It was a movement of the young, it had all the strength and audacity of youth, it was a great adventure.

A few men from an older generation came with them, Mr.Biggar, Justin McCarthy and others.

But their leader, though older than most of his followers, was a young man by parliamentary standards.

In 1880 Parnell was only thirty-three; and within four years more he was as great a power in the House as Mr.Gladstone.Some few years back I heard Willie Redmond say in the Members' smoking-room, "Isn't it strange to think that Parnell would be sixty now if he had lived.

I can't imagine him as an old man." Yet the accent of maturity was on Parnell's leadership; the men whom he led were essentially young.