[[11]] In the preface to his translation of the Breviary, published six years later, Bute pays a handsome tribute to the "long pains and unwearied patience and kindness" which the learned Jesuit had expended in assisting him in the work. Father MacSweeney read the whole of it in proof, and contributed much valuable criticism, especially in connection with the translation of the Psalter.
[[11]] One of the testamentary dispositions of Edith Lady Loudoun, who had succeeded to the Scottish earldom in 1868 on the premature death of her brother, fourth and last Marquis of Hastings, curiously recalls a provision afterwards made by Bute in his own will. Lady Loudoun directed that her right hand should be severed after death, and buried apart from her body (which was interred in the family vault in Scotland) in the park at her husband's seat at Donington, her home before she inherited her brother's title. Curiously enough, a similar provision had been made by her grandfather (and Bute's), the first Marquis of Hastings, the distinguished Governor-General of India, who died in Malta in 1826, his wife and children being at the time in Scotland. He was buried at Malta, but his right hand was by his wish carried to Loudoun, and placed in the grave destined for his wife. When the latter was dying fourteen years later, her daughter Sophia, afterwards Marchioness of Bute, wrote a note to the parish minister, asking him to bring her a small iron box which he would find in the family vault. "There must be no delay," the missive ended. The young minister did Lady Sophia's bidding: the box was taken to her mother's deathbed, and two days later was enclosed in her coffin according to her husband's desire. This minister was the Rev. Norman Macleod, afterwards the chaplain and intimate friend of Queen Victoria.
CHAPTER VII
WINE-GROWING—LITERARY WORK—THE SCOTTISH REVIEW
1875-1886
Bute's domestic happiness was crowned, at the close of the year 1875, by the birth of his eldest (and for some years his only) child, the event taking place at Mountstuart on December 24, 1875. "At twenty minutes to five a.m. on Christmas Eve," he wrote to a friend, "the first cries of my daughter were heard, and the little thing is and has been in excellent health and strength. I cannot believe there is ever much likeness in babies to one parent or the other; but what she has absolutely, such as the colour of the eyes, formation of the ears, etc., is after me, and not after her mother ... She was baptised that evening at six, I asking the farmers round about. Mgr. Capel made a kind of little sermon for the occasion, very well done."
The autumn of the following year was marked by a Royal visit to the Isle of Bute—a rare event in those parts, and one which for that reason aroused all the greater interest and appreciation. H.R.H. Prince Leopold was the guest of Lord and Lady Bute for four days at Mountstuart, arriving in the evening in Lord Glasgow's yacht Valetta at the picturesque harbour of Rothesay, which was illuminated for the occasion. The Prince next day paid a kind of official visit to the Aquarium (the chief public attraction of Rothesay), and had a most enthusiastic reception. On Sunday he attended service in the parish church, accompanied by the Protestant members of the house-party; and in the evening he was present at the Catholic service of vespers in Lord Bute's private chapel. A ball was given at Mountstuart during his visit; and he much enjoyed a cruise in the yacht round the islands, as well as a visit to the interesting colony of beavers which Bute had established some little time before on a spot adapted for their damming and tree-cutting operations.