The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 by Harry Furniss (new books to read TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Harry Furniss
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The last occasion on which I saw Charles Stewart Parnell was a few months before his death. I was in Dublin during the Horse Show week, giving my "Humours of Parliament" to crowded houses in the "Ancient Concert Rooms," and my ancient hotel rooms were at Morrison's Hotel—"Parnell's Hotel," for the "uncrowned king" (at that time deposed) always stopped there—in fact it was said he had an interest in the property. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was writing in my sitting-room on the first floor, next to Parnell's room, when the strains of national music of approaching bands smote my ear, and soon the hotel was surrounded by a cheering, shouting crowd. Banners were flying, bands were playing, thousands of voices were shouting. Standing in a brake haranguing the surging mass of people was the familiar figure of Charles Stewart Parnell. With difficulty he descended from the brake, and had literally to fight his way into the hotel, while his worshippers clung on to him into the building, till they were seized and ejected by OUTSIDE MY ROOM. the servants. I went out of my door to see the scene, and in the passage outside, between Parnell's sitting-room and mine, he sat apparently exhausted. His flesh seemed transparent—I could [Pg 185] fancy I saw the pattern of the wall-paper through his pallid cheeks. The next moment, before I was aware, another figure sat on the same 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 [Pg 186] 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:
"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 [Pg 187] 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.
Lord Randolph, who had then left the Ministry, sat on the bench in the second row below the gangway, on the Government side of the House. Mr. Jennings was seated on the bench behind, close to where he had found a place for me under the Gallery. He carefully arranged the notes for his speech, and directly the Member who had been addressing the House sat down, Mr. Jennings jumped to his feet to "catch the Speaker's eye." But Lord Randolph, who had been very restless all through the speech just delivered, sprang to his feet. Jennings leant over to him and said something, but Churchill waved him impatiently away, and the Speaker called upon Lord Randolph. Jennings sank back with a look of disgust and chagrin, which changed to astonishment when Lord Randolph fired out that famous Pigott speech, in which he attacked his late colleagues with a vituperation and vulgarity he had never before betrayed. His speech electrified the House and disgusted his friends—none more so than his faithful Jennings, who left the Chamber directly after his "friend's" tirade of abuse, returning later in the evening to make a capital speech, full of feeling and power, in which he finally threw over Lord Randolph. In the meantime, meeting me, he did not hide the fact that the incident had determined him to have nothing more to say to Churchill. And this was the man I once drew a cartoon of in Punch on all fours, [Pg 188] with a coat covering his head (suspiciously like a donkey's head), with "Little Randy" riding on his back!
If Samson's strength vanished with his hair, Lord Randolph's strength vanished with the growing of his beard. The real reason why Lord Randolph so strangely transformed himself is not generally known, but it was for the simplest of all reasons—like that of the gentleman who committed suicide because he was "tired of buttoning and unbuttoning," Lord Randolph was tired of shaving or being shaved; hence the heroic beard, which has offended certain political purists who think that a man with an established reputation has no right to alter his established appearance. Still, if he had not vanished to grow his beard, I doubt if he would have survived the winter; and probably he discovered that it was good for any man to escape now and then from what the late Mr. R. L. Stevenson called "the servile life of cities." Perhaps no one received such a "sending off," or was more f�ted, than Lord Randolph Churchill. Happening to be a guest at more than one of those festive little gatherings, I heard Lord Randolph say that all the literary food that he was taking out with him to Mashonaland consisted of the works of two authors—one English, and the other French. We were asked who they were. "In Darkest England," suggested one. "Ruff's Guide to the Turf," said another. Both were wrong. And it ultimately transpired that, together with his friends' best wishes for his safe return, Lord Randolph was carrying with him complete sets of the works of Shakespeare and Moli�re.
The deafness which attacked Lord Randolph led to his making mistakes, and to others making a scene, particularly when the [Pg 189] noise in the House was so great through the excitement on the Home Rule question. I find a note made then upon this point, alluding to a little incident � propos of Lord Randolph Churchill's deafness: "It is really dangerous, considering the high state of feeling in the House, that Members antagonistic to each other should have to sit side by side. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL. During the stormy scene to which I have just alluded, I was sitting in one of the front boxes directly over the Speaker's chair, and, although remarks kept flying about from the benches below, it was difficult to catch the words, and still more difficult to stop the utterer; so I don't wonder that Lord Randolph Churchill—who is rather deaf—should have misconstrued the words, 'You are not dumb!' as 'You are knocked up!' Later on, however, an Irish Member knocked down another one who was opposed to him in politics; and this the Press called 'coming into collision.'"
There is little doubt that ill-health was the cause of that querulousness which led to Lord Randolph's curious and fatal move. I recollect being introduced to an American doctor in the Lobby one afternoon when Lord Randolph was at the zenith of his height and fame. Lord Randolph passed close to us, and stood for a few minutes talking to the Member who had introduced the doctor to me. I whispered to the American to take stock of the Member his friend was talking to. He did, and when Lord Randolph walked away he said, "Well, I don't know who that man is, but he won't live five years." It was unfortunate for the reputation of Lord Randolph that the doctor's words did not come true.
Many efforts were made by the friends of Lord Randolph to [Pg 190] bring Lord Salisbury and his lieutenant together again. A deputation of a few intimate friends, ladies as well as gentlemen, called on Lord Salisbury, presumably on quite a different matter, but led up to Lord Randolph. Lord Salisbury, seeing through their object, asked the question, "Have any of you ever had a carbuncle on the back of your neck?"
"No."
"Then I have, and I do not want another."
But perhaps Lord Salisbury saw more than anyone else that Lord Randolph was not the man he once was. It was painful in his latter days to see the Members run out of the House when he rose to speak, and to recollect that but a few years before they poured in to listen to the "plucky little Randy"; and the sympathy of everyone for him was shown in a very marked way by the kindness of the Press when one of the most extraordinary figures in the Parliamentary world had passed away.
Lord Randolph Churchill recalls another familiar figure I caricatured—Lord Iddesleigh, a statesman who will always be remembered with respect. No statue has ever been erected in the buildings of the House of Commons to any Member who better deserves it, and, strange to say, the white marble took [Pg 191] the character and style of the man, chilliness, pure, and firm. A country gentleman in politics and out of it, free from flashy party-colour rhetoric.
ir Stafford Northcote, as he was known in the House of Commons, the gentlest of statesmen, had by no means a peaceful career in politics. He was at one time Mr. Gladstone's secretary, and those who knew him declare that he never lost his respect and admiration for his former master, although time took him from Mr. Gladstone's flock to the fold of Lord Beaconsfield. I recollect on
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