nal letters ... between him and the
author_ (1765); A. Kippis, in _Biographia Britannica_ (1780); also
John Forster in the _Edinburgh Review_ (January 1845).

CHURCHILL, LORD RANDOLPH HENRY SPENCER (1840-1895), English statesman,
third son of John, seventh duke of Marlborough, by Frances, daughter of
the third marquess of Londonderry, was born at Blenheim Palace, on the
13th of February 1849. His early education was conducted at home, and at
Mr Tabor's preparatory school at Cheam. In January 1863 he went to Eton,
where he remained till July 1865. He was not specially distinguished
either in school work or games while at Eton; his contemporaries
describe him as a vivacious and rather unruly lad. In October 1867 he
matriculated at Merton College, Oxford. He was fond of amusement, and
had carried to Oxford an early taste for sport which he retained
throughout life. But he read with some industry, and obtained a second
class in jurisprudence and modern history in 1870. In 1874 he was
elected to parliament in the Conservative interest for Woodstock,
defeating Mr George Brodrick, a fellow, and afterwards warden, of Merton
College. His maiden speech, delivered in his first session, made no
impression on the House.

It was not till 1878 that he forced himself into public notice as the
exponent of a species of independent Conservatism. He directed a series
of furious attacks against some of the occupants of the front
ministerial bench, and especially that "old gang" who were distinguished
rather for the respectability of their private characters, and the
unblemished purity of their Toryism, than for striking talent. Mr
Sclater-Booth (afterwards 1st Lord Basing), president of the Local
Government Board, was the especial object of his ire, and that
minister's County Government Bill was fiercely denounced as the
"crowning dishonour to Tory principles," and the "supreme violation of
political honesty." The audacity of Lord Randolph's attitude, and the
vituperative fluency of his invective, made him a parliamentary figure
of some importance before the dissolution of the 1874 parliament, though
he was not as yet taken quite seriously. In the new parliament of 1880
he speedily began to play a more notable role. With the assistance of
his devoted adherents, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, Sir John Gorst and
occasionally of Mr Arthur Balfour, and one or two others, he constituted
himself at once the audacious opponent of the Liberal