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DISRAELI, THE RT. HON. BENJAMIN. 



the older, with Sibthorp, South, and Sprengel, among modern com- 

 ineuUtoM, deserve to be consulted with attention. The lost editioa 

 of tie Greek text ii by Sprengel, iu the collection of ' Greek Phy- 

 sicians ' by Kulm, Leipzig, 1829, 8vo, which ha been improved by a 

 coll;it:ou of Kveral manuscripts. Dr. Sibthorp, who visited Greece 

 for the purpose of studying on the spot the Greek plants of Diosco- 

 rides, must be accounted of the highest critical authority; for it 

 frequently happens that the traditions of the country, localities, or 

 other sources of information, throw far more light upon the state- 

 ments of this ancient author than his own descriptions. It will ever 

 be a subject of regret to scholars, that Dr. Sibthorp should have died 

 before he was able to prepare for the press the result of his inquiries ; 

 what is known of them is embodied in the ' Prodromus Flora GrtocjE,' 

 published from his materials by the late Sir James Kdward Smith, 

 and in the ' Flora Greca' itself, consisting of 10 vols. fol., with nearly 

 1000 coloured plates, commenced by the same botanist, and since 

 completed under the direction of Professor Liudley. [SlBTHOltr.] So 

 far as European plauU are in question, we may suppose that the 

 means of illustrating Dioscorides are now nearly exhausted ; but it is 

 far otherwise with his Indian aud Persian plants. Concerning the 

 latter, it U probable that much may still be learned from a study of 

 the modern materia niedica of India, though something has been 

 i-IK-cU-d by the researches of Dr. Ruyl . When the Nestorians, in tlie 

 5th ceutury, were driven into exile, they sought refuge among the 

 Arabs, with whom they established their celebrated school of medi- 

 cine, the ramifications of which extended into Persia and India, and 

 laid the foundation of the present medic*! practice of the natives of 

 those countries. In this wiiy the Greek names of Dioscoiides, altered 

 indeed, aud adapted to the genius of the new countries, became intro- 

 duced into the languages of Persia, Arabia, aud Hindustan, and have 

 been handed down traditionally to the present day. Thus Dr. Royle 

 has shown, by an examination of this sort of evidence, that the 

 JCalamci aromatikot of Dioscorides is not a Gentian, as has been 

 imagined; that A'ardot Indite is unquestionably the Nardostachyi 

 Jatamanti of De Candolle, aud that tie Lution Indikon was neither a 

 Khamuus nor a Lyciuin, but as Prosper Alpinus long ago asserted, a 

 Berberis. With regard to the last plant, Dr. Royle states that Berberis 

 H at the present day called in India ' liooziz hindee,' or Indian hooziz. 

 This last word has for its Arabic synonym 'loofyon,' or 'lookyon;' 

 therefore the Berbery is still called Indian lycium, with the reputed 

 qualities aud uses of which it moreover corresponds. 



DIOSCU'RIDES (Aioo*ov/>t'Si)s), a very celebrated ancient gem 

 engraver who lived at Rome about the time of the Emperor Augustus. 

 Augustus and later emperors were in the habit, according to Suetonius, 

 of using a seal, representing Augustus's portrait, which was engraved 

 by Dioscurides. There are still several gems extant which bear the 

 name of Dioscurides, but the genuineness of most of them has been 

 questioned ; a few of them however are beautifully finished, and ore 

 perhaps worthy of the reputation of the greatest gem engraver of 

 antiquity, a reputation which Dioscurides had, according to Pliny. 



A Dioscorides of Samoa was a worker in mosaic; two of his works 

 Lave been discovered in Pompeii. 



(Suetonius, Auyuilui, 50 ; Pliny, Silt. Nat. xxxvii. 4 ; Bracci, Com- 

 mentaria dt Antiquu Scuiptoribtu, &c. ; Winckelmann, Gtichicltie dcr 

 A'urut det AUerthunu.) 



DtSKAI-.Ll, ISAAC, was born at Enfield in 1766. His father, 

 Benjamin Disraeli, was the descendant of a family of Spanish Jews, who, 

 driven from the Peninsula in the 15th ceutury by the persecutions of 

 the Inquisition, had settled in Venice, and there, to mark their race, 

 bad exchanged the Gothic Spanish name they had hitherto borne for 

 that of Disraeli "a name never borne before or since by any other 

 family " (the name was originally written D'Israeli ; but in his later 

 yean the subject of this memoir was in the habit of omitting the 

 apostrophe). He had come over to England from Italy in 1748, and 

 made a considerable fortune by commerce. He married in 17C5 

 "the beautiful daughter of a family" of his own race "who had 

 suffered much from persecution." She was a person of strong sense 

 but no imagination, whose ruling feeling was "a dislike for her 

 race.' 1 The only child of this uuion was the subject of our notice. 

 His sensitive and poetical character as a boy puzzled both his 

 parents, aud, in particular, occasioned continual discord between 

 him and bis mother. Bis father destined him for commerce; but 

 from the first be showed a decided aversion to an active life. 

 Educated first at a school near Eufield, and then at Amsterdam, 

 where the only advantage he received was that derived from access to 

 a Urge library, he was not more than eighteen when, in spite of all 

 that his father could cay or do, he signified his intention of being a 

 literary man. " He had written a poem of considerable length, which 

 he wished to publish, against commerce." His fattier naturally 

 opposed this intention, aud accordingly " be enclosed his poem to 

 Dr. Johnson with an impassioned statement of his caso, complaining 

 that be had never found a counsellor or literary friend, lie left hi* 

 packet bimielf at Bolt Court, where he was received by Mr. Francis 

 Jiarber, the doctor's well known black servant, and told to call again in 

 a week." When he did call the packet was returned to him unopened, 

 with message that the doctor was too ill to read anything. The doctor, 

 in fact, was then on hi* death-bed. In 1788 Disraeli's father sent him 

 to travel in France. On his return, finding Peter Pindar's satires in 



everybody's mouth, he ventured anonymously to publish by way 

 of corrective some verses " On the Abuse of Satire," which Walcot 

 attributed to Hayley. About this time he became acquainted with 

 Mr. I've, afterwards poet laureate, who was of service to him in many 

 ways, and who persuaded his father to allow him to follow his own 

 inclinations. Accordingly from about 1790, without any farther 

 opposition on the part of his family, and with sufficient means 

 supplied by his father (who survived till 1819, when lie wax 

 ninety years of age), he was free to devote himself entirely to litera- 

 ture. His first efforts were in poetry aud romance, llis early verses 

 are forgotten ; but a volume of romantic tales, including one called 

 ' The Loves of Mejnoun and Leila,' published by him some time 

 before the close of the 18th ceutury, reached a second edition. But, 

 though he hud much poetic taste, he was not fitted to be a poet or 

 creative writer ; and he was not long in finding out that his true 

 I'cstiny was "to give to his country a series of works illustrative of 

 its literary and political history " in other words, to j i 

 researches in literary history and gossip. It was in the year ITi'ti that 

 he published anonymously a little volume entitled ' Curiosities of 

 Literature.' The success of this volume determined him to prosecute 

 the walk which he had there entered upon. Accordingly, with the 

 exception of the volume of romance above alluded to, and we believe, 

 one other anonymous publication, all Mr. Disraeli's farther productions 

 during his long life consisted of the fruits of hU literary and historical 

 researches. These researches were prosecuted partly iu the British 

 Museum, where he was a constant visitor at a time when the readers 

 who had access to its treasures were not more than half-a dozeu daily ; 

 partly in his own library, which, especially in the end of his life (when 

 he resided on his own manor of Bradenham in Buckinghamshire) was 

 very extensive. The results of these researches were put forth from 

 time to time cither as additions to his ' Curiosities of Literature ' 

 (which thus eventually attained, in the eleventh edition published iu 

 1839, the bulk of six volumes) ; or as independent publications. 

 Among the independent publications may be mentioned his ' Essay 

 on the Literary Character ' originally published in 17ni ; his 

 ' Calamities of Authors,' his 'Quarrels of Authors," or 'Memoirs of 

 Literary Controversy,' and his 'Inquiry into the Literary and 

 Political Character of James the First ' works originally published 

 between 1812 and 1822, and since then published collectively under 

 the title of ' Miscellanies of Literature ; ' and his ' Life and lieigu of 

 Charles the First,' published in five volumes at intervals between 

 1828 and 1831. In acknowledgment of this last work he was made 

 D.C.L. by the University of Oxford. He contemplated a 'Life of 

 Pope,' and also 'A History of the English Fr< e-thiukers,' and bad 

 collected materials for both ; but a paralysis of the optic nerve which 

 attacked him in 1839 prevented him from executing either. With 

 the assistance of his daughter he selected from his manuscripts three 

 volumes, which were published in 1841 under the title of 'Amenities 

 of Literature.' His last years were spent in revising and re-editing 

 his former works; and he died in ISiS at the age of eighty-two. 

 " He was," says his eon, from whose memoir, prefixed to a new 

 and posthumous edition of his ' Curiosities of Literature,' wo have 

 derived the foregoing particulars, " a complete literary character, a 

 man who really passed his life in his library. Even marriage pro- 

 duced no change in these habits : he rose to enter the chamber where 

 he lived alone with his books, and at night his lamp was ever lit 

 within the same walls." In his old age his appearance was mild and 

 venerable ; he had then become rather corpulent. 



DISRAELI, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BENJAMIN, one of 

 the sons of the subject of the preceding notice, was born in London in 

 December Is05. He showed great precocity of talent; which how- 

 ever was for some time kept in check by drudgery iu an attorney's 

 office, where he had been placed by his father to qualify him for the 

 legal profession. His first efforts with his pen were in 1826, when he 

 contributed articles to a daily metropolitan newspaper then started in 

 the Tory interest, under the name of 'The Representative.' The 

 paper did not exist longer than five months. The experiment he had 

 made in connection with it however was sufficient to confirm young 

 Disraeli's determination to combine political ambition with what he 

 might consider his hereditary right to distinction in litcratmr. In 

 1828 he published his novel of ' Vivian Gray,' painting the career in 

 modern society of a youth of talent, ambitions of a political celebrity. 

 This work made a great sensation. From 1829 to 131 Mr. Disraeli 

 travelled on the Continent, and in the East, whence he brought home 

 those impressions of Oriental life, the pictures of which appear iu so 

 many of his novels; and about the same time apparently he began 

 those musings ss to the function in the modern world of the race to 

 which ho belonged, which have since, under the form of a theory of 

 the supremacy of the Semitic mind (Mr. Disraeli misnames it the 

 Caucatian mind) pervaded most of his works. While on hi." travels 

 Mr. Disraeli wrote and published two additional novels, ' Coutarini 

 Fleming' and ' The Young Duke.' On his return, at a time when the 

 Reform Bill agitation had introduced a new era in British politics, he 

 made various dibits to get elected to Parliament. He stood, with 

 recommendations from Mr. Hume and Mr. O'Counell to back him, for 

 the small borough of Wycombc in I iuckn, his position being that of a 

 candidate of Radical opinions, whom however the Tories as well as 

 the Radicals supported, from opposition to the Whigs. Defeated iu 



