curiosity.  He began in his usual affected manner, slowly and rather pompously, as if he had nothing to say beyond perfunctory platitudes.  The Oxford wits began to compare themselves favourably the dullness of Parliamentary orators; when first one sentence and then another startled them into attention.  They were told that the Church was not likely to be disestablished.  It would remain, but would remain subject to a Parliament which would not allow an imperium in imperio.  It must exert itself and reassert its authority, but within the limits which the law laid down.  The interest grew deeper when he came to touch on the parties to one or other of which all his listeners belonged.  High Church and Low Church were historical and intelligible, but there had arisen lately, the speaker said, a party called the Broad, never before heard of.  He went on to explain what Broad Churchmen were.”

Disraeli’s gibes at Colenso and Maurice are too well known to need repetition here.  The equally famous reference to Darwin will bear to be quoted once more, at least as an introduction for Froude’s incisive comment.

“What is the question now placed before society with a glibness the most astounding?  The question is this:  Is man an ape or an angel?  I, my lord, am on the side of the angels.”

“Mr. Disraeli,” so Froude continues, “is on the side of the angels.  Pit and gallery echoed with laughter.  Fellows and tutors repeated the phrase over their port in the common room with shaking sides.  The newspapers carried the announcement the next morning over the length and breadth of the island, and the leading article writers struggled in their comments to maintain a decent gravity.  Did Disraeli mean it, or was it but an idle jest? and what must a man be who could exercise his wit on such a subject?  Disraeli was at least as much in earnest as his audience.  The phrase answered its purpose.  It has lived and become historical when the decorous protests of professional divines have been forgotten with the breath which uttered them.  The note of scorn with which it rings has preserved it better than any affectation of pious horror, which indeed would have been out of place in the presence of such an assembly.”

I have taken the liberty of giving such emphasis as italics can confer to two brief passages in this brilliant description, because they express Froude’s real opinion of Diocesan Conferences and those who frequented them.* Disraeli’s audience applauded, partly in admiration of his wit, and partly because, they thought that he was amusing them at the expense of the latitudinarians they abhorred.  Froude’s appreciation came from an opposite source.  He regarded Disraeli not as a flatterer, but as a busy mocker, laughing at the people thought he was laughing with them.  He made no attempt at a really critical estimate of the most baffling figure in English politics.  He fastened on the picturesque aspects of Disraeli’s