The greater part of our Parliamentary history during the twenty-five years of Disraeli's leadership of the Tory Opposition in the House of Commons is of this character. The nation was going its own way--multiplying its numbers, piling up its ingots, adding to its scientific knowledge, and spreading its commerce over the globe. Parliament was talking, since talk was its business, about subjects the very names of which are dead echoes of vanished unrealities. It may be claimed for Disraeli that he discharged his sad duties during all this time with as little insincerity as the circumstances allowed, that he was never wilfully obstructive, and that while he was dexterous as a party chief he conducted himself always with dignity and fairness. It cost him less than it would have cost most men, because being not deeply concerned he could judge the situation with coolness and impartiality. He knew that it was not the interest of the Conservative party to struggle prematurely for office, and he had a genuine and loyal concern for the honour and greatness of the country. Any proposals which he considered good he helped forward with earnestness and ability--proposals for shortening the hours of labour, for the protection of children in the factories, for the improvement of the dwelling-houses of the poor. He may be said to have brought the Jews into Parliament a quarter of a century before they would otherwise have been admitted there, for the Conservatives left to themselves would probably have opposed their admission to the end. He could accomplish little, but he prevented harm. The interesting intervals of the long dreary time were when the monotony was broken in upon by incidents from without--Continental revolutions, Crimean campaigns, Indian mutinies, civil wars in America, and such like, when false steps might have swept this country into the whirlpools, and there was need for care and foresight. On all or most of these occasions he signalised himself not only by refraining from taking advantage of them to embarrass the Government, but by a loftiness of thought and language unfortunately not too common in the House of Commons.