hevierc of Reviews, 2012/06. 



The Book of the Month. 



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had separated Lord Randolph, with his bold plans 

 of reform and dreams of change, from Lord Salis- 

 bury — a gulf no mutual needs, no common interest, 

 no personal liking could permanently bridge; they 

 represented conflicting schools of political philos- 

 ophy. 



He resigned because he believed that at the very 

 outset a pacific and progressive policy must be 

 established. He was in constant and intimate inter- 

 course with Mr. Chamberlain. Their views at this 

 time were almost identical, their relations most cor- 

 dial. Nevertheless, as even his son admits, Lord 

 Randolph could not have possibly taken a worse 

 opportunity of secession than that which he selected. 

 As it was, he delivered himself unarmed, unattended, 

 into the hands of his enemies, and therefrom ensued 

 not onlv his political ruin, but grave injuries to the 

 cause he sustained. Yet Mr. Winston tells us his 

 father never repented of the course he had taken. 

 He looked upon the action as the most exalted in his 

 life, and as an event of which, whatever the results 

 to himself, he might be justly proud. " I had to do 

 it ; I could no longer be useful to them." 



There is something heroic, no doubt, about this 

 pose of a political suicide, but for a man who 

 thought of himself as the responsible trustee and 

 agent of the Tory democracy this irrevocable smash 

 of a great elementary force at the moment of triumph 

 \\a> a disaster which no amount of special pleading 

 can excuse. The best that can be said of it is that 

 when we had to choose between Democracy and 

 Toryism he sacrificed Democracy to the interests of 

 the Tory party, even although, ostensibly, he was 

 doing just the opposite. Certainly if any trustees 

 were to deal with trust funds in the same reckless 

 spirit with which Lord Randolph flung away his 

 position as trustee of Tory Democracy, he would 

 stand a good chance of finding himself in prison. 

 What seems most probable to the reader of this 

 biographv is that the defects of Lord Randolph's 

 qualities, his swift and fiery impulsiveness, his ner- 

 vous temperament, and his liability to excessive fits 

 of despondency, were responsible for an act of poli- 

 tical felo-de-se; and although it is often possible to 

 explain and excuse a suicide, it is never possible to 

 justify it. 



The biography of Lord Randolph Churchill is 

 told in two volumes of about noo pages, illustr 

 bv numerous photographs of Lord Randolph in 

 various stages of his life, portraits of Lady Ran- 

 dolph, and various caricatures reproduced from 

 Punch and Vanity Fair. The first volume brings 

 him down to the' end of 1885. The second volume 

 is devoted to the last ten years of his life. In the 

 appendices are given some of Lord Randolph s ad- 

 dresses, letters from India to his mother, and some 

 other letters, together with Mr. Jenning's account of 

 his quarrel with Lord Randolph Churchill. There 



is also reproduced in facsimile a letter from the 

 Queen, dated September 22nd, 1886: — 



Now that the session is just over, the Queen wishes to 

 write and thank Lord Randolph Churchill for his regular 

 and full and interesting report of the debates in the 

 House of Commons, which must have been most trying. 

 Lord Randolph has shown much skill and judgment in his 

 leadership during his exceptional session of Parliament. 



We will now tell the story of Lord Randolph's life 

 as it may be gathered from the pages of his filial 

 biographer. Lord Randolph was bom in London on 

 February 13th, 1849. His earliest boyhood was 

 spent in the neighbourhood of Blenheim. When he 

 was eight he was sent to Mr. Tabor's school at 

 Cheam. By the time he was nine he rode to hounds,, 

 and from his earliest boyhood displayed a great 

 passion for sport and love for animals. At school 

 he had many distinguished schoolfellows, and a 

 schoolboy friend mentions that Lord Randolph used 

 to drive' Lord Curzon, Lord Donoughmore, Lord 

 Aberdeen and his brother round the playground as a 

 four-in-hand. What is much more surprising is that 

 he joined a little band of scholars who used to 

 assemble once a week in a cubicle to read the Bible 

 and pray. He says : — 



Churchill was one of the little band; and I can see 

 him now, kneeling down by the bed. with his face in ins 

 hands resting on the white coverlet, leading us in fervent 

 prayer. 



When he was fourteen he went to Eton, where he 

 does not appear to have kept up the praxer meet- 

 ings, but developed a will of his own, and a consider- 

 able facility of expressing it. His letters to his 

 parents, specimens of which are given, show a great 

 facility of expression, at the same time a strong 

 masterful character. As Mr. Winston says, his let- 

 ters as a boy are his letters as a man. The same 

 vigour of expression; the same simple, yet direct, 

 language ; the same odd, penetrating flashes ; the 

 same cool, independent judgments about people and 

 laws, and readiness to criticise both as if it were a 

 right; the same vein of humour and freedom from 

 all affectation : the same knack of giving nicknames,, 

 which often stuck and sometimes stung — all are 

 there. 



In his boyhood he had a wonderful faculty for 

 making friends. He was always pertinacious in his 

 "opinions. He never wavered in his plans, and, 

 whether right or wrong, he carried them out. At 

 Eton he fixed, with his faithful bulldog, entirely 

 in the present, obeying with spontaneity the xaried 

 impulses of a boisterous yet amiable nature. There 

 was not a box in the school who laughed so much 

 or whose laughter \x-as so contagious. There was 

 scarcely one who was so frolicsome. He xyas also 

 said to have been fond of collisions with "cads."' 

 After Eton he went to Oxford, and his parents 

 trusted that the young hopeful might be trained for 

 the family seat at Woodstock, which at that moment 

 wis held by his uncle, who had quarrelled with the 

 Duke ,,n the subject of Church Rates. So bitter 

 was t!v quarrel that when Sir Alfred Churchill was 



