DISRAELI, BENJAMIN, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD: English statesman;
born at London, England, Dec. 21, 1804; died there April 19,
1881. The son of Isaac D'Israeli, he was descended from a
wealthy Sephardic family of Venice, his grandfather having come
to England to engage in commerce. He was educated at a private
school, at which he used to "stand back" when Christian prayers
were recited; but at the suggestion of the poet Rogers was
baptized in 1817, immediately after the death of his
grandfather, Benjamin D'Israeli. At the age of seventeen
Disraeli was articled to Swain & Stevenson, solicitors, in the
Old Jewry, and in 1824 entered Lincoln's Inn, but withdrew his
name in 1831. At the age of twenty-two Disraeli wrote the novel
"Vivian Grey," a political satire, and leaped into sudden
notoriety. His health giving way, he spent the next three years
traveling in the East. On this journey he visited Jerusalem,
whence he derived the impressions which distinguish "Tancred,"
and probably those which afterward determined hi