Punch: Punch (81.1881)

December 24, 1881.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 293

111

88

FROM YOUTH TO AGE.

{A Confidential Correspondence between Eminent Personages.)

" Immortal Age beside immortal Youth,
And all I was in ashes."— Tithonus.

No. VIII.—From Lord Randolph Churchill, M.P. (1881), to John,
First Duke of Marlborough (1704).

I sat, old Cockalorum, I've a crow to pluck with you. On
mature consideration. I have come to the conclusion that you are a
nuisance in the family, overshadowing with your fame worthier
members, whose chief failing is that they come after you. To

my mind you appear
decidedly overrated.
Blenheim was all very
well in its way; but
what is it compared
with Bradlaugh ? In
some respects the cam-
paigns have points of
resemblance. You
commanded an allied
army, and so do I.
But whilst you found
the tools ready to
your hands, I have
had to shape them.
It is no slight work,
I can tell you, to keep in hand a frisky young fellow like Gorst,
a profound diplomatist like Wolff, and a self-opinionated collegian
like Balfour. I have done it, and in command of these allied
forces, with occasional volunteered assistance from Warton and
Alderman Fowler, I have kept Bradlaugh at bay during a whole
Session, and mean to do it again next year. Now you, with all your
battles and pensions and palaces and intrigues, never did anything
so altogether big as this. Yet, forsooth, you are the famous Duke
of Marlborough, and I am simply Randolph Churchill, with, by
courtesy, a prefix of nobility.

_ This withstanding of Brad laugh is, like Blenheim, '' a famous
victory," only we know what we fought each other for. But I have
achieved triumphs in other directions not less glorious. Have you
taken note of my absolute victory over the decencies of Parliamentary
debate and political controversy ? Everyone is agreed that modern
public life furnishes no parallel to this. There, my Lord Duke, I
decidedly have the pull over you. You don't shine in history as a
very faithful man. Your notion of patriotism apparently was sub-
serviency to the reigning power whilst you were in secret correspond-
ence with the banished king. You got all that James the Second
could give you, whilst you arranged for the glorious coming over of
"William of Orange ; and whilst William and Mary were on the
throne, you were coquetting with the Stuarts, whom you had
already betrayed. You made a good thing out of it all round. But
you were always courtly in your manner—not to say sneaking, for
I hate to use strong language. You never dared to be abusive, lest,
peradventure, the man you attacked might some day be in a position
to refuse you a favour.

That is a slur on the family name which I have done something to
remove. I go at them all round. Gladstone of course, but scarcely
less Stafford Northcote. If a man is older than myself, and, in
the estimation of a silly world, wiser, I discover the greater pleasure in
abusing him. I don't find that it brings me personal popularity, or
seems to raise me in the public esteem. There is a general impression
abroad that my principal stock-in-trade for political advancement is
impudence. I am not a graceful speaker ; scarcely better read than
yourself ; have never done anything except get myself returned for
Woodstock ; and whilst I have attacked the Bills of everybody else,
I have never brought in but one, and that, dealing with Small Debts,
raised such a commotion among the tailors, bootmakers, and uni-
versal providers, that I had to drop it. Yet look at the place I fill
in public estimation. A wasp in a crowded room would scarcely
receive more attention. But for you and your pompous, overpowering
fame, I might found a house myself. As it is, I can never be any-
thing but a scion of the house you established, partly by back-stair
influence and partly by a people's gratitude for victories which, as I
have shown, are nothing compared with mine.

There is nothing vexes me more than to see men thus grasping at
honours which would be better disposed elsewhere. They want
taking down a peg or two, and I'm the man to do it. If you suppose
that because you are an ancestor who won for us a title, a palace, and
a pension you are exempt, you will find you are mistaken. You are
not the first to discover that nothing is sacred to the political sapeur
who signs himself Your fcsgustei descendant,

Randolph Churchill,

No. IX.—From Lord Stanley, M.P. for Lynn (1850), to the Earl of

Derby.

Dear Derby,

What 's this I hear about the probability of you joining the
Liberal_Government ? I don't know that there is anything in such a
conclusion that I have any right to resent. I have myself always so
strictly kept the middle path, and have so frequently in the violent
conflict of parties found one or other side come up to me, that I have
no right to be critical with any position in which you may find your-
self. I know very well how you came to leave Dizzy's Government.
You were the same when you left as when you entered : only they,
swerving violently on one side, left you isolated. Then, of course,
you had to "leave the Government," as it was put at the time,
whereas the more exact rendering of the fact was, that the Govern-
ment left you.

But, my dear Derby, there is a vast difference between your being
left in the middle of the road by the Tories, and your deliberately
taking a step to the other side, officially to join the Liberals. It
won't suit you either personally or politically. You are all very well
as you are, which, as I before hinted, is equivalent to being " as you
were." In the dashing to and fro of parties, you may again find
yourself in a Conservative Cabinet. Whether that comes to pass or
not, you must not think of joining a Liberal one. You were just
the thing for Dizzy when he formed a Government. He knew
exactly your value and your place. Our great name and influence
were of value to him, and being a'good fellow at heart, with strong
personal affections, he never forgot the friendship our father had
extended to him at a critical time, and was pleased to seem to
lend his patronage to a Stanley. Beyond that, he had a great deal
of sympathy with your growing Liberal convictions. Till things
got too hot to hold, he played you off against that fire-eater
Salisbury, and that drummer-boy, Gathorne Hardy. He stuck
to you as long as he could, and the tears he dropped in the^House of
Lords over your estrangement, were really genuine.

But all this would be different in a Liberal Government with its
present prospects. You;and Gladstone would get on very^well'to-

gether, and, of course,
Hartington would
suit you exactly.
You know as well as
I do that there are
other forces in the
Cabinet, which are
backed by strong and
growing powers in the
provinces. You would
get along swimmingly
at first. Presently
would come a time
when you would find
you could not go any
further with Cham-
berlain and Dilke—who, by-the-way, will not long be out of
the Cabinet. It would not do for you, having deliberately taken the
step of associating yourself with a Liberal Ministry, to retire. You
have seemed to change about enough now, and, as you know, too
long-continued a process of this kind of gymnastics is ruinous in
English politics. We all get a chance once ; but having recanted,
we cannot go back again. Stop where you are, and as you are, and
you will be both prosperous and strong. If there ever be,—as is by
no means improbable—an attempt to form a Coalition Ministry, in
which moderate Liberals, elderly Whigs and Conservatives of our
kidney combine to resist the rush of Radicalism, then your turn for
office will have come again. The fact that you have joined a
Coalition Ministry won't count in the record of your career. Till
then, sit below the Gangway in your favourite corner, and from time
to time balance arguments for the House of Lords.

Of course it is known only between you and me that you are not
such a wonderfully wise man as you look. But you are what is
sometimes better, and may be more powerful. You are as nearly as
possible the embodiment of the ordinary common sense and the some-
what phlegmatic intelligence of an Englishman. You are often, by
reason of experience in public affairs, so far in advance of public
opinion, that what you say to-day England will think to-morrow.
But, as Dizzy dolefully admitted when Salisbury was girding at
you, you " have not much go in you." You shine more in summing
up the results of a catastrophe than in preparing means for averting
it. You have your place in English politics—an honourable, an
honoured, and a safe one ; and don't you go perilling this by tying
yourself down as a member of a Liberal Ministry.

Yours, in sober wisdom,

Stanley.

The Schoolboy's Favourite for Christmas Cards is of course—Tucx.
Raphael Tuck's are "Art-full Cards" with a vengeance, iirst-rate.