up.  It was from Sir Wilfred Lawson, the radical from Carlisle, whose statue now stands on the Thames Embankment.  Lord Randolph Churchill made that night what I suppose was the great speech of his life, for some two hours facing the Irish members waging a forensic battle, memorable for even the House of Commons.  From my perch I looked directly into his face at a distance of not many feet as he confronted the Irish crowd.  Rather short of stature, he was a compact figure, and his face had in it combative energy as the marked characteristic.  He outlined the policy of the new government with serene indifference to the stormy disapproval which almost every sentence evoked.  When the outcry became deafening, he paused with a grim smile on his bull-dog face until the interruption wore itself out.  “This disturbance makes no difference to me,” he would quietly say, “I am only sorry to have the time of the House wasted in such unreasonable fashion.”  Then would come another prod and a new chorus of howls rolling thunderously from the cavern under my feet.  It is not in line with my present plan to describe this speech; that may be found in Hansard under the date.  I touch only on the outside manner as he fought his fight.  It was a fine example of cool, imperturbable, unshrinking assault, and I thought that in some such way his ancestor, the great Duke of Marlboro, might have ruled the hour at Blenheim and Malplaquet.  Many years after it fell to me to introduce to an audience his son Winston Churchill who, when his father was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a schoolboy at Harrow.  I took occasion to describe briefly the battle I had seen his father wage at Westminster.  It pleased Winston Churchill then fresh from the fields of South Africa.  “That was indeed a great speech of my father’s,” he said.  Since then the son has developed into a combatant probably not less formidable than his forebears.

This was well worth while for me, desiring to see the Parliament of England in its most interesting moods, but something came later which I treasure more.  While the conflict proceeded, in his place near the mace but a yard or two distant from the conspicuous figure sat Gladstone.  I had seen him enter the House, a massive frame dressed in a dark frock-coat which hung handsomely upon his broad shoulders, with the strong head and face above, set in a lion-like mane of disordered hair.  He sat unmoved and quiet throughout the conflict as he might have done at a ladies’ tea-party, but now he rose to speak.  At once complete silence pervaded the Chamber.  I believe I have never seen so impressive an exhibition of the power of a great personality.  Foes as well as friends waited almost breathless for the words that were to come.  It was a time of crisis.  He had just met defeat.  What could the discredited leader say?