Curiosities of Literature Vol. 1 (of 3)
D'Israeli Isaac
English
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Below is a summary of Curiosities of Literature Vol. 1 (of 3)
CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.
BY
ISAAC DISRAELI.
A New Edition,
EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES,
BY HIS SON,
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.,
BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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|Transcriber's Note: In this text the macron is represented as |
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|[=u] and [=o] |
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|[R 'c'] represents a reverse 'c' |
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ADVERTISEMENT.
This is the first collected edition of a series of works which have
separately attained to a great popularity: volumes that have been always
delightful to the young and ardent inquirer after knowledge. They offer
as a whole a diversified miscellany of literary, artistic, and political
history, of critical disquisition and biographic anecdote, such as it is
believed cannot be elsewhere found gathered together in a form so
agreeable and so attainable. To this edition is appended a Life of the
Author by his son, also original notes, which serve to illustrate or to
correct the text, where more recent discoveries have brought to light
facts unknown when these volumes were originally published.
LONDON, 1881.
* * * * *
ON THE
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. DISRAELI.
BY HIS SON.
The traditionary notion that the life of a man of letters is necessarily
deficient in incident, appears to have originated in a misconception of
the essential nature of human action. The life of every man is full of
incidents, but the incidents are insignificant, because they do not
affect his species; and in general the importance of every occurrence is
to be measured by the degree with which it is recognised by mankind. An
author may influence the fortunes of the world to as great an extent as
a statesman or a warrior; and the deeds and performances by which this
influence is created and exercised, may rank in their interest and
importance with the decisions of great Congresses, or the skilful valour
of a memorable field. M. de Voltaire was certainly a greater Frenchman
than Cardinal Fleury, the Prime Minister of France in his time. His
actions were more important; and it is certainly not too much to
maintain that the exploits of Homer, Aristotle, Dante, or my Lord Bacon,
were as considerable events as anything that occurred at Actium,
Lepanto, or Blenheim. A Book may be as great a thing as a battle, and
there are systems of philosophy that have produced as great revolutions
as any that have disturbed even the social and political existence of
our centuries.
The life of the author, whose character and career we are venturing to
review, extended far beyond the allotted term of man: and, perhaps, no
existence of equal duration ever exhibited an uniformity more sustained.
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