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Sybil, or the Two Nations

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Sybil, or the Two Nations



Etext prepared by
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Note from David Johnson
This work contains many unusual words, spellings, references
and phrases. Punctuation is often unusual too. Many of these
look wrong, and occasionally do not seem to make much sense,
but they are faithfully copied from the author's text.





SYBIL, OR THE TWO NATIONS

by Benjamin Disraeli




I would inscribe these volumes to one whose noble spirit and
gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the
suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged, and
whose taste and judgment have ever guided, their pages; the
most severe of critics, but--a perfect Wife!




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The general reader whose attention has not been specially
drawn to the subject which these volumes aim to illustrate,
the Condition of the People, might suspect that the Writer had
been tempted to some exaggeration in the scenes which he has
drawn and the impressions which he has wished to convey. He
thinks it therefore due to himself to state that he believes
there is not a trait in this work for which he has not the
authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence
which has been received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary
Committees. But while he hopes he has alleged nothing which
is not true, he has found the absolute necessity of
suppressing much that is genuine. For so little do we know of
the state of our own country that the air of improbability
that the whole truth would inevitably throw over these pages,
might deter many from their perusal.

Grosvenor-Gate,
May Day, 1845.




BOOK I


Book 1 Chapter 1



"I'll take the odds against Caravan."

"In poneys?"

"Done."

And Lord Milford, a young noble, entered in his book the bet
which he had just made with Mr Latour, a grey headed member of
the Jockey Club.

It was the eve of the Derby of 1837. In a vast and golden
saloon, that in its decorations would have become, and in its
splendour would not have disgraced, Versailles in the days of
the grand monarch, were assembled many whose hearts beat at
the thought of the morrow, and whose brains still laboured to
control its fortunes to their advantage.

"They say that Caravan looks puffy," lisped in a low voice a
young man, lounging on the edge of a buhl table that had once
belonged to a Mortemart, and dangling a rich cane with
affected indifference in order to conceal his anxiety from
all, except the person whom he addressed.

"They are taking seven to two against him freely over the
way," was the reply. "I believe it's all right."

"Do you know I dreamed last night something about Mango,"
continued the gentleman with the cane, and with a look of
uneasy superstition.

His companion shook his head.

"Well," continued the gentleman with the cane, "I have no
opinion of him. I gave Charles Egremont the odds against
Mango this morning; he goes with us, you know. By the bye,
who is our fourth?"

"I thought of Milford," was the reply in an under tone. "What
say you?"

"Milford is going with St James and Punch Hughes."

"Well, let us come into supper, and we shall see some fellow
we like."

So saying, the companions, taking their course through more
than one chamber, entered an apartment of less dimensions than
the principal saloon, but not less sumptuous in its general
appearance. The gleaming lustres poured a flood of soft yet
brilliant light over a plateau glittering with gold plate, and
fragrant with exotics embedded in vases of rare porcelain.
The seats on each side of the table were occupied by persons
consuming, with a heedless air, delicacies for which they had
no appetite; while the conversation in general consisted of
flying phrases referring to the impending event of the great
day that had already dawned.

"Come from Lady St Julian's, Fitz?" said a youth of very
tender years, and whose fair visage was as downy and as
blooming as the peach from which with a languid air he
withdrew his lips to make this inquiry of the gentleman with
the cane.

"Yes; why were not you there?"

"I never go anywhere," replied the melancholy Cupid,
"everything bores me so."

"Well, will you go to Epsom with us to-morrow, Alfred?" said
Lord Fitzheron. "I take Berners and Charles Egremont, and
with you our party will be perfect."

"I feel so cursed blas‚!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of
elegant anguish.

"It will give you a fillip, Alfred," said Mr Berners; "do you
all the good in the world."

"Nothing can do me good," said Alfred, throwing away his
almost untasted peach, "I should be quite content if anything
could do me harm. Waiter, bring me a tumbler of Badminton."

"And bring me one too," sighed out Lord Eugene De Vere, who
was a year older than Alfred Mountchesney, his companion and
brother in listlessness. Both had exhausted life in their
teens, and all that remained for them was to mourn, amid the
ruins of their reminiscences, over the extinction of
excitement.

"Well, Eugene, suppose you come with us." said Lord
Fitzheron.

"I think I shall go down to Hampton Court and play tennis,"
said Lord Eugene. "As it is the Derby, nobody will be there."

"And I will go with you, Eugene," said Alfred Mountchesney,
"and we will dine together afterwards at the Toy. Anything is
better than dining in this infernal London."

"Well, for my part," said Mr Berners. "I do not like your
suburban dinners. You always get something you can't eat, and
cursed bad wine."

"I rather like bad wine," said Mr Mountchesney; "one gets so
bored with good wine."

"Do you want the odds against Hybiscus, Berners?" said a
guardsman looking up from his book, which he had been very
intently studying.

"All I want is some supper, and as you are not using your
place--"

"You shall have it. Oh! here's Milford, he will give them
me."

And at this moment entered the room the young nobleman whom we
have before mentioned, accompanied by an individual who was
approaching perhaps the termination of his fifth lustre but
whose general air rather betokened even a less experienced
time of life. Tall, with a well-proportioned figure and a
graceful carriage, his countenance touched with a sensibility
that at once engages the affections. Charles Egremont was not
only admired by that sex, whose approval generally secures men
enemies among their fellows, but was at the same time the
favourite of his own.

"Ah, Egremont! come and sit here," exclaimed more than one
banqueter.

"I saw you waltzing with the little Bertie, old fellow," said
Lord Fitzheron, "and therefore did not stay to speak to you,
as I thought we should meet here. I am to call for you,
mind."

"How shall we all feel this time to-morrow?" said Egremont,
smiling.

"The happiest fellow at this moment must be Cockie Graves,"
said Lord Milford. "He can have no suspense I have been
looking over his book, and I defy him, whatever happens, not
to lose."

"Poor Cockie." said Mr Berners; "he has asked me to dine with
him at the Clarendon on Saturday."

"Cockie is a very good Cockie," said Lord Milford, "and
Caravan is a very good horse; and if any gentleman sportsman
present wishes to give seven to two, I will take him to any
amount."

"My book is made up," said Egremont; "and I stand or fall by
Caravan."

"And I."

"And I."

"And I."

"Well, mark my words," said a fourth, rather solemnly, "Rat-
trap wins."

"There is not a horse except Caravan," said Lord Milford, "fit
for a borough stake."

"You used to be all for Phosphorus, Egremont," said Lord
Eugene de Vere.

"Yes; but fortunately I have got out of that scrape. I owe
Phip Dormer a good turn for that. I was the third man who
knew he had gone lame."

"And what are the odds against him now."

"Oh! nominal; forty to one,--what you please."

"He won't run," said Mr Berners, "John Day told me he had
refused to ride him."

"I believe Cockie Graves might win something if Phosphorus
came in first," said Lord Milford, laughing.

"How close it is to-night!" said Egremont. "Waiter, give me
some Seltzer water; and open another window; open them all."

At this moment an influx of guests intimated that the assembly
at Lady St Julian's was broken up. Many at the table rose and
yielded their places, clustering round the chimney-piece, or
forming in various groups, and discussing the great question.
Several of those who had recently entered were votaries of
Rat-trap, the favourite, and quite prepared, from all the
information that had reached them, to back their opinions
valiantly. The conversation had now become general and
animated, or rather there was a medley of voices in which
little was distinguished except the names of horses and the
amount of odds. In the midst of all this, waiters glided
about handing incomprehensible mixtures bearing aristocratic
names; mystical combinations of French wines and German
waters, flavoured with slices of Portugal fruits, and cooled
with lumps of American ice, compositions which immortalized
the creative genius of some high patrician name.

"By Jove! that's a flash," exclaimed Lord Milford, as a blaze
of lightning seemed to suffuse the chamber, and the beaming
lustres turned white and ghastly in the glare.

The thunder rolled over the building. There was a dead
silence. Was it going to rain? Was it going to pour? Was
the storm confined to the metropolis? Would it reach Epsom?
A deluge, and the course would be a quagmire, and strength
might baffle speed.

Another flash, another explosion, the hissing noise of rain.
Lord Milford moved aside, and jealous of the eye of another,
read a letter from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards
offered to take the odds against Pocket Hercules. Mr Latour
walked to the window, surveyed the heavens, sighed that there
was not time to send his tiger from the door to Epsom, and get
information whether the storm had reached the Surrey hills,
for to-night's operations. It was too late. So he took a
rusk and a glass of lemonade, and retired to rest with a cool
head and a cooler heart.

The storm raged, the incessant flash played as it were round
the burnished cornice of the chamber, and threw a lurid hue on
the scenes of Watteau and Boucher that sparkled in the
medallions over the lofty doors. The thunderbolts seemed to
descend in clattering confusion upon the roof. Sometimes
there was a moment of dead silence, broken only by the
pattering of the rain in the street without, or the pattering
of the dice in a chamber at hand. Then horses were backed,
bets made, and there were loud and frequent calls for brimming
goblets from hurrying waiters, distracted by the lightning and
deafened by the peal. It seemed a scene and a supper where
the marble guest of Juan might have been expected, and had he
arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and
spirits as reckless as he encountered in Andalusia.




Book 1 Chapter 2



"Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?" sang out a
gentleman in the ring at Epsom. It was full of eager groups;
round the betting post a swarming cluster, while the magic
circle itself was surrounded by a host of horsemen shouting
from their saddles the odds they were ready to receive or
give, and the names of the horses they were prepared to back
or to oppose.

"Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?"

"I'll give you five to one," said a tall, stiff Saxon peer, in
a white great coat.

"No; I'll take six."

The tall, stiff peer in the white great coat mused for a
moment with his pencil at his lip, and then said, "Well, I'll
give you six. What do you say about Mango?"

"Eleven to two against Mango," called out a little humpbacked
man in a shrill voice, but with the air of one who was master
of his work.

"I should like to do a little business with you, Mr
Chippendale," said Lord Milford in a coaxing tone, "but I must
have six to one."

"Eleven to two, and no mistake," said this keeper of a second-
rate gaming-house, who, known by the flattering appellation of
Hump Chippendale, now turned with malignant abruptness from
the heir apparent of an English earldom.

"You shall have six to one, my Lord," said Captain Spruce, a
debonair personage with a well-turned silk hat arranged a
little aside, his coloured cravat tied with precision, his
whiskers trimmed like a quickset hedge. Spruce, who had
earned his title of Captain on the plains of Newmarket, which
had witnessed for many a year his successful exploits, had a
weakness for the aristocracy, who knowing his graceful
infirmity patronized him with condescending dexterity,
acknowledged his existence in Pall Mall as well as at
Tattersalls, and thus occasionally got a point more than the
betting out of him. Hump Chippendale had none of these gentle
failings; he was a democratic leg, who loved to fleece a
noble, and thought all men were born equal--a consoling creed
that was a hedge for his hump.

"Seven to four against the favourite; seven to two against
Caravan; eleven to two against Mango. What about Benedict?
Will any one do anything about Pocket Hercules? Thirty to one
against Dardanelles."

"Done."

"Five and thirty ponies to one against Phosphorus," shouted a
little man vociferously and repeatedly.

"I will give forty," said Lord Milford. No answer,--nothing
done.

"Forty to one!" murmured Egremont who stood against
Phosphorus. A little nervous, he said to the peer in the
white great coat, "Don't you think that Phosphorus may after
all have some chance?"

"I should be cursed sorry to be deep against him," said the
peer.

Egremont with a quivering lip walked away. He consulted his
book; he meditated anxiously. Should he hedge? It was
scarcely worth while to mar the symmetry of his winnings; he
stood "so well" by all the favourites; and for a horse at
forty to one. No; he would trust his star, he would not
hedge.

"Mr Chippendale," whispered the peer in the white great coat,
"go and press Mr Egremont about Phosphorus. I should not be
surprised if you got a good thing."

At this moment, a huge, broad-faced, rosy-gilled fellow, with
one of those good-humoured yet cunning countenances that we
meet occasionally on the northern side of the Trent, rode up
to the ring on a square cob and dismounting entered the
circle. He was a carcase butcher, famous in Carnaby market,
and the prime councillor of a distinguished nobleman for whom
privately he betted on commission. His secret service to-day
was to bet against his noble employer's own horse, and so he
at once sung out, "Twenty to one against Man-trap."

A young gentleman just launched into the world, and who, proud
of his ancient and spreading acres, was now making his first
book, seeing Man-trap marked eighteen to one on the cards,
jumped eagerly at this bargain, while Lord Fitzheron and Mr
Berners who were at hand and who in their days had found their
names in the book of the carcase butcher, and grown wise by
it, interchanged a smile.

"Mr Egremont will not take," said Hump Chippendale to the peer
in the white great coat.

"You must have been too eager," said his noble friend.

The ring is up; the last odds declared; all gallop away to the
Warren. A few minutes, only a few minutes, and the event that
for twelve months has been the pivot of so much calculation,
of such subtile combinations, of such deep conspiracies, round
which the thought and passion of the sporting world have hung
like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting tablets of the
past. But what minutes! Count them by sensation and not by
calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life.
Hogarth in a coarse and yet animated sketch has painted
"Before" and "After." A creative spirit of a higher vein
might develope the simplicity of the idea with sublimer
accessories. Pompeius before Pharsalia, Harold before
Hastings, Napoleon before Waterloo, might afford some striking
contrasts to the immediate catastrophe of their fortunes.
Finer still the inspired mariner who has just discovered a new
world; the sage who has revealed a new planet; and yet the
"Before" and "After" of a first-rate English race, in the
degree of its excitement, and sometimes in the tragic emotions
of its close, may vie even with these.

They are saddling the horses; Caravan looks in great
condition; and a scornful smile seems to play upon the
handsome features of Pavis, as in the becoming colours of his
employer, he gracefully gallops his horse before his admiring
supporters. Egremont in the delight of an English patrician
scarcely saw Mango, and never even thought of Phosphorus--
Phosphorus, who, by the bye, was the first horse that showed,
with both his forelegs bandaged.

They are off!

As soon as they are well away, Chifney makes the running with
Pocket Hercules. Up to the Rubbing House he is leading; this
is the only point the eye can select. Higher up the hill,
Caravan, Hybiscus, Benedict, Mahometan, Phosphorus, Michel
Fell, and Rat-trap are with the grey, forming a front rank,
and at the new ground the pace has told its tale, for half a
dozen are already out of the race.

The summit is gained; the tactics alter: here Pavis brings up
Caravan, with extraordinary severity,--the pace round
Tattenham corner terrific; Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a
little above him, Mahometan next, Hybiscus fourth. Rat-trap
looking badly, Wisdom, Benedict and another handy. By this
time Pocket Hercules has enough, and at the road the tailing
grows at every stride. Here the favourite himself is hors de
combat, as well as Dardanelles, and a crowd of lesser
celebrities.

There are now but four left in the race, and of these, two,
Hybiscus and Mahometan, are some lengths behind. Now it is
neck and neck between Caravan and Phosphorus. At the stand
Caravan has decidedly the best, but just at the post, Edwards,
on Phosphorus, lifts the gallant little horse, and with an
extraordinary effort contrives to shove him in by half a
length.

"You look a little low, Charley," said Lord Fitzheron, as
taking their lunch in their drag he poured the champagne into
the glass of Egremont.

"By Jove!" said Lord Milford, "Only think of Cockie Graves
having gone and done it!"




Book 1 Chapter 3



Egremont was the younger brother of an English earl, whose
nobility being of nearly three centuries' date, ranked him
among our high and ancient peers, although its origin was more
memorable than illustrious. The founder of the family had
been a confidential domestic of one of the favourites of Henry
the Eighth, and had contrived to be appointed one of the
commissioners for "visiting and taking the surrenders of
divers religious houses." It came to pass that divers of
these religious houses surrendered themselves eventually to
the use and benefit of honest Baldwin Greymount. The king was
touched with the activity and zeal of his commissioner. Not
one of them whose reports were so ample and satisfactory, who
could baffle a wily prior with more dexterity, or control a
proud abbot with more firmness. Nor were they well-digested
reports alone that were transmitted to the sovereign: they
came accompanied with many rare and curious articles, grateful
to the taste of one who was not only a religious reformer but
a dilettante; golden candlesticks and costly chalices;
sometimes a jewelled pix; fantastic spoons and patens, rings
for the fingers and the ear; occasionally a fair-written and
blazoned manuscript--suitable offering to the royal scholar.
Greymount was noticed; sent for; promoted in the household;
knighted; might doubtless have been sworn of the council, and
in due time have become a minister; but his was a discreet
ambition--of an accumulative rather than an aspiring
character. He served the king faithfully in all domestic
matters that required an unimpassioned, unscrupulous agent;
fashioned his creed and conscience according to the royal
model in all its freaks; seized the right moment to get sundry
grants of abbey lands, and contrived in that dangerous age to
save both his head and his estate.

The Greymount family having planted themselves in the land,
faithful to the policy of the founder, avoided the public gaze
during the troubled period that followed the reformation; and
even during the more orderly reign of Elizabeth, rather sought
their increase in alliances than in court favour. But at the
commencement of the seventeenth century, their abbey lands
infinitely advanced in value, and their rental swollen by the
prudent accumulation of more than seventy years, a Greymount,
who was then a county member, was elevated to the peerage as
Baron Marney. The heralds furnished his pedigree, and assured
the world that although the exalted rank and extensive
possessions enjoyed at present by the Greymounts, had their
origin immediately in great territorial revolutions of a
recent reign, it was not for a moment to be supposed, that the
remote ancestors of the Ecclesiastical Commissioner of 1530
were by any means obscure. On the contrary, it appeared that
they were both Norman and baronial, their real name Egremont,
which, in their patent of peerage the family now resumed.

In the civil wars, the Egremonts pricked by their Norman
blood, were cavaliers and fought pretty well. But in 1688,
alarmed at the prevalent impression that King James intended
to insist on the restitution of the church estates to their
original purposes, to wit, the education of the people and the
maintenance of the poor, the Lord of Marney Abbey became a
warm adherent of "civil and religious liberty,"--the cause for
which Hampden had died in the field, and Russell on the
scaffold,--and joined the other whig lords, and great lay
impropriators, in calling over the Prince of Orange and a
Dutch army, to vindicate those popular principles which,
somehow or other, the people would never support. Profiting
by this last pregnant circumstance, the lay Abbot of Marney
also in this instance like the other whig lords, was careful
to maintain, while he vindicated the cause of civil and
religious liberty, a very loyal and dutiful though secret
correspondence with the court of St Germains.

The great deliverer King William the Third, to whom Lord
Marney was a systematic traitor, made the descendant of the
Ecclesiastical Commissioner of Henry the Eighth an English
earl; and from that time until the period of our history,
though the Marney family had never produced one individual
eminent for civil or military abilities, though the country
was not indebted to them for a single statesman, orator,
successful warrior, great lawyer, learned divine, eminent
author, illustrious man of science, they had contrived, if not
to engross any great share of public admiration and love, at
least to monopolise no contemptible portion of public money
and public dignities. During the seventy years of almost
unbroken whig rule, from the accession of the House of Hanover
to the fall of Mr Fox, Marney Abbey had furnished a never-
failing crop of lord privy seals, lord presidents, and lord
lieutenants. The family had had their due quota of garters
and governments and bishoprics; admirals without fleets, and
generals who fought only in America. They had glittered in
great embassies with clever secretaries at their elbow, and
had once governed Ireland when to govern Ireland was only to
apportion the public plunder to a corrupt senate.

Notwithstanding however this prolonged enjoyment of undeserved
prosperity, the lay abbots of Marney were not content. Not
that it was satiety that induced dissatisfaction. The
Egremonts could feed on. They wanted something more. Not to
be prime ministers or secretaries of state, for they were a
shrewd race who knew the length of their tether, and
notwithstanding the encouraging example of his grace of
Newcastle, they could not resist the persuasion that some
knowledge of the interests and resources of nations, some
power of expressing opinions with propriety, some degree of
respect for the public and for himself, were not altogether
indispensable qualifications, even under a Venetian
constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so
eminent and responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres
and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to
them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat
graceless office of being their distributor. What they aimed
at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest
class. They observed that more than one of the other great
"civil and religious liberty" families,--the families who in
one century plundered the church to gain the property of the
people, and in another century changed the dynasty to gain the
power of the crown,--had their brows circled with the
strawberry leaf. And why should not this distinction be the
high lot also of the descendants of the old gentleman usher of
one of King Henry's plundering vicar-generals? Why not? True
it is, that a grateful sovereign in our days has deemed such
distinction the only reward for half a hundred victories.
True it is, that Nelson, after conquering the Mediterranean,
died only a Viscount! But the house of Marney had risen to
high rank; counted themselves ancient nobility; and turned up
their noses at the Pratts and the Smiths, the Jenkinsons and
the Robinsons of our degenerate days; and never had done
anything for the nation or for their honours. And why should
they now? It was unreasonable to expect it. Civil and
religious liberty, that had given them a broad estate and a
glittering coronet, to say nothing of half-a-dozen close seats
in parliament, ought clearly to make them dukes.

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