necessity he rationally folded his wings, and on November 18, 1821, when just seventeen, he was introduced into a solicitor's office in Old Jewry. Mr. Maples, a member of the firm, was an old friend of Isaac Disraeli, and to Mr. Maples's department 'Ben' was attached. Distasteful as the occupation must have been to him, he attached himself zealously to his work. He remained at his desk for three years, and Mr. Maples described him as 'most assiduous in his attention to business, as showing great ability in the transaction of it,' and as likely, if allowed to go to the Bar, to attain to eminence there. [Sidenote: 'VIVIAN GREY'] If the project had been carried out the anticipation would probably have been verified. The qualities which enabled Disraeli to rise in the House of Commons would have lifted him as surely, and perhaps as rapidly, into the high places of the profession. He might have entered Parliament with greater facility and with firmer ground under his feet. He acquiesced in his father's wishes; he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and apparently intended to pursue a legal career; but the Fates or his own adventurousness ordered his fortunes otherwise. His work in the office had not interfered with his social engagements. He met distinguished people at his father's table--Wilson Croker, then Secretary to the Admiralty; Samuel Rogers; John Murray, the proprietor of the 'Quarterly Review,' and others of Murray's brilliant contributors. The Catholic question was stirring. There were rumours of Reform, and the political atmosphere was growing hot. Disraeli observed, listened, took the measure of these men, and thought he was as good as any of them. He began to write in the newspapers. The experienced Mr. Murray took notice of him as a person of whom something considerable might be made. These acquaintances enabled him to extend his knowledge of the world, which began to shape itself into form and figure. To understand the serious side of things requires a matured faculty. The ridiculous is caught more easily. With Mrs. Austen for an adviser, and perhaps with her assistance, he composed a book which, however absurd in its plot and glaring in its affectation, revealed at once that a new writer had started into being, who would make his mark on men and things. That a solicitor's clerk of twenty should be able to produce 'Vivian Grey' is not, perhaps, more astonishing than that Dickens, at little more than the same age, should have written 'Pickwick.' All depends on the eye. Most of us encounter every day materials for a comedy if we could only see them. But genius is wanted for it, and the thing, when accomplished, proves that genius has been at work. The motto of Vivian Grey was sufficiently impudent: Why, then, the world's mine oyster, Which with my sword I'll open.