The central figure is the author himself caricaturing his own impertinence and bringing on his head deserved retribution; but the sarcasm, the strength of hand, the audacious personalities caught the attention of the public, and gave him at once the notoriety which he desired. 'Vivian' was the book of the season; everyone read it, everyone talked about it, and keys were published of the characters who were satirised. Disraeli, like Byron, went to sleep a nameless youth of twenty-one and woke to find himself famous. A successful novel may be gratifying to vanity, but it is a bad introduction to a learned profession. Attorneys prefer barristers who stick to business and do not expatiate into literature. A single fault might be overlooked, and 'Vivian Grey' be forgotten before its author could put on his wig, but a more serious cause interrupted his legal progress. He was overtaken by a singular disorder, which disabled him from serious work. He had fits of giddiness, which he described as like a consciousness of the earth's rotation. Once he fell into a trance, from which he did not completely recover for a week. He was recommended to travel, and the Austens took him abroad with them for a summer tour. They went to Paris, to Switzerland, to Milan, Venice, Florence, Geneva, and back over Mont Cenis into France. His health became better, but was not re-established, and he returned to his family still an invalid. [Sidenote: BRADENHAM] The 'law' was postponed, but not yet abandoned. In a letter to his father, written in 1832, he spoke of his illness as having robbed him of five years of life; as if this, and this alone, had prevented him from going on with his profession. Meanwhile there was a complete change in the outward circumstances of the Disraeli household. Isaac Disraeli, who had the confirmed habits of a Londoner, whose days had been spent in libraries and his evenings in literary society, for some reason or other chose to alter the entire character of his existence. Like Ferrars in 'Endymion,' though not for the same cause, he tore himself away from all his associations and withdrew with his wife and children to an old manor house in Buckinghamshire, two miles from High Wycombe. Bradenham, their new home, is exactly described in the account which Disraeli gives of the Ferrars's place of retirement; and perhaps their first arrival there and their gipsy-like encampment in the old hall, the sense, half-realised, that they were being taken away from all their interests and associations, may equally have been drawn from memory. The Disraelis, however, contrived happily enough to fit themselves to their new existence. Disraeli all through his life delighted in the country and country scenes. The dilapidated manor house was large and picturesque. The land round it was open down, or covered thinly with scrub and woods. They had horses and could gallop where they pleased. They had their dogs and their farmyard; they made new friends among the