Talmudism; to have small regard for the authoritative commentaries with which the authors of the Mishna and Gemara have overlaid and perverted the Mosaic legislation; and, standing aloof as a cool and speculative philosopher, to shun association with political and religious parties. It is to the pervading spirit and habit of thought thus acquired that we are indebted for his Genius of Judaism (London, Moxon, 8vo, 1833), a work at once philosophic in tone, able in treatment, and learned in illustration. It is now a scarce book, and has fallen into an oblivion so complete that ordinary readers are not even aware of its existence.
It was an article by D'Israeli on Spence's Anecdotes, in the Quarterly Review, in which he attempted a vindication of the moral and poetical character of Pope, which produced the famous controversy as to the merits of that poet, which was carried on in some score of pamphlets by Bowles, Lord Byron, Gilchrist, M'Dermot, Thomas Campbell, and others.
At a later period of his literary career, D'Israeli's character for accuracy of research was somewhat rudely assailed by the publication of Mr. Bolton Corney's Curiosities of Literature Illustrated, of which I have before me the second edition, "revised and acuminated," 1838, 8vo. A review of this will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ix. p. 61. D'Israeli replied in a pamphlet entitled The Illustrator Illustrated (1838), which is also noticed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ix. p. 369.
About 1839 this useful and interesting writer was stricken with blindness. As in the case of our own Milton, the American Prescott, and the French historian Thierry, this awful calamity did not altogether interrupt his valuable labours. By the aid of his daughter, who, to use his own touching expressions of paternal gratitude, "so often lent the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand," the stricken author—"in the midst of his library, distant from it," surrounded by "unfinished labours, frustrated designs,"—was enabled to revise and correct his Miscellanies of Literature, for Moxon's collective edition of 1840; to produce that interesting series of papers which form a kind of sequel to the Curiosities and the Miscellanies, and bear the title of Amenities; and to revise his great work on the Life and Reign of Charles the First, which, on its first appearance, had procured for its author the honorary title of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, conferred as a mark of respect by the authorities of that ancient seat of learning, in the words of its public orator,—"optimi regis optimo defensori."
Isaac D'Israeli was fortunate in his own career in having steered clear of the two misfortunes which formed the subject of his best known works. Although one of the genus irritabile, he managed to escape—except, indeed, in his squabble with Bolton Corney,—participation in the "Quarrels of Authors"; and although a literary man by profession, he was not an instance,—unless, again, we think of his blindness,—of the "Calamities" of the tribe. As a Jew by origin, he may be cited, himself, as a "Curiosity of Literature"; for "among all the writers of the present day there was none who had so thoroughly imbibed the English feeling of affectionate regard for our history, even in its most minute branches, whether literary or political; or was so deeply impressed with a reverent love for all the great institutions of our country. No Tory Doctor of Oxford was a warmer champion of the good old cause; not Anthony
