The late Earl of Beaconsfield not invent the solid principles of British statesmanship which me expounded, and which he put into practice. Rather did his superb genius educe them from English polity and English tradition and English history, and endow them with their right application to the conditions of his time. Disraeli falls into the right line of political descent from Bolingbroke, Burke, and Pitt. The Marquess of Salisbury, in his excellent little preface, to "The Wisdom of Disraeli," a daintily produced volume, arranged by Mr. T. Comyn-Platt, and just "issued by the 1900 club (National Review Office, %. 6d. net), remarks that he docs not suggest we should agree with all Disraeli did, or approve all he said. That is a necessary qualification, nq doubt. But nevertheless we can say this of Disraeli: that he did his honest utmost with the material at his hand, and that he did it supremely well. Every statesman, even the greatest, must work under conditions imposed upon him; but that is a very different matter from the pure empiricism of the politician of to-day, who "follows the loudest cry and makes it louder by one.'"
Disraeli in his own time and since has been reproached as an adventurer, and taunted with being a Radical. If Disraeli were an adventurer, at least he sought a high adventure, and achieved it, caring nothing for money or - for reward. And how a Conservative can be a Radical Mr. Bonar Law may be left to explain. What is certain is that Disraeli ranks among the greatest statesmen, ennobling this or any other country. Had his exposition of the true policy of England, instead of having been submerged beneath the muddy tide of Manchester Liberalism, been resolutely followed, the honour and the welfare of England would stand far higher to-day. But as Disraeli thought and wrought in advance of his time, so it is not yet too late to find a new inspiration in his magnificent bequest of wisdom, romance, and statecraft. if che admirable little selection of Mr. Comyn-Platt serves te draw its readers to the original, the 1900 Club will have performed a public service.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.