he had entered the House at last, as Member for Maidstone, and although
his enemies roared him down on the first occasion of his rising to
speak, he soon learned how to impose his voice on Parliament. In 1839
his declaration that "the rights of labour are as sacred as the rights
of property" made him famous, and in 1841 he was one of Sir Robert
Peel's Conservative army in the House. Then followed the formation of
the Young England Party, with Disraeli as one of its leaders; these men
broke away from Peel, and held that the Tory Party required stringent
reform from within. It was in 1843 that Henry Thomas Hope, of Deepdene,
urged, at a meeting of the Young Englanders, the expediency of
Disraeli's "treating in a literary form those views and subjects which
were the matter of their frequent conversations." Disraeli instantly
returned to literary composition, and produced in quick succession the
four books which form the second section of his work as an author; these
are _Coningsby_, _Sybil_, _Tancred_, and the _Life of Lord George
Bentinck_.

In this group of books we observe, in the first place, a great advance
in vitality and credibility over the novels of the earlier period.
Disraeli is now describing what he knows, no longer what he hopes in
process of time to know. He writes from within, no longer from without
the world of political action. These three novels and a biography are
curiously like one another in form, and all equally make a claim to be
considered not mere works of entertainment, but serious contributions to
political philosophy. The assumption is borne out by the character of
the books, each of which had a definite aim and purpose. _Coningsby_
was designed to make room for new talent in the Tory Party by an
unflinching attack on the "mediocrities." In _Sybil_ the heartless abuse
of capital and the vices of class distinction are exposed. _Tancred_ is
a vision of better things to follow upon the reforms already indicated.