acquainted with Mr. Smith, we only know him through his marvellously clever essays in Macmillan's and other magazines of the day, and by his photograph, which at one time used to flourish in some of the shop windows, and which gave us the idea of a face shrouded in a kind of solemn blackness, as if the abstruse nature of the gentleman's studies had cast a permanent shadow over his features. It is a curious fact, however, that Mr. Smith himself put the cap on-which is commonly taken as the sign that it fitsand betrayed his agony in a somewhat hysterical letter, which contained some rambling plaints concerning "cowards" and "stingless insults." Assuming then, on the showing of the original himself, that the portrait in question was meant for Mr. Goldwin Smith, we are bound to say that it was as deserved as it was masterly. Before he left this country Mr. Smith was in the habit of tramping about the provinces and delivering what he thought were lectures on politics to simple-minded audiences, in which he took occasion to make systematic and scurrilous attacks on the present Prime Minister, one of which, we believe, once drew from Mr. Disraeli the contemptuous allusion in the House of Commons, to "that rampant orator and itinerant lecturer." For ourselves, we were immensely delighted when we contemplated that speaking likeness of “the Professor," for we were of opinion that surely the time had arrived when some wholesome castigation should be administered to an academic quack, who, on the strength of some nebulous ideas connected with "the dismal science," and some dry papers in a heavy periodical, went out of his way to annoy a great statesman and man of genius by throwing dirt on his garments. We are happy to think that if Mr. Smith's physical loins did not taste sufficiently of the salutary birch when he was at school, there has been some compensation in the strokes which his mental ones have received in later life. But enough of Mr. Smith. Scarcely less important and interesting than "Lothair" itself was the preface appended to it. Mr. Disraeli has done good service in setting his face against and persistently ridiculing the theories of those conceited philosophers who have lately founded the two schools which are generally known as the "Rationalistic" and the "Materialistic," and which, respectively, are looked upon by many as some new gospel or illumination that is to extinguish all mystery, and to account once for all for everything relatiug to "the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world." The following earnest and admirable reflections occur in the preface: "It cannot be denied that the aspect of the world and this country, to those who have faith in the spiritual nature of man, is at this time dark and distressful. They listen to doubts, and even denials of an active Providence; what is styled Materialism is in the ascendant.

To those who believe that an atheistical society, though it may be polished and amiable, involves the seeds of anarchy, the prospect is full of gloom. Man brings to the study of the oracles more learning and more criticism than of yore; and it is well that it should be so. The documents will yet bear a greater amount both of erudition and examination than they have received; but the Word of God is eternal, and will survive the spheres. Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from Heaven to man. We may analyse the sun, and penetrate the stars, but man is conscious that he is made in God's own image, and in his perplexity he will ever appeal to 'Our Father which art in heaven.'" We have been vastly amused, though at the same time filled with an infinite pity, at observing that whenever Mr. Disraeli has had occasion to touch upon religious subjects, or to put forward a defence for the National Church which he so much loves, that motley tribe of sceptics, who either affect to, or really look upon him as a kind of Mephistopheles, or even the devil himself, in a suit of sables, at once scream out at the top of their voices, "Behold how he poses!" This cry of "posing," whenever their enemy reveals himself in a character which they cannot understand, is the convenient way in which these generous wiseacres sever the Gordian knot. On the other hand, the late leader of Her Majesty's Opposition gets credit carte blanche for "intense conscientiousness," "profound piety," and all the rest of it. How it illustrates the ways of man! Given a solemn face and a serious manner, with the faculty of saying "the thing" about "the good Book," or "the old, old story," at the opening of a "mechanics' institute," and the halo of saints wreathes your head at once; while, conceal the most radiant and transcendent truths under an aspect of mockery, and, save by the true seer and thinker, you are consigned to the limbo of mimics and persifleurs. We recollect that Mr. Disraeli also dealt a heavy blow at the particular schools we have referred to in the course of a powerful speech on the Irish Education Bill of 1873. "This is an age," he declared," in which young men prattle of protoplasm, and young ladies, in gilded saloons, talk unconscious atheism." That predominant faith in "the spiritual nature of man," indeed, consistently pervades and animates the Prime Minister's writings and speeches, and on questions of religious speculation and thought he is as much the sworn antagonist of the schools of Mr. John Stuart Mill and Professor Tyndal, with their confused and presumptuous jabber about the Benthamite nonsense of "greatest happiness of the greatest number," "brain secretes thought as liver secretes bile," "nature abhors a vacuum, the greater contains the less," "potencies in atoms," and the rest of the childish formulæ, as in politics he is of "the economist," and the professor."

With respect to Mr. Disraeli in his character of a novelist, there are just two other points to which we desire to call attention before bringing this paper to a close; one is the surpassing loveliness of the female creations in his books; the other is, his power, when he chooses, of poetic word-painting. Mr. Disracli has presented us with a gallery of women who for spiritual beauty and general artistic grace, are to our mind, only eclipsed by the transcendent heroines of Shakespeare. They are all females of the most perfect breeding-true natural aristocrats, though they may not always happen to be social ones. Edith Millbank, in "Coningsby,

is the daughter of a rich Manchester merchant, a "self-made " bourgeois, yet nothing can be more truly patrician than her manners and conduct. Had Mr. Disraeli made his women mere picturesque abstractions we could not love them as we do, for we do not become enamoured of statues, however beautifully they be moulded, we only exceedingly admire them. But all Mr. Disraeli's heroines are human and natural to the backbone; their pulses bubble and their cheeks glow with youthful health; their flesh is warm and soft with natural vigour; their pure bosoms heave with lovely emotion; their tender eyes fill with tears at the sight or tale of suffering ; their laughter rings out joyous and strong; they are exuberant with high spirits and fun and all kinds of enchanting innocent follies. Like Shakespeare's divine women, Mr. Disraeli's are never common-place or insipid, yet are they never pedants or blue-stockings, or eccentricities. They all have hearts; and the poetry of Mr. Disraeli's own nature seems to be subtilly diffused through their being, although he does not need to make any of them scribble verses. No matter how humble her station may be, the heroine of Mr. Disraeli's romance is a lady; and if she happens to be perched on the extreme altitude of the social fabric she is not more. This we take to be the highest tribute that can be paid to Mr. Disraeli's deep and accurate reading of female humanity. A bungling artist, in trying to represent a lady in the form of a rustic maiden would have drawn an apish waiting-woman caricaturing the manuers of "high life;" in depicting a duchess he would have given us a haughty exclusive, entirely absorbed in " the sustained splendour of her stately life." Not such are Sybil or "the Duchess" in "Lothair." One of our greatest favourites is, May Dacre in the "Young Duke." She is the very ideal of an English patrician maid-lofty without being haughty, affectionate and gracious without being gushing, superb in her pure and ancient blood, and her rich heart, which together give a betwitching grace to her form and a nameless refinement to her spirit. We have already alluded to, Edith Millbank. Then how winningly is Henrietta Temple with her artless Juliet-like passion for Ferdinand, which she pours forth

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in those incomparable letters, ending one with what we have always thought a magical touch of tenderness; " May Heaven bless my Ferdinand! And now I am going to pray for him." Who does not love the child Venetia, who is as sweet and perfect on paper as one of Sir Joshua's cherubs is on canvas, and who developes afterwards into the tried and loving lady over whose unhappy vicissitudes we weep ? In his latest novel the ancient cunning of Mr. Disraeli's right hand has not forsaken him. We have there three exquisite female creations-the heroic Theodora, the enthusiastic and religious Miss Arundel, and the noble Corisande. We once lately had the privilege of meeting one of those excessively vigilant and particular Mammas who are not certainly conspicuous by their absence in the presentage of varied phenomena, and she informed us that "Lothair was a forbidden book in her family circle. On inquiring the reason of so astonishing a veto, this rigid moralist replied that she had been warned (we fancy by some "unco'-righteous minister; for the lady cultivated the cassock) that the beautiful friendship of Theodora and Lothair was-"well, you know, not quite the thing-hardly proper, in fact, for girls to read about." And thus it was, that owing to the supernatural purity of this virtuous lady, or of her long-eared clerical adviser, the daughters were debarred from becoming acquainted with the high and healthy influence which an heroic matron may exercise over the soul and the actions of an ingenuous youth who, however, is without a motive in life. Alas, alas! for the budding maidens of Britain if the general quality of their "pastors and masters" is of this type. In place of being introduced to forms of female excellence like Theodora, who can give her life in the cause of Italian independence; or like Miss Arundel, who thinks nothing of a man "unless he can draw his sword for Christ;" or like the high-minded Corisande, who loves so deeply, and yet so self-respectfully,—they are encouraged to pore over the outrageous imbecilities of the author of "My Mother and I," or the self-conscious heroines of Mrs. Oliphant; or to devour authoresses whose vapid and gushing women are given to falling down in adoration before the first man they meet, and to "wailing their monstrous melodies" of love to the moon instead of going to bed like rational beings; or, at the best, are bidden to admire and adore the conventional and terribly reasonable girl which Anthony Trollope is so fond of depicting. We once heard that the late Bishop Wilberforce had expressed the opinion that "Vanity Fair" was a book which every girl ought to read, a circumstance which is in rather curious contrast to the behaviour of an esteemed female relative of our own, who forbade niece to read Mr. Thackeray's admirable work, "because it such an unamiable picture of life." Notwithstanding the

difference of opinion that we run the risk of encountering from our worthy relative, we venture to say, with regard to Mr. Disraeli's fictions, what Samuel Wilberforce said about "Vanity Fair,"— they are books which every young lady ought to read-every young lady, that is to say, who has been born with a taste for imaginative literature, and wishes to gratify it. Mr. Disraeli, we have said, possesses amongst other qualities of a great writer, the power of descriptive word-painting. As an illustration of this, we quote the celebrated description of the Tenebræ in "Lothair," which always reminds us a little of De Quincey, that mighty master of English prose-poetry:-" Manifold art had combined to create this exquisite temple, and to guide all its administrations. But to-night it was not the radiant altar and the splendour of stately priests, the processions and the incense, the divine choir, and the celestial harmonies resounding and lingering in arched roofs that attracted many a neighbour. The altar was desolate, the choir was dumb; and while the services proceeded in hushed tones of subdued sorrow, and sometimes even of suppressed anguish, gradually, with each psalm and canticle, a light of the altar was extinguished, till at length the Miserere was muttered, and all became darkness. A sound as of a distant and rising wind was heard, and a crash, as it were, the fall of trees in a storm. The earth is covered with darkness, and the veil of the temple is rent. But just at this moment of extreme woe, when everything is symbolical of the confusion and despair of the Church at the loss of her expiring Lord, a priest brings forth a concealed light of silvery flame from a corner of the altar. This is the Light of the World, and announces the resurrec tion, and then all rise and depart in silence."

Before leaving "Lothair," and with it the contemplation of Mr. Disraeli as a novelist, we must quote a remarkable passage in a recent number of the " Edinburgh Review;" the more remarkable because the "Edinburgh Review" is the recognised organ of the Whig party, and can, therefore, scarcely be suspected of any overpowering partiality for the right honourable gentleman :"People read "Lothair,' and amused themselves by identifying its heroines and heroes with this member of society or that; and it is no offence to Mr. Disraeli to say that some of the absurdities of his books are better remembered now than its notes of warning, either about Vatican politics or international societies. But subsequent passages have shewn that these passages were prophetic. Mr. Disraeli showed us, with wonderful skill and appreciation, the personal piety and the political obliquity of a party which assumes to be the only possessor of truth, the only bulwark against errors in faith, against communism, infidelity, and general disorder,