The entire Press, not only in this country, but throughout
the civilised world, has been full of comments upon Lord Beaconsfield's career, and the general judgment is unusually
accurate. That his life was a'romance, and himself a great romancer, rather than a great statesman, is almost universally allowed; but there is deep admiration for his gifts, and iu some quarters an evident belief that, had he not been fettered by inferior men, his policy would have achieved a success as marvellous as he himself did. We cannot admit that, lioldiug that he had none of the administrative or organising faculty which alone could have given him the means of realising his dreams. He never gave strength to a Department, and hail no idea of toilsome preparation. But he was a gifted dreamer, favoured sometimes with a strange flash of insight; and he possessed in perfection a quality which is decaying among men,—a courage, rising often to audacity, yet as cool and as complete in reverse as in success. His con- duct on the failure of his first Budget—in itself a ridi- culous affair—on his tremendous defeat in 1880—a defeat which he must have felt as an architect would feel an earthquake which threw down his unfinished cathedral— and during his final illness, inspires us with more genuine admiration than his showiest achievements. He was a great man, though not a great statesman, and his death closes an episode in English history on which historians who like to depict marked individualities will hereafter love to dwell.
