to retrieve the war, who yet steered his imposing fleet right into the enemy’s port; and the many illustrations from Cervantes, whose irony they share. Then, again, there are those terse figurative fancies which belong to the family of those first mentioned. The “Midland Sea” for the Mediterranean; the “Western minster” for Westminster Abbey; the “dark sex” for man; the “free-trader in gossip” for the bad listener; the “confused explanations and explained confusions,” “Stateswoman”[172] and “Anecdotage,” which, by-the-by, is a phrase of Isaac Disraeli derived by him in conversation from Rogers[173]--all these and their kindred remind us that he was the son of an author portrayed by him as sauntering on his garden terrace meditating some happy phrase. Of the second--the wit of sustained sparkle rather than of sudden flashes--there are abundant examples. There is the passage in which “Lady Constance” in _Tancred_ unconsciously ironises evolution in her criticism of a pamphlet, “The Revelations of Chaos.” There is the lady’s reasoning on the Gulf Stream theory, and “Lothair’s” retort, “You believe in Gulf Stream to that extent--no skating.” There is the pious regret that a boring authoress could not be married to the author of “The Letters of Junius” and “have done with it;” and the pious hope that the Whigs would disfranchise every town without a Peel statue. Then, again, there is “Herbert” in _Venetia_. “I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being that he is at five-and-twenty.” “I wonder,” said Lord Cadurcis, “if a creditor brought an action against you at fifty for goods sold and delivered at five-and-twenty, one could set up the want of identity as a plea in bar; it would be a consolation to elderly gentlemen.” And to go back to an even earlier date-- “What a pity, Miss Manvers, that the fashion has gone out of selling one’s self to the devil!... _What a capital plan for younger brothers!_ It is a kind of thing I have been trying to do all my life, and never could succeed in. I began at school with toasted cheese and a pitchfork.” Or take the report of the debate in the House of Lords, “imposing, particularly if we take a part in it”-- “Lord Exchamberlain thought the nation going on wrong, and he made a speech full of currency and constitution. Baron Deprivyseal seconded him with great effect, brief but bitter, satirical but sore. The Earl of Quarterday answered these, full of confidence in the nation and himself. When the debate was getting heavy, Lord Snap jumped up to give them something light. The Lords do not encourage wit, and so are obliged to put up with pertness. But Viscount Memoir was very statesmanlike, and spouted a sort of universal history. Then there was Lord Ego, who vindicated his character, when nobody knew he had one, and explained his motives, because his auditors could not understand his acts.” Or the comparison of the defeated Tories to the Saxons converted by Charlemagne--