malcontents among both the seniors and juniors of the conservative party. It was the juniors that Mr. Disraeli first aspired to lead. Soon after his first parliamentary appearance he had published "The Tragedy of Count Aluclos," and since then he seemed to have deserted literature. But in 1844 he gave the views of the newly-formed "young England" party a powerful and fascinating expression in his political, social, and personal novel of "Coningsby," which ran rapidly through many editions, and made Mr. Disraeli one of the notables of his day and generation. It was succeeded in 1845 by "Sybil." The following year came Sir Robert Peel's conversion to corn-law repeal, and Mr. Disraeli secured his position by placing himself at the head of the conservative party in the house of commons, under the nominal leadership of Lord George Bentinck. At the general election of 1847 he was chosen one of the members for the county of Bucks, without a contest, and has since been returned five times for that historical shire. On the death of Lord George Bentinck, to whose memory he devoted "Lord George Bentinck, a political biography," published in 1851, Mr. Disraeli soon became the accepted as well as the virtual leader of the conservatives in the house of commons, and in February, 1852, on the fall of Lord John Russell's ministry, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Derby's first administration, and leader of the house of commons. These two honours devolved upon Mr. Disraeli, without his having held office, an event which had never happened previously, except in the case of Mr. Pitt, when the latter was appointed chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Shelburne's government, and for as short a period. Lord Derby's first ministry fell in the December of 1852, Mr. Disraeli's second budget having been rejected by a small majority, and Lord Aberdeen's coalition ministry followed. Again, in February, 1858, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, and held the office until the resignation of Lord Derby's second ministry in June, 1859. Through the illness of Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli in 1867 succeeded him as premier, and during his tenure of office were passed the new reform bills for England, Scotland, and Ireland. In 1853 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. In 1839 he married the only daughter (created Viscountess Beaconsfield in 1868) of the late John Vinay Evans, Esq., of Branceford Park, Devon. With the exception of "Tancred," published in 1848, and "Lothair," in 1870, his principal writings have been already mentioned. "Lothair" had the somewhat curious fate of being belauded by the liberal journals, and severely handled by Blackwood and the Quarterly.—F. E.
DISRAELI, Isaac, D.C.L. and F.A.S., an eminent English author, was the only child of Benjamin Disraeli, a Venetian merchant, and was born at Enfield, May 12, 1766. His father, who settled in England in the reign of George the Second, was a descendant of one of those Hebrew families whom the inquisition had forced to emigrate from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century, and who found a refuge in the tolerant territories of the Venetian republic. His strong predisposition for literary pursuits developed itself even in childhood, much to the perplexity of his parents, but in due time he was permitted to follow his bent. He was educated in Holland, and travelled extensively on the continent, until the state of affairs in France rendered it expedient to return home. In 1788 an anonymous satire, "On the Abuse of Satire," addressed to Dr. Joseph Warton, which was directed against Peter Pindar, then at the height of his flagrant notoriety, and which produced a considerable sensation, ultimately brought the name of Disraeli into notice, and introduced him into the literary circles of that day. About this time, also, he published anonymously, in a single volume, the "Curiosities of Literature," an experiment whether a taste for literature could be infused into the multitude. Its success was so decided that a second volume was added two years afterwards. For twenty years the brother volumes remained favourites of the public, when, after that long interval, their writer, taking advantage of a popular title, poured forth all the riches of his matured intellect, refined taste, and accumulated knowledge into their pages, and produced what may fairly be described as the most celebrated miscellany of modern literature. With the exception of some works of imagination, most of which were published anonymously, Isaac Disraeli arrived at the mature age of forty-five before his career, as an eminent author influencing opinion, really commenced. From 1802, when he married, to 1812, his life was passed acquiring that store of facts which was the foundation of his future speculations. He was the first among our authors who investigated the manuscript; treasures of the British Museum. The next ten years passed entirely in production. The "Calamities of Authors;" his "Memoirs of Literary Controversy," in the manner of Bayle; his "Essay on the Literary Character," the most perfect of his compositions, were all chapters in that "History of English Literature" which he then commenced to meditate, and which it was fated he should never complete. What then retarded this project was the embarrassing success of his juvenile production, the "Curiosities of Literature," and his desire to make this work worthy of the favour it enjoyed.
Having inherited, on the death of his father, an ample fortune, he determined shortly after to settle in Buckinghamshire, a county to which he was much attached, and for the last thirty years of his life he seldom quitted his country seat. Here, after having previously published a "Vindication of the Character of King James the First," "an affair of Literary Conscience," he produced, in five volumes, his "Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First," a work abounding in sound and novel views, and original research. The university of Oxford conferred on him, in consequence, the degree of D.C.L., a fitting homage, in the language of the great university, optimi regis optimo vindici. Notwithstanding he was now approaching his seventieth year, he devoted himself to the composition of the history of our vernacular literature; but towards the end of the year 1839, being still in the full vigour of his health and intellect, he suffered a paralysis of the optic nerve. This closed his literary career, though the fragment of his history, under the title of "Amenities of Literature," was published in three volumes. He died in February, 1848, in the eighty-second year of his age, a widower, but leaving by his wife, Maria, the daughter of G. Basevi, Esq., four children: a daughter deceased; the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P. for the county of Bucks; Ralph, registrar of the high court of chancery; and James, a commissioner of inland revenue. As an English author, Isaac Disraeli has been described by a great authority, as "a writer sui generis." In his ample and curious knowledge, love of research, philosophic vein, and impartial summing up of the evidence on controversial points of history and criticism, he chiefly resembles Bayle, though inferior to the great Frenchman in logical precision. He however excels Bayle, and indeed all writers in belles lettres, in his style, which was singularly lively and graceful. A poetical temperament animated his page with picture, and his strong sympathy with his subject made him a delightful and dramatic biographer. No man ever wrote so much about authors, or was more intimately acquainted with the idiosyncracy of the literary character. He was also one of the first writers who opened that vein of historical research among original materials, which has in the present day been carried to so remarkable and advantageous an extent. His series of works largely illustrates the literary and political history of England. Their editions are numerous. Of the "Curiosities of Literature" there have been twenty. Recently there has been an edition of his collected works, edited by his son, to which is prefixed a memoir, of which we have availed ourselves in this notice.
DISSEN, Ludolf, a distinguished German philologist, was born December 17, 1784, at Grossenschneen, near Göttingen, a village of which his father was pastor. From 1804 till 1808 he studied at Göttingen under the most celebrated professors, among others Heyne and Herbart; and in 1809 received a license as Privatdocent, or private lecturer. Three years after he was called to the chair of classic literature at the university of Marburg, which he exchanged soon after, in 1813, for a professorship at Göttingen. At the latter town he died, September 21, 1837. His works, all of them critical and philological, are very numerous. The earliest of these, an "Instruction for Tutors to read the Odyssey with Boys," was published in 1809, and is still in great use; it was followed the year after by the critical essay entitled "De temporibus et modis verbi Græci," and in 1813 by the "Disquisitiones Philologicæ." But he became best known by succeeding annotated editions of Greek and Latin classics, among which are most notable—a new edition of Pindarus in two volumes, Gotha, 1830; of Tibullus, two volumes, Göttingen, 1835; and of Demosthenes' De Corona, 1837. He further edited "Smaller Latin authors, with biographical sketches," which were published after his death by Professors Thiersch, Welcker, and O. Müller, Göttingen, 1839.—F. M.
DITHMAR or DITMAR, a German prelate and chronicler,
