Perhaps it is scarcely fair to intrude on such self-communings of early aspiring adolescence—easily forgivable for their naïve boyish pride. But in the same diaries, a year or two later, this young articled clerk jots down another reflection rather strangely prophetic of what was to come. A quotation appeared in the _Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald_ which signified that David Lloyd George was already in the public eye: “When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame, Resistless burns the fever of renown, Caught from the strong contagion of the gown.”[20] Young Lloyd George makes a curiously level-headed comment on this reference to his thirst for renown: “Perhaps (?) it will be gratified. I believe it depends entirely on what forces of pluck and _industry_ I can muster.” Strangely sober reflection for the eighteenth year! The desire for fame—that “last infirmity of noble minds”—was already there. But it had not turned the head of the young man. Already he seemed to have some measure of the task before him, and of the effort that would be required to achieve it. ----- [14] Mr. A. Maddocks. One of the men who was interested in this project was the poet Shelley. [15] Mr. and Mrs. D. Lloyd Owen, Auctioneer, High Street, Portmadoc. [16] After writing this I came across the following passage in a speech of Mr. Lloyd George’s made in the House of Commons: “Two thousand years ago the great Empire of Rome came with its battalions and conquered that part of Carnarvonshire in which my constituency is situated. They built walls and fortifications as the tokens of their conquest, and they proscribed the use of the Cymric tongue. The other day I was glancing at the ruins of those walls. Underneath I noted the children at play, and I could hear them speaking, with undiminished force and vigour, the proscribed language of the conquered nation. Close by, there was a school where the language of the Roman conquerors was being taught, but taught as a _dead_ language.” [17] These diaries are very fully published in Herbert Du Parcq’s excellent _Life of David Lloyd George_, London; Caxton Publishing Company Limited, 1912. [18] A large selection of these articles can be read in the pages of Mr. Du Parcq. [19] Lord Cromer always called him an adventurer. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt has always regarded him as a great patriot. [20] From Dr. Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes” (135-138), an early poem, based on Juvenal’s Tenth Satire. The third and fourth lines should run— “Thro’ all his veins the fever of renown Burns from the strong contagion of the gown.” The poem was popular with such different judges as Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Cardinal Newman, and Matthew Arnold. [Illustration: “UNCLE LLOYD”: MR. RICHARD LLOYD, THE UNCLE OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE.] [Illustration: THE SMITHY AT LLANYSTUMDWY: THE OLD “VILLAGE PARLIAMENT.”]