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 astonishing 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 classed 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 pass 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 assuming 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 célèbre 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 Yorkshire, 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 guardianship 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 guardianship of the children of his old legal tutor, Mr. Plunkett. The four first-mentioned guardianships 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 passage 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).