DISRAELI AND THE RACE-COURSE 



carefully Disraeli, eight years later, compiled 

 his narrative of the event. In the novel his 

 list of the field is correct in every particular, 

 as is his quotation of the betting. He touches 

 on the remote chance of Phosphorus, owing 

 to his lameness, and on the current report that 

 the horse would not be started. He accurately 

 describes the very fast pace at which the race 

 was run, and attributes the result to the skilful 

 and resolute riding of the jockey. The finale is 

 on a delicious note. " By Jove ! " said Lord 

 Milford, " only think of Cockie Graves having 

 gone and done it." Cockie Graves, whose amateur 

 book on the race had made the impossible Phos- 

 phorus his only winner, had in the end proved 

 wiser than the noble lord and all the select coterie 

 of Crockford's. But, then, is it not so written in 

 the Chronicles of Tattersalls ? 



In Endymion, a curious mixture of history and 

 fiction, I and planned as a story in consequence 

 of the success of Lothair, Disraeli again brings 

 in the subject of the Epsom race. If Endymion be 

 indeed a study of the author's youthful career, it 

 is possible Disraeli sketched his own early experi- 

 ence of Derby Day. Endymion lodges in Warwick 

 Street with a Mr. Rodney, who, having saved 

 the Duke of Wellington's life in the Reform Bill 

 riots, was proud to be acknowledged by His Grace 

 in St. James's Street. Mr. Rodney was interested 

 in racing. " In 1835," writes Disraeli, " men made 

 books, and Mr. Rodney was proficient in a com- 

 position which requires no ordinary qualities of 

 character and intelligence — nay, more, it demands 



I Life of Disraeli, vol. vi. p. 558. 

 109 



