'There may be some, my Lords, who seek in Dr. Newman's conviction a malignant triumph, and who would gladly avail themselves of the sentence of this Court, to crush the man whose writings have been their dread, as his life has been their shame. The cry of party prejudice and of religious bigotry may be raised in other places, and its echo may perhaps be heard even within these walls; but your Lordships, I am confident, will disregard it, and in the exercise of your sacred functions you will be guided only by the dictates of wisdom and of justice; you will respect the high character of Dr. Newman, his genius, his learning, his piety, his zeal, the purity of his motives, the sanctity of his life; you will remember the anxiety he has undergone, the expense which he has incurred, the facts which he has proved; and bearing these in mind, you cannot pass upon him any sentence of severity, you can but inflict a nominal punishment. 'Vestrum est hoc, Judices, vestræ dignitatis, vestræ dementias: recte hoc repetitur a vobis, ut virum optimum atque innocentissimum, plurimisque mortalibus carum atque jucundissimum, his aliquando calamitatibus liberetis, ut omnes intelligant in concionibus esse invidiæ locum, in judiciis veritati.' [Footnote: Cic. 'Pro Cluent. '71.]
There was some applause when I sat down, and all seemed highly delighted with my quotation…. The small amount of the fine is regarded by the Myrmidons (Achilli's followers) as a heavy blow to them, and all regard it as a triumph for us. One of the most satisfactory things, however, is the declaration of the Court that they are not satisfied with the finding of the jury upon the facts, and that if the question as to a new trial had rested solely on that finding, they would have felt themselves bound to send the case to another jury. And so ends this important case. I think we may congratulate ourselves. Newman is gone home to-day, and means to write to you tomorrow or next day. He was very tired yesterday, but seems quite alive again now, and in excellent spirits. The crowd in and about the Court was immense;… Newman was well attended by a numerous party of friends, and cheered as he left the Court.
Ever believe me
Yours most affectionately,
E. BADELEY.
(3) Charitable Bequests, &c.—In a letter of the Very Rev. Dr. (since Cardinal) Manning to Mr. Hope-Scott, dated 'Rome, March 3, 1854,' and marked 'private and confidential,' occurs the following passage: 'I am rejoiced to hear that you have been invited to communicate with the Government on the charitable bequests. And I think you will be glad to know that this fact has given, as I hear, great satisfaction to the Cardinal. In conversation he has often named you to me, and I feel sure that he would have selected you on his own part for such a purpose.'
I quote the following lines from a long and interesting letter of Dr. Manning's to Mr. Hope-Scott, dated '78 S[outh] A[udley] St., January 28, 1856:' 'Do you remember a conversation, the summer of 1854, one Sunday evening, at 22 Charles St., on the good which might be done by four or five men living together and preaching statedly at different places, on courses of solid subjects? The thought has long been in my mind both before and since our conversation, and it has been coming to a point under an increased sense of the need.'
Correspondence of this kind, which I can merely notice, would, of course, illustrate Mr. Hope-Scott's position as a leading Catholic layman of his time, in the confidence of the heads of the Church.
(4) The Repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act is an event too familiar in recent Church history to require much comment. The Government in 1851, having, in compliance with popular clamour, passed a bill by which Catholic prelates were prohibited, under many penalties, from assuming territorial titles of sees, found itself, from the very first, obliged to treat this enactment as a dead letter, in consequence of the legal difficulties and complications which arose from it. Common sense suggested its removal from the statute-book. This was not effected without considerable effort to escape from that necessity by some less humiliating alternative. Mr. Hope-Scott gave evidence, lasting for two days (July 9 and 16), before the Select Committee appointed in 1867 to report on the operation of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act; and to that evidence, showing all the luminous clearness and completeness which was so characteristic of him, but especially to an admirable Statement on the whole case which he submitted to the committee [see infra, p. 208], there can, I think, be no doubt that the final adoption (in 1871) of the only satisfactory remedy—a total repeal of the Act—was mainly due.
A letter of the London correspondent of a Dublin newspaper of the day, relating to Mr. Hope-Scott's examination before the Select Committee above mentioned, contains, in the lively manner of a journalist, some particulars worth preserving:—