Lord Randolph Churchill’s memory has been crystallized by his brilliant son in one of the three best biographies in the English language, and he has, moreover, been celebrated in a sketch written by his friend and schoolfellow, Lord Rosebery. What more is there to say? The sad story of his resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer has been often told. A few days later he and his old crony and mine, Sir George Wombwell, now, alas! no more, but then one of the very few surviving officers of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, were staying with me at Batsford. With the intimacy of old friends we talked of the bolt which he had hurled out of the blue. I can see him now leaning against the chimney-piece in the library when he said, “I never thought of that damned fellow Goschen.” He believed, and he was very nearly right, that he held all the trump cards in his hand, and that he could dictate his own terms as to that reduction of expenditure upon which he was bent. He did not suspect that Goschen was ready to take his place. Almost in the same breath, in answer to a question of mine about Lord Salisbury’s attitude, he exclaimed: “That man is an angel!” and then went on to express regret, I am bound to say in no measured terms, as to the female influence by which the great Marquis had allowed himself to be dominated. Over and over again he insisted upon his affection for his chief, and dwelt with strong expressions of gratitude upon the kindness which he had received from him. It was a touching tribute, coming from the heart; a noble heart, which at that moment must have been feeling bruised and sore, but was incapable of nurturing an ungenerous animosity. Not long after my first appearance in the House of Commons, the fatal illness to which he fell a victim began to assert itself. We who loved him watched his gradually failing utterances in great sorrow. He struggled bravely, but it was in vain. The House, a just and even generous assembly, remembered the lightning flashes by which it had been electrified but a short time back—the bold and vigorous attacks when the young Ivanhoe tilted at the shield of the veteran Templar—the scathing criticism of foes—the magnanimous defence of friends. Members from the front benches downwards listened with respect; but it was manifestly the end: the highly-strung, passionate nature had broken down, and there was no hope. But all this belongs to later years: I am writing here of a time when Randolph Churchill was still a merry, devil-may-care youth just entering upon the first phase of his Parliamentary life as the spoilt child of politics.