Indifference to money--Death of Isaac Disraeli--Purchase of Hughenden--Mrs. Brydges Willyams of Torquay--An assignation with unexpected results--Intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Willyams--Correspondence--Views on many subjects--The Crown of Greece--Louis Napoleon--Spanish pedigree of Mrs. Willyams. [Sidenote: PURCHASE OF HUGHENDEN] 'Adventures are to the adventurous:' so Ixion had written in Athene's album. Nothing is more commonplace than an ordinary Parliamentary career. Disraeli's life was a romance. Starting with the least promising beginning, with a self-confidence which seemed like madness to everyone but himself, his origin a reproach to him and his inherited connections the least able to help him forward on the course which he had chosen, he had become, at a comparatively early age, by the mere force of his personal genius, the political chief of the proudest aristocracy in the world. His marriage had given him independence for the time, but his wife's income depended on her life, and a large part of it had long to be expended in paying the interest of his debts. Like his own Endymion he had no root in the country. The talents which he had displayed in Parliament would have given him wealth in any other profession. But he had neglected fortune for fame and power, and was not clear of his early embarrassments even when first Chancellor of the Exchequer. Being the leader of the country gentlemen, he aspired to be a country gentleman himself, to be a magistrate, to sit in top boots at quarter sessions and manage local business. Part of his ambition he attained. In 1847 he became member for his own county, and was so popular that he kept his seat without a contest as long as he remained in the House of Commons; but for several years after he represented Buckinghamshire his connection with the soil was no more than nominal. Fortune, however, was again to stand his friend in a strange manner. He received a large sum from a private hand for his 'Life of Lord George Bentinck,' while a wealthy Conservative millionaire took upon himself in addition the debts to the usurers, the three per cent. with which he was content being exchanged for the ten per cent. under which Disraeli had so long been staggering. Isaac Disraeli lived long enough to see his son realise the dreams which he had himself long regarded with indifference or provocation. Dying in 1848, he left the remainder of the family fortune to be divided among his children. Benjamin Disraeli discharged his last filial duties in re-editing his father's works and prefixing to them an interesting biography of him. The portion which came to him was not considerable, but it was sufficient to enable him to purchase the manor of Hughenden, in the immediate neighbourhood of Bradenham, and Mrs. Disraeli raised in the park a handsome monument to the old man, as if to fasten the name and fame of the Disraelis upon the ground. Neither,