Amongst my frequent visits to my cousins Lord and Lady Exeter, at this magnificent old dwelling, to which I have alluded in a former chapter, the one most worthy of being remembered was that paid in the year 1850, when the strife of parties respecting the Corn Laws was still raging. In fact it immediately preceded the short period of Lord Derby’s administration, and the house party included the greater part of those who were destined to become the principal members of his Government. It was in this manner that I became acquainted with that great Protectionist leader, and the man who eventually succeeded him as the head of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli. Lord Derby was then in the vigour of physical and intellectual strength, and in the mornings which he passed with his supporters and colleagues in private Cabinet councils, his whole time and thoughts were naturally absorbed in the great question of the day, and in the formation of a system of policy to be carried out, when, as appeared probable, he would become Prime Minister. From such important discussions the ladies of the house were excluded, as a matter of course; for the day had not arrived when women loudly clamoured for entrance into public life, neither had the gentler sex the ambition or the spirit of their sisters of the present day, who demand a right to sit at the official board with the lords of creation, and share their titles, after a somewhat Hibernian fashion, of “Alder-_men_ and Council-_men_.” How delightful, how captivating, was Lord Derby when work gave place to leisure, how enviable was the position of her who sat beside him at luncheon or dinner, how ringing his laugh, how brilliant his nonsense, how irresistible the good-humoured chaff in which he engaged with his worshipper, Mr Disraeli, who offered an ever-contented front to many a keen, though not envenomed dart; what a playfellow he was in conversation, full of mischief and sparkle! In my own mind I always considered him a perennial school-boy. It appeared to me that the wand of some enchanter had arrested the beats of his heart and the flow of his spirits at boyhood point. No wonder he died before old age crept on him; the very idea appeared incongruous in connection with him. [Sidenote: DISRAELI]