Welcomed to the ranks of the Tory opposition by Sir Robert Peel, the ambitious recruit plunged at once into oratory--only to have his maiden effort drowned by the jeers of his hostile hearers, led by O'Connell's "tail" of Irish members. They mocked at his appeals for a hearing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck, he could not make it go. "At last, losing his temper, which until now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused in the midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indignantly in the face, raised his hands and opening his mouth as widely as its dimensions would admit, said, in a remarkably loud and almost terrific tone, 'I have begun, several times, many things, and I have often succeeded at last; aye, sir, and though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me.'" Nor did he ever again fail to get a hearing. He spoke often and to the point, enlivening his solid argument with touches of wit and gleams of imagination which light up the dreary pages of the parliamentary journals. At the first he was the steady supporter of Peel, but this clever man of ideals, imagination, and insight, could have little in common with that prosy, plodding man of business, whose stronghold was in the esteem of the plodding middle classes. When the Tories came into power in 1841, with Peel as Prime Minister, he found no place in his government for the supporter whose talent all parties had now begun to recognize. The slight bred coolness, and as Peel began to veer towards free trade principles, Disraeli, gathering a few ardent Tory protectionists about him, made himself a thorn in the premier's side. His caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of the principles of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The right honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs bathing and he walked away with their clothes." He characterized the premier's genius as "sublime mediocrity," amid shouts of applause, and his government, raised to office by protectionist votes, yet steadily promoting free trade measures, he branded as "organized hypocrisy." His hostility to the repeal of the Corn Laws was based not so much upon economic argument superior to that of Cobden, as upon his fundamental belief that the greatness of the English nation in all past centuries had been derived from the wise rule of the aristocratic, land-owning class, and a fond belief that the retention of the tariff upon imported agricultural produce would support this ancient pillar of the constitution. Furthermore, his contention that England's adoption of free trade would be met by rival nations with high tariffs against imports of English goods has been borne out by the facts of subsequent history, against the confident assertion of Cobden and the Manchester school of economists that the world would soon follow the lead of England in throwing down all artificial barriers to the exchange of commodities. Peel carried his bill,