I am getting on very well here up to this, and doing my best to popularise myself by going about among the people. Yesterday, for example, I attended both a funeral and a marriage. I believe this was much appreciated, and at the marriage I was very warmly received, was begged to do them the honour of signing the "lines," etc., etc. The oddest part of the matter was that at the funeral the Rothesay tag-rag outside cheered me as I left the churchyard. I thought the prayers at both ceremonies (of course extemporary) were intended to do me a little good: there was nothing in them with which I could not heartily concur, but a good deal of stress was laid on the "One Oblation offered once for all"—"the full and free Redemption which is by faith in Christ's death," etc., which are, I find, commonly supposed to be ideas irreconcileable with the teaching of the Holy Roman Church—why, I can't conceive, unless it is for want of reading St. Alphonsus Liguori.

Here at Rothesay we have a chapel and schools, a superannuated bishop, Dr. Gray, and a young Scottish priest educated in France, Mr. George Smith, a man of piety and learning.[[7]] The whole island contains about 500 Catholics, either Highlanders or Irish. I have had one of the rooms here made into a chapel, than which no meeting-house can be barer. Mass is said here on Sundays and holidays, preceded by a very simple English service. Last Sunday I was at Largs, on the mainland opposite, and heard an early Mass in a very poor cottage—said in the kitchen on a small chest of drawers. The house was crowded by the congregation, standing on the stairs, in the passages, and all the rooms. They are wonderfully devout. Out of the East I never saw such a sight.

Yours ever most sincerely,
BUTE.

1870, Life at Mountstuart

Bute spent nearly the whole winter and spring of 1870-1871 at his beautiful Scottish home, to which he was deeply attached. As he came to know his neighbours better—and he took much pains to cultivate friendly relations with them all—the stiffness, which was, perhaps, as much the result of his own shyness and reserve as of their lack of sympathy with his religious opinions, to a great extent wore off, and his simplicity, courtesy, good sense, and kindness of heart won for him little by little the high place in their regard which he ever afterwards maintained. He was from the first on the friendliest terms with the Presbyterian clergy of the island as well as with his own pastor, and had also established very cordial relations with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Dalrymple, then and for the following fifteen years member for the county, and resident in the island. This cordial acquaintanceship ripened, after the marriages of Bute and of Dalrymple, into a warm friendship between the two families which terminated only with death.[[8]]

Liturgical matters engrossed at this time, as always, a good deal of Bute's attention, and are dealt with in many of his letters. Thus, in March, 1871, he writes very seriously about the "truly scandalous proceedings" at the London pro-cathedral, news of which had reached him in Scotland, and which the context shows to have consisted in the wearing of dalmatics instead of folded chasubles at some Lenten function in the church in question. As will be seen from a later letter, he arranged for the ceremonial of Holy Week and Easter to be carried out as far as possible in his tiny chapel at Mountstuart; and we find him giving minute instructions to his friend Grissell, who was to spend that season as his guest in Bute, as to bringing the requisites for the celebrations, including "18 yellow candles, rather slim and 18 inches long, a paschal candle 3 feet long and 1-½ inches thick, a book on ceremonies, five grains of incense, and a wooden clapper for Maundy Thursday." "We had the rites of the Holy Week," he wrote subsequently to Miss Skene, "performed in my little chapel, for the first time in Bute since the change of religion three centuries ago. They seldom, if ever, take place in Scotland, and our priest here had never (so he told me) officiated in his life before on Good Friday! You may be surprised to hear that, having no choir to execute the liturgical chant, we adopt as far as we can the methodist style of singing emotional hymns during the services."

1871, Bute as philologist

After Easter Bute stayed for a while in London, and then returned to Cardiff, where he remained in residence for the greater part of the year. He took regular lessons in Welsh at this time from one of the Cardiff clergy, and quickly mastered the language scientifically, though he never learned to speak it fluently.

The science of philology (the late Dean Howell wrote) seemed to cost Lord Bute no effort, for he was a born philologist, and appeared to penetrate and solve linguistic difficulties as it were by instinct. Another thing that used to astonish me was his familiarity with, and wide knowledge of, the Authorised Version of the Bible; for at that time (1871) he could not have been more than 23 or 24 years of age. His retentive memory (which I have never seen equalled) enabled him to quote exactly lengthy passages; and if I chanced to quote a Welsh word from Scripture for illustrative purposes, he would give the English rendering of the whole passage from memory with ease and perfect accuracy. His tastes and accomplishments were essentially mediæval; and history, art, and archæology had for him an inexhaustible charm.

Bute had a little before this shown his practical interest in art by not only presiding at a Fine Art Exhibition in the drill-hall which he had erected, but by exhibiting there valuable plate and pictures, including a painting executed by himself. A little later he was in the chair at the annual meeting held at Cardiff of the Palestine Exploration Fund, recounting in very interesting fashion his own travels in that country. And in July, 1871, he took an active part in the congress of the British Archæological Institute held at the Town Hall, entertaining the members at a reception at the Castle and a banquet at Caerphilly. He also spoke at the congress, taking many of the distinguished visitors by surprise with the extent of his knowledge and information on the subjects special to the Institute.