48 ECHOES CF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



My readers will allow that so strange and eventful 

 a circumstance is worth recording, and doubtless had 

 some influence at a later day, when his circumstances 

 were more prosperous, in the Premier's desire to pur- 

 chase Hughenden Manor. 



It will be seen by these statements that Mr. Disraeli's 

 opinions were more formed by the fact of his hatred to 

 Whiggery, which pervades all his early novels, than by 

 a belief in the extrem.e doctrines of Radicalism. 



I remember once when visiting at Hughenden, that 

 ]\Ir. Disraeli put on his billy-cock hat, and with his legs 

 enclosed in leather gaiters and a spud in his hand, he 

 suggested taking a walk through that portion of the 

 beech-woods surrounding the north-west of the Manor 

 House, which he called the *' German forest." We were 

 talking on many subjects, and as we passed an opening 

 in the woods, he said, *' Come here, and sit ye down," 

 and he led the way to a rough seat made of some 

 split larch fir-poles, and completely out of sight of the 

 " madding crowd." He remarked, " This is a favourite 

 resort of mine. You can see no trace of a human being. 

 I have only the beech-woods, primroses, and wild- 

 flowers about me, and, more than all, it shuts out any 

 view of Wycombe " — and he smiled complacently, and 

 talked of farming, and the future prospects of that 

 business. I spoke, amongst other real or imaginary 

 grievances, about the incidence of the Game Laws as 

 injuring the work of improvement on the land, and he 

 said, " I would soon settle that question ; a very short 

 Act of Parliament should be passed, which would be, in 

 my opinion, effectual." I ventured to ask what it was^ 



