In October of 1849, Disraeli wrote to G. Lathom Browne, the editor of his local newspaper, The Bucks Herald: "No newspaper is important as far as its advocacy. The importance of newspapers is to circulate your opinions, and a good report of a speech is better than 10,000 articles."¹ It is not, as we shall see, that in his dealings with the press Disraeli scorned either advocacy or articles. He practised the one and wrote many of the other. In the 1840s, however, his prime interest in the newspapers was as a means of transmitting—quickly and accurately—his own political ideas to a national, and even international audience.

The 1840s were crucial to Disraeli's career. These were the years when he made himself. He began on the back-benches, with a reputation to live down—as a philanderer, gambler, dandy and not-quite-respectable novelist (the closest contemporary political parallel is probably someone like Jeffrey Archer). By the end of the decade in 1849 he made himself into a brilliant parliamentary speaker and formidable political opponent; he had succeeded in ousting Sir Robert Peel, leader of the Conservative party, and he had become himself leader of the Protectionist faction in the Commons.

And the shift in public perception which recognised his achievement was, in large part, due to his management of the press during those years.

One of the many exciting things which comesz out of working on Disraeli's letters on the kind of comprehensive basis that we are able to do (as opposed to the fragmentary, inaccurate, versions which were all that was previously available) is the finding of patterns which were not evident before. In the years we are discussing, one such striking pattern emerges from the number of references he makes during the Parliamentary sessions to the coverage of his speeches by the newspapers.

"I have sent you the 'Morning Chronicle' … it is the best report tho' many fine hits are lost" [1156 (May 1841)]; "There is a précis of the speech in the Times, a report in the Herald, even in the Chronicle; & this morning a leading article in the Post" [1307 (May 1843)]; "The Chronicle is often, perhaps usually, the best Reporter, but I have fallen lately, … on shorthand writers of the 'Times,' who suit me to a t. The Chronicle report of my speech … appeared to me, as I glanced over it, very good; but the Times report was short hand until the last twenty lines or so, when the pen changed, & the peroration, if you can call it such, is more accurate in the Chronicle." [1399A (Apr. 1845)]; or (to be quite direct): "Was it in the Times about me?" [15 Apr. 1849].

This obsessive interest was not (as his detractors might suppose) mere egotism. The Letters show that it was part of a strategy, the use of the press to make the ideas in his speeches known to the public. He was not, of course, the only 19th-century politician with active press connections. The whole history of the mid-Victorian press is one of what is euphemistically called "influence" and "control." But he himself was very familiar with what could, and could not, be done. He had already, in 1825 (before he was 21), tried (and failed) with the Representative, a paper intended to rival The Times. In the 1830s, before he entered Parliament, he had been a writer for both The Times and The Morning Post. Later, in the 1850s, after he had held office for the first time, he would begin his own paper, which he called, simply, The Press.

At the end of 1842 he outlined his plan in a written memorandum which he drew up for the then King of France, Louis Philippe. This memorandum marks the point at which Disraeli the politician began definitively to move on his own. He had begun the parliamentary session of 1842 as a follower of Peel; he ended it convinced of the inadequacy of current Conservative policies to solve the most urgent national problems: the plight of the poor, the country's finances, the difficulties of farmers and landowners, free trade versus protectionism. The press was the means by which, from 1842, he would make his views have an effect on the voters and parliamentarians of Britain.

He described the press thus in his memorandum: "This power so vast but the management of [which] is so frequently neglected, & so generally misunderstood even by English ministers is of itself if skillfully conducted capable of effecting great things; but whenever it has chanced to be combined with a parliamentary power its influence has invariably been irresistible" [IV app III]. The remark about "English ministers" who do not understand how to manage the press is probably a shot at Peel himself. As a recent study has shown, Peel was very much aware of the effect of the press on public perceptions of him, but he strenuously avoided personal involvement.² Disraeli's own approach was the opposite.

In brief, he used the press much as a politician would use the media now, and he built upon his strengths. In the first place, he had already begun in 1842 to establish a reputation as a parliamentary speaker—provocative and fiery, and one whom the papers would want to report—he continued from 1843 on to make speeches whose brilliance caught the attention, even of readers who might not otherwise have considered the ideas in them. Secondly, he already had connections from his writing for the newspapers; all through the 1840s, he kept them up with a barrage of signed letters to the papers (even political poems), backed up by anonymous leaders and articles expressing his opinions (and, masked by that anonymity, was, on occasion, thus even able to comment on his own speeches!). Thirdly, he was already a best-selling novelist, with his sensational novels of the 1830s (such as Vivian Grey or Henrietta Temple); in the autumn of 1843, he set about writing a trilogy of further best-sellers—Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred—on the national topics which concerned him most. And he wrote them in a deliberately controversial way, which would get them talked about and well reviewed.

As an offshoot of all three of these procedures, he also encouraged his followers. These were particularly the splinter-group of young Members of Parliament known as "Young England," otherwise known as the "Diz-Union," among them George Smythe (the original for Coningsby) and Lord John Manners. Thanks to Disraeli's coaching, they both emulated their leader in speeches, books, and writing for periodicals and newspapers, all of which spread the group's ideas.

In all of these fields, Disraeli's approach was what we would call a "hands-on" management. He knew perfectly well the potential for error—he would later complain on one occasion: "I never went to Manchester, though the newspaper gave an account of my visit." [16 September 1857] He also knew how much the accuracy of a report going to the nation depended on the diligence of the paper's shorthand reporters in the Gallery and the letters frequently record his disappointment at mistakes made by a tired reporter, or at omissions when a change-over was not slick enough. Thus, his own methods involved beforehand alerting the editor when he was due to speak, even down to indicating the likely hour. Afterwards, he was even willing to supervise personally the paper's printing of a speech.³ It was this kind of involvement that he meant when in his memorandum he distinguished his own approach from that of politicians who "neglected" and "misunderstood" the management of the press.

In the memorandum, he made it plain that his methods would not involve the use of a single paper as a party organ. In 1840, he turned down an offer of The Courier as just such an organ [1056X (17 Apr. 1840)]; and in 1845 he would be considerably vexed (publicly, at least) at the effrontery of a short-lived weekly, Young England, which tried to capitalise on the renown of his own group of that name. [1399 (5 Apr. 1845)] There were severe limitations in credibility and authority attached to a paper known to be only a mouthpiece, and what he had in mind was much broader and more far-reaching. "The monitor that counsels the people of England … must speak in journals of every school of politics & sound in every district. It is with a machinery of this description that the ideas of a single man … soon become the voice of a nation." [IV app III]

Just how wide a net he cast can be seen by the number of publications we have had to make reference to in our work on the Letters for these years—over 100. Space does not allow for a detailed discussion here, but in brief they involve most of the London dailies (where the bulk of each issue was devoted to Parliamentary news), the London-based periodicals, including the literary magazines which ran articles on his skill as a speaker, or which reviewed the novels, and the satirical ones, like Punch and The Satirist, whose attentions were often offensive but were nevertheless a form of national exposure. Then there are the provincial newspapers, which reprinted reports from the London papers for country readers, but whose own reports of local events (such as speeches at constituency meetings) would, in reverse, be copied or extracted by the London papers.

One final, and very interesting, group (which would probably repay further study) is the French papers, which were always interested in him. They reported interesting speeches in the British parliament, and they also reviewed his novels. In 1844 de Tocqueville even invited him to be foreign correspondent for his paper, Le Commerce. Unfortunately, he wrote to de Tocqueville, he was too busy in England then to accept. [31 Aug. 1844] He did write, later on, in 1848, for a strange French-language weekly, Le Spectateur de Londres, funded in England by Metternich and run by one of Metternich's secret agents, Georg Klindworth. (Disraeli would later put Klindworth on his own political payroll in the 1850s.) [29 Aug. 1848]

On the broad scale, these make up the 'journals of every school of politics' and 'every district' which he describes in the memorandum. As illustration of his method, our paper will look at some individual instances in the Letters—both amusing and instructive—about his day-to-day interaction with the papers. We have chosen four—The Times, The Morning Chronicle, and The Morning Post—and from the provinces, the appropriately-named Shropshire Conservative.

To begin with, it is quite remarkable that, at the beginning of the decade, he was able to get coverage at all, since papers normally did not bother much with back-benchers. What he did have was good relations with editors—probably from his leader-writing days. At The Times, he was friendly with the editor, John Delane, arid with the proprietors, the two John Walters (father and son). At The Morning Post, he knew Charles Michele, who had also been its editor in the 1830s. In Shrewsbury, his constituency from 1841-47, he became friendly during the 1841 election with the editor of The Shropshire Conservative, T.J. Ouseley, a man whose loyalty is best demonstrated by his refusal in 1845 to be bought away from Disraeli when the Peelites came calling with offers of Government advertising for his paper. [1399A (11 Apr. 1845)] All three of these papers were Conservative; but (as he stated in his memorandum) he also managed coverage in the hostile press. With The Morning Chronicle, which was, until 1848, a Whig paper largely controlled by Palmerston, he cultivated the proprietor, Sir John Easthope (who dropped his "h"s and was dubbed disparagingly by Dickens, "the Barrow Knight").⁴ [1456 (21 Dec. 1845), 1460 (11 Jan. 1846)]

He also took care to co-operate with the Parliamentary reporters. Several letters accompany passages from his speeches sent up by request to reporters in the Gallery. [1289X (29 Mar. 1843), 2 July 1849] With the chief parliamentary reporter for The Times, J. F. Neilson, he co-operated on at least one out-of-town occasion so that Neilson was able to get copy to London in time for next day's issue [1503 (4 Aug. 1846)]; he also rehearsed speeches to Neilson beforehand.⁵

All this meant that when he made an important speech, he was able to ask for the coverage he wanted. Before a speech on the Consular Service in 1842, he told his wife, Mary Anne: "I shall write this evening to the Times to secure a good report." [1221 (5 Mar. 1842)] Afterwards, he was generally pleased: "The Times Report, with the exception of the first half column, is a good report. Many a happy sarcasm & airy turn is lost, but the order of the general statements & correctness of the facts is remarkable." [1224 (9 Mar. 1842)] Later, he ordered for a Parliamentary friend "a couple of copies of the No. of Hansard April 23—in [which] there is a capital report of the 'Consular statement.'" [1244 (21 May 1842)] (Which may have been "capital" because Disraeli had corrected it; many MPs took this opportunity to "improve" the reports; and we know he did this too, and recommended to Hansard the best newspaper report to use.) [30 Mar. 1849]

Similarly, before an extremely important speech in February 1846, in which he would outline his protectionist principles, he could write to Easthope: "I intend to speak to night about ten o'ck, & if you will have the kindness to give directions that I shall be well reported, you wd. oblige very much." [1472 (20 Feb. 1846)] As a result, The Morning Chronicle gave him no less than six columns of accurate report (valuable enough in a friendly paper, like The Times, which also gave him six columns, but even more so in a hostile one); it was only partly undercut by the caustic leader which accompanied it: "Mr. Disraeli is a man of too much cleverness to be in earnest on all this, but he suffers himself to be allured by the glitter of heading a party."⁶

Perhaps the best example of his management of coverage is that for an even more important speech, his summary of the Parliamentary session in August 1848. It was a crucial time. The Protectionist faction was still leaderless; and it was his chance to make an impact, which he did with a devastating critique of the Whigs' inefficiency. In preparation, he wrote to Delane on 25 August to secure one of his best reporters; then the date was suddenly changed, and he wrote again on the 26th. [26 Aug. 1848] Greville the diarist sneered that it was "a sort of advertisement that the great actor would take his benefit," but it was sound planning. This was an occasion when, he fully realised, he was "speaking to the country."⁷

After his speech, which lasted three hours, he went straight to Delane's office to oversee the printing. "God knows," he wrote to Mary Anne, "how long & how often I shall be there—as the speech must be 8 columns at least. I shall however come home & dine at 8 even if I have to go, as I expect again." [30 Aug. 1848] (He added: "Write to Lewis [the news agent] & order 6 'Times' for tomorrow.") The personal supervision was worthwhile. A few days later he wrote to his sister: "I am sorry you read the 'Morning Herald' [which] was certainly … nonsense almost unrivalled. However I have no cause to complain of the reporters: the Version of the 'Times,' [which] now sells 40,000 copies a day is almost verbatim…. The success is universal. I never knew a greater parliamentary coup. The country papers teem with articles…. " [4 Sept. 1848]

When a report originated in the provinces, he was equally careful. In August 1844, for example, he had to make an unplanned visit to Shrewsbury to meet the electors, who were understandably alarmed by his growing independence from the party. On 28 August, three hours before he was to make a speech to them, he found out that the meeting would be reported by The Shropshire Conservative. In some trepidation, he wrote to Mary Anne: "I have now withdrawn to my bedroom … where I hope to collect my thoughts a little, as I did not count on this reporting. [It] rather annoys me, as it will be in all the London papers: & I must be careful." [1371 (28 Aug. 1844)]

He was careful. In the speech which he finally made, he argued that he had attacked Peel out of principle, not out of disappointment at not being given office: "Sir Robert Peel knows me too well," he claimed, "to think for a moment that any pecuniary circumstances influence my conduct," and went on to his famous conclusion: "I was his supporter when in adversity—in prosperity I will not be his slave." The fact that we have this text, however, is due to The Shropshire Conservative and the care with which he instructed T.J. Ouseley in a letter the next day. He took the trouble to enclose the text of two crucial passages, to make sure that they were not omitted. The first passage concerned his remarks on the "Condition of England" and his trenchant analysis of the causes of recent unrest in the country: "one half of the population of the country," he said, "was overworked and the other half underpaid. Hence the fearful diminution of the term of human life in Lancashire; hence the fires of Suffolk, the two causes producing the same result, the degradation of the species." It was a point he had made before, and it would be the basis of his "two nations" theme in Sybil, the novel he was about to begin; and it was important to remind readers in London as well as trades-people in Shrewsbury that he had been a consistent champion of the poor, against what he saw as the misguided social policies of the Conservatives under Peel.

The second passage was equally important to get right, the refuting of the charges of self-interest. He told Ouseley to be particularly careful here: "Remember the end. In his adversity I was his supporter; in his prosperity I will not be his slave." [1372 (29 Aug. 1844)]

The care was rewarded. The Shropshire Conservative of 31 August carried a lengthy report; and it was copied by both The Times (on 2 Sept.) and The Morning Post (on 3 Sept.). His attention to detail in the provinces had ensured that a declaration of principle made on a local stage went at once to Peel and his supporters in London. The Morning Post told its London readers: "Differing from Mr. Disraeli on some points, and blaming him on others, we believe we speak the sentiments of most honest men, when we say that no doubt can be cast upon the purity of the Hon. Gentleman's motives in the course which he has pursued since he entered Parliament."

This kind of personal management was not confined to parliamentary reports. On one occasion, he used his influence with The Times to alter completely their reviews of one of his novels. The first Times review of Coningsby appeared on 11 May 1844, and was rather perfunctory. On that day Delane wrote to him that he would arrange for a second notice which would "do more credit to the paper and more justice to your work." Unfortunately, it did neither. We do not know who the reviewer was—Delane said he was a man "with plenty of political experience"—but his review was puzzlingly hostile. The opinions in the book, he wrote, would "be offensive to some, and unintelligible to more."

In the meantime, the anti-Conservative Morning Chronicle had done better than this, with a generally favourable review by Thackeray, and Disraeli complained stiffly, in almost identical letters to Delane and Walter. "Considering the influence of The Times, and the generally understood sympathy of its columns with many of the topics treated in Coningsby, the review is one calculated to do the work very great injury." Modern authors suffering a bad review would envy him the result. Walter wrote back, agreed with him, and promised: "I will do what I can that your immortality shall start as soon as possible." Not one, but three, more articles appeared. They were generally much more enthusiastic, and concluded more positively that Coningsby outlined in "the progress of an individual mind the operation of causes which are … acting on the educated youth of England." [1345, 1346 (15 May 1844)] (In fact, they showed such understanding of the novel's ideas that we cannot rule out some participation by Disraeli himself!)

The said "educated youth of England" were themselves also acting, by assisting in the spread of his opinions. He encouraged both Smythe and Manners in their literary efforts and both also published books in 1844. More relevant to our topic, however, is a sort of writing school which he seems to have run for his followers at the beginning of 1845. The evidence that can be deciphered from Smythe's infuriatingly tiny handwriting suggests that Disraeli had in mind articles for the press. Typically, Smythe seems not to have been totally diligent. On one occasion he wrote, "I have not been working alack"; on another: "I am sticking horribly, but shall nevertheless bring my quota." He seems eventually to have been successful: "To day I wrote two Articles, and both began with you: but they cut out your name and the citation … from Sybil." [1434 (23 Aug. 1845)]

Some of the results seem to have appeared in a monthly (again, a journal which would repay more study). The Oxford and Cambridge Review outlasted Young England, but it began precisely when, in July 1845, The Times (under Walter Sr.) withdrew its support from the group. Disraeli does not seem himself to have written overtly for it; but his sister calls it "your young Review" and its early numbers were what one can only call incestuous. The first number had an anonymous review of Sybil (which turned out to be by Manners) and a long, sympathetic review of six books of poems by Young Englanders; the second had an article on Lord Grey, which was in fact by Smythe and which took care to mention Disraeli by name. The third had a review of a new edition of Disraeli's Contarini Fleming and Alroy. And so it went.

The Review continued to publish long articles on Young England, and later on Protectionism. The initial excitement, however, did not last, and the Young Englanders, instead of capitalising on it, went off on holiday. Manner's contribution dwindled to articles on the Corn Laws and travel pieces which are virtual transcriptions from his diaries. Disraeli remarked plaintively, "So much for Dandies being Critics." [1434 (23 Aug. 1845)]

Smythe's debt to Disraeli, however, proved useful. Unlike T.J. Ouseley, Smythe was bought by the Peelites in 1846, lured away from Disraeli by the Under Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs (a wholly appropriate post). [1455 (17 Dec. 1845)] The Morning Chronicle (which had been Whig) was purchased in 1848 from Easthope as a Peelite organ, and Smythe joined it as a leader-writer. All the articles in The Morning Chronicle are, of course, anonymous, but certain allusions, as well as style, seem to allow some identification of Smythe's authorship. Certainly, Disraeli got praise from the Chronicle which, considering his opposition to Peel, he might not otherwise have expected. Its leader of 31 Aug. 1848, for example, praising his summary of the session, is probably by Smythe. On 29 August he had written to Disraeli hinting that he would be writing just such an article and pointing out: "You may not be sorry for one word of homage from one who looks back to 43 and 44." [31 August 1848] As well, its terms of reference draw closely on Coningsby, particularly in its discussion of the "Venetian" principles of party government which Coningsby had criticized.

Again, on 16 December 1848, The Morning Chronicle ran a major article which must have helped Disraeli's standing when it proclaimed him de facto leader of the Protectionists in the Commons: "He is their only man of genius … the only speaker of their party who rescues their doctrines from contempt." It then provocatively turned on him the very question with which he had ended Coningsby, asking of the hero …'"What will be his fate? Will he maintain, in august assemblies and high places the great truths which in study and solitude he has embraced? or [and here the The Morning Chronicle text changes to italics for emphasis] will his skilled intelligence subside into being the adroit tool of a corrupt party?"' It was an appropriate question for the point at which Disraeli now stood, and perhaps only Smythe, the original for Coningsby, could have asked it. [20 Dec. 1848]

And what of Disraeli's own writing for the press at this time? One real problem here is, of course, the anonymity of newspaper leaders and articles; even the archives of The Times do not identify their writers until the 1850s; and we are continually frustrated by lack of other evidence in firmly ascribing to Disraeli pieces which, from their style and content, seem to be his.

From 1-17 April 1845, he wrote a series of 10 leaders in The Times, condemning Peel as party leader in terms reminiscent of some of Disraeli's speeches. [1399 (5 Apr. 1835)] The leaders were brilliant, savage and witty: for example, his piece on the passivity of the Conservatives (not unlike his later comparison of the Whigs to a "row of extinct volcanoes"). On this occasion, he compares them to a Greek chorus which never acts, only looks on: "On either side the vista that conducts to the altar of the State stands a venerable row. Clean, sleek, pious, and resigned, they resemble the victim that bleeds before them [that is, the country under Peel]. Such are the two moieties of the Conservative party. While they are chanting some solemn form of altercation, profaner hands are doing the work of the day."⁸ Beneath the rhetoric and beneath the personal attacks lay a deep concern: "A serious question is beginning to occupy the public mind. It is this:—By what sort of political morality is the country to be governed? It has, in its day, been governed by mere brute force…. The sword and the gallows settled perplexities…. The Premier is the author of a new policy, beyond the example of his predecessors, and it is only fair to add, without a parallel among his contemporaries. He governs by deception…. Such is the political morality of a new regime—a morality not of force, nor of corruption, but of fraud and disguise."⁹

We think he probably wrote others of this kind closer to the time of Peel's resignation on 29 June 1846; certainly his triumphant note of that day emphasises what had been done through the written word: "All 'Coningsby' & 'Young England' the general exclamation here. Everyone says [the Government] were fairly written down." [1499 (29 June 1846)]

For The Morning Post, after Peel's resignation, he seems to have written parts of a series of long political letters in late 1846 and early 1847 published under the heading "The Past, the Present, and the Future," and signed "Phocion." The letters actively promoted the Protectionists as the true Conservative party and attacked the Peelites as dangerously ineffectual. [1530 (26 Dec. 1846)] Not all the pieces in this series bear Disraeli's stamp but some undoubtedly do. This, for example, from 18 November 1846: "Where are the El Dorados promised by Free Trade to our commerce? Where are those piled-up stores, those bursting granaries…? Where are those continuous shipments from Odessa and the Baltic? Where the great Cereal Armada that was to chase hunger from the land…?"

As modern readers, though, we may be most astonished at some newspaper coverage of Disraeli's campaigning in the 1847 election. This is because it involved his reporting his own election meetings—anonymously, of course. Here again, there was a good political reason behind the apparent brazenness. Buckinghamshire was a new constituency for Disraeli, and there were strong movements against him during the campaign. His own press contributions were one way of countering the opposition he faced. On 15 June, at the height of canvassing, he wrote to Michele of The Morning Post: "Just arrived. I send you a slight sketch of a very animated scene this morning." [1569] On 17 June, under "election intelligence," there indeed appeared in The Morning Post a description of an election appearance by Disraeli at Leighton Buzzard. Not surprisingly, it praised his campaigning, and had particularly good things to say about his speech, airily describing his rural hearers as "several hundreds" and claiming that he had "completely electrified his audience … with so much fire and humour that the farmers became enthusiastic."

He tried the same tactic with The Times. On 9 June 1847, Delane sent down one of his best reporters to cover a Bucks election meeting. Perhaps thinking to save him trouble for the next one on 12 June, Disraeli wrote to him on 10 June: "1000 thanks for your ever vigilant kindness. The art: in the Times did me great service. With your permission, [which] I shall assume if I do not hear to the contrary, I will myself report the meeting at Buckingham on Saturday, & let you have it at the office on Sunday night." [10 June 1847] He actually did send in a report (again anonymously). But nothing appeared in The Times, and he wrote again, enquiring about the fate of his piece, though with a marked change of tone. Diplomatically, he supposed it to have been mislaid: "I don't, for a moment, presume to question the propriety of its insertion or non-appearance." He then humbly asked Delane about coverage for another meeting on 19 June: "If you shd. think what I say there not unworthy of reporting, I shd be obliged & glad." [14 June 1847]

Humility was rewarded. In The Times of 21 June appears a two-column account of the meeting, marked (perhaps in rebuke?) "From our Own Reporter." He could do that kind of thing with The Morning Post, but not with The Times.

By the time of his assuming Protectionist leadership in 1849, Disraeli could not quite yet assert, as he had put it in his 1842 memorandum, that his ideas had "become the voice of a nation." But, largely thanks to his careful management of the press which carried those ideas, he was well on his way. Only two years into the next decade, he would be the Chancellor of the Exchequer (even if only briefly) in a Conservative government made up of those who shared his political opinions.

Finally, the press reaction to his rise in the 1840s even included Punch (which was at this time one of the periodicals with whom he had least influence.) [1340 (14 Mar. 1844)] Punch found him newsworthy from its very earliest numbers in 1841, even when it saw him only as a wordy novelist. In the new Parliament, it thought, "Ben D'Israeli" would move, but only "for a return of all the hard words in Johnson's Dictionary" (28 Aug. 1841). It was harking back to his dandy days when it made fun of him as "the Hebrew Adonis" (11 Dec. 1841), but even then it knew enough about him to be able to give a very respectable parody of his speaking style (2 Oct. 1841). Its respect grew along with its coverage, as when (on 12 Apr. 1845) describing the boxing match between Disraeli, the "Shrewsbury Slasher," and Peel, "Pawky Bob," it acknowledged that Disraeli had got the best of it. By the end of the decade, it mixed real admiration with its irreverence. "Up gits the best man the Tories have to their backs—I mean, in course, their Upper Benjamin. I'm told all was so silent, you might have heard Peel's courage drop. Well, Disreally made hisself up to speak—took his persition! And I can liken that young man on the floor o' the House, to nothin but a penknife of a hundred blades—and every blade open—… Yes; Disreally, the Penknife of a Hundred Blades—the Porkipine with steel quills!" [10 Feb. 1849] And when in 1849 Disraeli was at least leader (albeit of the Opposition) in the Commons, it acknowledged his position, even as it undercut him, when it announced under "Good News for Government": "It is not probable that any firm stand against Her Majesty's Ministers will be made in the House of Commons. The head of the Opposition, it is understood, is decidedly Dizzy." [Ibid.]

Notes

¹Benjamin Disraeli: Letters, edited M.G. Wiebe, J.B. Conacher, J.P. Matthews and Mary S. Millar III and IV (U of Toronto P, 1987, 1989) V (in press) 23 October 1849. All subsequent quotations from Disraeli's letters are from this edition and are cited in the text. Published letters are referred to by number and date; unpublished letters (to appear in Volume V, in press) by date only. References to appendixes are by Volume number and appendix number.

² Donald Read Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

³ For more details on parliamentary reporting, see John M. Robson What Did He Say? Editing Nineteenth-Century Speeches from Hansard and the Newspapers (University of Lethbridge, 1988).

⁴The Letters of Charles Dickens ed Madeline House, Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974) III 359.

⁵ William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle The Life of Benjamin Disraeli Earl of Beaconsfield (London: John Murray, 1914) III 5.

⁶The Morning Chronicle 21 Feb. 1846.

⁷ Charles Greville The Greville Memoirs 1814-1860 ed Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford (London: Macmillan, 1938) VI 105.

⁸The Times 7 Apr. 1845.

⁹The Times 16 Apr. 1845.