22 SEPTEMBER 1967, Page 9

A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator', 21 September /867—Mr

Disraeli does the country squire better and better every year . . . and has now attained (in all but visual expression) to the admirable local flavour of a true Buckinghamshire squire. He played the chief part in the harvest home at Hughenden on Thursday, and succeeded wonderfully in being all but, if not quite, jolly and common-place. He praised the sermon just as Lord Palmerston would have praised it.... But when the Vicar verged on a compliment in relation to the Reform Bill, nothing could be better than Mr Disraeli's "I am not quite up to politics in the month of September." Then he spoke of the wheat with relief, of the barley with feeling,—"it has that brightness which brewers love;"—of the oats with jovial congratulation; of the after-math,—which was a good word in itself --with emotion. And his list of the three cottage conveniences which he wished all his cottage tenants to enjoy, a porch, an oven, and a tank.— was, to his audience no doubt, a practical and most eloquent climax.