A

DIARY

OF

TWO PARLIAMENTS.

BY

HENRY W. LUCY.

THE DISRAELI PARLIAMENT.

1874-1880.

SECOND EDITION.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:

LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBourne.

1885.

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]

PREFACE.

THESE Volumes are literally, as they profess to be, a Diary of events passing under the eye of an observer. The record was penned often within an hour of the event. Some portions of it were actually printed in the "Daily News" of the following morning, and others within the current week in the "World" or the "Observer." Thus vividness of impression is fully retained, though sometimes it is to be feared at the cost of accuracy of judgment. It would be more agreeable to modify some of the personal characterisations of public men; but wherein they are faulty they stand corrected by further development of the personages sketched. They were jotted down honestly, without favour or prejudice, and, balancing considerations, it has been thought better to let them stand precisely as they were written.

In his "Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second," Lord Hervey (whom Thackeray says he "hates," and from whom he draws so much to illustrate his lecture on the times of George the Second)