J. R. Hope-Scott, Esq., Q.C. to the Very Rev. Dr. Newman.
Abbotsford: Dec. 30, 1857.
Dear Father Newman,—… And now a word about yourself. I do not like your croaking. You have done more in your time than most men, and have never been idle. As to the way in which you have done it I shall say nothing. You may think you might have done it better. I remember that you once told me that 'there was nothing we might not have done better'—and this was to comfort me; and it did, for it brought each particular failure under a general law of infirmity, and so quieted while it humbled me. And then as to the future: what is appointed for you to do you will have time for—what is not, you need have no concern about. There! I have written a sermon. Very impudent I know it is; but when the mind gets out of joint a child may sometimes restore it by telling us some simple thing which we perhaps have taught it. Pat your child then on the head, and bid him go to play, while you brace yourself up and work on, not as if you must do some particular work before you die, but as if you must do your best till you die. 'Alas! alas! how much could I say of my past, were I to compare it with yours! And my future—how shall I secure it better than you can yours? But I must not abuse the opportunity you have given me…. With all good wishes of this and every season,
Yours very affectionately,
JAMES R. HOPE-SCOTT.
The Very Rev. Dr. Newman, Birmingham.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1847-1858.
Mr. Hope's Engagement to Charlotte Lockhart—Memorial of Charlotte Lockhart—Their Marriage—Mr. Lockhart's Letter to Mr. J. R. Hope on his Conversion—Filial Piety of Mr. Hope—Conversion of Lord and Lady Henry Kerr—Domestic Life at Abbotsford—Visit of Dr. Newman to Abbotsford in 1852—Birth of Mary Monica Hope-Scott—Bishop Grant on Early Education—Mr. Lockhart's Home Correspondence—Death of Walter Lockhart Scott—Mr. Hope takes the Name of Hope-Scott—Last Illness and Death of Mr. Lockhart—Death of Lady Hope—Letter of Lord Dalhousie—Mr. Hope-Scott purchases a Highland Estate—Death of Mrs. Hope-Scott and her Two Infants—Letters of Mr. Hope- Scott, in his Affliction, to Dr. Newman and Mr. Gladstone—Verses in 1858— Letter of Dr. Newman on receiving them.
This biography here reaches the point where the history of Mr. Hope's marriage may fitly be placed before the reader. It was an event which, as I have already hinted, may very probably have been connected, like his eager pursuit of the Bar, with the break-down of his early ideas as to the Church of England. Yet, viewed merely in its worldly aspects, the step was one which could have caused no surprise, the time for it having fully arrived, as he was now thirty-five, in a conspicuous position in society, and making a splendid income. The lady of his choice was Charlotte Harriet Jane Lockhart, daughter of John Gibson Lockhart, and granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott. It was through Lady Davy that Mr. Hope had made Mr. Lockhart's acquaintance; and thus what appeared a very meaningless episode in his juvenile years materially affected his destiny in life. In a letter of July 23, 1847, to his sister, Lady Henry Kerr, he speaks as follows of the important step in life he had decided upon, and of the character of his betrothed:—