When Benjamin Disraeli, future British Prime Minister, visited the city in 1830, he described it as " a city of palaces built by gentlemen for gentlemen ," and remarked that " Valletta equals in its noble architecture, if it does not excel, any capital in Europe ," and in other letters called it " comparable to Venice and Cádiz " and " full of palaces worthy of Palladio.

In 1824, Disraeli toured Belgium and the Rhine Valley with his father and later wrote that it was while travelling on the Rhine that he decided to abandon the law: " I determined when descending those magical waters that I would not be a lawyer.

The other great party, the Whigs, was anathema to Disraeli: " Toryism is worn out & I cannot condescend to be a Whig.

Gladstone is famous for his oratory, for his rivalry with the Conservative Leader Benjamin Disraeli and his poor relations with Queen Victoria, who once complained, " He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting.

; 1851: Correspondence between Lord Stanley, whose father became British Prime Minister the following year, and Benjamin Disraeli, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer alongside him, records Disraeli's proto-Zionist views: " He then unfolded a plan of restoring the nation to Palestine – said the country was admirably suited for them – the financiers all over Europe might help – the Porte is weak – the Turks / holders of property could be bought out – this, he said, was the object of his life ...." Coningsby was merely a feeler – my views were not fully developed at that time – since then all I have written has been for one purpose.

" Figures often beguile me ," he wrote, " particularly when I have the arranging of them myself ; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ' There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Among her friends she counted such literary and political luminaries as Samuel Rogers, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Trelawney, Mary Shelley, Fanny Kemble, Benjamin Disraeli, the future King Leopold I of Belgium and William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.

The phrase echoed Benjamin Disraeli, who upon returning from the Congress of Berlin in 1878 stated " I have returned from Germany with peace in our time.

Furthermore, John Murray believed that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence – an accusation denied at the time, and by the official biography, although subsequent biographers ( notably Blake ) have sided with Murray.

Disraeli was to have been Home Secretary, with Stanley ( becoming the Earl of Derby later that year ) as Prime Minister.

Disraeli wrote a personal letter to Gladstone, asking him to place the good of the party above personal animosity: " Every man performs his office, and there is a Power, greater than ourselves, that disposes of all this ..." In responding to Disraeli Gladstone denied that personal feelings played any role in his decision then and previously to accept office, while acknowledging that there were differences between him and Derby " broader than you may have supposed.

These visits enabled him to meet and take the measure of his adversaries Napoleon III, and the British Prime Minister Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Earl Russell, and also of the British Conservative politician Disraeli, later to be Prime Minister in the 1870s – who later claimed to have said of Bismarck's visit " Be careful of that man – he means every word he says ".

They long were idolized, but historians in recent decades have become much more critical, especially regarding Disraeli.

The Whig Sir Charles Wood and the Tory Disraeli had both been perceived to have failed in the office and so this provided Gladstone with a great political opportunity.

Though the banker initially refuses to help, Disraeli forces him to sign a paper giving unlimited credit to Myers by threatening to have Parliament revoke the bank's charter.

Previous Chancellors have opted for whisky ( Kenneth Clarke ), gin and tonic ( Geoffrey Howe ), brandy and water ( Benjamin Disraeli ), spritzer ( Nigel Lawson ) and sherry and beaten egg ( William Gladstone ).

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, named Disraeli as his favourite Conservative and some commentators and MPs have suggested that Cameron's ideology contains an element of one nationism.

Disraeli justified his ideas by his belief in an organic society in which the different classes have natural obligations to one another.

Before he became leader of the Conservative Party, Disraeli had announced that, as a result of the Reform Act of 1867 which had enfranchised the male working class, the party needed to pursue social reforms if it was to have electoral success.

His choice of title might have been partly influenced by the fact that in 1794 the conservative political philosopher and parliamentarian Edmund Burke, whom Disraeli admired, had turned down King George III's offer to raise him to the peerage as Lord Beaconsfield.

In a speech in favour of the government bill for a rate in aid ( a tax on the prosperous parts of Ireland that would have paid for famine relief in the rest of that island ) in 1849, he won loud cheers from both sides, and was complimented by Disraeli for having sustained the reputation of that assembly.

It is decorated as it might have been at the time it was occupied by Disraeli.

' Castle Bromwich Post Office ' was the first to have a telephone outside London so that Benjamin Disraeli could keep in touch with the government.

The influence of Benjamin Disraeli may have had some effect on this change, but it was in the main due to the altered politics of the middle and commercial classes, to which the Jews chiefly belonged.

The time period that Disraeli chose was dominated by the Whig party ; there would have been little opportunity for a young, rising Tory.

Many of his other works have also been translated into English, as they often dealt with British people or topics, such as his biographies of Disraeli, Byron, and Shelley.

Lowry-Corry was thus brought up in close touch with Conservative party politics, but it is said to have been his winning personality and social accomplishments rather than his political connections that recommended him to the favorable notice of Benjamin Disraeli, who in 1866 made Lowry-Corry his private secretary.

A house which stood on the site since the late 17th century is said to have been the birthplace of Isaac D ' Israeli ( father of Benjamin Disraeli ) and later to have become a school, where John Keats was educated.

It was soon established as one of the top London restaurants, becoming a popular attraction with patrons including Charles Dickens, William Ewart Gladstone, and Benjamin Disraeli.

To Warner's surprise, the film Disraeli would go to be a success at the box office, and Warner was convinced to make Arliss a top star for the studio as well.

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, ( 21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881 ) was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure.

Not until the 1860s would Derby and Disraeli be on easy terms, and the latter's succession of the former assured.

In this feud, Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s.

In 1876 Disraeli was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly four decades in the House of Commons.

Before and during his political career, Disraeli was well known as a literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally regarded as a part of the Victorian literary canon.

His father groomed him for a career in law, and Disraeli was articled to a solicitor in 1821.

In this connection, Disraeli became involved with the financier J. D. Powles, one such booster.

In the course of 1825, Disraeli wrote three anonymous pamphlets for Powles, promoting the companies.

The paper was a failure, in part because the mining " bubble " burst in late 1825, which ruined Powles and Disraeli.

Before he entered parliament, Disraeli was involved with several women, most notably Henrietta, Lady Sykes ( the wife of Sir Francis Sykes, 3rd Bt ), who served as the model for Henrietta Temple.

It was Henrietta who introduced Disraeli to Lord Lyndhurst, with whom she later became romantically involved.

As Lord Blake observed: " The true relationship between the three cannot be determined with certainty ... there can be no doubt that the affair usage damaged Disraeli and that it made its contribution, along with many other episodes, to the understandable aura of distrust which hung around his name for so many years.

Disraeli turned towards literature after his financial disaster, motivated in part by a desperate need for money, and brought out his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1826.

Disraeli, then just twenty-three, did not move in high society, and the numerous solecisms present in his otherwise brilliant and daring work made this painfully obvious.

During the 1840s Disraeli wrote three political novels collectively known as " the Trilogy "– Sybil, Coningsby, and Tancred.

One contemporary who tried to bridge the gap, William Makepeace Thackeray, established a tentative cordial relationship in the late 1840s only to see everything collapse when Disraeli took offence at a burlesque of him which Thackeray penned for Punch.

Disraeli took revenge in Endymion ( published in 1880 ), when he caricatured Thackeray as " St. Barbe ".

Disraeli had been considering a political career as early as 1830, before he departed England for the Mediterranean.

Indeed, Disraeli had objected to Murray about Croker inserting " high Tory " sentiment, writing that " it is quite impossible that anything adverse to the general measure of Reform can issue from my pen.

" Further, at the time Gallomania was published, Disraeli was in fact electioneering in High Wycombe in the Radical interest.