mier 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 h