which he might make 'twelve or fifteen hundred pounds.' Happily for his literary reputation this adventure was not prosecuted. Some one in the City introduced him to a speculation connected with a Dutch loan, which took him twice to the Hague and taught him the mysteries of finance. More legitimately in the midst of embarrassments and platform speeches he wrote 'Henrietta Temple' and 'Venetia,' the first a pretty love-story which offered no opportunities for his peculiar gifts, the second an attempt to exhibit in a novel the characters of Byron and Shelley. They would have made a reputation for an ordinary writer. They sustained the public interest in Disraeli. Of his speeches there was one at Wycombe in which he said that there would be no tranquillity in Ireland 'till the Irish people enjoyed the right to which the people of all countries were entitled, to be maintained by the soil which they cultivated with their labour.' In another there is a prophetic passage. 'I cannot force from my mind the conviction that a House of Commons concentrating in itself the whole powers of the State might--I should say would--constitute a despotism of the most formidable and dangerous description.' A third was the celebrated Ducrow speech--the Whig Premier as Ducrow first riding six horses at once, and as they foundered one by one left at last riding a jackass, which showed what Disraeli could do as a mob orator when he chose to condescend to it. Bulwer said of one of these speeches that it was the finest in the world, and of one of the novels that it was the very worst. The criticism was smartly worded, and on both sides exaggerated; but it was true that, if Disraeli had been undistinguished as a speaker, his early novels would have been as the 'flowers of the field,' charming for the day that was passing over them and then forgotten. His political apprenticeship was at last over; the object of his ambition, the so deeply coveted seat in the House of Commons, was within his reach, and he was to pass into his proper sphere--to pass into it too while still young, for after all that he had done and experienced he was still only thirty-three. Few men, with the odds so heavy against them, had risen so high in so short a time. CHAPTER V Returned to Parliament for Maidstone--Takes his place behind Sir R. Peel--Maiden speech--Silenced by violence--Peel's opinion of it--Advice of Shiel--Second speech on Copyright completely successful--State of politics--England in a state of change--Break-up of ancient institutions--Land and its duties--Political Economy and Free Trade--Struggle on the Corn Laws.