He was very quietly dressed.  The green velvet trousers and rings worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame in “the days of the dandies,” had long since been discarded.  He dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, and a black cravat tied in a loose bow—­and those spring-sided boots of soft material which used to be called “Jemimas.”  I may remark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproduced with startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie’s wonderful play—­the best representation of personal appearance that I have ever seen on the stage.

Disraeli’s voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepening it when he wished to be impressive.  His articulation was extremely deliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner was calm, but not stolid.  I say “habitual,” because it had variations.  When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering his protests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponent stonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in a kind of stage drawl, that there was a “good broad piece of furniture” between him and the enraged Leader of the Opposition.  But when it was his turn to simulate the passion which the other felt, he would shout and wave his arms, recoil from the Table and return to it, and act his part with a vigour which, on one memorable occasion, was attributed to champagne; but this was merely play-acting, and was completely laid aside as he advanced in years.

What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for I have been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; but six months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, or manner.  What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Bill through the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governed the country at the head of a Parliamentary minority.  His triumph was the triumph of audacity.  In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, who enquired his object in life, “I want to be Prime Minister”—­and now that object was attained.  At Brooks’s they said, “The last Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax.”  Gladstone’s discomfiture was thus described by Frederick Greenwood: 

“The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across the Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more than heart could wish; his eyes—­speaking in an Oriental manner—­stand out with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth him about as with a chain.  It is all very well to say that the candle of the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away.  So we were told in other times of tribulation.  This was the sort of consolation that used to be offered in the jaunty days of Lord Palmerston.  People used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by the same kind of argument.  ‘Only wait,’ it was said, ’until he has retired, and all will be well with us.’  But no sooner has the storm carried away the wicked Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwith darkened by new clouds of Tory chaff.”