Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott Part 12

[After describing the provisions of an earlier centralising scheme proposed by Government in 1856, Mr. Hope-Scott proceeds:]

Well, sir, all this set the game fairly afoot; and such a day's sport could hardly have been antic.i.p.ated since the days when--

Earl Percy of Northumberland A vow to G.o.d did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summers' days to take.

The Queen herself had not indeed made a vow, but had announced the hunting from the throne. The Royal Commissioners had driven the whole country for game, and there was a large field, nearly all the counties of England being interested spectators; the hounds in good condition--very skilful whips-- everything seemed to promise a fine day's sport: and what would have been the issue is not very easy to foresee, had it not been for what I may be allowed to term (pursuing the metaphor) the very unfortunate riding of the gentleman who, upon that occasion, acted as huntsman. It appears from his own statement at the outset that he had very little previous acquaintance with the country; but he went off with very considerable confidence upon 'the s.h.i.+pping interest,' and there seemed to be every prospect of his having a pleasant ride; but as he got along, he seems to have found the ground deeper and the fences stiffer than he had reckoned upon, and, moreover, that 'the s.h.i.+pping interest' had been a good deal exhausted in the service of the department before.

So about the middle of the day (it is more easy to give a description of personal events in the form of a.n.a.logy than from direct representation)-- about the middle of the day he seems to have changed his mount; and when he was next seen he was going at a tremendous rate across country, firmly seated upon the 'natural rights of man.' As you may suppose, he very soon made up for lost ground upon so splendid a creature. But the difficulties began when he came up with the hunt; for the horse in question is a desperate puller, very awkward to manage in old enclosures, and not at all accustomed to hunt with any regular pack, least of all with her Majesty's hounds. The consequence was what might have been expected. He was hardly up with the hounds when he was in the middle of them, rode over half the pack, and headed the whole; and so there was nothing for it but for the master of the hounds to call them off, and declare he would not hunt that country again until he had had a further survey made of it.

Now I have endeavoured to give, in as gentle a manner as I can, an account of that which caused the princ.i.p.al disaster on this famous sporting day. It was stated that further information was necessary. But another member of the Government described the difficulty in a good deal broader terms. Mr.

Labouchere declared that 'the sons of Zeruiah had been too strong for them.' However that may be, a select committee was appointed. [Footnote: _Report: Mersey Conservancy and Docks_, Westminster, 1857, p.46.]

COMPARISON OF LIVERPOOL WITH MANCHESTER.

What has made Liverpool? Manchester says it has made Liverpool. Sir, the East and West Indies, America and Africa and Australia have made Liverpool, just as they have made Manchester. We know that for a long time that western side of the kingdom was far behind the eastern portions of it; that it had no wool trade, which was the old staple of the country; that South Lancas.h.i.+re was covered with forests; that in Edward the Second's time there was but one poor fulling-mill in Manchester: and what has been the eventual result? After long waiting, after long delays, a new continent in the far west, and a new British Empire founded in the far east, have come to the relief of that portion of the country; that, concurrently with the development of that system, a Brindley, a Watt, an Arkwright, a George Stephenson arose. And so it is that Liverpool became what it is; and so it is that Manchester became what it is. But who was watching this great design of Providence in its small beginning? Who was fostering the trade?

Who was promoting the internal communications with Manchester? Who was spending money and giving land for the benefit of the infant trade? It was the corporation of Liverpool.... Where was representation and taxation then, sir?... You cannot have it till the port is made. You cannot have it till the risk has been run, till the ratepayers have been created. Then, no doubt, you may turn round upon the body who have made the port, made the ratepayers, made them what they are; and you may insist upon dethroning them from that position which they have occupied, at so much risk and so much labour, up to the time when the full development of the trade takes place. Now, sir, that is the case with Liverpool. It is the case with nearly all the remarkable ports of this kingdom. And then, forsooth, when all this has been done, and when Liverpool has nursed from its infancy the rising trade of the Mersey, watched it, developed it into a system which is unequalled, I venture to say, in the habitable world, we are to have gentlemen from Manchester coming down upon us to tell us that the true nostrum to make a port is taxation and representation, and to turn out those who, before there was any trade to tax, taxed themselves in order to create it.

Apart from the Great Western Company's intervention this is a case of Manchester against Liverpool; in other words, it is a struggle between a manufacturing and a commercial interest. Now, sir, what is called the balance of power in the British Const.i.tution, meaning as it does the equipoise caused by conflicting interests and pa.s.sions, is a principle which is not confined to const.i.tutional forms, but works out throughout the whole body of society; and we find a gradual tendency in latter days to conflicts between cla.s.ses, and cla.s.ses which were before allied together against other cla.s.ses. We know the distinctions between land and trade, speaking generally, and the conflicts which have ensued. In these latter days we have had trade subdivided into manufactures and commerce.... What you are asked to do now is to humble a commercial interest at the instance of a manufacturing interest.... There can be no doubt, sir, that if we contrast the habits of mind of different cla.s.ses, commercial pursuits give a different tone and a different feeling. I am not saying it is better, I am not saying it is worse--that is not my question--but a different tone and feeling from what manufacturing pursuits do. I will not even a.n.a.lyse the cause of it; but I may state this much, that commerce has that which manufacture has not. It has its traditions and its history upon a higher and very different footing: it has even its romance and its poetry. A profession exercised within a port which is a.s.sociated with such names as those of Tyre, of Byzantium, of Venice, of Genoa, of the Hanse Towns, and many of the chief cities of history, may be said to have some liberal features which I do not say are beneficial; I am merely saying that they are different from those which arise out of the a.s.sociations of manufacture. Images of greatness and of splendour are connected with the one much more than with the other, and the term 'merchant princes' is a term which neither historians nor orators would treat as otherwise than properly applied to many of the chief men of the cities which I have named in former days, and many of the chief men of the cities with which we are now dealing. Moreover commerce brings the parties engaged in it into connection and contact with almost the whole known world. Liverpool is not the Liverpool of Lancas.h.i.+re only, or of Ches.h.i.+re only, or of England only; Liverpool is the Liverpool of India, of China, of Africa, of North and South America, of Australia--the Liverpool of the whole habitable globe; and she has her features of distinction; she has her habits of thought and feeling, her traditions of mind fostered by influences such as these. There she sits upon the Mersey, a sort of queen of the seas; and Manchester, her sister, looks at her and loves her not. _She_ too is great, and _she_ too is powerful--but she is not Liverpool, and she cannot become Liverpool. At Liverpool she is lost in the throng of nations and the mult.i.tude of commerce; she is merely one of the many customers of the port.

Well, as she cannot equal Liverpool, what is the next thing? It is to pull down Liverpool; to make Liverpool, forsooth, the Piraeus of such an Athens as Manchester! That, sir, will suit her purpose, but will it suit yours?...

No commercial interests can act, sir, more than any other interests, without some local a.s.sociation, without some united home, such as is afforded in the const.i.tution of our own port.... To found upon injustice, and to proceed by agitation, to put down a rival whom they cannot help admiring though they cannot love--that, sir, is a process neither worthy of them nor likely to accord with the views of the const.i.tutional politician, who is willing indeed that, according to the natural force of circ.u.mstances and the development of time, every interest should acquire its legitimate position in the balance of power under the const.i.tution, but who certainly would not lend his aid to destroy by antic.i.p.ation and violently any of those great commercial landmarks which remain--and long may they remain--in this country, standing monuments of the past, and affording in the present working of different political pa.s.sions and interests a counterpoise, the loss of which would soon be felt, and would lead every one to regret the legislation which had converted this bill into an Act. (Pp. 213, 214, 221- 4.)

4. _The L. B. & S. C. Company--the Beckenham Line_.--In this great case Mr. Hope-Scott was retained by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company to oppose a bill by which it had been sought to construct a new and rival line by Beckenham, and, with his usual address, succeeded in turning it out. The question was one of considerable local importance, and on its decision a clever article appeared in the 'West Suss.e.x Gazette,'

written by the editor of that paper, the late Mr. William Woods Mitch.e.l.l, in whose sudden death in 1880 the public press of England lost a most able and talented journalist, who (I may remark in pa.s.sing) had as considerable a share as any one in carrying the principle of unstamped newspapers. His description of Mr. Hope-Scott's style of pleading is interesting, as conveying the impressions of a very sharp-sighted spectator, and, so to speak, placing before our bodily vision what such refined criticism as that of Mr. Venables has addressed rather to the eye of the mind.

To one of an impulsive temperament Mr. Hope-Scott's unconcern and _sang- froid_ is perfectly irritating. It is amazing how he remembers minute points and names. From the highest questions of policy down to Mr. Ellis's cow and ladder case he was 'up' in detail, never lost for a word, and not to be astonished at anything. If the House of Commons were on fire he would ask the committee simply if he should continue until the fire had reached the room, or adjourn on the arrival of the engines. Whilst he delivers his speech he is keeping up a little cross-fire with the clerks behind, who scratch out the evidences and papers as he requires them. Now he will drink from the water-gla.s.s, now take a pinch of snuff, then look at his notes, or make an observation to some one; but still the smooth thread of his speech goes on to the committee: but it is smooth, and says as plainly as possible, 'My dear friend, I am not to be hurried, understand that if you please.' When, however, Mr. Scott has a joke against his learned friend he looks round, and his dark eyes twinkle out the joke most expressively....

There was a slight twinkle as he said to the committee, 'Now I come to the question of gradients.' It was amusing to see the five M.P.s twist in their chairs, and how readily the chairman told Mr. Scott the committee required to hear nothing further about gradients. Had the question of gradients been entered upon, one might have travelled to Brighton and back ere it was concluded. Mr. Hope-Scott had the advantage of a good case, and he 'improved the occasion.' He further had the advantage of the three shrewd gentlemen at his elbow, Messrs. Faithfull, Slight, and Hawkins, who allowed no point to slumber. The great features in favour of the Brighton Company were--first, that their line was acknowledged by all to be well connected; secondly, that Parliament had never granted a competing line of as palpable a character as the Beckenham; thirdly, that it had been shown by a committee of inquiry that competing lines invariably combine to the detriment of the public; and lastly, that the opposition line was not a _bona fide_ scheme, and not required for the traffic of the district.

Mr. Denison replied at a disadvantage. [The chairman announced:] 'The committee are unanimous in their decision that the preamble of the bill has _not_ been proved.' The B. and S. C. has won the race. Another victory for _Scott's lot!_ [Footnote: _Scott's lot_. There was a celebrated trainer of the day, named Scott; and this expression was very familiar in the records of the turf.] The Beckenham project thrown out.

[Footnote: _West Suss.e.x Gazette_, June 18, 1863.]

The same writer (I have been told) also remarked that Mr. Hope-Scott succeeded with the committee by making an exceedingly clear _statement_ of the case, thereby making them think that they knew something about it--and that was half the battle. When it was over, Mr.

Hope-Scott observed to a friend, 'It is very likely I shall hear of that again; and very probably I shall be on the other side.' In fact, the affair got mixed up with the South-Eastern, from which company Mr. Hope-Scott received a prior retainer, and carried the Beckenham line against the L.

and B. On that occasion he met the probable production by the opposing counsel of the statement from his previous speech by showing that circ.u.mstances alter cases, and that two or three years make a great difference. These latter particulars, however, I only give as conversational. To prevent any adverse impressions which might be given by such random talk, I would remark in pa.s.sing, that a case like the foregoing is not a question of right or wrong, truth or falsehood, but of a balance of _expediency_, which it is a counsel's business in each instance to state, though certainly not to _overstate_. Further on (p.124) the reader will find evidence of Mr. Hope-Scott's resolute conscientiousness in the matter of fees.

5. _Scottish Railways: an Amalgamation Case_.--A bill for the amalgamation of certain Scottish railways was one of the great cases in which Mr. Hope-Scott was concerned in the Parliamentary Session of 1866. A correspondent of the 'Dundee Advertiser' takes occasion from it to contribute to that journal a sketch of Mr. Hope-Scott's personal history and professional career, with sundry comments on his style as an advocate.

From this article I shall quote so much as refers in general to the Scottish part of his practice, and particularly to the case above mentioned. It will be perceived that the writer takes a comparatively disparaging view of Mr. Hope-Scott's manner of pleading; but this only shows the coa.r.s.e drawing which those who write for the people often fall into, like artists whose pictures are to be seen from a great distance. For convenience of arrangement I make a transposition in the pa.s.sage which I now place before the reader.

Mr. Hope-Scott in pleading his cases has a peculiarly easy style of speech, which can hardly be called oratory, because it would be ridiculous to waste high oratory on a Railway or a Waterworks Bill. But he has an apparently inexhaustible flow of language in every case he takes up, and every point of every case. He has little gesture, but is graceful in all his movements.

He fastens on every point, however small--not a single feature escapes him; and he covers it up so completely with a cloud of specious but clever words, that a Parliamentary committee, composed as it is of private gentlemen, are almost necessarily led captive, and compelled to view the point as represented by him. It was eminently so in the Amalgamation case.

The specious excuses for unmitigated selfishness there put forth were poured into the ears of the committee with such an air of innocent candour, and with such a clever copiousness, that the committee was, as it were, flooded and overwhelmed by his quiet eloquence; and though Mr. Denison with the keen two-edged sword of his logic cut through and through the watery flood in every case, it was just like cutting water, which immediately closed the moment the instrument was withdrawn. I am not doing Mr. Scott injustice when I say that in the Amalgamation case his tact was at least in as much demand as his ability, and that for downright argument his speeches could not for one moment be compared to those of Mr. Denison. But having a bad case to begin with, and having to make a selfish arrangement between two railway companies appear a great public advantage, he certainly, by his quiet skilful touches, turned black into white before the committee with remarkable neatness. His reply on the whole case was another flood of rosewater eloquence, which rose gently over all the points in Mr. Denison's speech, and concealed if it did not remove them. It was like the tide rising and covering a rock which could only be removed by blasting. Mr.

Denison has the keen logical faculty which enables him to bore his way through the hardest argument, and blast it remorselessly and effectually as the gunpowder the rock. Mr. Scott, again, prefers to chip the face of the rock, to trim it into shape, to cover it over with soil, and to conceal its hard and rocky appearance under the guise of a flower-garden, through which any one may walk. And with ordinary men this style of thing is very popular. I do not mean that Mr. Scott is incapable of higher things. Far from it. I believe that had he to plead before a judge few could be more logical and powerful than he; but it is a remarkable evidence of the 'Scottishness' of his character, if I may coin a phrase, that when he has to plead before a committee of private gentlemen who have to be 'managed,'

he should deliberately select a lower style of treatment for his subjects.

From his birth and social position, his mixing with the n.o.blest and best society in the land, and his versatility and quick perceptive powers, Mr.

Hope-Scott is so thoroughly master of the art of pleasing that a committee cannot fail to be ingratiated by him; and is certainly never offended, as he is gentlemanly and amiable to a fault. His temper is unruffled, and his speeches brimful of quick wit and humour; and when a strong-minded committee has to decide against him, so much has he succeeded in ingratiating himself with them that it is almost with a feeling of personal pain the decision is given. I remember seeing the chairman of one of the committees look distinctly sheepish as he gave his decision against Mr.

Scott, and could not help thinking how much humbug there was in this system of Parliamentary committees altogether.

Mr. Hope-Scott has had a great deal to do in regard to Dundee and district business in Parliament. He represented the Harbour Trustees when they obtained their original Act, and he has had a hand in forwarding or opposing most of the railways in the district. He was employed by Mr. Kerr at the formation of the Scottish Midland; and I may mention that he was also employed in regard to the original Forfar and Laurencekirk line. In his conduct of the latter case a characteristic incident occurred which shows the highly honourable nature of the man. It was at the time of the railway mania, when fancy fees were being given to counsel, and when some counsel were altogether exorbitant in their demands. Mr. Hope-Scott was to have replied on behalf of the Forfar and Laurencekirk line, but intimated that he would not have time to do so, he being engaged on some other case.

It was supposed, as fancy fees were being freely offered to secure attendance, that Mr. Scott was dissatisfied with his, and accordingly an extra fee of 150 guineas was sent to him along with a brief and a request that he would appear and make the reply. Mr. Scott sent back the brief and the cheque to the agents, with a note stating his regret that they should have supposed him capable of such a thing, also stating that he feared he would not have time to make the reply; but requesting that W. Kerr, of Dundee, should be asked to visit him and prepare him for the case, that he might be able to plead it if he did find time. This was done; he did find the time, he pleaded the case, but would not finger the extra fee! How different this conduct from that of some of the notorious counsel of those days, who, after being engaged in a case, sometimes stood out for their 1,000-guinea fees being doubled before they would go on with it!'

[Footnote: I have heard of even a stronger case at that period than those alluded to by this writer--of a brief of 300_l_. being returned by the counsel and agents backwards and forwards till it reached 3,000_l_.]

('Dundee Advertiser,' July 2, 1866.)

6. _Dublin Trunk Connecting Railway_.--This was a case of some interest in 1868 or 1869, when schemes were in agitation for the connection of lines and the construction of one great central station for Dublin.

Seven bills had been proposed, two of which their supporters had great hopes of carrying: the Dublin Trunk Connecting line few had thought would pa.s.s, when Mr. Hope-Scott went into the committee-room one afternoon, examined some witnesses, and made a speech which carried all before it; and, to the astonishment of all, the bill pa.s.sed. The project, indeed, was never realised, but all agreed that Mr. Hope-Scott's single speech before the committee had s.n.a.t.c.hed the affair from the hands of all the other competing parties.

7. His professional services to his old College of Eton in one important case (the Public Schools Bill of 1865) have already been more than once referred to. [Footnote: See vol. i. p. 17, and the present vol. ii. p.

106.]

But he similarly a.s.sisted Eton on other occasions also. One of these was a contest it had with the _Great Western Railway Company_ in 1848, and which did not terminate in complete success; but his exertions (which were gratuitous) called forth a most emphatic expression of thanks in an address to him from the head-master (Dr. Hawtrey) and from the whole body of the masters. They say:--

It would indeed have been impossible by any such payment to have diminished our debt. For we feel that you spoke as if you had a common interest in our cause, and the advocate was lost in the friend. Nothing was wanting in our defence which the most judicious eloquence, combined with the sincerest regard for Eton, could supply:--

Si Pergama dextra Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.

But if the great object of our wishes could not be obtained against an opposition so powerful, restrictions have been imposed on the direction of the Great Western line, which would not have been granted but for the earnestness of your address to the committee; and whatever alleviations there may be to the evils which we expected, we shall owe them entirely to your advocacy.

I have little to add to what has now been brought together, yet a few sc.r.a.ps may still interest the reader.

Mr. Hope's first general retainers (as already stated) date in 1844; but by the time he retired he was standing counsel to nearly every system of railways in the United Kingdom (not, however, to the Great Western, though he pleaded for them whenever he could--that is, when not opposed by other railways for which he was retained). With the London and North-Western he was an especial favourite. It is believed that on his retirement his general retainers amounted to nearly one hundred--an extraordinary number; among which are included those given by the Corporations of London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Liverpool, and others. There was, in fact, during his last years, constant wrangling among clients to secure his services. The cry always was 'Get Hope-Scott.' That there may have been jealousy on the part of some as to the distribution of time so precious, may easily be supposed. I find a hint of this in a book of much local interest, but which probably few of my readers have met with, 'The Larchfield Diary: Extracts from the Diary of the late Mr. Mewburn, First Railway Solicitor. London: Simpkin and Marshall [1876].' Under the year 1861 Mr. Mewburn says (adding a tart comment):--

The London and North-Western Railway Company had, in the session of 1860, twenty-five bills in Parliament, all which they gave to Mr. Hope-Scott as their leader, and he was paid fees amounting to 20,000_l_., although he was rarely in the committee-room during the progress of the bills.-- 'Larchfield Diary,' p. 170.

As to this, it must be observed that the companies engaged Mr. Hope-Scott's services with the perfect knowledge beforehand that the demands on his time were such as to render it extremely doubtful whether he could afford more than a very small share of it to the given case. They wished for his name if nothing else could be had; and, above all, to hinder its appearing on the opposite side. It was also felt that his powers were such, that a very little interference or suggestion on his part was very likely to effect all they wished. People said, 'If he can only give us ten minutes, it will _direct_ us. We don't want the chief to draw his sword--he will win the battle with the glance of his eye.' In reference to one case I have described (No. 6) a client exclaimed, 'Even in ten minutes he put all to rights. We should have gone to pieces but for those ten minutes.' One is reminded of the exclamation of the old Highlander who had survived Killiecrankie: 'O for one hour of Dundee!' With these facts before us, and the astonis.h.i.+ng unanimity of the best informed witnesses, as to Mr. Hope- Scott's straightforwardness and high sense of honour, I think Mr. Mewburn's objection is sufficiently answered. A remark, however, may be added, which I find in an able article in the 'Scotsman' (May 1, 1873): 'Often unable to attend his examination of minor witnesses, Mr. Hope-Scott nevertheless took care to possess himself of everything material in their evidence by careful reading of the short-hand writers' notes, and he always contrived to be at hand when the examination of an important witness might be expected to prove the turning-point in his case.'

The same writer goes on to say:--

Mr. Hope-Scott was not cla.s.sed as a legal scholar, nor did his branch of the profession, which was the making, not the interpreting of laws, demand that accomplishment. His power lay, first, in a strong common sense and in a practical mind; next, in a degree of tact amounting to instinct, by which he seemed to read the minds of those before whom he was pleading, and steered his course and pitched his tone accordingly; and lastly, in being in all respects a thorough gentleman, knowing how to deal with gentlemen.... Though sincere and zealous in [religious] matters, Mr. Hope- Scott never, in his intercourse with the world and with men of hostile beliefs, showed the least drop of bitterness, or fell away in the smallest degree from that geniality of spirit which marked his whole character, and that courtesy of manner which made all intercourse with him, even in hard and anxious matters of business, a pleasure, not only for the moment, but for memory.

The following anecdote will serve to show that Mr. Hope-Scott was not the man to abuse the power which of course he well knew that he possessed, of 'making the worse seem the better cause.' Once when engaged in consultation with a certain great advocate, they both agreed that they had not a leg to stand upon. ---- said that he would speak, and did deliver a speech which was anything but law. Mr. Hope-Scott being then called, bowed, and said that he had nothing to add to the speech of his learned friend. 'How could you leave me like that?' asked the other. 'You had already said,' replied Mr. Hope-Scott, 'that you had no case.'

In his latter years Mr. Hope-Scott was thought to have become rather imperious in his style of pleading before the Parliamentary committees: I mention this, not to pa.s.s over an impression which probably was but incidental. Of an opposite and very beautiful trait see an example in Mr.

Gladstone's 'Letter' (Appendix III.).

It is obvious that Mr. Hope-Scott's professional emoluments must have been, as I have already said in general, very great. Notwithstanding his generosity and forbearance, it was no more possible for him, with his talents and surroundings, to avoid earning a splendid income than (as Clarendon says of the Duke of Buckingham) for a healthy man to sit in the sun and not grow warm. Into the details of his professional success in this point of view I must refrain from entering. Although, considering the great historical interest of the era of 'the railway mania,' the question of the fees earned by a great advocate of that period can hardly be considered one of merely trivial curiosity, still, the etiquette and let me add the just etiquette, of the profession would forbid the use of information, without which no really satisfactory outline of this branch of my subject could be placed before the reader, least of all by a writer not himself a member of the profession. The popular notion of it must, I suppose, have appeared not infrequently in the newspapers of the day--an example may be found at p.

204 of this volume--and but very recently a similar guess appeared in a literary organ of more permanent character. But to correct or to criticise such vague statements on more certain knowledge, even if I possessed it, is what can hardly be here expected. Indeed, I ought rather to ask pardon for mistakes almost certainly incident to what I have already attempted.

In concluding the present subject I may remark that Mr. Hope-Scott's professional labours by no means represent the whole work of his life.

Nominally, he was supposed to be free for about half the year, but in reality this vacant time was almost filled up by other work of a business nature undertaken out of kindness to friends or relations--precisely what the old Romans called _officia_. Such was the charge of the great Norfolk estates, and of the long-contested Shrewsbury property; [Footnote: Bertram Talbot, last Earl of Shrewsbury of the Catholic branch, had bequeathed considerable property to Lord Edmund Howard (brother-in-law to Mr. Hope-Scott), on condition of his a.s.suming the name of Talbot. His right to make this bequest was disputed by his successor, and a protracted litigation ensued in 1864 and the next few years, throughout which Mr.

Hope-Scott acted as friend and adviser of the Howards, to whom he was guardian. The importance of this _cause celebre_ here consists chiefly in the self-sacrificing labours by which Mr. Hope-Scott succeeded in saving something for his relative out of the wreck, when to rescue the whole proved to be hopeless. I am not aware that it need be concealed that he had a very strong opinion against the justice of the decision.] such was another trust, on a considerable scale, for connections of his family in Yorks.h.i.+re, involving, like the former, a great deal of travelling, for he was not satisfied with merely looking at things through other people's eyes. Such, too, his guardians.h.i.+p of his elder brother's eight children [Footnote: Mr. George W. Hope died on October 18, 1863--a great sorrow to Mr. Hope-Scott, to whom for years, in the earlier part of his career, his house had been a home, and who regarded him throughout with deep affection.] for about ten years before his death. A fourth may be added, that of the family of Mr. Laing, solicitor at Jedburgh, a convert who died young, requesting Mr. Hope to protect the interest of his seven children. A fifth, too--the guardians.h.i.+p of the children of his old legal tutor, Mr.

Plunkett. The four first-mentioned guardians.h.i.+ps occupied Mr. Hope till nearly the end of his life. And, on the top of all this, add a most voluminous correspondence, in which his advice was required on important subjects by important persons--and often on subjects which were to them of importance, by very much humbler persons too.

Of the spirit in which he laboured, the following pa.s.sage of a letter of his to Father (now Cardinal) Newman gives an idea. Like some other letters I have quoted, it almost supplies the absence of a religious diary of the period. It is an answer to a letter of Dr. Newman's, presently to be given (p. 143).