He says that he came forward at High Wycombe and afterwards offered himself to Marylebone as an opponent of the Whigs, determining to do all he could to bring the Tories into better accord with the masses of the people by re-establishing the natural social bonds between the latter and the aristocracy. Certainly, this is exactly what he has done; it is what he openly said that he aimed at doing from the very beginning. Moreover, the Tories so understood it from the first moment. They gave him their support at High Wycombe before he went to Taunton, and political support cannot be kept very secret. His name was a popular toast at agricultural banquets, and he was sure of a welcome at any muster of the Conservatives. Supposing that the Radicals had not had penetration enough to comprehend the position he took up, who would have been to blame for that? But the fact is that it has suited them to pretend in this case to be more stupid than they were. No Radical constituency ever elected Mr. Disraeli. The newspapers of the party never spoke of him as one of their sort; and Messrs. Hume and O'Connell were in a great hurry to withdraw their letters of recommendation, which had reached the candidate unsought. It is not denied by Lord Beaconsfield's most rabid defamer that he presented himself as an Anti-Whig, and it is admitted that long before he was in the House he was a supporter in public of Lord Chandos, and a eulogist of Sir Robert Peel. In his address to the Marylebone electors he described himself as an Independent. But it is really hardly worth while to discuss Mr. Disraeli's politics on this narrow basis. The case may be put into a nutshell thus: if he had postponed seeking a seat till he went to Taunton, which was in 1835--that is to say forty-four years ago--no one would have been able to say, even in a way of cavil, that he had been ever any other than a most openly understood Tory. It is true that the Radicals would still have been able to complain that he had been bold enough to pass a Reform Bill giving household suffrage in the towns, and so spoiled once for all their party tactics. But that is an allegation of inconsistency which his Conservative supporters whom it has placed in office need not be very anxious to defend him against. The other side had made the question of Reform cease to be one of fair politics; Parliament after Parliament they were trading upon it in the most huckstering spirit. Mr. Disraeli's own first narrower proposals were scoffed at by them. The Bill that was finally passed was avowedly a piece of party tactic, and admirably it answered its end. Of course, since it succeeded so well, Lord Beaconsfield's rivals will never forgive him for it.