As it was at Hyères that I first became acquainted with Mr. Hope-Scott, I may introduce into this chapter, perhaps as conveniently as anywhere, such personal recollections of him as I can call to mind. They are much more scanty than I could wish; still, where the memorials to be collected from any sources are but few, and rapidly passing away, surviving friends may be glad of the preservation of even these slight notices.
In 1864-5 I had the honour of being entrusted with the tuition of Henry,
Duke of Norfolk, and, as the Duke spent that winter with his relatives at
Hyères, I had several opportunities of conversing with Mr. Hope-Scott in
his domestic circle, as on other occasions afterwards.
Mr. Hope-Scott was then in his fifty-third year. He was tall, largely built, with massive head, dark hair beginning to turn grey, sanguine, embrowned complexion, very dark eyes, fine, soft, yet penetrating. 'Quel bel homme! quel homme magnifique!' the French would exclaim in talking of him. In his features might be remarked that indefinable expression which belongs to the practised advocate. He had an exceedingly winning smile, an harmonious voice, and deliberate utterance. His manners, I need hardly say, showed all that simplicity and perfection of good breeding which art may simulate, but can never completely attain to.
I am not aware that there is any likeness of Mr. Hope-Scott in his later years. There is an excellent one of him about the age of thirty-two, painted by Richmond for Lady Davy, and now at Abbotsford, of which an engraving was published by Colnaghi. Mr. Lockhart, writing to Mrs. Hope- Scott on August 29, 1850, says: 'I called, yesterday at Mr. Richmond's to inspect his picture of J. R. H., and was extremely pleased—a capital likeness, and a most graceful one…. I am at a loss to say whether I think Grant or he has been most lucky—and they are very different too.' I have heard that the portrait by Richmond is supposed to represent his expression when pleading. Mr. Richmond also drew (in crayon, previously to 1847) two others, one for Lady Frances Hope, subsequently given to the Hon. Mrs. G. W. Hope, and another for Mr. Badeley, after whose decease it was given by Mr. Hope to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There was also a small life- portrait, done after his marriage by Mr. Frank Grant, but not thought so pleasing a likeness as Richmond's. There is a good bust by Noble at Abbotsford, but this was made after his death, by study of casts, &c. It might express the age of about thirty-five or forty.
In his hospitality Mr. Hope-Scott showed great kindness and thoughtfulness. One day, for example, he would invite to dinner the curé of Hyères and his clergy; on another occasion, a young lady having become engaged, a party must be given in her honour; or an English prelate passes Hyères on his way home, and must be entertained. He was very attentive to guests, took pains to make people feel at their ease, and dispensed with unnecessary formality, but not with such usages as have their motive in a courteous consideration for others. Thus, when there were French guests, he was particular in exacting the observance of the rule that the English present should talk to each other, as well as to the strangers, in French. He had a thorough colloquial knowledge of the French language, marked not so much by any French mannerism, of which there was little, as by a ready command of the vocabulary of special subjects—for instance, agriculture.
In society Mr. Hope-Scott's table-talk was highly agreeable. There was, however, a certain air of languor about him, caused partly by failing health, but far more, no doubt, by that 'softened remembrance of sorrow and pain' which my readers can by this time understand better than any of those who then surrounded him. His conversation, therefore, when the duty of entertaining his guests did not require him to exert himself, was liable to lapse into silence. Some people seem to think it a duty to break a dead silence at any price; but this, in Mr. Hope-Scott's opinion, was not always to be followed as a rule of etiquette; so, at least, I have heard.
I cannot remember that he showed any great interest in politics. He told me that he seldom read the leading articles of the 'Times,' which he thought had little influence on public events. I can, however, recall an interesting conversation on the social state of France, of which he took a very melancholy view; and again, in 1870, when he pronounced decisively against the chances of the permanent establishment of the Commune, on the ground of the total change in the condition of Europe since the Middle Ages—the old Italian republics having been alleged in favour of the former.
His conversation seldom turned upon general literature, and at the time I knew him he had given up the 'bibliomania.' His favourite line of reading, for his own amusement, seemed to be glossaries, such as those of the Provençal dialect, and the archaeology of Hyères, on which a friend of his, the late M. Denis, had written an interesting volume. Le Play's elaborate treatise, 'La Réforme Sociale,' strongly attracted his attention. He was fond of statistical works, such as the 'Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes,' a little compilation bristling with facts. He greatly cherished, as might be expected, the memory of Sir Walter Scott; and, had his life been prolonged, would probably have done more for it than the republication of the abridgment of Lockhart's Life. I recollect his mentioning that there were in his hands unpublished MSS. of Sir Walter's which would furnish materials for a volume. [Footnote: In a letter to Lord Henry Kerr, dated 'Norfolk House, London, S.W., July 6, 1867,' Mr. Hope-Scott says:—
'I have, because everybody seemed to think I must, become a purchaser to- day of some of Sir Walter's MSS., viz. Rokeby, Lord of the Isles, Anne of Geierstein, and a volume of fragments of Waverley, Ivanhoe, &c. I am ashamed to say what they cost, but the Lady of the Lake alone cost another purchaser more than half what I paid for the four, and I can hardly say that it was to please myself that I bought at all.'] 'What he chiefly valued in the character of Sir Walter Scott (remarks a correspondent) was his manliness. I noticed that when Sir Walter was praised, Mr. Hope-Scott always spoke of his manliness.' These observations may somewhat qualify the impression of an intimate friend of his later years, by whom I have been told that Mr. Hope-Scott 'hardly opened a book, read scarcely at all, though he seemed to know about books.' He certainly could not, in the ordinary sense of the word, be called a literary man; but the active part of his life was far too busy for study, unless study had been a passion with him; and towards its close the state of his health made reading impossible.
Mr. Hope-Scott very rarely made mention of himself, and his conversation accordingly supplied little or no biographical incident. Yet I have heard him allude, more than once, to his intimacy with Mr. Gladstone. 'They had been,' he said, 'like brothers;' and he spoke also with pleasure of visits to the house of Sir John Gladstone, from whom he thought the Premier had derived much of his back.