It would not, I think, be doing justice to the feelings which are
uppermost in many of our hearts, if we passed to the business of
the day without taking notice of the fresh gap which has been made
in our ranks by the untimely death of Mr. Alfred Lyttelton. It is
a loss of which I hardly trust myself to speak; for, apart from
ties of relationship, there had subsisted between us for thirty-
three years, a close friendship and affection which no political
differences were ever allowed to loosen, or even to affect. Nor
could I better describe it than by saying that he, perhaps, of all
men of this generation, came nearest to the mould and ideal of
manhood, which every English father would like to see his son
aspire to, and, if possible, to attain. The bounty of nature,
enriched and developed not only by early training, but by constant
self-discipline through life, blended in him gifts and graces
which, taken alone, are rare, and in such attractive union are
rarer still. Body, mind and character, the schoolroom, the cricket
field, the Bar, the House of Commons--each made its separate
contribution to the faculty and the experience of a many-sided and
harmonious whole. But what he was he gave--gave with such ease
and exuberance that I think it may be said without exaggeration
that wherever he moved he seemed to radiate vitality and charm. He
was, as we here know, a strenuous fighter. He has left behind him
no resentments and no enmity; nothing but a gracious memory of a
manly and winning personality, the memory of one who served with
an unstinted measure of devotion his generation and country. He
has been snatched away in what we thought was the full tide of
buoyant life, still full of promise and of hope. What more can we
say? We can only bow once again before the decrees of the Supreme
Wisdom. Those who loved him--and they are many, in all schools of
opinion, in all ranks and walks of life--when they think of him,