Minister of England. His first administration, however, was brief, and
in the last days of 1868 he resigned in favour of Mr. Gladstone. The
Liberals were in for five years, and Disraeli, in opposition, found a
sort of tableland stretch in front of him after so much arduous
climbing. It was at this moment, shortly after the resignation of the
Tory Minister, that the publisher of a magazine approached him with the
request that he would write a novel to appear in its pages. He was
offered, it is said, a sum of money far in excess of what any one, at
that time, had ever received for "serial rights." Disraeli refused the
offer, but it may have drawn his thoughts back to literature, and in the
course of 1869, after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was
completed, he found time to write what is unquestionably the greatest of
his literary works--the superb ironic romance of _Lothair_.

Eminent as he was and eminently successful, Disraeli was far, in 1870,
from having conquered public opinion in England. The reception of his
new novel was noisy, and enjoyed to the full the clamours of
advertisement, but it was not favourable. The critics laughed it to
scorn, and called it a farce and a failure. The _Quarterly Review_, in
the course of a savage diatribe, declared that it was "as dull as
ditch-water and as flat as a flounder," and in a graver mood reproved it
as a mere "bid for the bigoted voices of Exeter Hall." Some of the
criticisms were not wanting in acumen. It was perceived at once that, as
Theodora Campion is the heroine of the book, it was an error in art to
kill her off in the middle of it. Moreover, it is only fair to admit
that if the stormy Parliamentarian life Disraeli had led so long had
given him immense personal advantages, it had also developed some
defects. It had taught him boundless independence and courage, it had
given him a rare experience of men and manners, and it had lifted his
satire far above petty or narrow personal considerations. But it had