Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2 by Robert Ornsby

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Mrs. Hope-Scott had never really recovered from her first confinement. In
the spring of 1858 she had had a severe attack of influenza, and
consumptive symptoms, though not called by that name, came on. Towards the
end of October arrangements had been made to take her to the Isle of Wight
for the winter, but she never got further on her journey than Edinburgh.
When she called, a day or two after her arrival there, on the Bishop, Dr.
Gillis, he said to himself, 'Ah! _you_ have been travelling by express
train!' Very soon after this, bronchitis set in, and rapidly became acute,
and the case was pronounced hopeless. To herself, indeed, it was perhaps
more or less sudden, though she had virtually made a retreat of preparation
during the preceding six months, and left everything in the most perfect
order at Abbotsford. She had said to 'Cousin Kate' (Miss Lockhart) that God
had been very merciful to her in sending her a lingering illness; yet, on
the last night, was heard to say,' Hard to part--Jim--Mamo [Footnote: Mamo:
an affectionate abbreviation for Mary Monica.]--God's will be done.' She
accepted her death as God's will. On being told of its approach, and after
receiving the last sacraments, she said, 'I have no fear now.' Bishop
Gillis gave her the last absolution, Fr. Noble, one of the Oblate Fathers
from Galashiels, assisting. Her husband's disposition never allowed him to
believe in misfortune till it had really come, and, almost up to the last
hour, he had failed to see what was plain to all other eyes; the parting,
therefore, with him and with her little daughter Mamo (who could scarcely
be torn from her) was sad beyond expression. The end came rapidly. She died
on Tuesday, October 26, and on December 3 her baby daughter, Margaret Anne;
and on December 11 the little boy, whose birth had caused such gladness.
All three were buried in the vault of St. Margaret's Convent, Edinburgh;
the mother on November 2 (All Souls' Day), her two children on December 10
and 17, 1858. Bishop Gillis spoke on November 2 and December 10, but his
addresses were unwritten; Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, on December 17.
His address, and a beautiful one indeed it is, has fortunately been
preserved.

Of three short letters, in which Mr. Hope-Scott had told Dr. Newman of each
sorrow as it came, I transcribe the last:--

_J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.G. to the Very Rev. Dr. Newman._

14 Curzon St, London, W.:

Dec. 11, 1858.

Dear Father Newman,--My intention, for which you so kindly said mass, has
been fulfilled, for it was, as well as I could form it, that God should
deal with my child as would be most for His honour and its happiness, and
this afternoon He has answered my prayer by calling little Walter to
Himself.

I rely upon you to pray much for me. It may yet be that other sacrifices
will be required, and I may need more strength; but what I chiefly fear is
that I may not profit as I ought by that wonderful union of trial and
consolation which God has of late vouchsafed me.

Yours very affectionately,

JAMES R. HOPE-SCOTT.

The Very Rev. Dr. Newman.

On his wife's death Mr. Hope-Scott had written the following letter to Mr.
Gladstone:--

_J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.G. to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P._

Abbotsford: Nov. 3, 1858.

My dear Gladstone,--I was uneasy at not having written to you, and hoped
you would write--which you have done, and I thank you much for it. An
occasion like this passed by is a loss to friendship, but it was not, nor
is, easy for me to write to you. You will remember that the root of our
friendship, which I trust [was] the deepest, was fed by a common interest
in religion, and I cannot write to you of her whom it has pleased God to
take from me without reference to that Church whose doctrines and promises
she had embraced with a faith which made them the objects of sense to her;
whose teaching now moulded her mind and heart; whose spiritual blessings
surrounded and still surround her, and which has shed upon her death a
sweetness which makes me linger upon it more dearly than upon any part of
our united and happy life.

These things I could not pass over without ignoring the foundation of our
friendship; but still I feel that to mention them has something intrusive,
something which it may be painful for you to read, as though it required an
answer which you had rather not give. So I will say only one thing more,
and it is this: If ever, in the strife of politics and religious
controversy, you are tempted to think or speak hardly of that Church--if
she should appear to you arrogant, or exclusive, or formal, for my dear
Charlotte's sake and mine check that thought, if only for an instant, and
remember with what exceeding care and love she tends her children....

And now good-bye, my dear Gladstone. Forgive me every word which you had
rather I had not said. May God long preserve to you and your wife that
happiness which you now have in each other! and when it pleases Him that
either of you should have to mourn the other, may He be as merciful to you
as He has been to me!

Yours affectionately,

JAMES E. HOPE-SCOTT.

And now Mr. Hope-Scott was left alone in Abbotsford, with his only
surviving child, a very fragile and delicate flower too, such as to make a
father tremble while he kissed it. We have already seen [Footnote: See pp.
44-46, and 55, 56, ch. ii, in vol. i.] that he could resort sometimes to
poetry as that comfort for the over-burdened mind, in which Keble's theory
would place even the principal source of the poetical spirit. [Footnote:
Keble, _Praelectiones Academicae_, Oxon. 1844. Prael. i. t. i. p. 10.
] As every reader will sympathise with such expressions of feeling, I do
not hesitate to transcribe some touching verses which he wrote at this
season of sorrow, and which, with a few others, he had privately printed,
and given in his lifetime to two or three of his very closest friends.
These others will be found in the appendix. [Footnote: Appendix IV.]

_Sancta Mater, istud agas,
Crucifixi fige plagas,
Cordi meo valide._

CHRISTMAS, 1858.

My babes, why were you born,
Since in life's early morn
Death overtook you, and, before
I could half love you, you were mine no more?

Walter, my own bright boy,
Hailed as the hope and joy
Of those who told thy grandsire's fame,
And looking, loved thee, even for thy name;

And thou, my Margaret dear,
Come as if sent to cheer
A widowed heart, ye both have fled,
And, life scarce tasted, lie among the dead!

Then, oh! why were you born?
Was it to make forlorn
A father who had happier been
If your sweet infant smiles he ne'er had seen?

Was it for this you came?
Dare I for you to blame
The God who gave and took again,
As though my joy was sent but to increase my pain?

Oh no! of Christmas bells
The cheerful music tells
Why you were born, and why you died,
And for my doubting doth me gently chide.

The infant Christ, who lay
On Mary's breast to-day,
Was He not born for you to die,
And you to bear your Saviour company?

Then stay not by the grave,
My heart, but up, and crave
Leave to rejoice, and hear the song
Of infant Jesus and His happy throng.

That wondrous throng, on earth
So feeble from its birth,
Which little thought, and little knew,
Now hath both God and man within its view!

Yes, you were born to die;
Then shall I grudging sigh
Because to you are sooner given
The crown, the palm, the angel joy of heaven?

Rather, O Lord, bestow
On me the grace to bow,
Childlike, to Thee, and since above
Thou keep'st my treasures, there to keep my love.

It is scarcely necessary to say that one of the friends to whom Mr. Hope-
Scott sent these verses on his family losses of 1858 was Dr. Newman. The
note in which his friend acknowledged the precious gift witnesses to the
intimacy of their friendship in as striking a manner as any I have been
enabled to make use of:--

_The Very Rev. Dr. Newman to J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.G._

The Oratory, Birmingham: October 1, 1860.

My dear Hope-Scott,--I value extremely the present you have made me; first
of all for its own sake, as deepening, by the view which it gives me of
yourself, the affection and the reverence which I feel towards you.

And next I feel your kindness in thus letting me see your intimate
thoughts; and I rejoice to know that, in spite of our being so divided one
from another, as I certainly do not forget you, so you are not unmindful of
me.

The march of time is very solemn now--the year seems strewn with losses;
and to hear from you is like hearing the voice of a friend on a field of
battle.

I am surprised to find you in London now. For myself, I have not quitted
this place, or seen London, since last May year, when I was there for a few
hours, and called on Badeley.

If he is in town, say to him everything kind from me when you see him.

Ever yours affectionately,

JOHN H. NEWMAN,

Of the Oratory.

James B. Hope-Scott, Esq.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1859-1870.

Mr. Hope-Scott's Return to his Profession--Second Marriage--Lady Victoria
Howard--Mr. Hope-Scott at Hyeres--Portraits of Mr. Hope-Scott--
Miscellaneous Recollections--Mr. Hope-Scott in the Highlands--Ways of
Building--Story of Second-sight at Lochshiel.

The last of the poems in the little collection which is elsewhere given,
evidently belongs to a time when Mr. Hope-Scott had regained his
tranquillity, and was about to resume, like a wise and brave man, the
ordinary duties of his profession. After his great affliction he had
interrupted them for a whole year, first staying for some time at Arundel
Castle, and then residing at Tours with his brother-in-law and sister, Lord
and Lady Henry Kerr. To those readers who expect that every life which
approaches in any way an exalted and ideal type must necessarily conform to
the rules of romance, it may appear strange that Mr. Hope-Scott did not
remain a widower for any great length of time. But in truth the same
motives which led him to return to the Bar, notwithstanding the
overwhelming calamity he had sustained, might also have led him again to
enter the married state; or rather, if under other circumstances he would
have thought it right to do so, would not have interposed any insuperable
obstacle against it now.

Mr. Hope-Scott, soon after his conversion, had become acquainted with Henry
Granville, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk. They had
first met, I believe, at Tunbridge Wells, where, on October 2, 1852, was
born Mr. Hope-Scott's daughter Mary Monica (now the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-
Scott), at whose baptism Lady Arundel and Surrey acted as proxy for the
Dowager Lady Lothian. The acquaintance had very soon developed into an
intimate and confidential friendship, which by this time had become still
closer, from the fear which was beginning to be felt that the Duke's life,
so precious to his family and to the Catholic world in general, was fast
drawing to its early termination. To the Duke, therefore, and to his
family, it was but natural for Mr. Hope-Scott to turn for comfort in his
extreme need. In such times sympathy soon deepens into affection, and thus
it was that an attachment sprang up between Mr. Hope-Scott and the Duke's
eldest daughter, Lady Victoria Fitzalan Howard. This was towards the end of
1860. The Duke was then in his last illness, and on November 12 in that
year the betrothed pair knelt at his bedside to receive his blessing. He
died on November 25.

Although a notice of great interest might be drawn up from materials before
me of Lady Victoria herself, and of the sweetness of character and holiness
of life which so much endeared her to all with whom she was connected; yet
the time of her departure is still so recent, that I shall better consult
the feelings and the wishes of surviving friends by merely placing before
my readers one passage from a letter relating to her. The writer was a nun
intimately acquainted with her, and describes with great truth and
simplicity the graces which especially adorned her: 'She was a person to be
observed and studied; and I do not think... I ever saw her without studying
her, and consequently without my admiration for her increasing. She was so
unworldly, so forgetful of self, and, what always struck me most, so
humble, and striving to screen herself from praise; and humility and self-
forgetfulness like what she practised, these are the virtues of saints, and
not of ordinary people.'

The marriage of Mr. Hope-Scott and Lady Victoria Howard was solemnised at
Arundel on January 7, 1861, and this too, it is needless to add, proved a
very happy union, though on the side of affliction, in the loss of two
infants, and in Lady Victoria's early death, it strangely resembled the
first marriage. Of twin daughters born June 6, 1862, Catherine and Minna-
Margaret, the first lived for but a few hours. [Footnote: Two more
daughters, Josephine Mary (born May 1864) and Theresa Anne (born September
14, 1865), were born before (again, as it were, but for an instant) a son
was granted; this was Philip James (born April 8, 1868), but who lived only
till the next day. He was placed beside his sister Catherine in the castle
vault at Arundel. Mr. Hope-Scott's last and only surviving son is James
Fitzalan Hope, born December 18, 1870.] There are, however, many days of
sunshine still to record. Abbotsford and Dorlin, as before, were the chief
retreats in which Mr. Hope-Scott found repose from the toil and harass of
his professional life. At Arundel Castle and Norfolk House he and his
family were, of course, frequent guests. From 1859 it was thought necessary
that the surviving child of his first marriage should spend every winter in
a warm climate. Hyeres, in the south of France, was selected for this
purpose, which led to Mr. Hope-Scott's purchasing a property there, the
Villa Madona, on a beautiful spot near the Boulevard d'Orient. Here he
spent several winters with his family, in the years 1863-70. He added to
the property very gradually, bit by bit; first a vineyard, and then an
oliveyard, as opportunities offered, and indulged over it the same passion
for improvement which he had displayed at Abbotsford and Dorlin. He took
the most practical interest in all the culture that makes up a Provencal
farm, the wine, the oil, the almonds, the figs, not forgetting the fowls
and the rabbits. He laid out the ground and made a road, set a plantation
of pines, and adorned the bank of his boulevard with aloes and yuccas and
eucalyptus--in short, astonished his French neighbours by his perfection of
taste and regardlessness of expense. He did not, however, build more than a
bailiff's cottage in the first instance, but rented the Villa Favart in the
neighbourhood, and amused himself with his estate, intending it for his
daughter's residence in future years. At his death, however, the French law
requiring the estate to be shared, it was found necessary to sell it. He
greatly enjoyed the repose of Hyeres, the strolls on the boulevard, and the
occasional excursions that charming watering-place affords--Pierrefeu, for
example, and all the beautiful belt of coast region extending between
Hyeres and the Presqu'ile. He was also able to enter more into society at
Hyeres than latterly his health and business had permitted in London. One
of his oldest and most valued friends, the late Serjeant Bellasis, had
taken the Villa Sainte Cecile in his neighbourhood, and there was a circle
of the best French families in and around Hyeres, whose names must not be
omitted when we speak of Mr. Hope-Scott's and Lady Victoria's annual
sojourn in the little capital of the Hesperides. Among these was the late
Due de Luynes, so well known for his researches into the hydrography of the
Dead Sea, Count Poniatowski, Madame Duquesne, M. de Butiny, Maire of
Hyeres, M. and Madame de Walmer, and others. Cardinal Newman has noticed,
what appears also in the correspondence, to how surprising a degree Mr.
Hope-Scott was consulted by his French neighbours, even in affairs
belonging to their own law. Whenever there was a difficulty, a sort of
instinct led people to turn to him for counsel.

As it was at Hyeres that I first became acquainted with Mr. Hope-Scott, I
may introduce into this chapter, perhaps as conveniently as anywhere, such
personal recollections of him as I can call to mind. They are much more
scanty than I could wish; still, where the memorials to be collected from
any sources are but few, and rapidly passing away, surviving friends may be
glad of the preservation of even these slight notices.

In 1864-5 I had the honour of being entrusted with the tuition of Henry,
Duke of Norfolk, and, as the Duke spent that winter with his relatives at
Hyeres, I had several opportunities of conversing with Mr. Hope-Scott in
his domestic circle, as on other occasions afterwards.

Mr. Hope-Scott was then in his fifty-third year. He was tall, largely
built, with massive head, dark hair beginning to turn grey, sanguine,
embrowned complexion, very dark eyes, fine, soft, yet penetrating. '_Quel
bel homme! quel homme magnifique_!' the French would exclaim in talking
of him. In his features might be remarked that indefinable expression which
belongs to the practised advocate. He had an exceedingly winning smile, an
harmonious voice, and deliberate utterance. His manners, I need hardly say,
showed all that simplicity and perfection of good breeding which art may
simulate, but can never completely attain to.

I am not aware that there is any likeness of Mr. Hope-Scott in his later
years. There is an excellent one of him about the age of thirty-two,
painted by Richmond for Lady Davy, and now at Abbotsford, of which an
engraving was published by Colnaghi. Mr. Lockhart, writing to Mrs. Hope-
Scott on August 29, 1850, says: 'I called, yesterday at Mr. Richmond's to
inspect his picture of J. R. H., and was extremely pleased--a capital
likeness, and a most graceful one.... I am at a loss to say whether I think
Grant or he has been most lucky--and they are very different too.' I have
heard that the portrait by Richmond is supposed to represent his expression
when pleading. Mr. Richmond also drew (in crayon, previously to 1847) two
others, one for Lady Frances Hope, subsequently given to the Hon. Mrs. G.
W. Hope, and another for Mr. Badeley, after whose decease it was given by
Mr. Hope to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There was also a small life-
portrait, done after his marriage by Mr. Frank Grant, but not thought so
pleasing a likeness as Richmond's. There is a good bust by Noble at
Abbotsford, but this was made after his death, by study of casts, &c. It
might express the age of about thirty-five or forty.

In his hospitality Mr. Hope-Scott showed great kindness and thoughtfulness.
One day, for example, he would invite to dinner the cure of Hyeres and his
clergy; on another occasion, a young lady having become engaged, a party
must be given in her honour; or an English prelate passes Hyeres on his way
home, and must be entertained. He was very attentive to guests, took pains
to make people feel at their ease, and dispensed with unnecessary
formality, but not with such usages as have their motive in a courteous
consideration for others. Thus, when there were French guests, he was
particular in exacting the observance of the rule that the English present
should talk to each other, as well as to the strangers, in French. He had a
thorough colloquial knowledge of the French language, marked not so much by
any French mannerism, of which there was little, as by a ready command of
the vocabulary of special subjects--for instance, agriculture.

In society Mr. Hope-Scott's table-talk was highly agreeable. There was,
however, a certain air of languor about him, caused partly by failing
health, but far more, no doubt, by that 'softened remembrance of sorrow and
pain' which my readers can by this time understand better than any of those
who then surrounded him. His conversation, therefore, when the duty of
entertaining his guests did not require him to exert himself, was liable to
lapse into silence. Some people seem to think it a duty to break a dead
silence at any price; but this, in Mr. Hope-Scott's opinion, was not always
to be followed as a rule of etiquette; so, at least, I have heard.

I cannot remember that he showed any great interest in politics. He told me
that he seldom read the leading articles of the 'Times,' which he thought
had little influence on public events. I can, however, recall an
interesting conversation on the social state of France, of which he took a
very melancholy view; and again, in 1870, when he pronounced decisively
against the chances of the permanent establishment of the Commune, on the
ground of the total change in the condition of Europe since the Middle
Ages--the old Italian republics having been alleged in favour of the
former.

His conversation seldom turned upon general literature, and at the time I
knew him he had given up the 'bibliomania.' His favourite line of reading,
for his own amusement, seemed to be glossaries, such as those of the
Provencal dialect, and the archaeology of Hyeres, on which a friend of his,
the late M. Denis, had written an interesting volume. Le Play's elaborate
treatise, 'La Reforme Sociale,' strongly attracted his attention. He was
fond of statistical works, such as the 'Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes,'
a little compilation bristling with facts. He greatly cherished, as might
be expected, the memory of Sir Walter Scott; and, had his life been
prolonged, would probably have done more for it than the republication of
the abridgment of Lockhart's Life. I recollect his mentioning that there
were in his hands unpublished MSS. of Sir Walter's which would furnish
materials for a volume. [Footnote: In a letter to Lord Henry Kerr, dated
'Norfolk House, London, S.W., July 6, 1867,' Mr. Hope-Scott says:--

'I have, because everybody seemed to think I must, become a purchaser to-
day of some of Sir Walter's MSS., viz. _Rokeby, Lord of the Isles_,
_Anne of Geierstein_, and a volume of fragments of _Waverley,
Ivanhoe, &c._ I am ashamed to say what they cost, but the _Lady of the
Lake_ alone cost _another_ purchaser more than half what I paid for
the four, and I can hardly say that it was to please myself that I bought
at all.'] 'What he chiefly valued in the character of Sir Walter Scott
(remarks a correspondent) was his _manliness_. I noticed that when Sir
Walter was praised, Mr. Hope-Scott always spoke of his manliness.' These
observations may somewhat qualify the impression of an intimate friend of
his later years, by whom I have been told that Mr. Hope-Scott 'hardly
opened a book, read scarcely at all, though he seemed to know about books.'
He certainly could not, in the ordinary sense of the word, be called a
literary man; but the active part of his life was far too busy for study,
unless study had been a passion with him; and towards its close the state
of his health made reading impossible.

Mr. Hope-Scott very rarely made mention of himself, and his conversation
accordingly supplied little or no biographical incident. Yet I have heard
him allude, more than once, to his intimacy with Mr. Gladstone. 'They had
been,' he said, 'like brothers;' and he spoke also with pleasure of visits
to the house of Sir John Gladstone, from whom he thought the Premier had
derived much of his _back_.

Everything that I saw or heard of Mr. Hope-Scott conveyed the impression
that he always acted on a plan and an idea; but this is so evident from
what I have already related of him, that I am unwilling to add trivial
anecdotes in its illustration. That tenderness of heart of which such ample
proof has also been given, I recollect once coming curiously out in a
chance expression. 'If a man wants to cry,' said Mr. Hope-Scott, '_let
him read the Police Reports_, or (checking himself with that humour by
which deep feeling is often veiled) take a cup of coffee!'

He was a thoroughly kind friend in this way, that, unasked, he thought of
openings which might be available, and, without offering direct advice,
threw out, as if incidentally, useful hints. In giving advice, he applied
his mind to the subject; and a small matter, such as the interpretation of
a route in _Bradshaw_, received as complete consideration, as far as
was needed, as he could have given to the most difficult case submitted by
a client.

As to his religious habits, I only had the opportunity of remarking his
regularity in attending mass. I recollect, too, that he was anxious that
one in whom he took an interest should not leave Hyeres without visiting a
favourite place of pilgrimage in the vicinity called L'Ermitage, and heard
with pleasure that St. Paul's, in the upper town, had not been forgotten--a
church where St. Louis heard mass before setting out on his crusade, and
which rivals the Hermitage as a resort of popular devotion.

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