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

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Mr. Hope-Scott's reply is--'Hotel d'Orient, Hyeres (Var), France, January
12, 1870.--Dear F. Newman,--(After giving an account of Serjeant Bellasis's
health, then seriously ill, and anxiously asking for masses and prayers for
him,) That rocky point in your enterprise is a nuisance--more especially as
rocks lie in beds, and this may be but the "crop" of some large stratum. As
a road-maker, I know what it is to have to come back upon my work, and to
strike a new level to get rid of some seemingly small but hard obstacle....
Yours ever affectionately,--JAMES E. HOPE-SCOTT.']

'The improvement of the tenants' own condition was a subject of anxious
consideration. It was impossible to build new houses for every one; but
great facilities were offered by the proprietor to such as were willing to
build for themselves. Wood and lime were placed at their disposal free of
charge, and a sum of 10_l_. or 12_l_. was added to help in
defraying the expenses of the mason-work. A few cottages of a superior kind
were built at the entire expense of the proprietor; but the cost was out of
all proportion with the rental of the estate, and this attempt had to be
abandoned for a time. Mr. Hope-Scott's kindness towards the smaller tenants
was very marked. Besides helping them to better houses, he frequently
assisted them with considerable sums of money towards increasing their
stock of cattle, or towards repairing losses from accidents and disease. In
some cases his generosity extended to the poorer tenants on neighbouring
estates, when, for instance, they felt themselves at a loss for means to
purchase a new boat or to provide themselves with fishing-nets. [Footnote:
Mr. Hope-Scott had formed schemes for the employment of the people in
working the salmon fisheries, and, when the salmon was out of season, the
deep-sea fishing, and enabling them to dispose of their fish.] To encourage
a spirit of independence among them, he used to grant sums of money on
_loan_; but when, at the end of a successful season, the borrowers
came back with the money, he invariably refused to accept it, or he would
give instructions to have it passed to some other poor person in
difficulties.' His efforts to induce them to extend cultivation have been
elsewhere noticed. 'He never left the country towards the end of autumn
without leaving a few pounds for distribution among the poorer classes. The
clergyman of the district had always strict injunctions to report any case
of hardship, or illness, or distress, and to draw upon his purse for what
was required. The habits of the people soon showed signs of real
improvement. A more orderly or respectable class of tenants are not to be
found in any other part of the Highlands. From the day of his coming among
them until now the rents have remained the same, greatly to the prosperity
of the tenants. With the rest of the proprietors residing in and near
Moidart he was very popular. His relations with them were invariably
pleasant and happy.

'In 1859, Mr. Hope-Scott commenced the erection of a school at Mingarry,
with ample accommodation for scholars and teacher. It was completed in
1860. This was an improvement very acceptable to the tenants. Hitherto the
Catholic children had to cross over to a neighbouring estate, where the
Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge had established a
school-house and teacher, or they had to frequent another school, often
very irregularly, in Ardnamurchan. The secular teaching in both of these
schools was excellent of its kind. But, although the most cordial relations
have, for generations past, existed between the Catholics on the north and
the Presbyterians on the south side of the river Sheil, it was always a
subject of regret among the former that they had no means of educating
their children nearer home, and under Catholic teachers. After the school
was successfully opened, Mr. Hope-Scott supplied funds to defray the
teacher's salary.

'In 1862, he erected, at a cost of about 2,600_l_., the present church
and presbytery at Mingarry, within a few hundred yards of the school; but,
to his grief, this was the least satisfactory of all his undertakings from
one cause or another, neither church nor presbytery coming up to his
expectations; and the former was for years a continual source of trouble
and expenditure.' He built also another, at Glenuig, mentioned already.

To complete the history of Dorlin, so far as it is connected with Mr. Hope-
Scott: when, towards the close of his life, he had completely given up
practice, he made up his mind to part with it, great as he acknowledged the
wrench was--but to a Catholic purchaser--and sold it to Lord Howard of
Glossop, the present proprietor, who worthily carries out the admirable
example bequeathed him by his predecessor. [Footnote: Lord Howard of
Glossop died as these sheets were passing through the press, December 1,
1883. R. I. P.]

The missions of _Oban_, and, on the other side of Scotland, _St.
Andrews_, [Footnote: He had been otherwise interested in St. Andrews,
during the years 1846-51, when associated with Sir John Gladstone (father
of the Premier) in a scheme for developing that town as a bathing-place,
building houses, &c. This, however, was a speculation on which it would he
needless to enlarge, even if I had the details. In a letter to Miss Hope-
Scott (May 25, 1867) he observes, 'St. Andrews is the best sea quarter in
Scotland, I believe (and you know I have property there, which proves
it).'] must also be named as either created or largely assisted by Mr.
Hope-Scott; and, among Scottish religious houses, lastly, but not least,
St. Margaret's convent at _Edinburgh_ (the Ursulines of Jesus), as a
cherished object of his benefactions, and kind counsel and help.

MR. HOPE-SCOTT'S IRISH TENANTRY.

Of Mr. Hope-Scott's dealings, as a Catholic proprietor, with his Irish
estates (co. Mayo), what has appeared in a former chapter gives a pleasing
idea, quite borne out by other letters that have come before me. The Rev.
James Browne, writing to him on June 12, 1856, to acknowledge a donation
for the chapel and school of _Killavalla_, says of his tenantry there:
'They all look upon it as a blessing from God that they have got a Catholic
landlord, who has the same religious sympathies that they have themselves.'
Thirteen years later (May 9, 1869) the same priest writes: 'I have been
holding stations of confession among your people at Balliburke, Gortbane,
and Killadier. I was glad to find them happy and contented, the houses
neat, and the people most comfortable.'

CHARITIES AT HYERES.

At Hyeres I can say from my own knowledge that Mr. Hope-Scott's support of
a chaplain is to be numbered among his charitable and fruitful deeds. The
arrangement was made with all his usual thoughtfulness; it enabled a most
excellent priest, who was in a slow decline, but could still hear
confessions and do much good, to spend a few winters in a warm climate. The
Rev. Edward Dunne acted also as confessor to the little English colony at
Hyeres, as well as to the family of Mr. Hope-Scott. It often happens that,
in such a watering-place, strangers whose case is hopeless come for a last
chance of life. Sometimes they are Catholics, or needing instruction, and
willing to receive it; sometimes they are in distressed circumstances.
Father Dunne's great prudence and charity well fitted him for these
ministrations, and he was equally beloved by Catholics and Protestants. The
good which such a priest does is shared by the benefactor who places him in
the position where he has the means of doing it. The following passage from
a letter of Father Dunne's to Mr. Hope-Scott (May 26, 1869), which must
have been one of his last, will interest the reader as an example:--

You will be glad to know that my being at Hyeres was a great blessing to a
poor young man who died there towards the end of April. He had been at sea,
and was for years without receiving the sacraments. His poor mother, a very
pious woman, was in the greatest anxiety about him. He could not speak
French, and it would have been impossible for him to make his confession if
I, or some other English-speaking priest, was not there. I mention this, as
I know it will be a consolation to you to know that your charity and
benevolence were, under God, the means of saving a poor soul, and will
secure for you the prayers of a bereaved mother, and three holy nuns, aunts
of the poor young man.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1868-1873.

Mr. Hope-Scott's Speech on Termination of Guardianship to the Duke of
Norfolk--Failure in Mr. Hope-Scott's Health--Exhaustion after a Day's
Pleading--His Neglect of Exercise--Death of Mr. Badeley--Letter of Dr.
Newman--Last Correspondence of Mr. Hope and the Bishop of Salisbury
(Hamilton)--Dr. Newman's Friendship for Mr. Hope-Scott and Serjeant
Bellasis--Mr. Hope-Scott proposes to retire--Birth of James Fitzalan Hope--
Death of Lady Victoria Hope-Scott--Mr. Hope-Scott retires from his
Profession--Edits Abridgment of Lockhart, which he dedicates to Mr.
Gladstone--Dr. Newman on Sir Walter Scott--Visit of Dr. Newman to
Abbotsford in 1872--Mr. Hope-Scott's Last Illness--His Faith and
Resignation--His Death--Benediction of the Holy Father--Requiem Mass for
Mr. Hope-Scott at the Jesuit Church, Farm Street--Funeral Ceremonies at St.
Margaret's, Edinburgh--Cardinal Newman and Mr, Gladstone on Mr. Hope-Scott.

Mr. Hope-Scott's duties as trustee and guardian of the Duke of Norfolk had
lasted altogether eight years, when they terminated of course on the Duke's
attaining his majority, on December 27, 1868. The speech made by Mr. Hope-
Scott, at the banquet given by the Duke in the Baron's Hall at Arundel
Castle, to the Mayor and Corporation of Arundel, on the following day, was
a striking and beautiful one. I copy a few lines of it from the summary
given in the 'Tablet' of January 16, 1869:--

Mr. Hope-Scott paid a well-merited tribute to the virtues of the Duchess
when he said that if they observed in the Duke earnestness and yet
gentleness, strict justice and yet most liberal and charitable feelings,
neglect of himself and attention to the wants of all around him, let them
remember that his mother brought him up. The guardianship being now over,
the ward must go forward on the battle-field of life, depending not upon
his rank or property, but upon his own prudence, his own courage, but above
all, his fidelity to God. It was true that his path was strewn with the
broken weapons and defaced armour of many who had gone forth amidst
acclamations as loud and promises as bright, but the groundworks of hope in
his case were the nobility of his father's character, the prayers of his
mother, the strong domestic affections which belong to pure and single-
minded youths, great powers of observation, great vigour of will, and the
daily and habitual influence under which he knew that he lived, of well-
reasoned and well-regulated religion.

The celebrations at Arundel were, I believe, the last occasion, unconnected
with his profession, at which Mr. Hope-Scott ever spoke in public. He had
already, for some years, showed signs of failing health. It used to be
supposed, as has been previously mentioned, from the facility of his manner
in pleading, that he got through his work with little trouble. People
little knew what commonly happened when he reached home, after the day's
pleading was over. Such was his state of lassitude, that he would drop,
like a load, upon the first chair he found, and instantly fall into a
profound sleep: sometimes he was half carried, thus unconscious, to bed, or
sometimes placed at table, and made to swallow a little food. Even when the
prostration was not so overpowering, the chances were that he would fall
fast asleep, at dinner or at dessert, in the middle of a sentence. All this
resembles very closely what Thiers related of himself to Mr. Senior. The
French statesman, after a day of Parliamentary battle, had often to be
carried to his bed by his servants, as motionless and helpless as a corpse.
This strange torpor, after extreme intellectual exertion, seems to have
been observed in Mr. Hope-Scott from a very early stage in his career,
during the great railway excitement of 1845. It was probably connected with
the shock given to his constitution, in his infancy, by the fever at
Florence. There was always a kind of struggle going on in his system.
Unfortunately, throughout his professional life he never took proper
exercise. It was, however, in vain to advise him on this point. He said he
could not _both_ work hard and take exercise also, or would playfully
insist that he had sufficient exercise in pleading. 'Why don't you go out?'
asked a friend. 'Don't you think,' replied Mr. Hope-Scott, 'that the work
in committee gives a man sufficient exercise? Cicero considered making a
speech was exercise.' This great mistake was the more to be wondered at in
Mr. Hope-Scott, as he had had the advantage of an early initiation into
field sports.

He never, indeed, seems to have liked riding. He used to say he had
_once_ been out on a steeplechase at Arundel, and sometimes he went
out shooting there, but these were exceptional occasions. His chief active
amusements, gardening and architecture, were insufficient to compensate the
depression caused by the tremendous strain of half the year at Westminster.

In the year 1856 he was exceedingly unwell, and the failure in his health
became very appreciable, his physician telling him that he had 'the heart
of an overworked brain.' Within two years after this, the violence of his
grief at Mrs. Hope-Scott's death further disordered him. He had an illness
in 1865, and again a serious one in 1867, which, however, he got over, and
went on as usual, but became more unwieldy, and suffered much from impeded
circulation.

It happened also, soon after this, that the breaking up of some very dear
associations, or sure signs of it, began to give warning that the end of
all things was at hand. On March 29, 1868, rather suddenly, died Mr.
Badeley, the most affectionate and faithful friend of so many years. On
hearing of his illness Mr. Hope-Scott had hastened home from Hyeres to
assist him, and was with him each day till the last. Dr. Newman wrote the
following letter on this occasion:--

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

Rednall: March 31, 1868.

My dear Hope-Scott,--What a heavy, sudden, unexpected blow! I shall not
see him now till I cross the stream which he has crossed. How dense is
our ignorance of the future! a darkness which can be felt, and the keenest
consequence and token of the Fall. Till we remind ourselves of what we
are--in a state of punishment--such surprises make us impatient, and
almost angry, alas!

But my blow is nothing to yours, though you had the great consolation of
sitting by his side and being with him to the last. What a fulness of
affection he poured out on you and yours! and how he must have rejoiced to
have your faithful presence with him while he was going! This is your joy
and your pain.

Now he has the recompense for that steady, well-ordered, perpetual course
of devotion and obedience which I ever admired in him, and felt to be so
much above anything that I could reach. All or most of us have said mass
for him, I am sure, this morning; certainly we two have who are here.

I did not write to you during the past fortnight, thinking it would only
bother you, and knowing I should hear if there was anything to tell. But
you have been as much surprised as any one at his sudden summons. I knew it
was the beginning of the end, but thought it was only the beginning. How
was it his medical men did not know better?

I suppose the funeral is on Saturday. God bless and keep and sustain you.

Ever yours most affectionately,

JOHN H. NEWMAN.

The year had not yet come round when the last correspondence passed between
Mr. Hope-Scott and another dear friend, Dr. Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury,
his brother-Fellow at Merton so many years before.

_J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C. to the Eight Rev. Dr. Hamilton (Bishop of
Salisbury)_.

Hyeres: March 10, 1869.

My dear Friend,--I have watched the papers with anxiety, and learnt all I
could from home about your health, but have been unwilling to trouble you
with a letter. However, Manning has just been here, and we naturally spoke
with our old affection of you, and joined in hopes for your welfare; and I
thought you might like to know that two of your oldest friends have been so
engaged. Hence these few lines. May GOD keep you!

Yours ever affectionately,

JAMES E. HOPE-SCOTT.

_The Right Rev. Dr. Hamilton (Bishop of Salisbury) to J. R. Hope-Scott,
Esq., Q.C._

33 Grosvenor Street: March 13, 1869.

My dearly loved Friend,--I have received your note, _non sine multis
lachrymis_, and though I am too weak to write or answer myself, I must
dictate a few words of thankfulness to it. Few trials of my life I have
felt with such keenness as my separation from two such friends, from whom I
have learnt so much, and whom I have loved and love so dearly as Manning
and yourself. Perhaps this feeling for you both has helped to prevent my
doing that which it has been my daily aim not to do, namely, to hinder
either by word or deed that object which I venture to say is as dear to me
as to you--the reunion of Christendom. May GOD forgive me anything which
has led me to lose sight of this in all my ministrations! Nothing, however,
would tend more to forward this than a just and charitable estimate of the
claims of the Church of England on the part of the authorities of your
communion. I have dictated these few words, and my chaplain, Liddon, has
written them exactly as I have dictated them, and I beg you to receive them
as a legacy of affection and deep respect from your old brother-Fellow.

W. K. SARUM.

_J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q. C. to the Rev. Canon Liddon_.

Villa Favart, Hyeres: March 17, 1869.

My dear Sir,--Accept my grateful thanks for the letter which you added to
that of my very dear friend the Bishop. To him I do not write, for it is
plain that he should make no exertion that can be avoided; but I trust to
your kindness to assure him that I was indeed deeply moved--more than I can
well say--both by his love for me and by his sufferings, and that my
prayers, and those of others far more worthy than myself, are offered to
GOD for him.

Yours very truly,

JAMES R. HOPE-SCOTT.

And another twelvemonth had not been completed before Mr. Hope-Scott's
attached friend and familiar neighbour of many years (both in London and at
Hyeres), Serjeant Bellasis, was visibly nearing his departure. [Footnote:
He lingered till January 24, 1873.] The following letters witness, in a
most touching manner, to their mutual affection, and to that of Dr. Newman
for them both:--

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

The Oratory: March 3, '70.

My dear Hope-Scott,--After writing a conversational letter to Bellasis
yesterday, I heard at night so sad an account, which I had not anticipated,
of his pain and his weakness and want of sleep, that I not only was
distressed that it had gone, and felt that it would harass him to receive a
second letter so soon, and, as he would anticipate, as unseasonable as the
former. Therefore I enclose with this a few lines to him, which you can let
him have when you think right.

I do not undervalue the seriousness of your first letter about him, and
have had him constantly in my mind; but I did not contemplate his pain, or
his sudden decline. I thought it would be a long business, but now I find
that the complaint is making its way.

What a severe blow it must be to you! but to me, in my own way, it is very
great too, though in a different way; for, though I am not in his constant
society as you are, he has long been _pars magna_ of this place, and
he has, by his various acts of friendship through a succession of years,
created for himself a presence in my thoughts, so that the thought of being
without him carries with it the sense of a void, to which it is difficult
to assign a limit. Three aequales I shall have lost--Badeley, H. Bowden, and
Bellasis; and such losses seem to say that I have no business here myself.
It is the penalty of living to lose the great props of life. What a
melancholy prospect for his poor boys! When you have an opportunity, say
everything kind from me to Mrs. Bellasis. I shall, I trust, say two masses
a week for him. He is on our prayer lists. What a vanity is life! how it
crumbles under one's touch!

I hope you are getting strong, and that this does not weigh too heavily on
you....

Ever yours affectionately,

JOHN H. NEWMAN.

_J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C. to the Very Rev. Dr. Newman_.

Hotel d'Orient, Hyeres, Var, France:

March 6, '70.

Dear F. Newman,--I received yours yesterday evening, but withhold the
enclosure for Bellasis, as I think it might do him harm. [After giving a
somewhat better account of his friend's health:]

Masses and prayers I am sure he has many, and I know how grateful he is for
your deep interest in him.... Should he be able to get out, I hope for more
progress: but, with slight exceptions, he has now been confined to the
house for weeks. However, his patience helps his greatly, and when, as
lately he has often been, free from pain, his cheerfulness revives, and
with it his interest in the works he has undertaken, and the subjects which
have long interested him.

I am sure that the dedication of your new work [the 'Grammar of Assent'] to
him affects him, as that of your poems did Badeley, in a very soothing way.
Few have such extensive means of testifying to their friendships as you
have.

Yours affectionately,

JAMES E. HOPE-SCOTT.

Repeated griefs of this kind would not be without their effect on Mr. Hope-
Scott's own already failing health. By 1870 the physicians pronounced that
there was functional, though not organic, disease of the heart, the valve
losing its power to close. He spoke of this himself to a near relative at
the time, adding that he had immediately asked whether he might expect the
end to come suddenly; but had been told that in all probability it would
not, and that he would have warning of its approach. He now began to talk
of retiring, and did take the first step, by giving up a certain number of
causes. But he said to a professional friend: 'I own I dread giving up; it
is almost like the excitement of racing, and the reaction would be so
strong, life so flat, when such an interest is lost, and the stimulus
over.' Before this happened, meeting another friend in the street, who had
wisely retreated in time, Mr. Hope-Scott asked him how he got on? 'Oh, very
well; I fall back on my old classics--don't you do the same?' 'Oh no,'
replied Mr. Hope-Scott; 'when I go to the country, I find it indispensable
to allow my mind to lie entirely fallow. I live in the open air, go on
planting, and do no mental work whatever.'

This was the state of things when he had suddenly to meet a new sorrow, and
the last. A son, indeed (James Fitzalan), was born to him on December 18,
1870, thus replacing the long wished-for blessing which had been given and
withdrawn; but Lady Victoria's health had for years been enfeebled, a fever
came on, and, after lingering for a time between life and death, she
expired at Norfolk House on December 20, aged only thirty, leaving three
little girls, besides the newly born babe. It happened on this occasion, as
so often in Mr. Hope-Scott's life, that he had persuaded himself that
things would be as he wished they should. He never believed that Lady
Victoria was dying, though she was in her agony, and had been senseless for
ten days; nay, he could hardly be made to think it, even at the last
moment; and this time he never recovered the shock. The morning after the
funeral [Footnote: Lady Victoria Hope-Scott was laid beside her father and
her two infant children in the vault at Arundel Castle.] he said that he
considered he had had a warning that night--the disease had made a stride.
He had never contemplated surviving his wife, and had made all arrangements
on the supposition that he was to die before her. On the very night that
followed he altered his will. He sent for his confidential clerk, destroyed
quantities of papers, and, in short, evidently considered himself a dying
man. He now definitively retired from his profession, and, though he
survived for more than two years, what remains to be told is little more
than the story of a last illness.

The years 1871 and 1872, indeed, passed tranquilly enough, as if there was
a lull and a silence after the storm. Mr. Hope-Scott resided chiefly at
Abbotsford, and devoted part of his leisure in the first year to preparing
an edition (the Centenary) of the Abridgment of Lockhart's 'Life of Scott.'
[Footnote: _The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Earl., abridged from the larger
work_, by J. C. Lockhart, with a Prefatory Letter by James R. Hope-
Scott, Esq., Q.C. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871.] He also thought
that it was time for the larger 'Life' to be revised, and the extracts from
letters to be compared with the originals, &c., and actually began the task
after the republication of the Abridgment, but, I believe, very soon gave
it up. He dedicated the Abridgment to Mr. Gladstone, whose letter in reply
to his proposal to do so is subjoined:--

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