1902] Rowtoris Recollections 17 



a man. Rowton is full of such anecdotes, and when I pressed him 

 to write them, even if he did not publish, confessed that the real 

 reason was that he lacked the literary gift and could not do it well. 

 He told me, too, of the story current that Dufferin was really Disraeli's 

 son, but he had found evidence in the papers left him that Disraeli 

 had only made Lady Dufferin's acquaintance six years after Dufferin 

 was born. Dufferin, who had heard the story, was most grateful to 

 Rowton for letting him have the memorandum proving this, and had 

 inserted it in his mother's life. Another story was of how Disraeli 

 came to be Christianized. Isaac Disraeli, the father, had given offence 

 to the Jews by his unorthodox writings and was fined £50 by his 

 synagogue. This angered him and he went straight away and joined 

 the Church of England and had his children christened, Dizzy being 

 then about ten years old. But for this quarrel the son never could 

 have got into Parliament or made even the beginning of a political 

 career. 



" yd Feb. — Lunched with Mark Napier who is just back from 

 India where he has been settling a legal claim for a native prince. 

 It had been hung up for thirteen years, but he got it pushed through 

 by George Curzon in ten days. (Such is the virtue of the Crabbet 

 Club.) He gave a good account of George and of his surprising 

 energy and power of work, which leaves him no time for amuse- 

 ment. He is master of everybody, Mark says, and so is not alto- 

 gether popular with the high officials, but seemed to be so with every- 

 body else. 



" 4th Feb. — Called on George Wyndham and had a long talk with 

 him about Ireland, which wholly occupies him. He is far more in 

 sympathy with the Nationalists than with the Castle party which he 

 despises for its sycophancy or the Ulster Protestants whom he dis- 

 likes for their sour bigotry. His own people, however, are con- 

 stantly worrying him to coerce, and he has been obliged to make a 

 show of doing something in that way though most unwillingly. He 

 told me he had quite come to agree with me that there was no possi- 

 bility of doing anything of real good in Ireland under present con- 

 ditions and the less done by a Chief Secretary, the less the harm. 

 He thinks, however, that if Ireland could be governed as a Crown 

 Colony for five years things might come right. This is a curious 

 remedy which would need fifty, not five years to have any effect. He 

 was delighted when I repeated what Redmond said about him and that 

 the Irish members still regarded him with a friendly eye. 



" Then he read me a long letter from his brother Guy written at 

 the end of the year, describing a fight he had been engaged in in Cape 

 Colony against Smuts in which he took credit that he had held his 

 ground. I remarked that I had thought the Boers had long ago been 



