My dear Hope-Scott,—…I learn with pleasure that you now find yourself able to make the effort necessary for applying yourself to what I trust you will find a healthful and genial employment.
You offer me a double temptation, to which I yield with but too much readiness. I am glad of anything which associates my name with yours; and I feel it a great honour to be marked out in the public view by your selection of me as a loyal admirer of Scott, towards whom, both as writer and as man, I cannot help entertaining feelings, perhaps (though this is saying much) even bordering upon excess.
Honesty binds me to wish you would do better for your purpose, but if you do not think any other plan desirable, I accept your proposal with thanks. Believe me
Affectionately yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C.
From the letter of dedication, which I should have been glad, if space had permitted, to give as a whole, I subjoin the opening and closing paragraphs, with notices (inclusive of some critical remarks) of the deeply interesting pages which intervene:—
J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C. to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.
Arundel Castle: April 10, 1871.
My dear Gladstone,—Although our friendship has endured for many years, and has survived great changes, it is not on account of my affection for you that I have desired to connect these pages with your name. It is because from you, more than from any one else who is now alive, I have received assurances of that strong and deep admiration of Walter Scott, both as an author and as a man, which I have long felt myself, and which I heartily agree with you in wishing to extend and perpetuate. On my part, such a desire might on other grounds be natural; on yours it can only spring from the conviction, which I know you to entertain, that both the writings and the personal history of that extraordinary man, while affording entertainment of the purest kind, and supplying stores of information which can nowhere else be so pleasantly acquired, have in them a great deal which no student of human nature ought to neglect, and much also which those who engage in the struggle of life with high purposes—men who are prepared to work earnestly and endure nobly—cannot pass without loss.