well reconstruct the painful family consultations which would be heldi over the future of a youth at once so brilliant and so impracticable — so confident of a great future, so ineffective in the actual present. X"or is it surprising that at last it should have been resolved that the epoch of dreams and apparent idleness should be brought to a sudden end. This is what happened. It was agreed 1 that the bay shauM be placed .in a solicitor's office and 1 be trained for the legal There is a small, short, narrow passage out pi Old Jewry called Frederick, place. It .exists, to this* day ; to this day at is almost entirely occupied by solicitors' offices. If you wanted to typify and embody a locality in which the study of musty parchment and the drafting of prolix andi "tautological documents would 1 <be most fitly housed, you could not choose a better spot ; nor was .there ev.er a spot more calculated to present the reality of a life of prosaic drudgery in a form jnore repellent to a young imagination and an ardent character, which had dwelt in tbe realm of dreams, .great ambitions, mighty activities. Fancy our young Disraeli, then already a bit of a coxcomb, tremendously self -confident, forcing a future, not by patient drudgery and slow success, but by supr.eme and dazzling keenness ; imagine our young Disraeli, with his waving curls of raven-black hair, his brilliant black eyes, his romantically pallid cheek — with, also, his opulent waistcoats, and cambric cuffs, and flowing and lengthy gold chain; imagine him. I say. looking out through dim and dusty windows at the staring, tall, and dull brick Avails opposite to him, and you will have a picture of goldsn youth beating against its prison walls which must appeal to everyone for sympathy. It was impossible that such a situation should last. Either Disraeli had to escape or die. And this is what led to one of the few adventures in Disraeli's career, in which the pursuit of money was the object, and in which he dirtied his hands by association with financiers. Indirectly, too. this was thd origin of "Vivian Grey," and. through "Vivian Grey," perhaps the leading event that produced the beginning of Disraeli's wondrous career.

One of the fellow clerks of the young Disraeli ,at Frederick place was named Thomas Mulett Evans. He had a certain leaning towards finance and the eag.er desire of most young men of ardent temperament — especially when they lire in the atmosphere of the city — to make a large fortune, and to make it" rapidly. This was the period of Disraeli's life when he was under the conviction — no man dad more to disprove it — that in order to cut a big figure in the world (and that was the everpresent dream of the young boy) it was necessary to have a large fortune. The times were just those which were calculated to increase the dreams of those of the Disraeli and the Evans type. It was what we call nowadays a "boom"' epoch. The

policy of Canning had given an immenst impetus to speculation in the South American Republics. The result was, as Mr Wolf puts it. "Xever since the South Sea, Bubble had the passion for gambling so stiongly possessed the English public" :

"T\\* old fables of the wealth of El Doradtj had become the staple of joint-stock company prospectuses, and fairy visions of the legendary treasure of Peru and Mexico pouring into the lap of England irradiated the whole country. Loans, mining companies, and hundreds of other more or leas wild joint-stock enterprises were launched by the city houses, and the scrip was bought and sold by people with an enthusiasm which sent prices bounding up in the Official List."'

Imagine this fever raging just outside the dull panes of the office in Frederick place, where these two ambitious young clorks sat moping over their parchments and their contracts. "From their office stools," writes Mr Wolf, "in Frederick place, Disraeli and Evans watched this gleaming Pactolus flowing by them with hungry eyes. On all sides fortunes were being made, and they were powerless to participate in them." It may well be that Disraeli, too, with his habitual self-confi-dence, was convinced that he had that genius for finance — especially on a large and a daring seale — which is one of the gifts of his race. These dreams were given tangible shape by the fact that among the clients of the firm of solicitors to whom Disraeli bad been apprenticed was the house of J. and A. Powles and Company, -of Freeman's Court, Comhill, South American merchants and shipping brokers, "and sub rosa associates of the Barclays in the Guatemala Loan, and tne promoters of several dazzling companies which were favourites with fortunehunters. "

" Their names were at that time on everybody's lips, for in January, 1825, the .£lO shares of one of their companies — the Anglo-Mexican Mining Association — had sold for no less a sum than .£l5O. When Messrs 'Powles promoted the Columbian Mining Association,, the drafting of the prospectus was confided to Messrs Swain, Stevens, and Company, and in connection with this work Mr Benjamin Disraeli, to his intense gratification, made the acquaintance of a member of the promoting house and one of the directors of the company, Mr John Dision Powles." *I continue the story in the words of Mr WoHi

" Here was the opportunity for which he .had so long sought. .Mr Powles was rich, amiable, and intelligent. His financial reputation does not appear to have been of the best, but until the bubble burst it stood high enough in Capel Court. With Benjamin Disraeli he specially struck up a close friendship. TJie truth, of course, was that he had an axe to grind. The peculiarity of the financial mania of 1824-25 was the extension of, the joint stock principle to the needs of the small investor and .gambler. Hence publicity was of the first importance to the company-mongers. The money article in the daily newspaper was beginning to take a place among the recognised oracles of the press, but -pamphlets were still favourite means of influencing public opinion. In these circumstances, the brilliant young lawyer's clerk was a godsend to the shrewd Mr Powles. He had written pamphlets himself, but they paled before the possibilities of young Disraeli's pen, with the distributing machinery of the great house of Murray — .perhaps, even the weighty influence of the Quarterly Review — behind it. Benjamin found the wealthy" John an easier conquest than Vivian Grey found the Marquis of Carabas. They became friends, confidants, soon confederates. The lawyer's clerk sat in the councils of mushroom capitalists, and probed the secrets of high politics with the swarthy land beribboned envoys of the upstart republics. The wits of Sara Austen's salon in Guildford street were eclipsed, for the index of fortune pointed clearly to the money-market. Sidonia haG the ball at his feet."

The first result of this alliance was three big pamphlets ; but of this more nei.i> week. — T. P.

(To be continued.)