Mr. Louis Jennings, though he sat on the same side of the House as Sir
Walter Barttelot, and within a week or two of his neighbour's departure
likewise answered to the old Lobby cry, "Who goes home?" was of a
different type of Conservative, was a man of literary training, generous
culture, and wide knowledge of the world, and made his fame and fortune
long before he entered the House of Commons. It was the late Mr. Delane
whose quick eye discovered his journalistic ability, and gave him his
first commission on the _Times_. He visited America in the service of
that journal, and being there remained to take up the editorship of the
_New York Times_, making himself and his journal famous by his
successful tilting against what, up to his appearance in the list, had
been the invincible Tweed conspiracy. He edited the "Croker Papers," and
wrote a "study" of Mr. Gladstone--a bitterly clever book, to which the
Premier magnanimously referred in the generous tribute he took occasion
to pay to the memory of the late member for Stockport.
Upon these two books Mr. Jennings's literary fame in this country
chiefly rests. It would stand much higher if there were wider knowledge
of another couple of volumes he wrote just before he threw himself into
the turmoil of Parliamentary life. One is called "Field Paths and Green
Lanes"; the other "Rambles Among the Hills." Both were published by Mr.
Murray, and are now, I believe, out of print. They are well worth
reproducing, supplying some of the most charming writing I know, full of
shrewd observation, humorous fancy, and a deep, abiding sympathy with
all that is beautiful in Nature. I thought I knew Louis Jennings pretty
intimately in Parliamentary and social life, but I found a new man
hidden in these pages--a beautiful, sunny nature, obscured in the
ordinary relations of life by a somewhat brusque manner, and in these
last eighteen months soured and cramped by a cruel disease. Jennings
knew and loved the country as Gilbert White knew and loved Selborne. Now
His part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills
Is, that his grave is green.
[Illustration: MR. LOUIS JENNINGS.]
His Parliamentary career was checked, and, as it turned out, finally
destroyed, by an untoward incident. After Lord Randolph Churchill threw
up the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and assumed a position of
independence on a back bench, he found an able lieutenant in his old
friend Louis Jennings. At that time Lord Randolph was feared on the
Treasury Bench as much as he was hated. For a Conservative member to
associate himself with him was to be ostracised by the official
Conservatives. A man of Mr. Jennings's position and Parliamentary
ability was worth buying off, and it was brought to his knowledge that
he might have a good price if he would desert Lord Randolph. He was not
a man of that kind, and the fact that the young statesman stood almost
alone was sufficient to attract Mr. Jennings to his side.
[Illustration: AS CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.]
Up to an early date of the Session of 1890 the companionship, political
and private, of Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Jennings was as intimate
as had been any one of his lordship's personal connections with members
of the Fourth Party. This alliance was ruptured under circumstances that
took place publicly, but the undercurrent of which has never been
fathomed. One Monday night, shortly after the opening of this Session of
1890, there appeared on the paper a resolution standing in the name of
Mr. Jennings, framed in terms not calculated to smooth the path of the
Conservative Government, just then particularly troubled. That Mr.
Jennings had prepared it in consultation with Lord Randolph Churchill
was an open secret. Indeed, Lord Randolph had undertaken to second it.
Before the motion could be reached a debate sprang up, in which Lord
Randolph interposed, and delivered a speech which, in Mr. Jennings's
view, entirely cut the ground from under his feet. He regarded this as
more than an affront--as a breach of faith, a blow dealt by his own
familiar friend. At that moment, in the House, he broke with Lord
Randolph, tore up his amendment and the notes of his speech, and
declined thereafter to hold any communion with his old friend.
No one, as I had opportunity of learning at the time, was more surprised
than Lord Randolph Churchill at the view taken of the event by Mr.
Jennings. He had not thought of his action being so construed, and had
certainly been guiltless of the motive attributed to him. There was
somewhere and somehow a misunderstanding. With Mr. Jennings it was
strong and bitter enough to last through what remained of his life.
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY.]
Whilst he did not act upon the first impulse communicated to one of his
friends, and forthwith retire from public life, he with this incident
lost all zest for it. Occasionally he spoke, choosing the level,
unattractive field of the Civil Service Estimates. It was a high tribute
to his power and capacity that on the few occasions when he spoke the
House filled up, not only with the contingent attracted by the prospect
of anything spicy, but by grave, financial authorities, Ministers and
ex-Ministers, who listened attentively to his acute criticism. His
public speaking benefited by a rare combination of literary style and
oratorical aptitude. There was no smell of the lamp about his polished,
pungent sentences. But they had the unmistakable mark of literary style.
Had his physical strength not failed, and his life not been embittered
by the episode alluded to, Louis Jennings would have risen to high
position in the Parliamentary field.
_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._