DISRAELI, Benjamin, earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881). Prime minister and novelist.
Fine early Autograph Letter Signed ('D') to the Rev W.J. Fox, 1 page oblong folio (with postscript to the side and address on the reverse), 35 Duke Street, St James's, 16 April 1833. The address, to Fox in Upper Clapton, is signed with the initials 'BD' in the lower left hand corner and bears a black wax seal and postal cancellation (partly obscured by some trace of old mounting and the original seal-tear).
Written when Disraeli was of uncertain political persuasion and before he was first returned to Parliament, explaining that he is ill with influenza, while sending him 'something short, if not sweet, apropos to 'Insincerity' [doubtless in reference to one of his earliest publications, a pamphlet entitled What is He? by the Author of Vivian Grey] and expressing his own political inclinations, and those of others for him, at this early stage in his career.
This letter was written at the time when there seemed to be another vacancy in the borough of Marylebone and when Disraeli issued one of his wonted addresses. The vacancy did not occur, but 'the fact that Disraeli had first tried to get in with Whig consent, that he had then stood as a strong Radical, then as a Radical with a slight Tory tinge, and finally issued one as a strong Radical again, did not go unobserved by his enemies. He, therefore, deemed it wise to publish a pamphlet justifying his position. It was entitled What is He? by the Author of Vivian Grey. (Robert Blake, Disraeli, page 92). In it he argued for a national party made up of Tories and Radicals.
The present letter clearly alludes to the pamphlet, and indeed may have been sent with a copy of it, from which the following quotation is taken: '... A great mind, that thinks and feels, is never inconsistent and never insincere ... The insincere and the inconsistent are the stupid and the vile. Insincerity is the vice of a fool and inconsistency the blunder of a knave ...' Monypenny and Buckle describe the pamphlet as 'a characteristically Disraelian blend of eloquence and bathos, of sincerity and pose, of insight and fantasy' and comment that after a year on the political stage Disraeli had won for himself 'the reputatation of a political adventurer with unintelligible opinions. As he became more famous, controversy began to rage around the details of these first campaigns and it has never wholly died away; pamphleteering biographers striving with one another - some eager to prove that he was a consistent Tory from the beginning, others no less eager to convict him as an unscrupulous time-server, careless of everything but his own advancement.' (Monypenny and Buckle, The Life of Disraeli).
£1150 [No: 24724]
Fine early Autograph Letter Signed ('D') to the Rev W.J. Fox, 1 page oblong folio (with postscript to the side and address on the reverse), 35 Duke Street, St James's, 16 April 1833. The address, to Fox in Upper Clapton, is signed with the initials 'BD' in the lower left hand corner and bears a black wax seal and postal cancellation (partly obscured by some trace of old mounting and the original seal-tear).
Written when Disraeli was of uncertain political persuasion and before he was first returned to Parliament, explaining that he is ill with influenza, while sending him 'something short, if not sweet, apropos to 'Insincerity' [doubtless in reference to one of his earliest publications, a pamphlet entitled What is He? by the Author of Vivian Grey] and expressing his own political inclinations, and those of others for him, at this early stage in his career.
'... Certainly the popular party seem determined to make me a Tory, w[hi]ch I regret, as my talents are all the other way. But in this damned hereditary country, every body believes that you are indebted to your father for your politics as well as y[ou]r property...'In a 'Postscriptum' he declares that 'The party I wish to influence are the persons who brought in Whalley a mere tool. The chiefs are Potter not the Belgian, but I believe a Political Unionist, as great a rebel. Wilson whom I do not know. Could Place influence these? Very likely'.
This letter was written at the time when there seemed to be another vacancy in the borough of Marylebone and when Disraeli issued one of his wonted addresses. The vacancy did not occur, but 'the fact that Disraeli had first tried to get in with Whig consent, that he had then stood as a strong Radical, then as a Radical with a slight Tory tinge, and finally issued one as a strong Radical again, did not go unobserved by his enemies. He, therefore, deemed it wise to publish a pamphlet justifying his position. It was entitled What is He? by the Author of Vivian Grey. (Robert Blake, Disraeli, page 92). In it he argued for a national party made up of Tories and Radicals.
The present letter clearly alludes to the pamphlet, and indeed may have been sent with a copy of it, from which the following quotation is taken: '... A great mind, that thinks and feels, is never inconsistent and never insincere ... The insincere and the inconsistent are the stupid and the vile. Insincerity is the vice of a fool and inconsistency the blunder of a knave ...' Monypenny and Buckle describe the pamphlet as 'a characteristically Disraelian blend of eloquence and bathos, of sincerity and pose, of insight and fantasy' and comment that after a year on the political stage Disraeli had won for himself 'the reputatation of a political adventurer with unintelligible opinions. As he became more famous, controversy began to rage around the details of these first campaigns and it has never wholly died away; pamphleteering biographers striving with one another - some eager to prove that he was a consistent Tory from the beginning, others no less eager to convict him as an unscrupulous time-server, careless of everything but his own advancement.' (Monypenny and Buckle, The Life of Disraeli).
£1150 [No: 24724]
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