she had driven him to the House of Commons. He was speaking to her at parting, and somehow she got her finger inside the carriage door, which he shut forcibly. Though dreadfully crushed and in agony, she never exclaimed or even mentioned the matter until he returned home. He was going to make a great speech and she thought if she uttered the least cry, or had given him to know he had hurt her, his thoughts might be distracted.-GREGORY.

The carriage incident is well known. That is perfectly authentic, and there are other stories like it.-FROUDE.

"I

Many of the younger members pressed Mr. Disraeli to return with them and have supper at the Carlton; but, as Lady Beaconsfield told me afterwards, with manifest pride and joy, "Dizzy came home to me." And she then proceeded to describe the supper: had got him a raised pie from Fortnum & Mason's, and a bottle of champagne, and he ate half the pie and drank all the champagne, and then he said, 'Why, my dear, you are more like a mistress than a wife.'" And I could see that she took it as a very high compliment indeed.—KEBBEL.

Mr. Wyndham Lewis, who had brought Disraeli into Parliament, died unexpectedly the year after. His widow, the clever, rattling flirt, as he had described her on first acquaintance, after a year's mourning, became Disraeli's wife. She was childless. She was left the sole possessor of a house at Grosvenor Gate and a life income of several

thousands a year. She was not beautiful. Disraeli was thirty-five and she was approaching fifty. But she was a heroine, if ever a woman deserved the name. She devoted herself to Disraeli with a completeness which left no room in her mind for any other thought. As to him, he had said that he would never marry for love. But if love, in the common sense of the word, did not exist between these two, there was an affection which stood the trials of thirty years and deepened only as both declined into age. She was his helpmate, his confidante, his adviser; from the first he felt the extent of his obligations to her, but the sense of obligation, if at first felt as a duty, became a bond of friendship perpetually renewed. The hours spent with his wife in retirement were the happiest that he knew. In defeat or victory he hurried home from the House of Commons to share his vexation or his triumph with his companion, who never believed that he could fail. The moment in his whole life which perhaps gave him the

greates delight was that at which he was able to decorate her with a peerage.FROUDE.

The wife of the lordly proprietor was a person of exceptional refinement and a deep and sincere sense of propriety; she had carefully swept from the walls all pictures of a character that our less squeamish forefathers would not have objected to. As it happened, in the bedroom allotted to Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli one picture remained, not in any way exceeding those works of great artists displayed in the National Gallery, but of a decidedly classic character as regards drapery, such as might have attracted the attention of the gentleman who signed himself "A British Matron." At breakfast, the first morning after their arrival, Mrs. Disraeli addressed the lady of the house in these words: "I find that your house is full of indecent pictures." Knowing well the character of their hostess, dismay might have been observed on the faces of the guests; undaunted, Mrs. Disraeli continued: "There is a most horrible picture in our bedroom; Disraeli says it is 'Venus and Adonis.' I have been awake half the night trying to prevent his looking at it." I know this to be true; the elder son of the house told it to me, who was present at breakfast.FRASER.

When in Edinburgh in 1867 he had a great and enthusiastic reception from the democracy. "We did not go to bed until quite late," he said the next morning. "Mrs. Disraeli and I were so delighted with our meeting that we danced a Scotch reel" (or was it an Irish jig?) "over it in our bedroom."-MCCALL, Contemporary Review, June, 1881.

My father was one day driving out at and at the close of the evening he took Lady Beaconsfield down to her carriage; as he did so, he remarked: "Mr. Disraeli spoke most eloquently to-night. And how well he is looking." The viscountess looked up into my father's face with a pleased expression. "Ah," she said, "you think he looks well; you think him handsome. Yet people call him ugly; but he is not; he is handsome; they should see him asleep."FRISWELL, Temple Bar, August, 1905.

At the first word about Manchester Lady Beaconsfield straightway began to tell of Dizzy's triumphs with a precipitation, a joyful eagerness and sparkle that spoke more of eighteen than of eighty. Here were the affection and volubility, both together,

untired. From that I could believe nearly all the dinner-table stories of her devotion, and her admiration; even this: She was one evening in company with some ladies when the conversation wandered into talk of fine figures: Mr. A's, Mr. B's, Captain C's. The old lady let them run on and then said pityingly, "Ah, you should see my Dizzy in his bath."-GREENWOOD, Cornhill Magazine, November, 1896.

At Mount Braddon, at Torquay, there resided an elderly widowed lady, named Mrs. Brydges Willyams. She was of Jewish birth, daughter and heiress of a certain Mendez da Costa, who traced his origin, like Disraeli, to a great family in Spain. Her husband, one of the Willyamses of Cornwall, who was a man of some note there, had died in 1820. His wife was left without children; she had no near relations and with a large fortune at her disposal. She was reputed,

because perhaps she lived much in retirement, to be of eccentric habits. Being vain of her race, she was attracted by Disraeli's career and she was interested in his writings. A Spanish Jewish origin was common to herself and to him and some remote connection could, I have heard, be traced between the house of Lara, from which Disraeli descended, and her own, Mendez da Costa. At last, at the beginning of 1851, she wrote to him, professing general admiration and asking for his advice on some matter of business. Men whose names are before the world often receive letters of this kind from unknown correspondents. Disraeli knew nothing of Mrs. Willyams and had no friends at Torquay whom he could ask about her. He threw the letter into the fire and thought no more of it. . . . The lady wrote again, pressing for an interview and appointing as a place of meeting the fountain in the Exhibition building. The Disraeli of practical life was as unlike as possible to the heroes of his own novels. His mysterious correspondent might be young and beautiful or old and ugly. In either case the proposal could have no attraction for him. His person was well known and an assignation in so public a place could not pass unnoticed. In his most foolish years he had kept clear of entanglements with women and did not mean to begin. He was out of town when the letter arrived. He found it when he returned, but again left it unnoticed. A third time, however, the lady wrote and in more pressing terms appointed another hour at the same place. The perseverance struck him as singular. He showed the note to two intimate friends, who

both advised him not to neglect a request which might have meaning in it. He went. By the side of the fountain he found sitting an old woman, very small in person, strangely dressed and peculiar in manner, such a figure as might be drawn in an illustrated story for a fairy godmother. She told him a long story of which he could make nothing. Seeing that he was impatient she placed an envelope in his hand which she said contained a statement of the case on which she desired a high legal opinion. She begged him to examine it at leisure. He thrust the envelope carelessly into his pocket, and, supposing she was not in her right mind, thought no more of the matter. The coat which he was wearing was laid aside and weeks passed before he happened to put it on again. When he did put it on the packet was still where it had been left. He tore it open and found a banknote for a thousand pounds as an humble contribution towards his election expenses, with the case for the lawyers, which was less absurd then he had expected. This was, of course, submitted to a superior counsel, whose advice was sent at once to Torquay with acknowledgments and apologies for the delay. I do not know what became of the thousand pounds. It was probably returned. But this was the beginning of an acquaintance which ripened into a close and affectionate friendship. . . . The curious and delicate idyll was prolonged for twelve years, at the end of which Mrs. Willyams died, bequeathing to him her whole fortune and expressing a wish, which of course was complied with, that she might be buried at Hughenden, near the spot where Disraeli himself was to lie.-FROUDE.

...

Mrs. Willyams must have been at least seventy when Disraeli first corresponded with her in 1851. She was probably older.MONYPENNY.

It must have been a little embarrassing to Lord Beaconsfield, when, having in 1863 dropped most of the fancies of his romantic youth, he found that the mysterious Mrs. Brydges Willyams of Torquay had left him £40,000. For she stated her "wish and desire that he should obtain permission of her majesty to use and adopt the names of the families of Lara and Mendez da Costa in addition to that of Disraeli." As a matter of fact Lord Beaconsfield had no claim whatever to the names and arms of either. The Laras, who had adopted the name of a Marrano (secret Jewish) family who had adopted the "Gothic surname" of the great Spanish house of Lara, had no "arms" except those

attached to their pushful shoulders. And the only connection his lordship had with the Mendez family was that his greatgrandfather's first wife was a Mendez Furtado.-Notes and Queries, April 10, 1915.

All three, benefactress and beneficiaries, now lie together, just outside the east end of the church, and one monument, on the outer walls of the de Montfort chapel, records the names and legends of them all.-MONY

PENNY.

BEAUMARCHAIS, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 1732-1799. French diplomatist.

The Count de Mirabeau lived almost entirely by what he borrowed; he came to see Beaumarchais; they only knew one another by reputation; the conversation between them was lively, animated and witty. At last the count, with the levity customary with borrowers of quality, asked Beaumarchais to lend him twelve thousand francs. Beaumarchais refused him with that original gaiety which distinguished him. "But you could easily lend me that amount," said the count. "Without doubt," replied Beaumarchais, "but, Monsieur le Comte, as I should have to break off with you when the day of payment arrived, I would rather do so at once. I gain twelve thousand francs by it."-LOUIS DE LOMENIE, "Beaumarchais and his Times," citing Gudin.

A courtier who had boasted that he would disconcert the protégé of "Mesdames de France," Beaumarchais [who earlier in life had followed the trade of watchmaker] met him in the midst of a numerous group, just as he was coming out of the princesses' apartments, arrayed in his court suit, and said, as he handed him a very fine watch: "Sir, as you understand watchmaking, I wish you would have the kindness to examine my watch; it is out of order." "Sir," replied Beaumarchais calmly, "since I have ceased to practise the art, I have become very inexpert." "Oh, sir, do not refuse me the favor I ask." "Very well, but I give you notice that I have become very awkward." Then, taking the watch, he opened it, raised it in the air, and, pretending to examine it, let it fall to the ground. Upon which he made a low bow to the proprietor of the watch, saying, “I had warned you, sir, of my extreme awkwardness." He then walked away, leaving the nobleman to pick up the remains of his watch.-LOUIS DE LOMENIE, "Beaumarchais and his Times."

He obtains from Louis XVI. a commission to go to London and there induced, by means of bribery, a certain Jew to destroy

Benefit of Clergy

all the copies of a scandalous libel on Marie Antoinette. Having settled the business for £1400 and seen to the destruction of the English copies, he and the Jew set out for Holland, to attend to the suppression of an edition which is being prepared at Amsterdam. The Jew escapes and Beaumarchais, pursuing him with infinite trouble, catches up with him near Nuremberg, on the border of a forest, and by sheer force despoils the rogue of the one copy of the libel which the son of Shem had saved for the purpose of reprinting it. So far, so good; but just at this moment Beaumarchais is attacked by brigands. He makes a gallant fight of it, despite their bringing up of overwhelming reenforcements. He finally escapes, indeed, but is badly wounded and after much delay, caused by the acute physical suffering he is enduring, and the necessity of writing pathetic accounts of the affair to his friends in Paris, with obscure hints that it would not be unwise for them to prepare for the worst, he makes his way to Vienna. There he obtains an audience with Marie Theresa, tells her the whole story, begs her to have the Jew pursued and arrested, and reads her enough of the libel to pique the good lady's interest. Again so far, so good. But a skeptical minister of the empress, whose advice she has sought, is unfeeling enough to have the hero Beaumarchais arrested and an inquiry instituted into the affair. Whereupon it is discovered that there is no Jew at all, that the thrilling adventure in the forest is an audacious piece of fiction and that the wounds on the strength of which Beaumarchais recommended his Parisian friends to think of his epitaph were no more serious than those a man generally makes upon his own person. Then comes the cream of the story. The French authorities stand by him and he is not only released by Kaunitz, but offered a thousand ducats as a slight solace to his wounded feelings. Like a Frenchman and a man of honor, he declines the gift; but upon his return to France a diamond is pressed upon him, and this his conscience permits him to accept, with a feeling that his virtue has at last been recognized and rewarded.-ERNEST NEWMAN, The Fortnightly Review, October 1, 1909.

BENEFIT OF CLERGY.

Benefit of clergy is thus described by Misson: About six hundred years ago, in the reign of William II., the people of England were so strangely ignorant that the very priests could hardly read. The king, in order to bring the people out of such a state

of darkness, made a law, that in certain cases, as manslaughter, theft (for the first time) not exceeding the sum of five pounds sterling (and committed without burglary or putting the person robbed into bodily fear), polygamy, etc., the convict might save his life, and escape with no other punishment than burning in the hand, if he were so great a scholar as to be able to read; and, although there is at present hardly the meanest peasant in England but what can read, yet the law is still in force. They say to the criminal, Thou, N., who art convicted of having committed such and such a crime, what hast thou to demand in favor of thyself, to hinder sentence from being passed upon thee? The criminal answers, I demand the benefit of clergy. His demand is granted and the ordinary of Newgate gives him a book, printed in the old Gothic letter, in which the criminal reads a few words. Then the lord mayor, or one of the judges, asks the ordinary, Legite, vel non? And the ordinary answers, Legit ut clericus. However, when the criminal has a right to demand the benefit of clergy they seldom give themselves the trouble to examine whether he can read or no; be he the greatest scholar in the world, or the greatest blockhead, 'tis all a case, so he give but a little spite of money to the ordinary, who tells him in a low voice (which the whole court may hear) three or four words, which he pronounces, and there's an end of the matter. 'Tis always taken for granted that a peer can read, and he is never burned in the hand when he claims the benefit of clergy.-JOHN ASHTON, "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."

"Never keep any letter or other document if you can possibly help it. You only give yourself infinite trouble and, if you die, you bequeath a legacy of mischief. Of course, you may have a piece of business going on which compels you to preserve correspondence for a time, but do not keep it a moment longer than is absolutely necessary."-PIERCE BUTLER, "Judah P. Benjamin."

"When I do not agree with Benjamin I will not let him talk to me," said Slidell, who was his friend; "he irritates me so by his debonair ways."-GAMALIEL BRADFORD, "Confederate Portraits."

It is well known that he was severely criticized for his conduct of the campaign around Roanoke Island in 1862, while Secretary of War of the Confederate States,

though President Jefferson Davis apparently defied public opinion by promoting him to the post of Secretary of State at the time he relieved him of the war portfolio, in consequence of the censure of a congressional investigating committee. Decades after the event, Benjamin, in a private letter to a friend, explained this enigma: he had found that he could not justify himself before the commission without betraying the unknown dearth of ammunition which the Confederate forces suffered from at the time, and the discovery of which would have been quite certain to have reached the ears of the enemy, so Benjamin, with Davis's consent, sacrificed himself and withheld the evidence which would have cleared him before the committee and the country.-MAX J. KOHLER, No. 12 of Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, citing B. H. Wise's "Life of Henry A. Wise."

I once went to him myself to ask an explanation of a new system that had grown up in the export trade from New York to Liverpool. He gave me at once, as was his manner, a short and clear account of the practise and also explained the legal results and the rights of the parties. This led to a curious sequel, for within a few weeks I was retained for the plaintiff in chancery against the defendants. When the case came on for hearing before Vice-Chancellor Malins, I duly appeared, feeling confident of success, not only from my own opinion of the plaintiff's rights, but according to the view expressed by Benjamin that he was in the right. I found opposed to me for one of the defendants Sir Roundell Palmer, for the other Mr. Benjamin. Palmer's case was postponed on the ground of personal convenience, but he told me while he waited for the judge to come into court that the point was quite new to him. Benjamin and myself occupied the whole day with our arguments and the Vice-Chancellor, after much doubting, delivered a judgment against the view presented by Mr. Benjamin and in favor of that with which he had furnished me when I had sought his aid.-BARON POLLOCK, Fortnightly Review, March 1, 1898.

His custom, noted even while he was practising in New Orleans, of beginning his argument by a bold statement of the proposition he intended to maintain, which sometimes needed all his subtlety of logic in order to seem reasonable at all, was indirectly responsible for one little incident that made a deep impression in England. It was in the case of the London & County Bank vs. Rat

cliffe, which Mr. Russell Roberts, one of the junior counsel, declares to have been exceedingly puzzling in its facts, that Mr. Benjamin had his difficulty, May 19, 1881. As senior counsel for the appellants in the House of Lords Mr. Benjamin insisted on proceeding with his argument as he had planned it, in spite of signs of impatience on the part of the members. At length, upon his stating one of the propositions that he meant to defend, Lord Selborne, the Lord Chancellor, remarked sotto voce, but in a tone that reached the counselor's ear, "Nonsense." Changing color slightly, says Mr. Roberts, from whom I take these facts, Mr. Benjamin "proceeded to tie up his papers. This accomplished, he bowed gravely to the members of the House, and saying, “That is my case, my lords,' he turned and left the House." The junior counsel was therefore compelled to go on as best he might. "On the following day the respondent's counsel was heard and, a reply being called for, Mr. Horace Davey, Q. C., on the 23d day of May, rose to address the House, Mr. Benjamin being absent. On Mr. Davey's rising, the Lord Chancellor said, 'Mr. Davey, it is unusual for the House to hear three counsel for the same party and we have already heard Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Russell Roberts. I notice Mr. Benjamin's absence, however, and I feel that it may be attributed to his having taken umbrage at an unfortunate remark which fell from me during his argument and in which I referred to a proposition he stated as nonsense. I certainly was not justified in applying such a term to anything that fell from Mr. Benjamin and I wish to convey to him my regret that I should have used such an expression.' Mr. Davey conveyed to Mr. Benjamin what had been said by Lord Selborne and induced him to write a note to Lord Selborne acknowledging the apology."-PIERCE BUTLER, "Life of Judah P. Benjamin."

Lord Selborne sent a messenger to Mr. Benjamin, after the latter had left court, offering an apology and begging him to return, which Mr. Benjamin declined to do, much to the chagrin of his clients (a large London joint-stock bank) whose case he was arguing on appeal, the brief being marked one thousand guineas.-FRANCIS LAWLEY, The Athenæum, May 12, 1888.

BENTON, Thomas Hart, 1782-1858. American statesman.

Upon some occasion-probably while he still lived in North Carolina-he and a number of his cousins were staying together somewhere and his manner irritated his associates

Benton, Thomas H.

until they determined to play a joke upon him. Accordingly, they took his cravat, while he was asleep, and hid five dollars in it; and the next morning at breakfast one of the lads put his hands into his pockets, said he had lost five dollars and asserted that some of the party had taken his money. All protested innocence, but finally it was proposed to search every one and the money was of course found secreted on Benton's person. His anger and mortification knew no bounds, while his tormentors enjoyed their triumph for some time, but finally explained to him the trick they had played. The miserable joke grew to a story, or a whole progeny of stories, of his having been caught stealing while a young fellow and, with the immense vitality which always characterizes such rumors, would never down. To the very end of his public career, quite as much as half a century after the joke was played, the charge it grew into was whispered abroad against him, was thrown at him by Foote in their contest, and was regularly unearthed and brought to bear whenever his name was mentioned for the presidency. To the same parentage is doubtless also to be traced the story that he got into a violent quarrel at the University of North Carolina and was expelled from his literary society for theft. Years later, this story goes on, after he had become a great man, the authorities reinstated him and sent him notice to that effect, but he, disgruntled at what he thought servility on their part, simply returned it with the laconic answer, "Go to hell."

Coming to Washington from California, where he had become a believer in Benton's hard money theories, Keyes called on Benton and explained how admirably the theory worked on the Pacific slope, and then went on to explain his conversion and added that he had sworn in his own heart never to take another bank note. All this was well enough, but, when he continued that upon landing recently in New York and driving home in a hack, he had handed the driver a five-dollar gold piece and allowed him to hand back a three-dollar bill in change, Keyes writes that "Old Bullion's countenance underwent a change and with an air and voice that would have suited a Caliph of Bagdad he rebuked me 'Young man,' said he, 'you were wrong to take the three-dollar note-you had no right to barter your principles. The paper you received was probably without intrinsic value. Such notes pass from hand to hand like counters of gamblers and are not intended to be redeemed. They enrich knaves,