Early in 1849 Mr. Hope received a patent of precedence, entitling him to rank with her Majesty's counsel; and in April of that year attended the levee as Q.C. It was at his own request that the dignity of the silk gown was conferred upon him in this form; and his reason was a conscientious difficulty about taking the oath of supremacy so far as it denied the papal authority, ecclesiastical or civil, as existing de facto et de jure in the realm. He states his difficulty in a letter to Mr. Badeley (February 23, 1849), as follows:—
That the Pope does exercise jurisdiction in this country is notorious; and that he ought to do so over R. Catholics seems to be admitted by the present state of the law as to that church. The oath, then, cannot be taken as it was originally meant, and the only sense in which I think it can be accepted is, that the Pope has not, nor without consent of the Legislature ought to have, an external coercive power over the Queen's subjects.
But this compromise did not satisfy him, and he therefore refused the silk gown, except under the conditions previously stated, which did not require him to take the oath of supremacy at all. His request for the patent of precedence, and his reasons for wishing it, were conveyed through a legal friend to the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, who made no difficulty whatever in granting it. The following anecdote will amuse the reader. When the Chancellor had to report to the Premier (Lord John Russell) the various appointments he had made, Lord John asked Lord Cottenham why he had given Mr. Hope-Scott a patent of precedence instead of making him a Q.C. On the Chancellor's replying that he had done it because of Mr. Hope-Scott's scruples about the oath, Lord John exclaimed, 'That's more than I would have done.'
Such illustrations of Mr. Hope-Scott's professional success as I have been able to collect, either from oral sources or correspondence, may fitly be introduced by a valuable paper on his characteristics as an advocate by Mr. G. S. Venables, Q.C. It is obviously drawn up with great care and reflection by a skilled observer, who had the best opportunities for arriving at a correct judgment. I omit the two opening paragraphs, the principal facts contained in which have been given in a former page. CRITICISM ON MR. HOPE-SCOTT'S CHARACTERISTICS AS A PLEADER. BY G. S. VENABLES, ESQ., Q.C.
The Bar is exempt from envy of merited success, and Mr. Hope-Scott's undisputed pre-eminence never provoked a feeling of personal jealousy. Though he cultivated little intimacy with his professional associates, his courtesy and good humour never failed; and he showed due appreciation of the services a leader requires from his junior colleagues.
His singularly attractive appearance produced its natural effect in conciliating those around him, and the pleasant and cheerful manner which nevertheless repelled familiarity tended to make him generally popular.
The most remarkable forensic qualities of Mr. Hope-Scott were facility, prudence, and grace of language and manner. The subtlety of his intellect, if it had been ostentatiously displayed, might perhaps have impaired the confidence which he had the art of inspiring. Inexperienced members of the tribunals before which he practised were tempted to forget that he was an advocate, while they listened to the perspicuous statements which led up with apparent absence of design to a carefully premeditated conclusion. It could never be suspected from his manner that he was constantly supporting a paradox, or that he anticipated defeat.
When he had occasion in successive contests to maintain opposite propositions, it seemed that the circumstances of the case, not the position of the advocate, had been changed.
In Parliamentary practice there is no room for the more ambitious kinds of eloquence, nor can it be known whether Mr. Hope-Scott would have been capable of elevated declamation. [Footnote: Of the latter, however, two or three specimens are given in this memoir. See vol. i. (pp. 199, 200), vol. ii. (pp. 115-118).] In dealing with questions of fact, of expediency, of equitable policy, and of complicated agreement, he has probably never been excelled. His lucid arrangement of topics, his pure polished style, and his appearance of dispassionate conviction secured the pleased attention of his audience. The more tedious parts of his argument or narrative were from time to time relieved by touches of the playfulness which is more popular than humour; but the colleagues and opponents who thoroughly understood his object, knew that it was pursued with undeviating constancy of purpose.
In the lightest of his speeches there was neither carelessness nor vacillation. Less finished advocates turn aside to indulge themselves in playing with an illustration or a favourite proposition, at the risk of betraying the distinction between their own natural train of thought and their immediate argument. Mr. Hope-Scott was too consummate an artist to be tempted into irrelevance or digression.