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

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I have heard a good deal on the ----'s: it is attributed more immediately
to her--but however brought about, I cannot think hardly of it. Rather, I
feel as if those were to be congratulated who have already done that which
_intellectually_, and to a great extent _morally_, I feel
persuaded should be done.

Yrs. ever affectionately,

JAMES R. HOPE.

The memorable 'Papal Aggression' excitement, which arose in England in
November 1850, is believed to have been what finally brought Mr. Hope to
the conclusion, or rather, to action upon the conclusion, to which he had
been so long tending. Some time after this, when, in conversation, Mr.
Lockhart asked him how it was possible he could have attributed such weight
to so slight a reason, Mr. Hope replied to the effect that Mr. Lockhart
would easily understand that the last link in a chain of argument on which
action depends, needs not in appearance be the strongest. He spoke of his
conversion as of a veil falling from his eyes. [Footnote: A correspondence
of this period of Mr. Hope's with the present Cardinal Newman (very
important as far as it goes) has been given in some previous pages (pp. 65-
68).] The same influence is visible in the letter in which Mr. Manning
(since the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster) announced to Mr. Hope his
resignation of the Archdeaconry of Chichester.

_The Rev. H. E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

Lavington: Nov. 23, 1850.

My dear Hope,--Your last letter was a help to me, for I began to feel as if
every man had gone to his own house and left the matter.... Since then
events have driven me to a decision. This anti-Popery cry has seized my
brethren, and they asked me to be convened. I must either resign at once,
or convene them ministerially and express my dissent, the reasons of which
would involve my resignation. I went to the Bishop and said this, and
tendered my resignation. He was very kind, and wished me to take time, but
I have written and made it final.... I should be glad if we might keep
together; and whatever must be done, do it with a calm and deliberateness
which shall give testimony that it is not done in lightness.

Ever affectionately yours,

H. E. M.

Mr. Manning was considerably Mr. Hope's senior, [Footnote: Four years
exactly. He was born July 15, 1808. The same also was Mr. Hope's birthday.]
but they had been brother-Fellows of Merton College, and were now intimate
friends, passing through the same stages of conversion, each having great
confidence in the logical powers and in the earnestness of the other in
applying them. Either at that time, or very soon afterwards, Mr. Manning
became the guest of Mr. Hope at his house in Curzon Street; and here he
used to receive the many converts and half-converts who flocked to consult
him in their difficulties during that period of transition, when such an
unexampled rush seemed to be making into the net of the fisherman. Mr.
Hope's letters to Cardinal Manning were unfortunately destroyed about three
years ago, but the other side of the correspondence is still represented by
a small collection of letters of great interest. Mr. Hope, I think, had
made up his mind at Abbotsford, and on his arrival in London announced it
to his mother; but it is certain that immediately before taking the final
step he and Mr. Manning went over the whole ground again together, to
satisfy themselves that there was no flaw or mistake in the argument and
conclusion.

_The Rev. Henry E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

_Private_. 44 Cadogan Place: December 11, 1850.

My dear Hope,--I feel with you that the argument is complete. For a long
time I nevertheless felt a fear lest I should be doing an act morally
wrong.

This fear has passed away, because the Church of England has revealed
itself in a way to make me fear more on the other side. It remains,
therefore, as an act of the will. But this I suppose it must be. And in
making it I am helped by the fact that to remain under our changed or
revealed circumstances would also be an act of the will, and that not in
conformity with, but in opposition to intellectual real conviction; and the
intellect is God's gift, and our instrument in attaining knowledge of His
will.... It would be to me a very great happiness if we could act together,
and our names go together in the first publication of the fact.... The
subject which has brought me to my present convictions is the perpetual
office of the Church, under Divine guidance, in expounding the truth and
deciding controversies. And the book which forced this on me was Melchior
Canus' 'Loci Theologici.' It is a long book, but so orderly that you may
get the whole outline with ease. Moehler's _Symbolik_ you know.

But, after all, Holy Scripture comes to me in a new light, as Ephes. iv. 4-
17, which seems to preclude the notion of a divisible unity: which is, in
fact, Arianism in the matter of the Church.

I entirely feel what you say of the alternative. It is either Rome or
licence of thought and will....

Believe me always affectionately yours,

H. E. MANNING.

The following extract from a letter of Mr. Hope's to the Rev. Robert
Campbell [since also a Catholic], dated 'Abbotsford, September 15, 1851,'
affords additional and important light on the motives of his own
conversion:--

You seem to think that the present condition of the Church of England has
been the cause of my conversion. That it has contributed thereto I am far
from denying, but it has done so by way of evidence only; of evidence, the
chain of which reaches up to the Reformation, and confirms by outward
proofs those conclusions which H. Scripture and reason forced upon me as to
the character of the original act of separation. This distinction I am
anxious should be observed, for the neglect of it has led some to suppose
that recent converts have, from disgust or other causes, deserted a true
Church in her time of need, whereas, for one, I can safely say that I left
her because I was convinced that she never, from the Reformation downwards,
had been a true Church. Pray excuse this digression, which I do not mean by
way of controversy, but merely of explanation.

J. R. H.

On _Passion Sunday_, April 6, 1851, Mr. Hope, and at the same time
with him Mr. Manning, were received into the Catholic Church at Farm Street
by the Rev. Father J. Brownbill, S.J.

I must not withhold from the reader a note, written the next day, and one
or two passages from later letters of Mr. Manning's referring to the same
subject.

_The Rev. Henry E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

14 Queen Street: April 7, 1851.

My dear Hope,--Will you accept this copy of the book you saw in my room
yesterday [the 'Paradisus Animae'], in memory of Passion Sunday, and its
gift of grace to us? It is the most perfect book of devotion I know. Let me
ask one thing. I read it through, one page at least a day, between Jan. 26
and Aug. 22, 1846, marking where I left off with the dates. It seemed to
give me a new science, with order and harmony and details as of devotion
issuing from and returning into dogma. Could you burden yourself with the
same resolution? If so, do it for my sake, and remember me when you do
it.... I feel as if I had no desire unfulfilled, but to persevere in what
God has given me for His Son's sake.

Believe me, my dear Hope,

Always affectionately yours,

H. E. M.

14 _Queen St.: Oct._ 21, 1851.--... I am once more in my old quarters.
They bring back strange remembrances. What revolutions have passed since we
started from this room that Saturday morning! And how blessed an end! as
the soul said to Dante. 'E da martirio venni a questa pace.'... You do not
need that I should say how sensibly I remember all your sympathy, which was
the only human help in the time when we two went together through the
trial, which to be known must be endured.

_Rome: March_ 17, 1852...--How this time reminds me of last year! On
Passion Sunday I shall be in Retreat. 'Stantes erant pedes nostri,'
[Footnote: These words were written in a copy of the _Speculum Vitae
Sacerdotalis_, given by J. R. Hope to H. E. Manning in April 1851. [Note
by his Eminence Cardinal Manning.]] and we made no mistake in our long
reckoning, though we feared it up to the last opening of Fr. B.'s door.

H. E. M.

The superficial impression which many of his friends had of Mr. Hope's
conversion at the time will be illustrated by the following remarks, one of
them made to me in conversation with a view to this memoir: 'Mr. Hope was a
man with two lives: one, that of a lawyer; the other, that of a pious
Christian, who said his prayers, and did not give much thought to
controversy. He would be rather influenced by patent facts. He was not at
all moving with the stream, and rather laughed at X. with his "narrow
views." He was a strong Anglican, an adherent of _learned_
Anglicanism. His conversion took _Catholics_ by surprise, who were not
aware how far he went.' The feeling in society as to his change was marked
by a tone of much greater consideration than was commonly displayed in such
cases, of which proof is given in an interesting letter which I have quoted
in a former page. 'As far as I know' (writes Lady Georgiana Fullerton)
'there was no attempt made, in Mr. Hope's case, to trace that act to any of
the causes which, in almost every other instance, were supposed to account
for conversions to Catholicism. The frankness of his nature, his well-known
good sense, the sound clearness of his judgment, so unmistakably evinced in
his profession, precluded the possibility of attributing his adoption of
the Catholic faith to weakness of mind, duplicity, sentiment, eccentricity,
or excitability.'

I reserve what may be called the domestic side of this crowning event of
Mr. Hope's religious life to a future chapter. The following is the letter
alluded to by Mr. Gladstone in his letter to Miss Hope-Scott, given in
Appendix III., and on which he wrote the words '_Quis desiderio_.'
[Footnote: Let me balance Mr. Gladstone's _Quis desiderio_ with a note
written by Pere Roothaan, Father-General of the Jesuits, to Count Senfft,
on hearing of Mr. Hope's conversion:--

'Plurimam salutem nostro C. de Senfft, qui procul dubio maxima cum
congratulatione accepit notitiam de conversione ad rel. cath. praeclari
Dni. Hope, Anglicani, quem ipse comes Monachio Romam venientem mihi
commendaverat. Ipsum tunc et iterum et tertio Romam intra hos tres annos
venientem videram saepius, et semper vicinior mihi visus fuerat regno Dei.
Nuper tandem cessit gratiae. Alleluja!'--Given in a letter of Count
Senfft's to Mr. Hope-Scott, dated Innsbruck: 1 Juin, 1851.]

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

14 Curzon Street: June 18, '51.

My dear Gladstone,--I am very much obliged for the book which you have sent
me, but still more for the few words and figures which you have placed upon
the title-page. The day of the month in your own handwriting will be a
record between us that the words of affection which you have written were
used by you after the period at which the great change of my life took
place. To grudge any sacrifice which that change entails would be to
undervalue its paramount blessedness, but, as far as regrets are compatible
with extreme thankfulness, I do and must regret any estrangement from you--
you with whom I have trod so large a portion of the way which has led me to
peace; you, who are 'ex voto' at least in that Catholic Church which to me
has become a practical reality, admitting of no doubt; you, who have so
many better claims to the merciful guidance of Almighty God than myself.

It is most comforting, then, to me to know by your own hand that on the
17th June, 1851, the personal feelings so long cherished have been, not
only acknowledged by yourself, but expressed to me--I do not ask more just
now--it would be painful to you; nay, it would be hardly possible for
either of us to attempt (except under one condition, for which I daily
pray) the restoration of entire intimacy at present; but neither do I
despair under any circumstances that it will yet be restored. Remember me
most kindly to Mrs. Gladstone, and believe me,

Yours as ever most affectionately,

JAMES R. HOPE.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, &c. &c.

The subjoined reply of Mr. Gladstone to this beautiful letter, which he has
mournfully called 'the epitaph of our friendship,' is certainly a noble and
a tender one. The very depth of feeling which he shows at his friend's
refusal of what he considers 'the high vocation' before him, is, however,
only a proof of that spiritual chasm which Mr. Hope more unflinchingly
surveyed. After this date the correspondence soon flags, and at length
sustains an interruption of years. It was practically resumed towards the
close of Mr. Hope's life, and affords one more letter of great interest, in
which Mr. Hope explains his own political views. This I shall give as we
proceed.

_The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

6 Carlton Gardens: June 22, 1851.

My dear Hope,--Upon the point most prominently put in your welcome letter I
will only say you have not misconstrued me. Affection which is fed by
intercourse, and above all by co-operation for sacred ends, has little need
of verbal expression, but such expression is deeply ennobling when active
relations have changed. It is no matter of merit to me to feel strongly on
the subject of that change. It may be little better than pure selfishness.
I have too good reason to know what this year has cost me; and so little
hope have I that the places now vacant can be filled up for me, that the
marked character of these events in reference to myself rather teaches me
this lesson--the work to which I had aspired is reserved for other and
better men. And if that be the Divine will, I so entirely recognise its
fitness that the grief would so far be small to me were I alone concerned.
The pain, the wonder, and the mystery is this--that you should have refused
the higher vocation you had before you. The same words, and all the same
words, I should use of Manning too. Forgive me for giving utterance to what
I believe myself to see and know; I will not proceed a step further in that
direction.

There is one word, and one only in your letter that I do not interpret
closely. Separated we are, but I hope and think not yet estranged. Were I
more estranged I should bear the separation better. If estrangement is to
come I know not, but it will only be, I think, from causes the operation of
which is still in its infancy--causes not affecting me. Why should I be
estranged from you? I honour you even in what I think your error; why,
then, should my feelings to you alter in anything else? It seems to me as
though, in these fearful times, events were more and more growing too large
for our puny grasp, and that we should the more look for and trust the
Divine purpose in them when we find they have wholly passed beyond the
reach and measure of our own. 'The Lord is in His holy temple: let all the
earth keep silence before Him.' The very afflictions of the present time
are a sign of joy to follow. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, is still
our prayer in common: the same prayer, in the same sense; and a prayer
which absorbs every other. That is for the future: for the present we have
to endure, to trust, and to pray that each day may bring its strength with
its burden, and its lamp for its gloom.

Ever yours with unaltered affection,

W. E. GLADSTONE.

J. R. Hope, Esq.

The following letter, written on the same occasion by another celebrated
person, will be read with a very painful interest:--

_The Rev. Dr. Doellinger to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

Munich: April 22, 1851.

My dear Sir,--Allow me to express the sincere delight which I have felt and
am still feeling at the intelligence which has reached me of your having
entered the pale of the Church. This is indeed 'a consummation devoutly
wished' ever since I had the good luck of making your acquaintance. How
often when with you did the words rise to my lips: _Talis cum sis, utinam
noster esses!_ I knew well enough that in voto you belonged already to
the one true Church, but I could not but feel some anxiety in reflecting
that in a matter of such paramount importance those who don't move forward
must needs after a certain time go backward. Then came the news of your
marriage, and I don't know what put the foolish idea into my head that you
would probably get connected with the 'Quarterly Review' and its
principles, and that thereby a new barrier would interpose itself between
you and the Church, and that perhaps your feelings for your friends in
Germany would not remain the same. Happily these _umbrae pallentes_
have now vanished, and I trust we will make the ties of friendship closer
and stronger by establishing between us a community and exchange of
prayers.

I can but too well imagine how severe the trials must be to which you are
now exposed--especially in the present ferment, when a vein of bitterness
has been opened in England which will not close so soon, and when the
hoarse voice of religious acrimony is filling the atmosphere with its
dismal sounds. With the peculiar gentleness of your disposition you will
have to encounter the fierce attacks of the [Greek: Ellaenes], as well as
of the [Greek: Hioudaioi], I mean of those to whom the Church is a [Greek:
skandalon], as well as of those to whom it is [Greek: moria]. I can only
pray for you, and trust that He who has given you the first victory of
faith will also give you _robur et aes triplex circa pectus_, for less
will scarcely do....

Yours entirely and unalterably,

J. DOELLINGER.

Mr. James R. Hope, Queen's Counsel.

I have not met with any later correspondence of Dr. Doellinger's with Mr.
Hope-Scott than this, excepting a mere note. He visited Abbotsford in 1852.
There is a letter of Count Leo Thun's to Mr. Hope (dated Wien, den 7. Juli
1851), in which, after expressing the joy he had felt at the news of his
having become a Catholic, he remarks, 'I know how slowly, and on what sure
foundations the decision came to maturity in your soul.' Two letters of Mr.
Hope's to Mr. Badeley, though not coincident in point of time with the
event before us, contain passages so closely connected with it as to find
their place here. Though Mr. Badeley's Anglicanism was scarce hanging by a
thread, he held out for a time, but became a Catholic previously to July
15, 1852.

_J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C. to E. Badeley, Esq._

Abbotsford: Oct. 25, '51.

Dear B.,-- ... As for you, I hold your intellect to be Catholic. You
cannot help it, but your habits of feeling will give you, as they gave me,
more trouble than your reason. How can it be otherwise, considering how
many years of training in one posture we both of us underwent? But I pray
and hope for you, and that speedily, that freedom of life and limb which
has been vouchsafed to me. Freedom indeed it is, for it is to breathe in
all its fulness the grace and mercy of God's kingdom, instead of tasting it
through the narrow lattices of texts and controversies. To believe Christ
present in the Eucharist, and not adore Him--not pray Him to tarry with us
and bless us. To hold the communion of saints, and yet refuse to call upon
all saints--living and departed, to intercede for us with the great Head of
the body in which we all are members. To accept a primacy in St. Peter, and
yet hold it immaterial to the organisation of the Church. To acknowledge
one Church, and then divide the unity into fragments. To attribute to the
Church the power of the keys, and then deny the force of her indulgences
while admitting her absolutions. To approve confession, and practically set
it aside. To do and hold these and many other contradictions--what is it
but to submit the mind to the fetters of a tradition which, if once made to
reason, must destroy itself?... Yrs ever affly,

JAMES R. HOPE.

Abbotsford: July 16, 1852.

Dear Badeley,--I received your most kind letter yesterday. I well knew that
I should hear from you, for you are an accurate observer of my birthdays--
not one for many years having escaped you. This one does indeed deserve
notice in one sense, as being the first on which you and I could salute
each other as Catholics. May God grant that this His great gift may be
fruitful to us both! Forty years of my life are already gone--of yours,
more. Let us try to make the best of what may still remain. We have now all
the helps which Christ's death provided for us, and all the
responsibilities which come with them. 'Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina!... Yrs most affly, JAMES R. HOPE.

E. Badeley, Esq.

To the above correspondence, the following scrap from a letter of Mr. David
Lewis, congratulating Mr. Hope on his conversion, may form an appropriate
_pendant_, as showing Mr. Hope's influence in the Catholic direction
previously to that event: 'I may add that I owe in part my own conversion
to conversation with you, which turned me to a course of reading the end of
which I did not expect. It is therefore no small joy to me to see you in
the same harbour of refuge' (May 15, 1851). Some years later (in spring,
1855) it was a subject of intense joy to Mr. Hope-Scott when the news came
from Rome that William Palmer had been received into the Church by Father
Passaglia.

CHAPTER XXII.

1839-1869.

Review of Mr. Hope's Professional Career--His View of Secular Pursuits--
Advice from Archdeacon Manning against Overwork--Early Professional
Services to Government--J. K. Hope adopts the Parliamentary Bar--His
Elements of Success--Is made Q.C.--Difficulty about Supremacy Oath--Mr.
Venables on Mr. Hope-Scott as a Pleader--Recollections of Mr. Cameron--Mr.
Hope-Scott on his own Profession--Mr. Hope-Scott's Professional Day--
Regular History of Practice not Feasible--Specimens of Cases: 1. The
Caledonian Railway interposing a Tunnel. 2. Award by Mr. Hope-Scott and R.
Stephenson. 3. Mersey Conservancy and Docks Bill, 'Parliamentary Hunting-
day,' Liverpool and Manchester compared. 4. London, Brighton, and South
Coast and the Beckenham Line. 5. Scottish Railways--An Amalgamation Case--
Mr. Hope-Scott and Mr. Denison; Honourable Conduct of Mr. Hope-Scott as a
Pleader. 6. Dublin Trunk Connecting Railway. 7. Professional Services of
Mr. Hope-Scott to Eton--Claims of Clients on Time--Value of Ten Minutes--
Conscientiousness--Professional Income--Extra Occupations--Affection of Mr.
Hope-Scott for Father Newman--Spirit in which he laboured.

On taking the step of which I have just related the history, Mr. Hope had
not to encounter the usual array of external ills that assail the convert's
life. Although he was now a Catholic, his eloquence had lost none of its
magic, and railway directors were not very likely to indulge their bigotry
at the expense of their dividends. He lost not, I suppose, a single
retainer, and his practice at the bar went on as before. His conversion,
however, affords us a convenient point at which to turn aside and review
his professional career, contrasting so singularly with what the ordinary
observer would have anticipated for him under such a condition. We are so
much accustomed to associate religious doubts or convictions with an
unworldliness which is rarely visible where great worldly success is
attained, that on leaving the cloisters of Oxford, and entering with him
the committee-rooms of the Houses of Parliament, we seem to behold the
curtain raised all at once, and the same actor appearing in a totally new
character, with hardly a feature left that can identify him with the
previous representation.

He was, indeed, himself not insensible to this contrast, and had early
marked off from purely secular pursuits that choice and precious portion of
his time which could be reserved for higher objects. An interesting passage
in a letter of his to Mr. Gladstone (dated from Lincoln's Inn, June 25,
1841) will illustrate this feeling by a phrase which I italicise, as I
believe he was fond of using it: 'My reason for staying in town is to read
ecclesiastical law, and to prepare (if so be) for election committees.
_The former branch I reckon my flower-garden, the latter my cabbage-
field.'_ [Footnote: See letter of Mr. Gladstone to Miss Hope-Scott,
Appendix III.] When Anglicanism and its institutions had broken down under
him, and others not as yet come in their place, he sought in the purely
temporal works of his calling perhaps a refuge from doubts, certainly a
means of sanctification; and either alternative explains the issue. A
religious mind could never succeed in silencing religious difficulty by
earthly pursuits, but in whatever measure it sought to sanctify the latter,
would be led onwards to the faith. The following passage from a letter of
the then Archdeacon Manning (now Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster) to Mr.
Hope (dated Dec. 9, 1842) will show that this ardent and restless
application to his profession was watched at the time by Mr. Hope's friends
with some degree of anxiety and surprise. The kind and wise admonitions it
conveys, only distantly indeed bearing on the religious side of the
question, many may read with much profit:--

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