tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">170

VIII. Hugh M’Calmont Cairns, Earl Cairns 1819-1885 184 IX. James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester 1818-1885 196 X. Stafford Henry Northcote, Earl of Iddesleigh 1818-1887 211 XI. Charles Stewart Parnell 1846-1891 227 XII. Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop and Cardinal 1808-1892 250 XIII. Edward Augustus Freeman 1823-1892 262 XIV. Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke 1811-1892 293 XV. William Robertson Smith 1846-1894 311 XVI. Henry Sidgwick 1838-1900 327 XVII. Edward Ernest Bowen 1836-1901 343 XVIII. Edwin Lawrence Godkin 1831-1902 363 XIX. John Emerich Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton 1834-1902 382 XX. William Ewart Gladstone 1809-1898 400

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When Lord Beaconsfield died in 1881 we all wondered what people would think of him fifty years thereafter. Divided as our own judgments were, we asked whether he would still seem a problem. Would opposite views regarding his aims, his ideas, the sources of his power, still divide the learned, and perplex the ordinary reader? Would men complain that history cannot be good for much when, with the abundant materials at her disposal, she had not framed a consistent theory of one who played so great a part in so ample a theatre? People called him a riddle; and he certainly affected a sphinx-like attitude. Would the riddle be easier then than it was for us, from among whom the man had even now departed?

When he died, there were many in England who revered him as a profound thinker and a lofty character, animated by sincere patriotism. 2 Others, probably as numerous, held him for no better than a cynical charlatan, bent through life on his own advancement, who permitted no sense of public duty, and very little human compassion, to stand in the way of his insatiate ambition. The rest did not know what to think. They felt in him the presence of power; they felt also something repellent. They could not understand how a man who seemed hard and unscrupulous could win so much attachment and command so much obedience.

Since Disraeli departed nearly one-half of those fifty years has passed away. Few are living who can claim to have been his personal friends, none who were personal enemies. No living statesman professes to be his political disciple. The time has come when one may discuss his character and estimate his career without being suspected of doing so with a party bias or from a party motive. Doubtless those who condemn and those who defend or excuse some momentous parts of his conduct, such as, for instance, his policy in the East and in Afghanistan from 1876 to 1879, will differ in their judgment of his wisdom and foresight. If this be a difficulty, it is an unavoidable one, and may never quite disappear. There were in the days of Augustus some who blamed that sagacious ruler for seeking to check the expansion of the Roman Empire.