In _Lord George Bentinck_, under the guise of a record of the struggle
between Protection and Free Trade, we have a manual of personal conduct
as applied to practical politics.

In all these works narrative pure and simple inclines to take a
secondary place. It does so least in _Coningsby_ which, as a story, is
the most attractive book of Disraeli's middle period, and one of the
most brilliant studies of political character ever published. The tale
is interspersed with historical essays, which impede its progress but
add to its weight and value. Where, however, the author throws himself
into his narrative, the advance he has made in power, and particularly
in truth of presentment, is very remarkable. In the early group of his
novels he had felt a great difficulty in transcribing conversations so
as to produce a natural and easy effect. He no longer, in _Coningsby_,
is confronted by this artificiality. His dialogues are now generally
remarkable for their ease and nature. The speeches of Rigby (who
represents John Wilson Croker), of Lord Monmouth (who stands for Lord
Hertford), of the Young Englanders themselves, of the laughable chorus
of Taper and Tadpole, who never "despaired of the Commonwealth," are
often extremely amusing. In _Coningsby_ we have risen out of the
rose-coloured mist of unreality which hung over books like _The Young
Duke_ and _Henrietta Temple_. The agitated gentleman whose peerage hangs
in the balance, and who on hearing that the Duke of Wellington is with
the King breathes out in a sigh of relief "Then there _is_ a
Providence," is a type of the subsidiary figure which Disraeli had now
learned to introduce with infinite lightness of irony.

Disraeli had a passion for early youth, and in almost all his books he
dwells lovingly upon its characteristics. It is particularly in
_Contarini Fleming_ and in _Coningsby_--that is to say, in the best