HKB
seat, arms were thrown round my neck. It was my old Irish nurse, who had come up from Wexford to see me, and had been lying in wait for me.
The first picture I drew for Punch's essence of Parliament was a portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill, "Caught on the Hip," to illustrate the following truly prophetic words of Toby, M.P.: "The new delight you have given us is the spectacle of an undisciplined Tory--a man who will not march at the word of command and snaps his fingers at his captain. You won't last long, Randolph; you are rather funny than witty--more impudent than important." That was written at the opening of Parliament, 1891.
I must plead guilty to being the cause of giving an erroneous impression of Lord Randolph's height. He was not a small man, but he looked small; and when he first came into notoriety, with a small following, was considered of small importance and, by some, small-minded. It was to show this political insignificance in humorous contrast to his bombastic audacity that I represented him as a midget; but the idea was also suggested from time to time by his opponents in debate. Did not Mr. Gladstone once call him a gnat? and do we not find the following lines under Punch's Fancy Portraits, No. 47, drawn by Mr. Sambourne?
"There is a Midge at Westminster, A Gnatty little Thing, It bites at Night This mighty Mite, But no one feels its sting."
Two gentlemen of Yorkshire had a dispute about his correct height, and one of them, anxious to have an authoritative pronouncement, wrote to the noble Lord, and received the following reply:
"2, CONNAUGHT PLACE, W.
"Dear Sir,--Lord Randolph Churchill desires me to say, in reply to your letter of the 21st inst., that his height is just under 5ft. 10in.
"I am, yours faithfully,
"CECIL DRUMMOND-WOLFF, Secretary."
Lord Randolph Churchill was a mere creature of impulse, the spoilt pet of Parliament--what you will--but no one can deny that he was the most interesting figure in the House since Disraeli. He had none of Disraeli's chief attraction--namely, mystery. Nor had he Disraeli's power of organisation, for, although Lord Randolph "educated a party" of three--the first step to his eventually becoming Leader of the House--it cannot be said that at any time afterwards he really had, in the strict sense of the word, a party at all. He was a political Don Quixote, and he had his Sancho Panza in the person of Mr. Louis Jennings. Perhaps nothing can show the impulsive nature of Lord Randolph more than the incident which was the cause of Mr. Jennings breaking with Lord Randolph. Mr. Louis Jennings was, in many ways, his chief's superior: a brilliant journalist, originally on the Times, afterwards editor of the New York World, when, by dint of his energy and pluck, he was the chief cause of breaking up the notorious Tammany Ring; a charming writer of picturesque country scenes--in fact, an accomplished man, and one harshly treated by that fickle dame Fortune by being branded, rightly or wrongly, as the mere creature of a political adventurer.
One afternoon I was standing in the Inner Lobby when Mr. Jennings asked me to go into the House to a seat under the Gallery to hear him deliver a speech he had been requested to make by the Government Party, and one he thought something of. At that moment Lord Randolph came up and said, "I am going in to hear you, Jennings; I have arranged not to speak till after dinner." And we all three entered the House.