Ever yrs affly,
J. H. NEWMAN.
P.S.—… What set me most urgently on my present notice was that I could not help it. Though I gave up my series, which I wished to do, Lives remained, written or printed, or promised, which would appear anyhow, or scarcely could not.
The great event connected with the movement in 1844 was the publication of Ward's 'Ideal of a Christian Church,' which at first caused less excitement than might have been expected, at least in London. Thus Mr. Badeley writes to Mr. Hope (October 26), 'Ward's book passes very quietly here at present;' and again (November 8), 'The book here makes very little noise.' But meanwhile the heads of Houses were moving at Oxford, and on February 13, 1845, a memorable day, the book was condemned, and its author deprived of his degrees by the House of Convocation. Mr. Hope was absent on the Continent at the beginning of the strife, to which his letters do not contain much allusion. Perhaps the same motives of caution upon which he objected to the 'strong meat' of the 'Lives of the English Saints' would have led him to similar views as to the extreme unreserve of the 'Ideal.' When, however, the question of Mr. Ward's condemnation came on, he voted against it, as he was sure to have done if he voted at all. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that on the same occasion it was proposed to pass a censure on No. 90; but this was vetoed by the proctors, and consequently never came to the vote. I find the following draft of an address of thanks to the proctors in Mr. Gladstone's hand, and with the subjoined signatures and date in Mr. Hope's, among the Hope-Scott papers:—
We the u.s. M. of C., understanding that you have resolved to put your negative upon the Proposal relating to the Ninetieth Tract in Convocation on Thursday, the 13th instant, beg leave to tender to you our cordial thanks for a determination which we consider to have been demanded by the principles of our Academical Constit^n.
W. E. G.
Manning and self. Feby. 11, '45. J. R. H.
As far as regards Mr. Gladstone, this ought to be compared with a correspondence in the Oakeley case, which will be found cited infra, p. 58.
To the earlier part of the period now before us belongs some very kind service rendered by Mr. Hope to his dear friend the Rev. W. Adams, Fellow of Merton, and Perpetual Curate of St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford, in seeing through the press his celebrated allegory, 'The Shadow of the Cross,' on which there is a rather full correspondence extant (1842-43), but of more special interest as connected with Mr. Adams' biography than his own, except so far as it proves the affectionate intimacy which subsisted between them. One letter of later date (December 15, 1846) is endorsed in Mr. Hope-Scott's handwriting:—'William Adams, R. I. P. sub 'umbra crucis.' J. R. H. S. 1871.' The work was published for the Christian Knowledge Society, of the committee of which Mr. Hope at the time was still a member. In connection with the same society Mr. Hope undertook a serial work, already alluded to (which was in course of publication in 1844), consisting of engravings from Scripture subjects, in a high style of art, from the cartoons of Raphael in the Loggia of the Vatican. Mr. Hope was strongly impressed with the utility of such a work for directing and elevating the taste of the humbler classes and of schools generally, and he expended large sums of money in bringing this out. It was published in numbers containing six plates each, under the superintendence of Professor Gruner, afterwards Director of the Department of Engravings at the Royal Museum at Dresden, and prepared by Signor Corsini, a distinguished Roman draughtsman. Mr. Hope-Scott, indeed, did not carry on the work after the first five numbers (a large and costly business, however), and it was completed by Mr. Gruner alone, who published it under the title of 'Scripture Prints from the Frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican,' edited by Louis Gruner, &c. (London: Houlston and Wright, 1866). Mr. Hope-Scott continued his benefactions to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for several years later than the time now before us. I find a donation of 210_l_. under his name in the year 1847. He had given 200_l_. in November 1846 to the College Chapel at Harrow Weald.
Another undertaking of some importance in which he took great interest in those days, relating both to literature and religion, was the 'Anglia Christiana,' a series of the monuments of English history, which was publishing in 1844-45. Only three volumes of it came out—'Chronicon Monasterii de Bello' (Battle Abbey), Giraldus Cambrensis 'de Institutione Principis,' and 'Liber Eliensis.' Mr. Hope much wished to have had included in the list the work called 'Pupilla Oculi,' a treatise on moral theology by John de Burgh, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge about the year 1385, which was much in use among the clergy before the Reformation. Mr. David Lewis, of Jesus College (as a Catholic so well known for his admirable translations of the works of St. John of the Cross and of St. Teresa), collated the text for him, but I believe it was never published. I find in the Badeley correspondence a very interesting letter of Mr. Hope's dated February 28, 1843, about the 'Pupilla Oculi,' its history and authority. The book had been cited by Mr. Badeley in the Court of Queen's Bench, and by others in the House of Lords, in the case of the Queen v. Willis. Lord Lyndhurst and some of the judges objected to its value as evidence on the ground of its contradicting the common law on the question of legitimation by subsequent marriage. Mr. Hope discusses the subject in a masterly style: I must refrain from quoting such merely antiquarian or legal matter for its own sake, yet will subjoin some paragraphs of the letter which illustrate the line taken by him as a lawyer at that time on the important point of the relations of Church and State:—