The Owl has what might be a rather good parody
on Mr. Browning's "Lost Leader,"—which it putsdnto a Tory mouth and applies to Mr. Disraeli,—if it were only true that Mr. Disraeli is lost to the Tories, or the Tories to him. The answer to the state- ment,— "Just for a cry democratic he left us,
Just for a shout from the popular throat,"
—is that he did not leave them at all, either for that or any other gain, and does not mean to do so, since it happens to answer his pur- pose better to keep by them. Browning's " lost leader" abandoned both principle and party. Mr. Disraeli and his party have only conspired together to abandon their common principles, but they stick by each other. It is neither a lost leader nor lost followers who are in need of commemoration, only a lost faith and lost cause.
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