LORD BEACONSFIELD'S ARMS AND MOTTO.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2511, 23 January 1877, Page 3

LORD BEACONSFIELD'S ARMS AND MOTTO.

Lord Beaconsfield, we are told, has just applied to the Heralds' College for a grant of arms on occasion of his elevation to the peerage, and, of course, has not applied in vain. Perhaps it is hardly worth while to, transfer to our columns the technical terms in which the new escutcheon is described. They would not convey much information to our readers' minds. Suffice it to say that there is the usual supply of lions and eagles and other heraldic beasts, and that some, of them are gules and some argent, and some, all no doubt, strictly according to precedent. We are more interested in the motto which the Prime Minister has selected. Mottoes are ticklish things; they should be 'apt, but not too apt, escaping from vague platitude on the one side, while not giving occasion for sarcastic sneer on the other. When Lord Broughham, elevated to the woolsack after a career of popular agitation, chose as his motto, " Pro Uege, lege, grege," he meant.it to mean " For King, Law, People," and no doubt thought he had very happily adapted the old punning style of motto to his own case. But when an enemy perceived that " grege " could only mean " people " in a free' translation, and that " lege " might be taken as a verb, the unfortunate motto, " For King, read, mob," became a standing satire on its possessor. So Lord Beaconsfield's motto, "Forti nihil difficile "—" To the brave nothing is difficult "—will sound very differently according as it is interpreted of the present political juncture, or of the whole of his career. At this moment it •simply means that obstinate resolution will.carry him successfully through the storm of angry public opinion. He has only got to hold on till February, and he must win. If by that time peace has been declared, no matter on what terms, his obedient majority will not suffer his conduct to be gravely questioned. If, on the contrary, war is raging, he will be able to say that he did everything he could to prevent it, and to point out the inexpediency of swopping horses while crossing a stream. "All he has to do is to i be dogged now; to take counsel of no one but Lord Derby, who is evidently determined to follow his fortunes unreservedly ; to be deaf alike to the remonstrances of friends and the taunts of enemies; to laugh at sentiment, and to deride humanity; or, if nothing else will do, to take refuge in courageous silence. Before the brave all difficulties vanish. But if this is the application of the motto to the political conduct of Lord Beaconsfield, it means something else and something better when it is made to describe* the career of Mr Disraeli. Even those who have least sympathy with his political opinions, and who cannot feel a very deep respect for his public character, cannot fail to admir.e the courage, the perseverance, the happy audacity, the versatile genius which have made him what he is. The circumstances of his descent, to which he owes the peculiar character of his abilities, were in other.. respects a signal hindrance to his political' aspirations ; and old and honorable as his ancestry may be, it remains one of the strangest things in the modern history of England that the son of a Hebrew litterateur, who has always been proud of his race, should make himself at once the head of the aristocratic party of England and one of the most popular novelists of the day. For most men it would have sufficed that the last of these objects should have been made subservient to the first; but " Lothair," the most audacious of Mr Disrael's works, was written after he had been Prime Minister, and when no further brilliancy of notoriety was needful or possible to him. First to make a man a duke, and then to write a novel to laugh at him, has always seemed to us that very goal of audacity than which " the force of nature can no further go." Lord Beaconsfield has now probably laid down for ever Mr Disraeli's lijpht, sarcastic pen; we shall have no more Coningsbys or Sybils; and in the ; political world the commoner who has been twice Prime Minister and obtained an earldom can rise no higher. He sums up his career in the motto, " Forti nihil difficile." Dalton's was " Toujours de I'audace," Either would suit our Premier.—Daily Post, Liverpool, Sept. 30.