of any human being. He reigns over a greater dominion than any empire that the world has ever seen. Nor does the ardor of his devotees decrease. Ayr and Ellisland, Mauchline and Dumfries, are the shrines of countless pilgrims. Burns statues are a hardy annual. The production of Burns manuscripts was a lucrative branch of industry until it was checked by untimely intervention. The editions of Burns are as the sands of the sea. No canonized name in the calendar excites so blind and enthusiastic a worship. Whatever Burns may have contemplated in his prediction, whatever dream he may have fondled in the wildest moments of elation, must have fallen utterly short of the reality. And it is all spontaneous. There is no puff, no advertisement, no manipulation. Intellectual cosmetics of that kind are frail and fugitive; they rarely survive their subject; they would not have availed here. Not was there any glamour attached to the poet; rather the reverse. He has stood by himself; he has grown by himself. It is himself and no other that we honor. But what had Burns in his mind when he made this prediction? It might be whimsically urged that he was conscious that the world had not yet seen his masterpiece, for the "Jolly Beggars was not published till some time after his death. But that would not be sufficient, for he had probably forgotten its existence. Nor do I think he spoke at haphazard. What were perhaps present to his mind were the fickleness of his contemporaries towards him, his conviction of the essential splendor of his work, the consciousness that the incidents of his later years had unjustly obscured him, and that his true figure would be perceived as these fell away into forgetfulness or were measured at their true value. If so, he was right in his judgment, for his true life began with his death; with the body passed all that was gross and impure; the clear spirit stood revealed, and soared at once to its accepted place among the fixed stars, in the firmament of the rare immortals. RANDOLPH HENRY SPENCER CHURCHILL, LORD CHURCHILL 1849-1895 Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, Lord Churchill, was the second son of the sixth Duke of Marlborough, and was born February 13, 1849. He was educated at Merton's College, Oxford. In 1874 Churchill was returned to Parliament for Woodstock, which seat he held till 1885. The same year he married a daughter of Leonard Jerome, of New York. Little was heard of Lord Churchill during the first years of his parliamentary career. From 1880 onward he became conspicuous both in the House of Commons and on public platforms for the violence with which he attacked the Liberal party. He was, for some time during this period, the leader of the so-called fourth party, consisting of a coterie of ultra-conservative members in the House. On the accession of the Conservatives to power in 1885 he filled the office of Secretary of State for India, where his short tenure of office was marked by the annexation of Upper Burmah. It was during this time that Churchill's career gave the brightest promise for the future. He was beginning to be regarded as the Tory leader, and it was commonly said that the mantle of Lord Beaconsfield had fallen on the young, able and untiring chief of the Tory democracy. After the defeat of the Conservatives in 1885 and their return to power after six months, in the same year, Lord Churchill filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer and became leader of his party in the House of Commons. His resignation in the same year was a surprise to both his political followers as well as his opponents; but it is not unlikely that ill-health, brought on by over-exertion, was responsible for this step. In a letter conveying his resignation he wrote to Lord Salisbury that he was resolved to sacrifice himself on the altar of thrift and economy. His attacks on the disbursing departments of the government were henceforth sharp and incisive, but he spoke and voted steadfastly on the side of the Conservatives. His speech on the "Desertion of General Gordon" made a great sensation at the time of its delivery. Lord Churchill died in 1895. I THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON Delivered in the House of Commons, May 13, 1884 DO not think that it is necessary to debate this question with any great amount of heat, or with set oratorical phrases, or with great warmth of invective or vituperation. The question itself is as simple a question as ever presented itself to Parliament. The motion before the House is couched in terms of extreme moderation. The Prime Minister said that it was not a manly or courageous motion; I doubt whether the Prime Minister or any one of his colleagues is a judge of what is manly or courageous. Those adjectives represent qualities in which Her Majesty's Government have proved themselves conspicuously deficient. But I think that it was a strange criticism on the part of the Prime Minister. What is the motion of the right honorable baronet? It is a motion expressing regret that the efforts of General Gordon have not been properly seconded by the acts of the Government at home, and expressing a determination to provide now for the safety of General Gordon. I myself can see nothing unmanly or wanting in courage in such a motion as that; but I am bound to say that I can see a great deal that is wanting in courage in the Prime Minister's speech last night. I wonder whether the Prime Minister recollects an incident which took place in 1830. The right honorable gentleman would have been about twenty years of age, and I have no doubt was well acquainted with the political incidents of that day. The Duke of Wellington made a speech on the subject of parliamentary reform. When he sat down there were buzzings and whisperings and evident consternation on his own side; so much so that the Duke asked what was the cause of it, and the reply was, "Your Grace has announced the fall of your Government, that is all." If the Prime Minister had had the advantage of occupying the posi tion which I occupy, and had been able to see the deepening gloom which settled down on his followers as he proceeded with his remarks, and the blank dismay that overspread their faces, and if he had heard the buzzings and whisperings and consternation in the lobby, and had asked the noble lord, the member for Flintshire, what was the cause of it, if the noble lord, the member for Flintshire, was an intelligent and able noble lord, he would have replied, "Sir, you have annnounced the fall of your Government." What was that speech? It was an announcement in the most solemn manner on the part of Her Majesty's Government, by their chief representative, of the final and definite abandonment of General Gordon. Of that there can be absolutely no doubt whatever in the mind of anyone who listened to him or who has read the report of his speech. That speech reminded me of the conduct of a Roman governor of eighteen hundred years ago, who washed his hands in the face of the multitude. That speech announced in the most open and unmistakable manner the abandonment of General Gordon. This is a course which I am certain the country is not prepared to ratify, and which I think Parliament is not prepared to adopt. What was the mission of General Gordon? What was its nature? The mission, to my mind, was in theory and intention one of the noblest ever undertaken. The object of the mission was twofold. It was to rescue the garrisons in the Soudan, numbering something like 30,000, exclusive of women and children, and it was to restore freedom and tranquillity to harassed and oppressed tribes. The whole nation acquiesced in that mission, as, I believe, it acquiesced in the abandonment of the Soudan. I do not think it could be asserted for one moment that any person on the Opposition side of the House has ever advocated the re-conquest of the Soudan, and I may say that I have never heard anybody who is responsible on this side of the House censure the abandonment of the Soudan. But, although the nation and the Opposition acquiesced in the abandonment of the Soudan, the nation felt deeply the solemn and high duties which that abandonment imposed upon them, and the nation hailed with pleasure, and I may almost say with rapture, the mission of General Gordon, and was prepared to condone many an error because the Government had entrusted |