His influence over the late Queen was more remarkable even than has hitherto been disclosed. And in this regard I am able to state that, while out of office, he negotiated with extreme tact, under delicate circumstances, the peerage conferred on a most amiable prince, now no more; and further, that at each stage of all its bearings Queen Victoria consulted and deferred to his counsel, kindness, and resource. I may add that he also devised a means of providing the same lamented prince with an absorbing occupation. He was a firm friend; loyalty he always extolled as a sovereign virtue. Not many have the faculty for friendship in old age as Lord Beaconsfield had it. His passion for mastery, his addiction to mystery were rivalled by his immense faithfulness. If he was always “the man of destiny,” he was also ever “faithful unto death.” And his real friendships were warm as well as constant. While he was at Glasgow to be inaugurated Lord Rector of its University, he heard good tidings of an old associate. “Mrs. Disraeli and I,” he wrote, “were over-joyed, and we danced a Highland fling in our nightgowns.” The picture raises a smile,[26] but it also strikes an unexpected chord. Of music and of art in general he was a devotee, as many passages in his novels attest. He had his own theories of their influence on composition and on literature. Murillo was his favourite painter, Mozart his favourite composer. He ever deplored the insensibility of the Government to the duty of elevating taste for the beautiful. When the Blacas collection of gems was in the market at the price of £70,000, the Administration of the day at first refused to entertain the purchase, but Disraeli persuaded them by offering to find the money himself, if they persisted. In this case, as in so many others (notably that of the Suez Canal shares), imagination forwarded the public interest; for this collection is now worth some threefold of what was expended. When a great work by Raphael was offered to the Government, and Disraeli’s colleagues were in doubt, Disraeli sent for the leading dealer, in whose hands the commission had been placed, inspected the picture himself, discoursed charmingly and critically of its merits, with the result that it is now in the National Gallery. Since even trifles about the eminent possess interest, I may add the following story of his old age. He was showing a distinguished visitor (still living) his family portraits at Hughenden. He paused before a pastel of a lovely child wafted by seraphs through the skies. “That,” he exclaimed, “is a pet picture; observe how exquisitely the draperies of the angels are arranged. _The baby’s me!_” His fondness for beautiful form extended to his own handwriting.