But this, in substance if not in detail is what Lord Randolph foresaw and announced; and he was the only man to foresee it. He did not disdain, as Mr. Gladstone did, to look ahead, to form to himself some conception of what the future of England was to be with this rising tide of Democracy. His conception, as I said, was a true conception, and the political genius of the man was never more clearly visible than in this forecast, and in the means he proposed to himself and to his party for dealing with a situation absolutely new.
Lord Randolph's Dartford speech in 1886 will therefore remain a monument to his sagacity. It was a speech which may be read to-day with profit and admiration. So may that at Birmingham, of which "Trust the People" is the motto. I will go farther. If I wanted a body of political doctrine to put into the hands of an American student of English politics I would as soon offer him Lord Randolph's speeches as any other. There is no complete collection but there are the two volumes edited by Mr. Louis Jennings and published by Messrs. Longmans in 1889. They cover a period of only nine years, 1880-8, but they are a handbook to the political life of England for a generation. Lord Randolph had this rare merit—rare in this country—he dealt habitually with principles, and his treatment of political questions was not empirical but scientific. And he was absolutely fearless.
He was fearless alike in public and private, and he looked his own fortunes in the face whether they presented themselves to him with the promise of good or of ill. He knew he was a doomed man. He cast his own horoscope shortly before he flung that fatal card upon the table which lost him the game in his long contest with Lord Salisbury. He said:
"I shall be five years in office or in opposition. Then I shall be five years Prime Minister. Then I shall die."
And he was right as to the length of his life though a perverse fate and his one fatal miscalculation, "I forgot Goschen," falsified the rest of his prediction. Mr. Winston Churchill queries this saying but I am inclined to think it authentic.
Many of these matters I used to hear Lord Randolph discuss in private, and even now I suppose they must remain private though the impression his talks left may fairly be described. I listened to his views on finance—long before he was Finance Minister—through nearly the whole of a long summer afternoon. We were at Cliveden. That beautiful possession had not then passed into Mr. Astor's hands. It still belonged to the Duke of Westminster, and had been lent by him to the Duchess of Marlborough—widow of that seventh Duke of Marlborough who was Viceroy of Ireland—and Lord Randolph's mother. The Duchess was a woman who may always be adduced in support of the theory that qualities of mind and character descend from mother to son. She was a woman of great natural shrewdness and force, with an insight into the true nature of such things as interested her; and the one thing that interested her above all others was her second son, Lord Randolph.
"Come for a drive after lunch," said Lord Randolph, and we went in a dog-cart to Burnham Beeches and Taplow and elsewhere for many miles and hours through the woods which are one of the glories of that delightful country. It was a perfect afternoon. You were not the least disposed to ask with Lowell, "What is so rare as a day in June?" Rather:
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
And always June. That is one of the enchantments of this versatile climate. When in a good mood you think it will be always good. And the enchantments in and about Cliveden were many and to-day are many more.
To all of them Lord Randolph seemed for the moment insensible. His mind was upon Finance, and upon Finance he discoursed during the better part of three hours. To the sunlight and the flower-strewn hedges and the far-stretching forests he paid no more attention than he did to his driving. The horse took his own pace, and being a well-trained animal showed a sensible preference for his own side of the road.