mined on sending his younger son, Benjamin, to settle in this country of political quiet, and civil and religious freedom. This first of the English Disraelis is described by his distinguished grandson as a man 'of ardent character; sanguine, courageous, speculative, and fortunate; with a temper which no disappointment could disturb, and a brain amid reverses full of resource.' No wonder, then, that at middle age he had made a fortune, and settled in a country house at Enfield, where he entertained Sir Horace Mann and many celebrities of the day. He died in 1817, at the ripe age of ninety, and left one son, who had 'disappointed all his plans, and who, to the last hour of his life, was an enigma to him.' This was Isaac Disraeli, the father of the future Prime Minister, and the famous author of 'The Curiosities of Literature' and kindred works—books that will live long after his son's works of fiction have lost their ephemeral glory.
Isaac was of course designed by his father for a merchant; but having written a poem, he was consigned to his father's correspondent at Amsterdam, like a bale of goods, to be placed at a college there. On his return to England, at the age of eighteen, his genius broke the bonds of parental control. He wrote a long poem against Commerce, which strange—sentiment in the mouth of his race as we know them—he called the corrupter of man. He packed up his effusion, and took it to the emperor of the world of letters, Dr. Johnson. Young Isaac Disraeli left it himself in the hands of the Doctor's negro, at the door of the house in Bolt-court, Fleet-street; but the Doctor was then too ill to read anything, and it was returned to the author a week after.
From this time Isaac Disraeli began to lead the life of a student. He was fortunate in making the acquaintance of amiable and cultivated men, who introduced him to congenial society.
His marriage did not alter his recluse habits of life: he continued to live almost entirely in his own library. This gentleman, having had some difference with his synagogue, failed to teach Judaism to the future Prime Minister; and Samuel Rogers, the banker poet, finding the boy, at six years old, without any religious instruction, took him to Hackney church. From that time Mr. Disraeli has been a member of the Church of England. Though born of Jewish parents, he has never held the Jewish faith, but
