The porch of that chief hotel of High Wycombe, the “Red Lion,” has become in these last generations historic; but while we may find, throughout the country, inns associated with the entirely fictitious incidents of novels displaying notices of their fame, there is not yet even the most modest of tablets affixed to the front of the “Red Lion,” to inform the present generation that from the roof of the projecting portico Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Prime Minister of England, made his first political speech. Thrice, and every time unsuccessfully--twice in 1832, and in 1834--he sought to enter Parliament as Member for this town. He made a public entry on June 3rd, 1832, and spoke from beside the lion that, still very red and fierce, stands to this day on the roof of the portico. He appeared there in the dandified costume of his youth--tightly strapped trousers, frock-coat very tight in the waist and very full and spreading in the skirts--and made a picturesque figure as, in the excitement of his harangue to the free and independent electors, he from time to time flung back the long black curls of his luxuriant hair. Mr. D’Israeli--as he then spelled his name--appeared as an independent candidate, and was proposed by a Tory and seconded by a Radical. He polled little more than half the number of votes cast for his opponent, and how small was the electorate in those days of a restricted franchise we may see from this election return: Grey 23 D’Israeli 12 -- Majority 11 Among inns of highly dubious historic associations may be mentioned the “White Hart” at Somerton, Somerset: that gaunt and cold-looking town built of the local grey-blue limestone that so utterly destroys the summery implication of the place-name. [Illustration: THE “WHITE HART,” SOMERTON.] The inn claims to have been partly built of the stones of Somerton Castle, and a tiny opening, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, in the gable of the small and not otherwise particularly interesting house, is pointed out as the window of “King John’s Prison.” The “King John” in question was not our own shabby and lying Lackland, but an infinitely finer fellow--if one may so greatly dare as to name a king a “fellow”--King John of France, taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and held to ransom in England. But there appears to be a considerable deal of confusion in the statement that the French King was ever in custody in Somersetshire, for it was from the Castle of Hertford to Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire that he was removed, for greater security, in 1359. But those grave authorities, the county histories of Somerset and Lincolnshire, alike claim to have had the custody of that illustrious prisoner, in the 33rd year of Edward the Third, at their respective Somertons, and the antiquaries of either narrate how one Sir Saier de Rochford was granted two shillings a day for the keeping of him.