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

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As a bystander I see you working too much, and looking at times
overwrought; and I ask myself, what is this man's aim? It must needs be
something very high and far off to need all this unremitting tension of
mind. I do much wish to see you more relaxed, and with more play. I know it
is a more difficult attainment to be able both to work intensely and to
relax thoroughly. But without it a man deteriorates. He becomes a keen,
case-hardened tool, and no man. Our friends the Germans are not far wrong
when they talk about developing what is universal in man, i.e. his
humanity, which is a whole, and must be unfolded as a whole to be perfect,
or even to approximate perfection. You will burn this if I go on, so I will
leave you to Lancilotti.

Believe me ever yours affectly,

H. E. MANNING.

The field finally adopted by Mr. Hope was the _Parliamentary Bar_, at
which, as we have seen, he had practised to a certain extent from the
first, though with considerable interruption from the legal and financial
affairs of his college and the Sarum Chancery, as well as other weighty
business, including in 1839 services rendered as Counsel to the Government
in the preparation of the Foreign Marriages Bill; in 1843 of the Consular
Jurisdiction Bill, the report which he furnished on which, to be seen in
the Parliamentary Records, would alone have been sufficient to have made a
great reputation in that particular line; and in 1843-44 he was engaged by
Government in the matter of the Franco-Mexican arbitration to prepare a
report on some points in dispute between France and Mexico, which had been
submitted to the arbitration of Great Britain. I presume that his retainers
in these cases would be principally due to the fact that his brother, Mr.
George W. Hope, was now a member of the Government as Under Secretary of
State for the Colonies in Sir Robert Peel's administration. But the 'fame'
that had already gone abroad regarding him, particularly for his learning
in all matters that touched ecclesiastical law, would have been sure,
independently of private interest, to have brought him early into
prominence. The Ecclesiastical Courts Bill in 1843 engaged much of his
attention, and his share in the legal business connected with troubles of
that year at Oxford has been noticed in its place. On October 26, 1843, he
took his degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. In 1844, at the suggestion of the
Bishop of London (Right Rev. Dr. Blomfield), he was accepted by the Lord
Chancellor as one of the persons to consider the chapter on offences
against religion and the Church in the proposed Code of Criminal Law.

In a short, time, however, his practice seems to have merged in the
department with which his name is principally connected, that of railway
pleading. This branch of the profession, though affording little or no
scope for those powers of oratory which his first speech before the Lords
showed that he possessed, nor yet opening those avenues to power and fame
which usually tempt minds of his class, were undoubtedly highly lucrative,
and by this time Mr. Hope's charities must have nearly exhausted his modest
patrimony. It had also one great advantage, in its business being
principally confined to the Parliamentary session, thus leaving him free to
travel six months in the year. I have seen it stated that in conversation
with a friend he gave this as his chief reason for adopting it. He may have
said so half in jest; but there can, I believe, be little doubt that a far
deeper reason was that the Parliamentary bar was likely to present fewer
cases of difficulty in point of conscience than he would have had to
encounter in the Common Law courts.

It is needless to mention, except for the sake of the few persons who may
not happen to have even that superficial acquaintance with the subject
which newspaper reading can supply, that advocates practising at the
Parliamentary bar are engaged in pleading for or against the private bills
referred to committees of Parliament, relating, for example, to railways,
canals, docks, gas-works, and the like. These are each referred to a
committee of five, supposed to represent the whole House; witnesses of
course are examined, and counsel heard on behalf of the companies or
individuals concerned. To plead before a tribunal of such a nature and on
such interests evidently demands qualifications of a special kind. Mr. Hope
possessed some external ones which are by no means unimportant. His noble
presence, in the first place, gave him a great advantage; and a known name
and known antecedents like his were also additional recommendations of
great value. Then came his tact, clearness of intellect, memory for names
and details, his moral qualities, especially his perfect sense of honour,
which gained him the ear of the committees, and, what is still more
difficult, enabled him to keep it.

Mr. Hope then very early attained to the front rank in his profession, and
on the retirement of Mr. Charles Austin, Q.C. (1848), and the deaths of
Sergeant Wrangham (_d_. March 1869) and Mr. John C. Talbot, Q.C.
(_d_. 1852), may be said to have had no rival in reputation or
practice until the present Sir E. B. Denison 'gradually began to compete
with him on not unequal terms.' Mr. St. George Burke, Q.C., Mr. Merewether,
Q.C., and Mr. Rodwell, Q.C., were other contemporaries of his, who all had
a large practice and great reputation, but were, I believe, as seldom as
possible pitted against Mr. Hope-Scott.

Early in 1849 Mr. Hope received a patent of precedence, entitling him to
rank with her Majesty's counsel; and in April of that year attended the
levee as Q.C. It was at his own request that the dignity of the silk gown
was conferred upon him in this form; and his reason was a conscientious
difficulty about taking the oath of supremacy so far as it denied the papal
authority, ecclesiastical or civil, as existing _de facto et de jure_
in the realm. He states his difficulty in a letter to Mr. Badeley (February
23, 1849), as follows:--

That the Pope _does_ exercise jurisdiction in this country is
notorious; and that he ought to do so over R. Catholics seems to be
admitted by the present state of the law as to that church. The oath, then,
cannot be taken as it was originally meant, and the only sense in which I
think it can be accepted is, that the Pope has not, nor without consent of
the Legislature ought to have, an external coercive power over the Queen's
subjects.

But this compromise did not satisfy him, and he therefore refused the silk
gown, except under the conditions previously stated, which did not require
him to take the oath of supremacy at all. His request for the patent of
precedence, and his reasons for wishing it, were conveyed through a legal
friend to the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, who made no difficulty
whatever in granting it. The following anecdote will amuse the reader. When
the Chancellor had to report to the Premier (Lord John Russell) the various
appointments he had made, Lord John asked Lord Cottenham why he had given
Mr. Hope-Scott a patent of precedence instead of making him a Q.C. On the
Chancellor's replying that he had done it because of Mr. Hope-Scott's
scruples about the oath, Lord John exclaimed, 'That's more than I would
have done.'

Such illustrations of Mr. Hope-Scott's professional success as I have been
able to collect, either from oral sources or correspondence, may fitly be
introduced by a valuable paper on his characteristics as an advocate by Mr.
G. S. Venables, Q.C. It is obviously drawn up with great care and
reflection by a skilled observer, who had the best opportunities for
arriving at a correct judgment. I omit the two opening paragraphs, the
principal facts contained in which have been given in a former page.
CRITICISM ON MR. HOPE-SCOTT'S CHARACTERISTICS AS A PLEADER. BY G. S.
VENABLES, ESQ., Q.C.

The Bar is exempt from envy of merited success, and Mr. Hope-Scott's
undisputed pre-eminence never provoked a feeling of personal jealousy.
Though he cultivated little intimacy with his professional associates, his
courtesy and good humour never failed; and he showed due appreciation of
the services a leader requires from his junior colleagues.

His singularly attractive appearance produced its natural effect in
conciliating those around him, and the pleasant and cheerful manner which
nevertheless repelled familiarity tended to make him generally popular.

The most remarkable forensic qualities of Mr. Hope-Scott were facility,
prudence, and grace of language and manner. The subtlety of his intellect,
if it had been ostentatiously displayed, might perhaps have impaired the
confidence which he had the art of inspiring. Inexperienced members of the
tribunals before which he practised were tempted to forget that he was an
advocate, while they listened to the perspicuous statements which led up
with apparent absence of design to a carefully premeditated conclusion. It
could never be suspected from his manner that he was constantly supporting
a paradox, or that he anticipated defeat.

When he had occasion in successive contests to maintain opposite
propositions, it seemed that the circumstances of the case, not the
position of the advocate, had been changed.

In Parliamentary practice there is no room for the more ambitious kinds of
eloquence, nor can it be known whether Mr. Hope-Scott would have been
capable of elevated declamation. [Footnote: Of the latter, however, two or
three specimens are given in this memoir. See vol. i. (pp. 199, 200), vol.
ii. (pp. 115-118).] In dealing with questions of fact, of expediency, of
equitable policy, and of complicated agreement, he has probably never been
excelled. His lucid arrangement of topics, his pure polished style, and his
appearance of dispassionate conviction secured the pleased attention of his
audience. The more tedious parts of his argument or narrative were from
time to time relieved by touches of the playfulness which is more popular
than humour; but the colleagues and opponents who thoroughly understood his
object, knew that it was pursued with undeviating constancy of purpose.

In the lightest of his speeches there was neither carelessness nor
vacillation. Less finished advocates turn aside to indulge themselves in
playing with an illustration or a favourite proposition, at the risk of
betraying the distinction between their own natural train of thought and
their immediate argument. Mr. Hope-Scott was too consummate an artist to be
tempted into irrelevance or digression.

His success would not have been less complete if his practice had required
him to trace the fine analogies and close deductions of law. His intellect
was admirably adapted to the comparison of precedents and to the
application of legal principles. His acuteness was at the same time
comprehensive and minute, and he delighted in finding appropriate
expression for the nicest distinctions. When he had sometimes occasion to
spend hours in contesting the clauses of a bill, he had a surprising
faculty of averting the weariness which is ordinarily inseparable from the
prolonged discussion of details. Professional associates, who willingly
recognised his general superiority, sometimes confessed that in the most
irksome of their contests they were placed at an exceptional disadvantage
in comparison of Mr. Hope-Scott's felicitous adroitness. He excelled in
dealing with skilled witnesses, who were themselves from the nature of the
case supplementary advocates. The object of cross-examination, where there
is little serious dispute as to the facts, is to draw from the mouth of a
hostile witness the other half of the story. An accurate memory, stored by
abundant experience, enabled Mr. Hope-Scott to recall the history of every
railway company, the expressed opinions of general managers, and the
characteristics and theories of engineers. The wariest veterans needed all
their caution to anticipate the design of the friendly conversation which
gradually tempted them to damaging admissions. He was slow to resort to
harder modes of attack, of which he was at the same time fully capable.
Every facility was offered to a candid and confiding witness, and there was
still greater satisfaction in baffling the vigilance of an adversary who
was on his guard against an attack from a different quarter. A hostile
witness, after an encounter with Mr. Hope-Scott, sometimes found that his
answers formed a plausible argument in favour of the proposition he had
intended to confute. His perplexity must have been increased when he
afterwards heard his own statements reproduced in the speech of the
opposing counsel. Almost the only point in which Mr. Hope-Scott could be
charged with a want of caution consisted in his frequent affirmation of
certain general opinions, such as the common and questionable doctrine that
competition cannot last where combination is possible. An advocate who is
changing his clients is ill-advised in hampering himself with the
enumeration of maxims which may from time to time be quoted against him. In
such cases Mr. Hope-Scott almost converted a self-imposed difficulty into
an additional resource. With marvellous ingenuity he proved that any
competition scheme which he happened to support formed an exception to the
rule which he carefully reasserted; and unsophisticated hearers admired the
consistency with general principles which was found not to be incompatible
with immediate expediency.

It is almost superfluous to say that Mr. Hope-Scott never exceeded the
legitimate bounds of forensic debate. All litigated questions, and
especially this species of private legislation, have two sides, and it is
the business of an advocate to present in the most favourable light the
cause which he is retained to defend. Deliberate sophistry is as culpable
as false relations of fact; but completeness or judicial impartiality
belongs to the tribunal, and not to the representative of the litigant.
When all moral scruples have been allowed their full weight, the
qualifications of a great advocate are almost exclusively intellectual. It
is to this part of Mr. Hope-Scott's character that I have strictly
endeavoured to confine myself. It is probable that an attempt to analyse a
distinct personal impression may have produced but a vague result. I have
little doubt that, although Mr. Hope-Scott was almost unequalled in
professional ability, his real life lay outside his occupation as an
advocate. The grounds of the affection and admiration with which he is
remembered by his family and his nearest friends have but a remote
connection with the faculties and accomplishments which I have endeavoured
to describe.

Another friend (Mr. H. L. Cameron), who had continual opportunities, from
about the year 1859, of observing Mr. Hope-Scott's character in its
professional aspect, furnishes some very interesting reminiscences, on a
part of which, however, it may be worth while to observe that the
versatility and pliability of intellect which the writer so well describes
in Mr. Hope-Scott is no doubt more or less common to every great barrister,
and is a habit to which all who are actively engaged in the profession are
obliged to train their minds as they can. Still, it is equally certain that
Mr. Hope-Scott possessed this faculty in an uncommon degree; and, in order
to form a complete idea of him as he appeared in the eyes of his
contemporaries, as well as to understand the relations of one part of his
character to another, it is necessary to draw these features in
considerable detail. After noticing particularly a very pleasing trait in
Mr. Hope-Scott's demeanour as a leading counsel, shown in the kindness and
tact with which, in consultation, he took care to prevent the inexperience
or ignorance of his juniors being made apparent, and sought rather to ask
them questions on points which they were likely to know something about,
Mr. Cameron continues as follows:--

RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. H.L. CAMERON.

What made Mr. Hope-Scott so much loved by all who were brought into contact
with him was his great amiability, thorough kindness of heart: his care was
always not to hurt or wound another's feelings; and even in the heat of
debate, and under great provocation, I never heard him utter an unkind
word, or put a harsh construction on the conduct of any one, even an
adversary.

As regards his talents, they are so universally known and admitted, that I
can say very little you have not heard already. Westminster has rarely--
never certainly in later years--heard such an advocate. The secret of his
great success at the bar, beyond his intellectual power, lay, I think, in a
peculiar charm and fascination of manner--a manner which could invest the
driest and most technical matters with interest, and compelled the
attention of the hearers to the subject under discussion. The melody of his
voice was, to me, one of his greatest attractions. Then, again, what a
noble presence! and that goes a long way at the Bar. I can look back, and
see now, as he used to walk into his room to attend some consultation, how
vigorous, handsome, and stately he always appeared, bringing the force of
his powerful intellect at once to bear upon the subject under
consideration, doing all in such a genial manner, without any attempt at
showing his mental superiority to those around him.

In those busy times he would perhaps be engaged in twenty different cases
on the same day; the competition to engage him was most keen: it was almost
the first thing one thought about when clients came to consult upon a new
scheme. He would go from one committee to another, by some extraordinary
means always being at the place where he was most needed. It was marvellous
how he kept all these matters distinct in his brain; he was never in
confusion or at fault. In one room he would open a case, say an Improvement
Bill, with a brilliant speech setting forth all its merits, a speech which
would probably immediately impress the committee and carry the case,
whatever after arguments might be urged against it, or speeches made by
other counsel. Then he would go into another room, and cross-examine a
skilled witness in a railway case, showing his intimate knowledge of
engineering, and beating the witness perhaps on his own ground. Then he
would take an Irish case, or a Gas and Water Bill, or landowner's case,
whose property was about to be intersected, a ratepayer's, a carrier's,
each case being thoroughly gone into, and thoroughly mastered and
understood. After all this, and late in the day, when any one else would
have felt fatigued and exhausted, in mind at any rate, if not in body, he
would go into a room where an inquiry had been going on perhaps for weeks,
and reply on the whole evidence. Those who know what labour this entails
can alone appreciate such a capability.

No one at the bar whom I have ever heard reasoned with such perfect
lucidity. He would explain a case which his client the solicitor would have
wrapped up in fifty or sixty brief sheets, and involved in as much
obscurity as it were well possible, to a committee in a few minutes; and I
have often thought his clients never understood their own cases until he
had explained them. It was wonderful how he could make a committee
(sometimes composed of by no means the highest specimens of mankind)
understand a case; and his persuasive power with those tribunals was also
marvellous.

One word more on his character in his business life, and that is as to his
entire conscientiousness. No case did he ever consider insignificant or
beneath his notice. He gave the same attention to the humblest client that
he would to a duke. He never left anything he had to do _half_ done:
his work was thorough, complete, good. Time, which he considered his
client's, was never wasted; and to enable him to get through his work he
would rise at four or five o'clock in the morning, and he would be engaged
either getting up a case, attending consultations, or in committee until
five or six o'clock in the evening. His life was an exact fulfilment of
that precept, 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.'
[Footnote: Mr. H.L. Cameron. Letter to Miss Hope, October 28,1877.] To what
has now been expressed by critics so competent, I shall add the only
passage which I have been able to discover, in which Mr. Hope-Scott has
left on record any opinion relating to himself in connection with his
professional experience in an intellectual point of view. In pleading
before the Select Committee of the Lords, on behalf of Eton College, on the
Public School Bill of 1865, after stating his objection to the notion of
such subjects as natural philosophy playing so very large a part in early
education as some persons would have them do, he goes on to say:--

I, if I may venture here to speak of myself, have observed enough in a life
which has been tolerably devoted to business to know this, that the
possession of knowledge upon any one subject is worthless compared to the
possession of a power of using it when you have got it. My Lords, in my
profession, though not in my part of it, there are many men who will take
up a patent case, or a mining case, without the slightest previous
knowledge of the natural sciences relating to it, and who will make
statements to a jury which the scientific men at hand will stand aghast at;
what does that mean? It means that they have been so trained in the
acquisition of knowledge when presented to them, that it becomes to them a
mere matter of get-up, in many instances, to acquire an amount of knowledge
which would absolutely electrify many a learned society. [Footnote: _Min.
Evid. Sel. Com. Public Sch. B._ p. 209.]

Notwithstanding the qualification under which Mr. Hope-Scott here speaks,
it will be seen from a case I shall presently cite (the 'Caledonian
Railway,' p. 110) that he describes a faculty he was of course aware that
he himself possessed. He said, I believe, in conversation, that there was
hardly any subject which he had not had occasion to look up in his
profession, and this was one of the reasons which made him so fond of it.

It will perhaps give pleasure to those whose affection for Mr. Hope-Scott's
memory has suggested this record, if I note down some particulars of his
daily round of occupations during the most active period of his life,
principally supplied me (with other interesting details) by the kindness of
Mr. John Q. Dunn, who, from the year 1859 until the end, was Mr. Hope-
Scott's confidential clerk, continually about him in the most unreserved
trust, made out his daily _agenda_, and was intimately acquainted with
all his habits and ways.

Mr. Hope-Scott rose early, between five and six o'clock, made his coffee,
and then went through his devotions, a black ebony crucifix, with the
figure of our Lord in brass, on the table before him. Wherever he went he
had this carried with him. [Footnote: This particular crucifix, however,
was only used by Mr. Hope-Scott after his first wife's death. It was the
one which she held in her hands when dying.] His next employment was his
brief, which he read with great rapidity, [Footnote: 'Bellasis says you
never read even a brief, but divine its contents in half the time
required.'--Bishop Grant to Mr. Hope-Scott, November 19, 1852.] making
notes as he went on. This lasted till about eight, when he dressed and
breakfasted. He then drove from his private residence, or from Norfolk
House, to attend consultations in Chambers at 9.30. Each consultation
lasted five or ten minutes, sometimes fifteen, never more, until eleven
o'clock, not a minute being wasted. Public business then commenced, in the
Lords at eleven, in the Commons at twelve. His papers having been taken
over to the various committee-rooms, he would go from room to room, making
a speech here, or cross-examining witnesses there, as the occasion might
require, throughout the day. He was always cool and business-like, never in
the slightest degree flurried. This, which was only due to his immense
self-control, made people _imagine_ that the work was excessively easy
to him. Business before the committees lasted till four, when the bags were
collected (which were a porter's load); and in Chambers another series of
cases ensued, from four to five or six. In the intervals of business he
would dictate, with surprising exactness and calmness, letters on his
private affairs, such as the management of his Highland estate--minute
directions for painting outhouses it might be, or the like small matters.
At six he went home in a cab, tired and exhausted; dinner followed, after
which he invariably went to sleep for two hours, waking up about ten, when
he read his prayers. He commonly slept sound, and got up next morning
bright and fresh. Clients sometimes came as early as six or seven, and had
undivided attention for three-quarters of an hour: these audiences
amounted, in fact, to fresh verbal briefs, but were never charged for, as
the arrangement was made for his own convenience.

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