had already seen a vast deal of man and of the world of Europe.

We are not to believe the preposterous account that Contarini-Disraeli
gives of his methods of composition:--

"My thoughts, my passion, the rush of my invention, were too quick
for my pen. Page followed page; as a sheet was finished I threw it
on the floor; I was amazed at the rapid and prolific production,
yet I could not stop to wonder. In half a dozen hours I sank back
exhausted, with an aching frame. I rang the bell, ordered some
refreshment, and walked about the room. The wine invigorated me and
warmed up my sinking fancy, which, however, required little fuel. I
set to it again, and it was midnight before I retired to bed."

At this rate we may easily compute that the longest of his novels would
be finished in a week. _Contarini Fleming_ seems to have occupied him
the greater part of a year. He liked the public to think of him,
exquisitely habited, his long essenced hair falling about his eyes,
flinging forth a torrent of musky and mellifluous improvisation; as a
matter of fact he was a very hard worker, laborious in the arts of
composition.

It is to be noted that the whole tone of _Contarini Fleming_ is
intensely literary. The appeal to the intellectual, to the fastidious
reader is incessant. This is an attitude always rare in English fiction,
but at that epoch almost unknown, and its presence in the writings of
Disraeli gives them a cachet. Under all the preposterous conversation,
all the unruly turmoil of description, there runs a strong thread of
entirely sober, political, and philosophical ambition. Disraeli striving
with all his might to be a great poet, of the class of Byron and Goethe,