astonishment I found he was a good five feet nine or ten inches in height and carried himself bravely. The peculiarity of his face was seldom or never caricatured; it consisted of a pair of prominent round grey-blue eyes, well deserving the nickname of goggle-eyes. The face was peculiarly expressive of anger or contempt, but a second glance showed that the features were all fairly regular and the shape of the head quite excellent. Altogether a personable man, but when he spoke in the House, he often stood with one hand akimbo on his hip, which, with his thick, upturned, dark moustache, gave him a cocky or cheeky look and led the would-be humorists to treat him as an impudent boy; and he was assuredly lacking in reverence for his elders and supposed leaders in the House of Commons.
At the very beginning he invited me to come one afternoon to the Carlton Club to talk over some incident in the Bradlaugh imbroglio. I was struck almost at once by the surpassing generalship in the man and by his colossal assurance. Oddly enough, I had come to the meeting without having lunched, and as I knew it was not allowed to give food to a non-member in the Carlton, I mentioned a propos de bottes that I was sharp set. At once he declared that he would have something brought up at once, and when I reminded him of the rule, he shrugged his shoulders, rang, and when the footman came, gave his order with such deliberate curtness that the man was only anxious to get away and do what he was told. I got an excellent lunch and a good bottle of wine in a jiffy: as usual, in England I found that mean rules were made for mean men.
Soon after our first meeting I talked to Randolph of Bradlaugh, for I had formed a high opinion of Bradlaugh's character when he lectured in America. Randolph was proud of an incident that Winston has told excellently in his Life, and so I make no apology for reproducing it here.
'On February 21 there was another Bradlaugh scene. The member for Northampton, advancing suddenly to the table, produced a book, said to be a Testament, from his pocket, and duly swore himself upon it, to the consternation of the members. Lord Randolph was the first to recover from the surprise which this act of audacity created. He declared that Mr. Bradlaugh, by the outrage of taking in defiance of the House an oath of a meaningless character upon a book alleged to be a Testament-it might have been the Fruits of Philosophy-had vacated his seat and should be treated as if he were dead.' In moving for a new writ, he implored the House to act promptly and vindicate its authority. Mr. Gladstone, however, persuaded both sides to put off the decision until the next day. On the 22nd therefore a debate on privilege ensued. Sir Stafford Northcote merely moved to exclude Mr. Bradlaugh from the precincts of the House, thus modifying Lord Randolph's motion for a new writ. Lord Randolph protested against such a 'milk and water' policy and urged the immediate punishment of the offender. After a long discussion, in which the temper of all parties was inflamed by Mr. Bradlaugh's repeated interruptions, Sir Stafford substituted for his simple motion of exclusion a proposal to expel Mr. Bradlaugh from the House; and this being carried, the seat for Northampton was thereby vacated.
'Lord Randolph seems to have gained much credit in Tory circles for the promptness and energy with which he had acted,' his son writes.
Then came the Kilmainham negotiations and Mr. Parnell's release, and on top of all the murder in Phoenix Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr.
Burke. But alas! Randolph had fallen seriously ill and was out of the fight for half a year. Everyone said that had Randolph been able to head the attack on the Kilmainham Treaty, Gladstone's government would have fallen.
He returned to a triumph. The Liberals had been asked by their Whips not to take part in the discussion on Egypt and Randolph at once jeered at them 'for assisting in the capacity of mutes at the funeral obsequies of free speech.'
I give this as a proof of his power of speech, though it was his captaincy I always admired, and not his eloquence. Years later, talking with Lord Hartington of Randolph's career, I found that he whom I always regarded as 'the conscience of the House of Commons' agreed with me in my estimate of Randolph.
He told me how annoyed Gladstone was with Randolph over the Bradlaugh business. 'He doesn't believe in Christianity,' said Gladstone, 'yet is not ashamed to use the religious prejudices of others to gain some paltry political advantage.'
'But at length,' said Lord Hartington, 'the chiefs of both parties found themselves in one lobby and the majority of the House with Randolph in the other, which convinced me that Randolph was a strategist without an equal.
And later no one ever led the House of Commons as he did: he knew the House better than it knew itself. As a Parliamentarian he had no equal, no second, even, in my experience.'
In our first talk I recognized the qualities in Randolph of a great captain, not as clearly as I saw them later, but clearly enough to see in him a reincarnation of the peculiar power of his ancestor, the first Duke. He had, too, at this time an extraordinary geniality and a passionate belief in the efficacy of a series of reforms which I thought merely lenitive, but which he lauded as distinctively English. I shall have much more to say of him later, but here, because it has become the fashion to sneer at him, I wish to put it on record that no one could meet him, as no one could meet Parnell, without recognizing greatness in him. Both of them made a far deeper impression on me than Gladstone, though he was infinitely the most articulate of the two.
In these first years of my editorship I got to know A. M. Broadley, who wrote for the World and made himself prominent as a defender of Arabi Pasha and Egyptian independence. It was Broadley who introduced me to Colonel Burnaby, who, too, was a whole-hearted partisan of Lord Randolph Churchill. Fred Burnaby was another extraordinary personality, physically, I think, the finest specimen of manhood I've ever seen: over six feet four inches in height and some forty-seven inches around the chest. Stories innumerable were told of his bodily strength and most of them, I believe, were true. When he joined the Horse Guards, some young subalterns got two donkeys through the window into his bedroom. Coming home late one night, Burnaby found them, and taking one under each arm, carried them quietly downstairs. I saw him once take a poker in his hands and bend it. He was good-looking withal: large forehead and chin, straight, heavy nose and really fine, kindly, laughing eyes set well apart, while a heavy dark moustache partially concealed assuasive lips. Had I met him fifteen years earlier I might have made a hero of him, for he was intelligent as well as strong; he spoke, too, half a dozen languages and was completely devoid of snobbism or 'side.' I always felt grateful to him for taking me up as he did. It pleased him that I had read his Ride to Khiva, and he told me a story about it that amused me.
On his return to England after his famous 'Ride,' he was invited to dinner at Windsor to tell the Queen about his adventures. Of course he obeyed the order, got into the train at Waterloo and fell fast asleep, did not change at Weybridge, but went on to Basingstoke, where he woke up. He had then to persuade the station master to make up a special train and send him back to Windsor. 'The dearest dinner I ever had in my life,' was his humorous comment on the incident.
We were talking one afternoon about bodily exercise and muscular development when somewhat to my astonishment, Burnaby was all in favour of moderation. 'Especially in youth,' he said, 'we can easily overdo it and develop our muscles at the cost of our vital energy. I don't know how to put it better,' he went on, 'but I'm sure I'm overdeveloped. I've seen little slips of fellows get the passionate love of fine women, while great athletes are never remarkable as lovers.' He spoke with bitterness and I took it as a personal confession, for I had noticed the same truth; and everyone knew later that poor Burnaby's marriage was not happy. Yet Roman ladies and even empresses chose gladiators as lovers: why?
Burnaby came to grief in a way that throws a certain light on the English aristocratic code. One of his brother officers, a captain, I think, had an intrigue with a lady and used to go to meet her at some rooms in the Temple.
One day Burnaby on his way to Broadley crossed this officer in the square.
Probably he told Broadley jokingly of the recontre. At any rate next week in the World, which Broadley wrote for, there appeared a paragraph warning the officer in question not to be caught on his way to No- in the Temple, as everyone knew the attraction.
The officer called a meeting of his brother officers in the regiment and accused Burnaby of being the tell-tale. Burnaby, essentially truthful, could only say that he did not recall mentioning the fact; but it leaked out that Broadley was the paragraphist and the officers thereupon sent Burnaby, the colonel, to Coventry; and a little later, when Prince Edward was to dine with the regiment, the officers notified Burnaby that ft he appeared, no other officer would come to the table. This boycott cut Burnaby to the heart. Before going out to serve in the Sudan with Wolseley's expedition to save Gordon, Burnaby invited me to dinner in his rooms. I had often dined with him before and was always interested. He touched life on a great many more sides than the ordinary English officer; he was
