His prose writings deserved better and fared better. 'Contarini Fleming' and the tale of 'Alroy' were well received. Milman, as was said above, compared 'Contarini' to 'Childe Harold.' Beckford found 'Alroy' wildly original, full of intense thought, awakening, delightful. Both these eminent critics were too lavish of their praise, but they expressed the general opinion. The fame of 'Vivian Grey' was revived. The literary world acknowledged that a new star had appeared, and Disraeli became a London lion. The saloons of the great were thrown open to him. Bulwer he knew already. At Bulwer's house he was introduced to Count d'Orsay, Lady Morgan, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Gore, and other notabilities. Lady Blessington welcomed him at Kensington. Flying higher he made acquaintance with Lord Mulgrave, Lord William Lennox, and Tom Moore. He frequented the fashionable smoking-rooms, sporting his Eastern acquirements. A distinguished colonel, supposing that he meant to push his good fortune, gave him a friendly warning. 'Take care, my good fellow. I lost the most beautiful woman in the world by smoking; it has prevented more liaisons than the dread of a duel or Doctors' Commons.' 'You have proved it a very moral habit,' replied Disraeli. His ambition did not run in the line which the colonel suspected. Success as a novelist might gratify vanity, but could never meet Disraeli's aspirations. He met public men, and studied the ways of them, dimly feeling that theirs was the sphere where he could best distinguish himself. At a dinner at Lord Eliot's he sat next to Peel. 'Peel most gracious,' he reported to his sister next day.[2] 'He is a very great man indeed, and they all seem afraid of him. I observed that he attacked his turbot almost entirely with his knife. I could conceive that he could be very disagreeable; but yesterday he was in a most condescending humour, and unbent with becoming haughtiness. I reminded him by my dignified familiarity both that he was an ex-Minister and I a present Radical.' He went to the gallery of the House of Commons, 'heard Macaulay's best speech, Shiel, and Charles Grant. Macaulay admirable, but between ourselves I could floor them all. This _entre nous_. I was never more confident of anything than that I could carry everything before me in that House.' In that House, perhaps. He knew that he had a devil of a tongue, that he was clever, ready, without fear, and, however vain, without the foolish form of vanity which is called modesty. He had studied politics all his life, and having no interests at stake with either of the great parties, and, as being half a foreigner, lying outside them both, he could take a position of his own. In that House; but, again, how was he to get there? Young men of genius may be invited to dinners in the great world, but seats in Parliament will be only found for them if they will put on harness and be docile in the shafts. Disraeli had shown no qualities which promised official usefulness; he