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Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2

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I now throw together a few scattered recollections communicated to me by
friends, for which I have not been able to find a place elsewhere.

Mr. Hope-Scott often talked of Merton College; he used to compare his
affection for it to that felt for a wife.

In his professional habits of mind he was a contrast in one respect to his
friend Mr. John Talbot. The latter (as he himself once remarked) was always
anxious about a case, and a failure was a great blow to him; but Mr. Hope-
Scott, on the other hand, did the best he could, and if he failed, he
failed; but he did not allow _that_ to wear him out. He always met the
thing in the face, never _mourned_ over it.

He never gave way to small troubles; yet he was not a calm person by
nature, but by self-command.

The only occasion on which I ever knew Mr. Hope put out (said a friend who
knew him well) was when one of his fellow-counsel, whom he had endeavoured
to supply with a complete answer to the whole difficulty in an important
case, made a mess of it. 'How hard it is,' said Mr. Hope, 'to sit by and
listen to a man speaking on one's side, and _always_ missing the
point!'

Mr. Hope-Scott was a man _run away with by good sense_. He had great
playfulness of character (by no means inconsistent with the last trait),
and was especially addicted to punning. A constant fire of puns was kept up
when he, Bishop Grant, and Mr. Badeley were together, though the Bishop
always sought a moral purpose in his jesting.

After having heard Mr. Hope-Scott's and Mr. Serjeant Wrangham's arguments
on the Thames Watermen and Lightermen's Bill (1859), the chairman of the
committee said: 'Mr. Hope-Scott, the committee have three courses--either
to throw the bill out, to pass it in its entirety, or to pass it with
alterations. Therefore we shall be glad if counsel will retire.' After
waiting for half an hour, the door opened. Mr. Hope-Scott said to Serjeant
Wrangham: 'Come along, Serjeant; now that they have disposed of their three
courses, we shall have our _dessert_.'

A speech of his at the Galashiels Mechanics' Institute gave great amusement
at the time: 'I am a worker like you,' he said; 'my head is the
_mill_, my tongue is the _clapper_, and I _spin long yarns_.'

Once, after signing a good many cheques in charity matters, he said, 'They
talk of hewers of wood and drawers of water; but I think I must be called
_a drawer of cheques_.'

He was highly genial with everybody, and even in reproving his servants
would mingle it with humour.

The last of Sir Walter Scott's old servants, John Swanston the forester
(often mentioned in _Lockhart_), seemed rather shocked when Mr. Hope-
Scott's son and heir was named Michael; upon which Mr. Hope-Scott said to
him playfully: 'Ye mauna forget, John, that there was an Archangel before
there was a Wizard; and besides, the Michael called the Wizard was, in
truth, a very good and holy Divine.'

With servants Mr. Hope-Scott was very popular. He took great interest in
people, taking them up, forwarding their views, advising, protecting, even
interfering.

He was very fond of children, and they of him. The presence of 'Uncle Jim'
was the signal for fun with his little nephews and nieces: but the case was
different with young people; they rather stood in awe of him (but another
informant thinks these were the exceptions).

He abhorred gossip and spreading of tittle-tattle; avoided speaking before
servants, or any one who would retail what was said. When there was any
danger of this, he relapsed into total silence; and was, indeed, on some
occasions over-cautious. He especially avoided talking of his good deeds,
or of himself generally. He was singularly reserved; not by nature, but
from his long habituation to be the depositary of important secrets. Sir
Thomas Acland worked a good deal with him in Puseyite days. 'Tell me what
my brother is about,' asked Lady H. K. 'I cannot tell,' was the reply; 'he
is a well too deep to get at.'

He had a determined will, though affectionate and kind-hearted. When
entertaining guests, he made all the plans day by day; used to lay out the
day for them, seeing what could be done, though he might not himself be
well enough to join the party.

He was extremely systematic in his habits, paid for everything by cheques;
and used to preserve even notes of invitation, cards of visitors, and the
envelopes of letters. [Footnote: I recollect the great importance he
attached to them as dates, and his regret at the change from the old method
of folded sheets.--W. E. G.]

Yet he had not punctuality naturally; he _drilled_ himself to it. Nor
was he naturally particular, but, when married, became over-particular.

He had great kindness and tact, and was always kind in the right way. He
was once seen, as a lad, flying to open a gate for perhaps the most
disgusting person in the parish.

It was a feature in his life's history to keep up intimacies for a certain
number of years; the intercourse ceased, but not friendliness.

'In giving me an explanation of the mass before I was received into the
Church, I remember' (said a near relative of his) 'his saying that he
delighted especially in the _Domine, non sum dignus_. "It is to me [he
remarked] the most beautiful adaptation of Scripture."'

In discussing religion with Presbyterians, he was fond of asserting the
truth, 'I, too, am a _Bible Christian_.'

In conversation once chancing to turn on the subject of one's being able to
judge of character and conduct by looking at people in the street, Mr.
Hope-Scott remarked: 'Yes, if you saw a novice of the Jesuits taking a
walk, you would see what that means.'

The following more detailed recollections appear to deserve a place by
themselves:--

When residing on his Highland property at Lochshiel, Mr. Hope-Scott
personally acquainted himself with his smaller tenantry, and entered into
all their history, going about with a keeper known by the name of 'Black
John,' who acted as his Gaelic interpreter. His frank and kindly manners
quite won their hearts. Sometimes he would ask his guests to accompany him
on such visits, and make them observe the peculiarities of the Celtic
character. On one of these occasions he and the late Duke of Norfolk went
to visit an old peasant who was blind and bedridden. After the usual
greetings, they were both considerably astonished to hear the old man
exclaim, in great excitement: 'But tell me, how is Schamyl getting on?' It
was long after the Circassian chief had been captured; but his exploits
were still clinging to the old Highlander's imagination, full of sympathy
for warfare and politics. The natural ease and politeness of the Highland
manners in this class, as contrasted with the rougher type of the Lowlands,
used always to delight Mr. Hope-Scott. Over and over again, after the
ladies had withdrawn from the dinner-table, he would send for a keeper, or
a gillie, or a boatman, and ply them with plausible questions, that his
guests might have the opportunity of witnessing the good breeding of the
Highlands. John, or Ronald, or Duncan, or whoever it might be, would stand
a few yards away from the table, and, bonnet in hand, reply with perfect
deference and self-possession, his whole behaviour free, on the one hand,
from servility, and on the other, from the slightest forwardness. As will
readily be supposed, the interview commonly ended with a dram from the
laird's own hand.

In one respect he was very strict with his people. He never would tolerate
the slightest interference on their part with the rights of property. Some
of them were in the habit of presuming on the laird's permission, and
helping themselves--no leave asked--to an oar, or a rope, or any implement
which they chanced to stand in need of, belonging to the home farm. They
indeed brought back these articles when done with; but Mr. Hope-Scott ever
insisted they should be _asked for_, and would not accept the excuse
that the things were taken without leave in order to save him the trouble
of being asked. He was very severe in repressing drunkenness and
dissipation, though no one was readier to make allowance for a little extra
merriment on market days and festive gatherings.

Mr. Hope-Scott's chief source of relaxation and pleasure, when he could
escape from his professional duties, was building. In this amusement he
followed his own ideas, sifting the plans of architects with the most rigid
scrutiny, and never hesitating to alter, and sometimes to pull to pieces,
what it had cost hours of hard brain-work to devise. No amount of entreaty
could extort his consent to what did not commend itself as clear and
faultless to his understanding. It might not be a very agreeable process to
some of those concerned, but the result was generally satisfactory to the
one who had a right to be the most interested. As for contractors, he
latterly abjured them altogether; and Dorlin House was commenced and
brought to completion under the management of a clerk of the works in whom
he had great confidence. In the kindred pursuit of planting (as has already
been noticed) Mr. Hope-Scott also took great interest, and the young
plantations which now adorn the neighbourhood of Dorlin are the result of
his care.

Strong-minded lawyer as he was, he had a firm belief in second-sight. One
case in particular, which occurred in his immediate vicinity, is remembered
to have made a deep impression on his mind. The facts were these: One
Sunday, shortly before Mr. Hope-Scott came to Lochshiel, it happened,
during service in a small country chapel close to the present site of
Dorlin House, that one of the congregation fainted, and had to be carried
out. After the service was over, the late Mr. Stewart, proprietor of
Glenuig, asked this man what was the cause of his illness. For a long time
he refused to tell, but at length, being pressed more urgently, declared
that, of the four men who were sitting on the bench before him, three
suddenly appeared to alter in every feature, and to be transported to other
places. One seemed to float, face upwards, on the surface of the sea;
another lay entangled among the long loose seaweed of the shore; and the
third lay stretched on the beach, completely covered with a white sheet.
This sight brought on the fainting fit. Somehow the story got abroad, and
the consequence was, that the fourth individual, who did not enter into the
vision at all, passed, in the course of the next four months, into a state
verging on helpless idiocy, from the fear that he was among the doomed.
But, strange to tell, the three men who were the subjects of the warning
were drowned together, a few months later on, when crossing an arm of the
sea not far from the hamlet in which they dwelt. One of the bodies was
found floating, as described above. Another was washed ashore on a sandy
part of the coast, and, on being found, was covered with a sheet supplied
by a farmer's family living close to the spot. The third was discovered at
low water, half buried under a mass of seaweed and shingle. The fourth, who
had survived to lose his senses, as we have said, died only two years ago.




CHAPTER XXV.

1867-1869.

Visit of Queen Victoria to Abbotsford in 1867--Mr. Hope-Scott's
Improvements at Abbotsford--Mr. Hope-Scott's Politics--Toryism in Early
Life--Constitutional Conservatism--Mr. Hope-Scott as an Irish and a
Highland Proprietor--Correspondence on Politics with Mr. Gladstone, and
with Lord Henry Kerr in 1868--Speech at Arundel in 1869.


Towards the end of August 1867, her Majesty Queen Victoria, visiting the
Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe, at Floors Castle, was received with great
rejoicings at the various Scottish border towns on the Waverley route from
Carlisle to Kelso. On this occasion her Majesty honoured Mr. and Lady
Victoria Hope-Scott by calling at Abbotsford. The newspapers of the day
contain copious narratives of the tour, otherwise unimportant for our
present purpose. The following account is taken from the 'Daily Telegraph'
of August 24, with a few additional particulars introduced from the 'Border
Advertiser' of August 23, 1867, the former journal supplying details of
much interest relating to Mr. Hope-Scott's improvements at Abbotsford. I
have shortened the original, and made some slight alterations in it:--

Her Majesty visited Melrose and Abbotsford on Thursday, August 22, with
Princess Louise, Prince and Princess Christian, the Duke and Duchess of
Roxburghe, and the Duke of Buccleuch. The Queen having viewed Melrose
Abbey, Mr. Hope-Scott and his family were honoured, later in the day, by
her Majesty's presence at Abbotsford, which was reached shortly after six
o'clock. In the fields in front of the lodge, and for a great distance
along the road, was a great concourse of people, many of whom had waited
for hours, and vehement cheering rang through the Abbotsford woods.

Many alterations and additions had been made to the Abbotsford of Sir
Walter during Mr. Hope-Scott's nineteen years' possession of the place. In
the lifetime of the Great Magician, the ground on which he fixed his abode
was nearly on a level with the highway running along the south front; and
wayfarers could survey the whole domain by looking over the hedge. Mr.
Hope-Scott, twelve years ago or more (1855), threw up a high embankment on
the road front of Abbotsford, and it is from this steep grassy mound that
one of the best views may be had. The long, regular slope, steep near the
level top where laurels are planted, is a beautiful bank from end to end,
being well timbered with a rich variety of trees, among others the silver
birch, the oak, the elm, the beech, the plane, and the good old Scotch fir;
and being, moreover, naturally favourable to the wild flora of the
district, especially to the bluebell and forget-me-not. The wild strawberry
also is in great abundance, with its sweet, round little beads of fruit
dotting the green. The square courtyard of the house is planned as a
garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental plots of grass,
and with beds all ablaze with summer flowers, a brilliant pink annual
making a peculiarly fine appearance by well-arranged contrast with the
sober greys of an edging of foliage plants. On one side of the courtyard is
a postern, which was thrown open when the royal cavalcade had entered the
grounds by the lodge gate. The opposite flank of the quadrangle is a kind
of ornamental palisade, or open screen of Gothic stonework, the spaces of
which are filled up by iron railings. This palisade divides the courtyard
from the pleasure-gardens, which are well laid out, and bordered with
greenhouses. The porch was beautifully decorated with rows of ferns along
the margin of the passage, and behind the ferns were magnificent fuchsias
rising to the roof, and mingled with other choice and rare flowers. The
floors of the porch and other rooms were covered with crimson cloth, but
beyond that, and the addition of vases of flowers, 'Sir Walter's Rooms'
were in the same condition in which they have been witnessed by the many
thousands drawn thither from every civilised country in the world.

Her Majesty was received by Mr. Hope-Scott, Lady Victoria Hope-Scott, and
Miss Hope-Scott, Lord and Lady Henry Kerr, Miss Kerr, and Miss Mackenzie.
Mr. Hope-Scott bowed to the Queen, and led the way to the drawing-room,
where a few minutes were passed. Her Majesty then in succession passed
through Sir Walter's library, study, hall, and armoury, and viewed with
great interest all these memorials. The royal party then proceeded to the
dining-room, where fruits, ices, and other refreshments had been prepared,
but her Majesty partook only of a cup of tea and 'Selkirk bannock.' When
the Queen was passing through 'Sir Walter's library,' some photographic
views of Abbotsford, which had been taken recently by Mr. Horsburgh of
Edinburgh, attracted her attention, and she graciously acceded to the
request of Mr. Hope-Scott that her Majesty might be pleased to accept of a
set of the photographs. Her Majesty expressed to Mr. Hope-Scott the great
pleasure she had experienced in visiting what had been the residence of Sir
Walter Scott. The Queen and suite then entered their carriages, and left
Abbotsford about seven o'clock. The day was not so bright as the preceding
one; but the little rain which fell, just as her Majesty had got under the
shelter of the historical roof, did not spoil the holiday which some
thousands of people from Galashiels, Hawick, Kelso, Berwick, and Edinburgh
had been bent on making.

Mr. Hope-Scott, in a letter to Mr. Badeley of August 23, 1867, gives a
brief description of the Queen's visit, concluding as follows:--

'Throughout her visit, her Majesty was most gracious and kind, and her
conduct to Mamo was quite touching.

She showed a great deal of interest in the place and the principal
curiosities, looked remarkably well and active, and, I am told, is much
pleased with the reception she has met with on the Border.'

The political aspects of Mr. Hope-Scott's character, on which it is now
time that we should enter, do not require any very extended discussion. His
opinions and feelings were Conservative in the constitutional sense, and in
his early years seem to have gone a good deal further. It is perhaps
scarcely fair to bring evidence from the correspondence of youths of
nineteen, but Mr. Leader tells him (November 3, 1831): 'The latter part of
your letter is an admirable specimen of Tory liberality and Tory
argument.... What! are all Radicals fools or knaves, and all Conservatives
honest or intelligent?... _Absint hæ ineptiæ pæne aniles_.' A few
years later the Thun correspondence, though only affording incidental
references to Mr. Hope's own letters, shows clearly that, like 'young
Oxford' of that date and long afterwards, he adopted Tory views as
deductions from Scripture, and as the political side of religion. Thus
Count Leo Thun writing to Mr. Hope on December 14, 1834, says: 'We both
agree in the first principles; I copy your own words: "Everything we do is
to be done in the name of the Lord: admitting this, it is evident that the
_principle_ on which we are to act with regard to politics is to be
derived from the Scriptures."' The future Austrian statesman, however,
declares that he cannot find in the Scriptures 'that blind and passive
obedience' which his friend requires, and enters at considerable length
into the question, controverting the application which the latter had made
of certain passages. Again pass on a few years, and we find Mr. Hope
writing to Mr. Badeley (it is the first letter in that collection), January
12, 1838: 'I have managed to read Pusey's sermon, in which there is nothing
that I am disposed to quarrel with. The origin of civil government used
long ago to be a favourite subject of inquiry with me; and I had long been
convinced of the absurdity of any but the patriarchal scheme. Aristotle,
the most sensible man, perhaps, who ever lived, came to the same conclusion
without the aid of revelation.'

These views sustained practically some modification as time went on.
Toryism, in its _historical_ sense, could never be the political creed
of a mind on which the Church of England had lost its hold. This begins to
appear in a speech made by him at an early date, without preparation
indeed, but not carelessly spoken. On the occasion of the ceremony for
turning the first sod for the Sheffield and Huddersfield Railway (August
29, 1845), Mr. Hope said:--

If you lived under a despotic government, you would have lines made without
reference to your local wants, and perhaps from visionary views of public
advantage, but without reference to your private interests. It would be the
same if a democratic body were to govern. In the one case you would be
subject to the dictates of the imperial office; in the other, to the votes
of a turbulent assemblage; but in neither case would there be that mixed
regard to public justice and private interests which are combined in an
efficient system. I dare say we [railway lawyers] are troublesome, but we
belong to a system which has in it great elements of constitutional
principle, which combines a regard for the public interest, and for private
rights, with that free spirit which enterprises of this nature require in a
great commercial country. [Footnote: _Sheffield and Rotherham
Independent_, August 30, 1845.]

In the letter to Mr. Gladstone, of December 9, 1847 (quoted p. 78), we
perceive an uncertain, sea-sick tone, the sadness natural to a mind not yet
sure of its course. Very different is the buoyancy that breathes in Mr.
Hope-Scott's remarks, ten years later, on the rivalry between Manchester
and Liverpool, in his speech on the Mersey Conservancy and Docks Bill
(quoted p. 115), though that, perhaps, is too rhetorical for us to found an
argument upon. It will be more to the purpose here if I give an extract
from a letter which he had written that same year, as an Irish proprietor,
on the eve of a contested election, to the agent for his estates in co.
Mayo, Joseph J. Blake, Esq., at Castlebar. It will show the wise and kindly
spirit in which he dealt with his people, as well as the reference to the
interests of Catholicity which now governed his politics:--

As to the election for the county of Mayo, I am in considerable ignorance
about the state of parties in that particular part of Ireland. I may state,
however, that I should myself prefer the candidate who is the most sincere
friend of the Catholic Church, and most disposed to take a calm and careful
view of the questions which most affect the interests of the Irish people--
say Tenant Right, for instance, in which I think something should be done,
but perhaps not so much as the more noisy promoters of it insist on. I do
not, however, wish to influence my tenants more decidedly than by letting
them know my general feelings on these subjects. (March 25, 1857.)

The question here involved, which has very recently ripened into
difficulties so formidable as far as regards Ireland, also affected at the
time, as it still affects, the state of property in the Western Highlands,
where it seems to have interfered a good deal with Mr. Hope-Scott's efforts
to raise the condition of his tenantry. He urged on them the necessity of
cultivating more of the waste land which stretched for miles before their
doors, but they never took kindly to this task. No rent was to be demanded
for the reclaimed lands, and they were promised compensation if called upon
to give them up at any future year. They were perfectly convinced of Mr.
Hope-Scott's sincerity, but were unwilling to enter into these schemes of
amelioration without the security of possession guaranteed by leases.
[Footnote: Further details of Mr. Hope-Scott's relations with his Highland
tenants will he found in chap. xxvi. See also chap. xxiv. pp. 171, 172 in
this vol. as affording some indirect illustration.] My office not being
that of the political economist, it is unnecessary to enlarge on the
subject, especially as the following important letter of Mr. Hope-Scott
himself will enable the reader to judge of the reasons upon which he
acted:--

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

(_Private_.) Abbotsford: Oct. 28, 1868.

Dear Gladstone,--As you are kind enough to care for my political ideas, I
will try to describe them.

Born and bred a Tory and a Protestant, I have discarded both the creeds of
my youth. But with this difference in the result: in religion I have found
sure anchorage; in politics I am still adrift.

Had the followers of Sir Robert Peel been able to found a permanent party,
my case would probably have been different. But death took many of them,
and the rest are scattered.

Of the two great parties now forming on the ruins of the old ones, that
which you lead has a claim upon me for the work of justice
[disestablishment of the Irish Church] which it has undertaken, and which
the other seeks to frustrate. But, nevertheless, this work is to me no test
of the abiding principles of the party. In you I acknowledge the promotion
of it to be a sign of honesty and courage which few can better appreciate
than myself; and I know that you mean it as a pledge of steady advancement
in the same path. But amongst those who act with you there are many minds
of a very different stamp.

A few words will bring out my views.

Speaking logically, justice to the Catholic people of Ireland means, if it
means anything, the undoing of the Reformation, the replacing of the Church
of the great majority in the position from which it has been unjustly
removed.

But had you proposed this, or anything savouring of this, you know that
your followers would have been few indeed; and that you have been able
wholly to avoid such a danger for yourself, and even to turn it against
your political opponents, has arisen chiefly from the moderation and wisdom
of the Catholic clergy.

By their acquiescence in a mere disestablishment you got so far rid of the
fear of Popery as to give scope to the voluntary principles of ultra-
Protestantism, and, as a consequence, many now support you upon grounds so
wholly different from your own, that, when the assault is over, and the
stronghold taken, half your forces may disappear from the field, or remain
only to rebel against your next movement.

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