[174] One of the best is the invective against the collapse of Peel’s “sliding scale:”--“... Of course the Whigs will be the chief mourners; they cannot but weep for their innocent, though it was an abortion. But ours was a fine child. Who can forget how its nurse dandled and fondled it? ‘What a charming babe! Delicious little thing! So thriving! Did you ever see such a beauty for its years?’ And then the nurse, in a fit of patriotic frenzy, dashes its brains out, and comes down to give master and mistress an account of this terrible murder. The nurse too, a person of a very orderly demeanour, not given to drink, and never showing any emotion, except of late when kicking against protection.” [175] The late Duke of Abercorn. [176] Of his verse I have not treated. No reader, however, of his fine sonnet on the Duke of Wellington, inscribed in the Stowe album, or of the wistful lyric addressed from the Ægean to his family in the _Home Letters_, or of the “Bignetta” rondel in the _Young Duke_, with its Heinesque close, or even of “Spring in the Apennines” from _Venetia_, can doubt his genuine gift for poetry and metre. [177] “The art of poetry was to express natural feelings in unnatural language.”--_Contarini._ [178] In five volumes. Its original dedication ran:-- “To the Best and Greatest of Men. He for whom it is intended will accept and appreciate the compliment, Those for whom it is not intended will do the same.” [179] _Vivian Grey._ [180] _Contarini Fleming._ [181] _Venetia._ [182] _Cf._ Bolingbroke’s “Compare the situations without comparing the characters.” [183] This idea was emphasised by Bolingbroke. [184] Hume’s election support, the challenge of O’Connell, the cultivation of Chandos, the “Canning” episode, the surrender of “protection,” and the delay in producing the Indian despatches, respectively. [185] Notably in 1855. [186] This is told in one of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s “Diaries.” [187] It is noticeable, as regards the habitual recurrence of his phrases, that in his early letters he always nicknames this first illness “the enemy,” the same as he used to his physicians in his last. His early ill health quickened his continual sympathy with suffering. No better instance could be read than his speech at the opening of the Hospital for Consumption, with his beautiful references to Jenny Lind, as song ministering to sorrow. [188] At Berlin Bismarck said of him, “Disraeli _is_ England.” His translated works were, and I believe are, read widely abroad. INDEX Addington, 82 Addison, 286 Afghanistan, 215 _et seq._ and _n._ 1 Ali Pacha, 271