[141] He pointed out that England experienced both Norman and Dutch conquests; and that if Cromwell conquered Ireland, he conquered England too. [142] “... Fenianism now is not rampant; we think we have gauged its lowest depths, and we are not afraid of it” (Speech, April 3, 1868). As regards coercion, he always maintained that proved sedition alone justified it. [143] He wrote that the question of the Church in Ireland was one totally without the pale of modern politics. His programme also at the dissolution breathed not a word on the subject. [144] Rogers is mentioned in the very young Disraeli’s _Infernal Marriage--“The Pleasures of Oblivion_. The poet, apparently, is fond of his subject.” [145] He lost his life in restoring Ely Cathedral. He designed a portion of Belgrave Square. When Disraeli was at last returned to Parliament, he wrote to his sister, “So much for Uncle G. and his ‘maddest of mad acts.’” [146] He mentions several less familiar among the ancients. For instance, John of Padua in _Endymion_. [147] In a letter of the late ’forties to his sister, he says with surprise that Croker (who disclaimed having read it) should have greeted him with effusion. In the same correspondence he repeats a _mot_ that the two most disgusting things in life--because you cannot deny them--are Warrender’s wealth, and Croker’s talents. [148] When they met, Sir Walter treated him with cordiality; nevertheless, in one of his late letters he styles him “_un vieux crapaud_.” [149] In 1761 he was even bankrupt. _Cf._ British Museum. Add. MS. 36,191, f. 8. [150] Theodore Hook is the original of “Lucian Gay” in _Coningsby_. [151] His acquaintance seems to have been made through “Platonist Taylor,” who gave literary symposia. [152] In Spain he rescued a lady from robbers. On the Ægean he armed and drilled the crew against pirates. In Palestine, with difficulty and courage, he forced his way into the Mosque of Omar. In Egypt a pacha asked him to draft a constitution. [153] _Cf._ British Museum Add. MS. 34,616, f. 45. I have referred to this in Chapter I. [154] “Sure you were to find yourself surrounded by celebrities, and men were welcomed there if they were clever, before they were famous, which showed it was a house that regarded intellect, and did not seek merely to gratify its vanity by being surrounded by the distinguished.”--_Coningsby._ [155] _Vivian Grey._ [156] He liked to descant on the fast-fading and now vanished political Salon. That of “Lady St. Julians,” who “was not likely to forget her friends,” will be recalled by perusers of _Sybil_. In a Glasgow speech--recently revived by an evening journal--he praised, with admiration, Lady Palmerston’s, where diplomatists, at loggerheads with the minister, could meet him in the neutral zone of his gifted wife’s catholic hospitality.