JAMES R. HOPE.
I subjoin a few lines from Dr. Newman's answer to this invitation (which at first he was unable to accept):—
It would be a great pleasure to spend some time with you, and then I have ever had the extremest sympathy for Walter Scott, that it would delight me to see his place. When he was dying I was saying prayers (whatever they were worth) for him continually, thinking of Keble's words, 'Think on the minstrel as ye kneel.' (Dr. Newman to J. R. H. from Edgbaston, Birmingham, Oct. 29, '52.)
Not less interesting is a letter in which he recalls this visit, years after. Writing to Mr. Hope-Scott on Christmas Eve, 1857 [compare p. 131], Dr. Newman says:—
I am glad to call to mind and commemorate by a letter the pleasant days I passed in the North this time five years. Five years has a melancholy sound to me now, for it is like a passing-bell, knolling away time. I hope it is not wrong to say that the passage of time is now sad to me as well as awful, because it brings before me how much I ought to have done, how much I have to do, and how little time I have to do it in…. I wonder whether Badeley is with you? What a strange thing life is! We see each other as through the peep-holes of a show. When had I last a peep at him or you?
At Abbotsford one blessing was still wanting to the completion of domestic happiness. It may be assumed that, after successes so brilliant, Mr. Hope could not but desire to found a family which should continue, in his own line, names so famous as those which he inherited and represented; but this was long withheld. His first child, a boy, was still-born (1848); the next, after an interval of four years (October 2, 1852, Feast of the Guardian Angels), was a daughter, Mary Monica (now the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott), named after a favourite saint of his; and several years more elapsed before the birth of another son. A passage from one of Bishop Grant's letters to Mr. Hope will be read with interest at this point, both for the characteristic piety and for the intimacy of their friendship to which it witnesses:—
The Right Rev. Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C.
Dec. 10, 1852.
My dear Mr. Hope,—… As you will have more opportunities at Abbotsford than you will perhaps find in London, it may be well to tell you that the Italian nurses begin almost before children know how to use their eyes, to make them notice prints or statues of our dear Mother and of the saints. This helps their imagination, such as it is; and, after all, when we know how some babes notice their parents and nurses, there is every reason why we should accustom them to notice holy things. And, as they begin to talk, it is right to follow the rule which St. Augustine says his mother had, of constantly letting the sacred names drop, so that the great doctor says she completely destroyed his relish for all oratory from which those sweet names were absent.
May the blessings of Christmas fall abundantly on all at Abbotsford!