And what was it? Whatever you may count it, there is surely warrant for telling you something of his history and his antecedents: Three or more centuries ago--at the very least--a certain Jew of Cordova, in Spain, driven out by the terrors of the Inquisition, went to Venice--established himself there in merchandise, and his family throve there for two hundred years. A century and a half ago,--when the fortunes of Venice were plainly on the wane--the head of this Jewish family--Benjamin Disraeli (grandfather of the one of whom we speak) migrated to England. This first English Benjamin met with success on the Exchange of London, and owing to the influences of his wife (who hated all Jewry) he discarded his religious connection with Hebraism, went to the town of Enfield, a little north of London--with a good fortune, and lived there the life of a retired country gentleman. He had a son Isaac, who devoted himself to the study of literature, and showed early strong bookish proclivities--very much to the grief of his father, who had a shrewd contempt for all such follies. Yet the son Isaac persisted, and did little else through a long life, save to prosecute inquiries about the struggles of authors and the lives of authors and the work of authors--all ending in that agglomeration which we know as the _Curiosities of Literature_--a book which sixty years since used to be reckoned a necessary part of all well-equipped libraries; but which--to tell truth--has very little value; being without any method, without fulness, and without much accuracy. It is very rare that so poor a book gets so good a name, and wears it so long. Oddly enough, this father, who had devoted a life to the mere gossip of literature, as it were, warns his son Benjamin against literary pursuits (he wrote three or four novels indeed,[59] but they are never heard of), and the son studied mostly under private tutors; there is no full or trustworthy private biography of him: but we know that in the years 1826-1827--only a short time before the Lady Blessington coterie was in its best feather--he wrote a novel called _Vivian Grey_,--the author being then under twenty-two--which for a time divided attention with _Pelham_. In club circles it made even more talk. It is full of pictures of people of the day; Brougham and Wilson Croker, and Southey, and George Canning, and Mrs. Coutts and Lady Melbourne (Caroline Lamb), all figure in it. He never gave over, indeed, putting portraits in his books--as Goldwin Smith can tell us. The larger Reviews were coy of praise and coy of condemnation: indeed ’twas hard to say which way it pointed--socially or politically; but, for the scandal-mongers, there was in it very appetizing meat. He became a lion of the salons; and he enjoyed the lionhood vastly. Chalon[60] painted him in that day--a very Adonis--gorgeous in velvet coat and in ruffled shirt.