seen in the epigrams which strew the pages of _Lothair_, and have become
part of our habitual speech--the phrase about eating "a little fruit on
a green bank with music"; that which describes the hansom cab, "'Tis the
gondola of London." This may lead us on to the consideration that
Disraeli is one of those who have felt most vividly and expressed most
gaily the peculiar physical beauty of London. He saw the Park as the
true Londoner sees it--when "the chestnuts are in silver bloom, and the
pink may has flushed the thorns, and banks of sloping turf are radiant
with plots of gorgeous flowers; when the water glitters in the sun, and
the air is fragrant with that spell which only can be found in
metropolitan mignonette." He describes as no one else has ever done with
equal mastery a stately and successful house-party in a great country
mansion. He had developed, when he composed _Lothair_, a fuller sense of
beauty than he had ever possessed before, but it revelled in forms that
were partly artificial and partly fabulous. An example of these forms
may now be welcome:--

"Mr. Giles took an early easy opportunity of apprising Lady
Farringford that she had nearly met Cardinal Grandison at dinner,
and that his Eminence would certainly pay his respects to Mrs.
Putney Giles in the evening. As Lady Farringford was at present a
high ritualist, and had even been talked of as 'going to Rome,'
this intelligence was stunning, and it was observed that her
Ladyship was unusually subdued during the whole of the second
course.

"On the right of Lothair sate the wife of a Vice-Chancellor, a
quiet and pleasing lady, to whom Lothair, with natural good
breeding, paid snatches of happy attention, when he could for a
moment with propriety withdraw himself from the blaze of