V 



DISRAELI AND THE RACE-COURSE 



To-morrow [Derby Day] I believe we shall all be engaged else- 

 where. — Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1862. 



Much has been written on the subject of DisraeH's 

 hfe, as it is presented in the admirable volumes 

 from the pen of Mr. Buckle.^ Nor, indeed, could 

 it be otherwise. No career possesses so many 

 facets — Literature, Politics, International Affairs 

 and Society are the theme of the biographer and 

 the text of the reviewer. But, while it is only 

 natural that the serious world should be edified 

 by the pregnant reflections of cultivated critics 

 of life and character, while it may be profitable 

 to debate the vexata qucBstio of the Bradford- 

 Chesterfield romance, or to defend the revelation 

 of Queen Victoria's letters, so grievous to the 

 scanty remnant of Gladstonian apostles, it may be 

 of transient interest to glance at some of those 

 sparkling references which Disraeli makes to the 

 pursuit of horse-racing, both in the scenes he has 

 sketched in his novels and in the pointed allusions 

 of his correspondence with his friends. 



Great and various as were the powers of 

 Disraeli, he owes his fame to a disposition which 



' The Life of Benjarmn Disraeh, Earl of Beaconsfield, by George 

 Earle Buckle (John Murray, 1920). 



103 



