His first appointment to office was in Feb ruary 1852, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby. In December, however, the ministry was defeated, and Mr. Disraeli again became leader of a Conservative Opposition. A keen disappointment was ex perienced on the breakdown of the Aberdeen ministry in 1855, when Lord Derby, who was distrustful of Disraeli, refused to form a min istry. He remained out of office till 1858, when he again became Chancellor of the Eacchequer with Lord Derby as his chief. As on the for mer occasion his tenure of office was but short; a reform bill which he had introduced causing the defeat of the government and their resig -nation after an appeal to the country. During the next six years, while the Palmerston gov ernment was in office, Mr. Disraeli led the oppo sition in the lower House with conspicuous ability and courage. He strongly counselled a policy of strict neutrality during the American Civil War. He spoke vigorously against the Reform Bill brought foravard._ in 1866' by the Russell-Gladstone government; but when, soon after, he came into power along with his chief, Lord Derby, the demand for reform was so urgent that he decided to "dish the Whigs" and to bring in a reform bill himself. Accord ingly, in August 1867, a measure by which the parliamentary representation was refortned be came law, being piloted through Parliament by Mr. Disraeli with remarkable tact and dex terity. The Confederation of Canada was also carried through.
In February 1868 he reached the summit of his ambition, becoming Premier on the resigna tion of Lord Derby, but being in a minority after the general election he had to give up office the following December. In 1874 he again became Prime Minister with a strong Conserva tive majority, and he remained in power for six years. This period was marked by his eleva tion to the peerage in 1876 as Earl of Beacons field, and by the prominent part he took in re gard to the Eastern Question and the conclu sion of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, when he visited the German capital. In the spring of 1880 Parliament was rather suddenly dissolved, and, the new Parliament showing an over whelming Liberal majority, he resigned office, though he still retained the leadership of his party. Not long after this the publication of a novel called (Endyrnion' (1880; his previous one, (Lothair,) had been published 10 years be fore) showed that his intellect was still vig orous. His physical powers, however, were now giving way, and he died after an illness of some weeks' duration, and was buried at Hughenden. His wife, who was created Vis countess Beaconsfield in 1868, died in 184' The career of Lord Beaconsfield forms, on2 of the most striking romances of the 19th cen tury. Born of an alien and despised race, and at the outset of his career regarded as a mere man of fashion and a fop, by his own talents he raised himself to the head of the aristocratic party in English politics, the leadership in which had always been a preserve for mem bers of the patrician caste. Disraeli was pre
eminently the architect of his own fortunes, antl for the eminence to which he finally attained he had to fight every inch of the ground, and especially against the distrust of his own party which he °educated" in the principles of Tory democracy, much against its own inclinations. He was endowed with great intellectual power, a patience and resourcefulness that were inex haustible, unflinching courage and remarkable tact and ability in the art of managing men. As a House of Commons man he was showy rather than solid, but in wit, sarcasm, epigram and vituperative power he was a master. °He was one of the three statesmen in the House of Commons of his own generation,'" says John Morley,.°who had the gift of large and spacious conception of the place and power of England in the world, and of the policy by which she could maintain it." °The faculty of slow, re flective brooding was his, and he often saw deep and far." Comparison is sometimes made between his legislative output and that of his great rivak Gladstone, which is much larger; but it must be borne in mind that from 1852 to 1 was a principal figure on the stage, whereas s only in the six years be tween 1874 and 1 , when Disr-aeli was a septuagenarian, tliat h d office with a solid majority at his back. novels are open to criticism on many groun esPecianY °"(' ac count of the stilted rhea 'ric which defaces them; but he had itnaginri anci iancY, wit and epigrammatic power .4 is unexcelled as a portrayer of certain aristocratic types. Their success on publication owed something to the art with which he introduced real personages into them under a more or less penetrable disguise.
The definitive and final °Life" of Lord Beaconsfield is that now issu ing, based on Disraeli's letters and papers and other authentic documents. Between 1908-16 four volumes had been issued. The work was placed under the editorship of W. F. Mony penny, whose death occurred after two vol umes had been published, when the task was taken up by G. E. Buckle. Disraeli's (Home Letters and Correspondence with His Sister,' with additional letters and notes by his brother Ralph, were reissued in 1887. His 'Speeches,' edited by T. E. Kebbel, were published in 1881. Biographies have been written, among others by G. Brandes (translated by Sturge, London 1880); J. A. Froude (London 1890)• Theodore Martin (London 1881) ; Wilf rid Meynell (London 1903) k and an unfriendly one by T. P. O'Connor (revised 1904). Consult also Sir William Fraser's and His Day' (1891). An appreciation of his powers as a novelist appears in the second series of in a Library,' in which the Author, Leslie Stephen, laments °the degradation of a prom ising novelist into a prime minister?'