Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott Part 6

James R. Hope.

On November 25 we find Mr. Hope at Milan, where he mentions having seen his old acquaintances, Manzoni and Vitali. The following letter will show how much he had impressed the former, brief as their communications had been:--

_Alessandro Manzoni to J. R. Hope, Esq._

Milan: 8 Mai, 1845.

Monsieur et respectable ami,--Je profite de l'occasion que me presente mon ancien et intime ami, M. le Baron Trechi, pour me rappeler a votre bon souvenir....

Agreez mes remerciments bien vifs et bien sinceres pour les _Scripture Prints_ que Mr. Lewis Gruner a bien voulu me remettre de votre part. Si le nom du peintre n'y etait pas, je suis sur qu'en les voyant, je me serais ecrie: Ah! Raphael. C'est tout ce qu'un homme n'ayant, malheureus.e.m.e.nt, aucune connaissance de l'art, peut vous dire pour vous rendre compte de l'impression que lui a faite la copie. Je ne vous charge de rien pour M.

Gladstone, parce que je me donne la satisfaction de lui ecrire par cette meme occasion. J'espere que nous le reverrons bientot au ministere. N'allez pas me demander si je suis anglais pour dire: nous; car je vous repondrais que _h.o.m.o sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto_; et qu'il n'y a rien d'_humanius_ que d'aimer a voir le pouvoir uni a la confiance; je ne dis pas: a de hautes facultes; car, malheureus.e.m.e.nt, le cas est moins rare.

[After giving his friend an account of a great family affliction he had sustained in the loss of a beloved daughter, the writer goes on to say:]

Je ne crains pas de vous importuner en vous parlant ainsi de ce qui me touche si profondement: je sais la part que vous prenez a tout ce qui est douleur et confiance en Dieu, par Jesus Christ. Je n'ai pas craint non plus de vous choquer en vous ecrivant avec un ton si familier, et comme il conviendrait a une ancienne connaissance; car il me semble que nous le sommes; l'affection et l'estime de ma part et une grande bonte de la votre, ont bien pu suppleer le temps. Permettez-moi d'esperer que le bonheur que j'ai de vous connaitre n'aura pas ete un accident dans une vie, et que des causes plus heureuses que d'autrefois vous rameneront bientot encore dans ce pays; et, en attendant, veuillez me garder une pet.i.te place dans votre faveur, comme vous etes toujours vivant dans le mien. Je suis, avec la plus affectueuse consideration,

Votre devoue serviteur et ami,

ALEXANDRE MANZONI.

Mr. Hope proceeded from Milan to Florence and Rome. Almost the only letter referring to this visit to Rome that has come before me is one written to Mr. Badeley on December 19. It contains very little of importance. Much of it is taken up with an account of Sir William Follett, then at Rome, and verging towards his end, of whom Mr. Hope had seen a great deal. Other friends named are Mr. and Mrs. Vivian, and Mr. Waterton. From the latter, Mr. Hope had 'an interesting account of Tickell's reception into the Church of Rome at Bruges. He was himself present, and very much struck by T.'s devout and humble behaviour.'

'Of the Roman clergy,' Mr. Hope remarks, 'I have seen little, and have indeed almost given up my inquiries among them.' He mentions in the same letter that he intended leaving Rome on January 1 or 2, 'and to speed homewards _via_ Leghorn, Genoa, Ma.r.s.eilles, and Paris.' Amidst all this apparent coldness, and in spite of all the expressions of disappointment with Rome that have appeared thus far, [Footnote: On the cause of this dissatisfaction an intimate friend of his has observed: 'For myself I think the real and sufficient reason of his disappointment with Rome was, that the Roman authorities naturally and reasonably would not open to a Protestant. They would fear their information would be used against them. They could not know his honesty of purpose.'] it is clear that the secret influence and spirit of the place were working their effect on his mind. A great proof of this will be given further on, in a letter of the Pere Roothaan's to a friend relative to Mr. Hope's conversion.

A sentence from a letter of Mr. Hope's about two years afterwards is here in point. 'Your impression of Rome (he writes to Mr. Badeley, October 16, 1847) appears to be similar to that of most who see it for the first time; but it grows upon one, and the recollection will be deeper than the present feeling.'

There is a pleasing note to Mr. Hope, dated December 20, 1844, from Mgr.

Grant, then Rector of the English College at Rome, and afterwards the well- known Bishop of Southwark, one of the most beloved and venerated friends of his Catholic period. It merely gives information to a.s.sist him in visiting St. John Lateran's, and promises to send an order for St. Peter's. It concludes characteristically: 'I shall be too happy to serve you whenever I can be useful. Although you do not think so, you will find that _little people_ are not without some use; and, in the hope that you will allow me an opportunity of proving that I am in the right, I remain, with many thanks for your kindness, &c.,--THOMAS GRANT.' I may here also give a short letter of Bishop Grant's, of later date, ill.u.s.trating their friends.h.i.+p, and including some traces of its beginning at Rome:--

_The Right Rev. Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, to J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C._

June 23, 1853.

My dear Mr. Hope-Scott,--The _frescoes_ have arrived, and I hasten to thank you for a gift, valuable in itself, but most dear to me, because it will ever remind me of the beginning of that friends.h.i.+p which has always been so pleasing to me, and which forms one of the consolations that are allowed to me in the midst of the weighty duties of my present state-- duties which I little expected when we quarrelled peacefully about Swiss guards and troops of soldiers lining St. Peter's on grand days.

When you next visit the churches and antiquities of Rome, Mary Monica will catch up the ardour that will then probably have gone by for you and myself, and will wonder why you care so little for them; and if I am with you I fear I shall be more tempted to tell her of the quiet rooms in Via della Croce, when I first knew her father, than of the Arch of Drusus, or other pagan monuments that once entertained our attention.

Yours very sincerely,

? THOMAS GRANT.

Mr. Hope-Scott had a high admiration for this saintly Bishop, and used to speak of him as '_the_ Bishop,' always meaning by that Bishop Grant.

Early in 1845, and not many weeks after his return to England, Mr. Hope resigned his chancellors.h.i.+p of Salisbury. It can scarcely be doubted that misgivings as to his religious position, more apparent perhaps to us now than they then were even to himself, were among his leading motives for taking this important step; although the immense acc.u.mulation of his business before the Parliamentary committees must have rendered it difficult for him, even with his talents, to hold with it an appointment like that in such times; and feelings of friends.h.i.+p for his successor, the present Sir Robert Phillimore, may also have influenced him. The date of the resignation was Feb. 10.

The judgment of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust in the celebrated 'Stone Altar Case,' by which wooden altars only were permitted, was a severe discouragement to the Tractarian party, being felt to interfere with the idea of sacrifice. From the following pa.s.sage of a letter (undated) of Dr.

Pusey's to Mr. Hope, it appears that he (Mr. Hope) had endeavoured to take a more favourable view. The letter probably belongs to Feb. or March 1845.

I do not know whether the opinion you give is as to law previous to Sir H.

J. F.'s decision, and as a ground of appeal against it, or as to what would still be allowed. Would his judgment preclude our having a stone slab, either upon stone pedestals or a wooden panelled altar? I have comforted others with the same topic you mention, that wooden tables are altars by virtue of ye sacrifice, and so that this decision really alters nothing.

Still, it does seemingly, and was intended to discountenance the doctrine.... It must be confessed, too, that this decision of Sir H. J. F.

is a defeat--only an outward one, and availing nothing while truth spreads within. Still it is well to neutralise the sentence as much as we can.

Ever yrs affectly,

E. B. PUSEY.

Notwithstanding this, Mr. Hope is remembered, after the adverse decision, to have despondingly asked, 'Where is the use of fighting for the sh.e.l.l when we have lost the kernel?'

Among the other agitations of that time was the prosecution inst.i.tuted in the Court of Arches by Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, against the Rev.

Frederick Oakeley (the late Canon) for views which he had expressed about the Blessed Sacrament. Canon Oakeley, in a conversation I had with him in 1878, gave me the following information as to the part taken by Mr. Hope as his friend and adviser in this case, and general recollections of him. He had resolved to let the case go by default, partly because he felt convinced that it was sure to be decided in favour of the Bishop, as those cases always were; partly because he disliked a subject like the Blessed Sacrament to be bandied about by the lawyers in that way. Mr. Hope, on the other hand, urged him to place himself in the hands of counsel, and thought a good case might be made by reference to books on canon law and Roman writers of the moderate school (Gallican), showing that, in point of fact, the holding of 'all Roman doctrine' (thus interpreted) was compatible with the doctrine of the Church of England. [Footnote: _Thus interpreted_, observe. Mr. Newman himself, in a letter to Mr. Hope, dated Littlemore, May 14, 1845, says: 'You are quite right in saying I do not take Ward and Oakeley's grounds that all Roman doctrine may be held in our Church, and that _as_ Roman I have always and everywhere resisted it.'] The principle on which he went was the approximation made out by Sancta Clara and in Tract 90. Mr. Hope had more hopes of the House of Lords than of the Court of Arches, and wished Mr. Oakeley to appeal to the former. If he was afraid of the expenses, he said they would manage all that for him.

[Footnote: Mr. Hope had formed a committee (in conjunction with Serjeant Bellasis, Mr. Badeley, and Mr. J. D. Chambers) in order to raise contributions to meet Mr. Oakeley's expenses. I find an exchange of notes dated March 10, 1845, between Mr. Hope and Mr. Gladstone on this matter.

Mr. Hope encloses a circular, and invites Mr. Gladstone to contribute, remarking 'As the process must throw light upon many collateral points, I amongst others am much interested in its being well conducted. I am, moreover, as a friend of O.'s, anxious that he should have fair play....This looks like the beginning of the end.' Mr. Gladstone, in reply, alludes to doubts he had had whether he could subscribe _in re_ Ward.

'Although I am far from having (upon a slight consideration as yet, for I have been very busy with other matters) found them conclusive; for I think we are going to try questions of academical right, and even of general justice.' He therefore declines subscribing in Mr. Oakeley's case, promising to give Mr. Hope his reasons whenever they should meet.]He added, however, 'But I think you are inclined to go over to the Church of Rome; and if that is the case, it is useless to proceed.' Mr. Hope at that time (said the Canon) was a staunch Anglican. He did not, however, see more of him than of any other member of his congregation perhaps once in three months. After Mr. Oakeley had become a Catholic, Mr. Hope once asked him to breakfast, which he accepted rather hesitatingly. At that time he (Mr.

Oakeley) thought less favourably of Protestants than he did now, and hinted that he must take a line in conversation that might not be acceptable. Mr.

Hope said they need not talk of that, let him come. At this breakfast Mr.

Hope mentioned that he had been lately at Rome (he could allude to no other visit than that of 1844-5), where he had seen a procession of the Pope in the _sedia gestatoria_, and thought how much better it would have been if he had walked in the procession like any other Bishop--that was the line he took. [I ought to add that, later in my conversation with him, Canon Oakeley seemed rather to hesitate whether it was Mr. Hope or some one else who made this observation about the Pope's procession, but in the end he appeared to feel satisfied that it was Mr. Hope.]

In the same troubled spring of 1845 a movement was going on to a.s.similate the office of the Scottish Episcopalian Church to that of the English. Dean Ramsay of Edinburgh had asked Mr. Hope for a legal opinion on a case in which he was concerned bearing on this. Mr. Hope, in a letter to him dated April 8, declines to meddle with the question, and adds:--

I can hardly tell you how much I deprecate any steps which may tend to diminish the authority of the _native_ office; how entirely I dissent from any plans of further a.s.similation to the foreign English Church.

Indeed, the consequences of such schemes at this moment would in my opinion be most disastrous.

Some letters of great interest with reference to Mr. Hope's religious position at this period occur in the Gladstone correspondence. Mr.

Gladstone, being now thoroughly aware that his friend was entertaining serious doubts as to the Catholicity of the Church of England, writes him a very long and deeply considered letter, appealing in the first place to a promise of co-operation which Mr. Hope had made him in the earlier days of their friends.h.i.+p, and placing before him, with all the power and eloquence of which he is so great a master, what he regarded as the most unanswerable arguments for remaining in the Anglican communion. From this letter I quote the following pa.s.sages as strictly biographical:--

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

13 Carlton House Terrace: Thursday night, May 15, '45.

_Private._

My dear Hope,--In 1838 you lent me that generous and powerful aid in the preparation of my book for the press, to which I owe it that the defects and faults of the work fell short of absolutely disqualifying it for its purpose. From that time I began to form not only high but definite antic.i.p.ations of the services which you would render to the Church in the deep and searching processes through which she has pa.s.sed and yet has to pa.s.s. These antic.i.p.ations, however, did not rest only upon my own wishes, or on the hopes which benefits already received might have led me to form.

In the commencement of 1840, in the very room where we talked to-night, you voluntarily and somewhat solemnly tendered to me the a.s.surance that you would at all times be ready to co-operate with me in furtherance of the welfare of the Church, and you placed no limit upon the extent of such co- operation. I had no t.i.tle to expect and had not expected a promise so heart-stirring, but I set upon it a value scarcely to be described, and it ever after entered as an element of the first importance into all my views of the future course of public affairs in their bearing upon religion.

[Footnote: With this may be compared Mr. Hope's letter to Mr. Gladstone of October 11, 1838, given in chapter ix. (vol. i.).]

If the time shall ever come (which I look upon as extremely uncertain, but I think if it comes at all it will be before the lapse of many years) when I am called upon to use any of those opportunities [the writer had just spoken of 'the great opportunities, the gigantic opportunities of good or evil to the Church which the course of events seems (humanly speaking) certain to open up'], it would be my duty to look to you for aid, under the promise to which I have referred, unless in the meantime you shall as deliberately and solemnly withdraw that promise as you first made it. I will not describe at length how your withdrawal of it would increase that sense of desolation which, as matters now stand, often approaches to being intolerable. I only speak of it as a matter of fact, and I am anxious you should know that I look to it as one of the very weightiest kind, under a t.i.tle which you have given me. You would of course cancel it upon the conviction that it involved sin upon your part: with anything less than that conviction I do not expect that you will cancel it; and I am, on the contrary, persuaded that you will struggle against pain, depression, disgust, and even against doubt touching the very root of our position, for the fulfilment of any actual _duties_ which the post you actually occupy in the Church of G.o.d, taken in connection with your faculties and attainments, may a.s.sign to you.

You have given me lessons that I have taken thankfully. Believe I do it in the payment of a debt, if I tell you that your mind and intellect, to which I look up with reverence under a consciousness of immense inferiority, are much under the dominion, whether it be known or not known to yourself, of an agency lower than their own, more blind, more variable, more difficult to call inwardly to account and make to answer for itself--the agency, I mean, of painful and disheartening impressions--impressions which have an unhappy and powerful tendency to realise the very worst of what they picture. Of this fact I have repeatedly noted the signs in you.

I should have been glad to have got your advice on some points connected with the Maynooth question on Monday next, but I will not introduce here any demand upon your kindness; the claims of this letter on your attention, be they great or small, and you are their only judge, rest upon wholly different grounds.

G.o.d bless and guide you, and prosper the work of your hands.

Ever your aff'te friend, W. E. GLADSTONE.