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
{118} 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.
[Illustration: CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN]
[Sidenote: 1875, The Cardiff vintage]
From his boyhood Bute had been a lover of animals, though, unlike the
young hero of "The Mill on the Floss" (who "was very fond of
animals--that is, of throwing stones at them"), he took no interest
whatever in their destruction. Besides the beavers, to whose
constitutions the dampness of the Bute climate ultimately proved fatal,
he introduced a number of kangaroos (or rather wallabies) into the
sheltered woods round Mountstuart; and his visitors used to view with
surprise these agile little marsupials leaping about among the bushes,
as much at home as, and indeed much less shy than, the familiar hare or
rabbit of our English coverts. The acclimatisation of exotic shrubs in
the grounds of his island home (where the prevailing mildness of
temperature encouraged such experiments) was always a source of
interest to him; whilst at Cardiff he derived particular pleasure from
the success of his efforts to grow grapes there for wine-producing
purposes. Vines were selected from the colder districts of France, and
were planted in 1875 on the slopes of Castell Coch, near Cardiff, in
light fibrous loam soil. One particular vine, the _Gamay Noir_ (a
favourite in the Paris {119} district), so flourished that a second and
larger vineyard was propagated from it. Forty gallons of wine were
made in the second year after planting, and after two or three bad
seasons so good a vintage was secured in 1881 that the wine, pronounced
by connoisseurs to resemble good still champagne, was all sold at
excellent prices. The record year, however, was 1893, when the entire
crop of forty hogsheads, or over a thousand dozen, of the wine realised
a price which recouped all the expenses incurred during the previous
eighteen years. Dr. Lawson Tait, as famous for his taste in wine as
for his surgical skill, bought some of it; and when sold with the rest
of his cellar after his death it fetched 115_s._ a dozen.[1] The
success of Bute's viticultural experiments aroused very general
interest in England; and it is perhaps worth while putting on record,
as a good specimen of the now discredited art of the punster, a notice
of the new industry which appeared, now nearly half a century ago, in
the principal comic paper of the day:
The Marquis of Bute has, it appears, a Bute-iful vineyard at Castle
Coch, near Cardiff, where it is to be hoped such wine will be produced
that in future Hock will be superseded by Coch, and the unpronounceable
vintages of the Rhine will yield to the unpronounceable vintages of the
Taff. Cochheimer is as yet a wine _in potentia_, but the vines are
planted, and the gardener, Mr. Pettigrew, anticipates no petty growth.
No distinctive name was, as a matter of fact, ever given to the wine
made from the Castle Coch grapes; {120} and Bute on more than one
occasion asked good Welsh scholars (including some of the Cardiff
clergy) to dinner, in order to consult with them as to this point. The
site of one of the vineyards was a place called Swanbridge
(Pont-yr-alarch), and it was suggested that "Sparkling
Pont-yr-alarch"[2] would look well in a wine merchant's list. "True,"
was Bute's comment, made in the serious vein in which he loved to treat
such subjects: "yet I fear that such a name would militate against the
casual demand for my wine in hotels or restaurants. One can hardly
imagine the ordinary diner calling for a bottle of Pont-yr-alarch at
the beginning of his meal, still less asking for a second bottle at a
more advanced stage of the repast. All orders for this particular
vintage would have, in practice, to be given in writing." The wine
continued to be anonymous; and Bute, who frequently had it served at
his own table, used to puzzle his guests by asking their candid opinion
of it. "Well, now, Lord Bute," said a distinguished connoisseur once,
after tasting the 1893 vintage and rolling it over his palate _secundum
artem_, "this is what I should call an _interesting_ wine." "I wonder
what Sir H---- M---- exactly meant by that," Bute would sometimes say
afterwards, recalling the incident.
[Sidenote: 1875, Order of the Thistle]
The year 1875 was marked for Bute by an incident which gratified him
not a little, namely, the {121} bestowal on him by Queen Victoria of
the Knighthood of the Thistle. It was characteristic of him that he
did not accept this honour, as some noblemen of high rank and large
possessions might easily have done, as a mere matter of course. He
regarded it, on the contrary, as a recognition of the services he had
endeavoured to render to education, learning, and the civic life; and
he valued and appreciated it accordingly. Apart from any question of
personal merit, he was gratified, as a patriotic Scot, by his admission
into the most exclusive order of chivalry in the kingdom, and one which
had been conferred for generations on the most eminent of his
countrymen. He had held for some years the Grand Cross of two
distinguished Papal Orders--those of St. Gregory and of the Holy
Sepulchre; but on the occasion of his next ceremonial visit to Rome and
to the Pope, it was remarked at the Vatican (where such details never
pass unnoticed) that he was not wearing the Pontifical decorations, but
only the insignia of the Scottish Order.[3]
The loyal affection cherished by Bute for his few near relatives has
already been mentioned; and it may therefore be easily imagined with
what sympathetic interest he learned in the summer of 1875 that his
cousin Lady Flora Hastings, elder sister of Lord Loudoun, had been
received into the Catholic Church, and was in consequence being
subjected to a species of domestic persecution which seems strange in
these more tolerant days, but was {122} by no means uncommon fifty
years ago. Bute wrote as to this to an intimate friend:
_Jan._ 10, 1876.
The treatment to which she has been submitted at home has naturally
been extremely trying and painful to her;[4] but she has endured it
with admirable patience, being reinforced and supported by the
remarkable kindness of her brother. Loudoun's behaviour has indeed
been considerate to a degree that can hardly be imagined, and far more
so than could have been at all expected. You will understand, without
my saying more, what we all feel about this. Norfolk has been kindness
itself to her, and so, too, have others.
An interesting sequel to the reference in the last sentence was the
happy engagement concluded in 1877 between the Duke of Norfolk and Lady
Flora. As first cousins respectively to the bride and bridegroom, Lord
and Lady Bute were of course very specially interested in this
marriage, which took place at the Oratory on November 21, 1877. "We
are all occupied all day here," Bute wrote from a London hotel on
November 16, "talking about the wedding next week, and some of us with
other things besides talk, for there is much business to be done and
settled."
Neither on this nor on any other occasion did Lord and Lady Bute care
to remain away from their own home longer than was absolutely
necessary. Bute wrote a few days afterwards from Lord Glasgow's seat
in Fife, where they were paying a short visit:
{123}
We quitted London--as usual, with much satisfaction--the very day after
the ceremony, which was decorously done, and the mob of sightseers was,
I am inclined to think, better behaved (anyhow inside the church) than
at our marriage five years ago. Lord Beaconsfield, who was in the
front row next to Princess Louise, sat throughout the function wrapped
in his long drab overcoat, and gazing at the altar with Sphinx-like
immobility. He told me at the reception afterwards that he had thought
the music (which at Norfolk's express wish was plain-chant throughout)
"strangely impressive."
The bridegroom, by the way, forgot to order a carriage to take them
away after the ceremony, but finding his father-in-law's carriage at
the church door, handed in the bride with great presence of mind. They
were just driving off when Mr. Hastings came out fuming, and insisted
on a seat in his own carriage. So they all drove away together, quite
in violation, I imagine, of the established etiquette on such occasions.
[Sidenote: 1877, Burning of Mountstuart]
Bute's hopes of spending the winter of 1877-1878 quietly at his old
home near Rothesay were rudely frustrated by the catastrophe of
December 3, 1877, when Mountstuart House was practically burnt to the
ground, only the two wings (one of them containing the little private
chapel) escaping the flames. He wrote early in December, in reply to a
letter of condolence:
Many thanks for the kind expressions in your letter. It has all been,
of course, very distressing. Nearly all moveables (including books and
pictures) were most fortunately saved,[5] but the confusion is {124}
and has been so great that I am practically bookless for a while, and
feel like a snail that has lost its shell. But the Breviary is slowly
proceeding.
The destruction of his birthplace was, of course, far from leaving Bute
in any sense homeless; for Cardiff Castle as well as Dumfries House,
the fine old seat of the Crichtons, were still at his disposition, and
to these he added in course of time two other country-places in
Scotland, besides leasing for a term of years first the Duke of
Devonshire's cedar-shaded villa at Chiswick, and later the beautiful
domain of St. John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, which was almost as much
a _rus in urbe_ as Holland House itself. Superficially, and in one
respect, he may thus be said to have resembled the anonymous duke in
Disraeli's most popular novel, who was the owner of so many magnificent
seats that he could never feel (it was his one grievance) that he
possessed a home. But Bute, who considered it a matter of duty and
conscience to spend a certain time at all his places in turn, contrived
to find in each of them the _Lar domestico_ (as the Portuguese call it)
which makes a house a veritable home. Happy in the society of his wife
and growing family (three sons were born to him between 1880 and 1887)
and surrounded by the books which he loved, he was well contented to
live remote from cities, although quite devoid of any instincts
whatever for the sports which alone make country life tolerable to so
many Englishmen. A good swimmer and fencer (as we have seen) in his
early manhood, he indulged in middle life in no other bodily exercise
than that of country walks; and even in these, given a congenial
companion, what is called the "object of the walk" was often forgotten
in the interest of some conversation on {125} topics strangely remote
from the picturesque surroundings of a Scottish country house. One who
was often his associate in such rambles, perhaps on the high moorlands
above Mountstuart, recalls how they would pause at some notable point
of view, and how his companion, gazing with unseeing eye (though in
reality far from insensible to the beauties of nature) at the matchless
panorama of woods and mountains, sea, and sky spread out before them,
would dismiss the prospect, as it were, with a wave of the hand, and
continue his discourse on the claim of some mediaeval anti-pope to the
recognition of Christendom, or the precise relation between the
liturgical language employed by the Coptic Church and the tongue of
ancient Egypt as spoken by the Pharaohs.
[Sidenote: 1877, Bute as a landowner]
Bute was scrupulous and exact in the performance of his duties as a
landowner; he kept himself informed of all the details connected with
the management of his extensive estates, and never grudged the demands
on his time and patience made by the lawyers, agents, and others for
business interviews extending over many hours and sometimes even days.
That he found these prolonged transactions irksome and fatiguing enough
is clear from some expressions in his correspondence; and it was always
a pleasure and relief to him to get back to his books and literary
work, which were, perhaps, on the whole the chief interest of his life.
Although he expended annually a considerable sum on the equipment of
his libraries, Bute was no bibliophile in the sense in which that word
is now often used. Tall-paper copies, first editions, volumes unique
for their rarity, and publications de luxe had no interest for him at
all. What he aimed at was to surround himself with a first-rate
working library, furnished especially with those {126} works of
reference--_sources_, as the French term is--most likely to be of
service to him in the historical and liturgical researches with which
he was chiefly occupied. His librarian had standing orders, in the
case of new books of interest and utility, to purchase three copies, so
that wherever he chanced to be resident he found the tools of his craft
ready to his hand.[6] A letter written in the autumn of 1877 shows
that the work at that time occupying most of his attention was his
translation of the Roman Breviary, which after several years of
assiduous (though not, of course, continuous) labour was now nearing
its completion.
Mountstuart,
_August_ 28, 1877.
At last I am relieved from a more than usually tedious spell of
business with lawyers and factors, and am able to fulfil my promise to
tell you of my liturgical _opus magnum_ (I call it so, though my office
has been but the humble one of the translator). For the present, keep
the matter to yourself.
I have been engaged since the winter of 1870 in translating the whole
of the Roman Breviary into English; and the MS. is nearly finished, and
the printing now going on. I expect it will be published next year. I
have learnt Hebrew (more or less) for the purpose, and done an amount
of reading which it quite frightens me to think of. This translation
is _my beloved child_. I send you a volume of proof, and will give you
a copy of the two volumes when they come out. Please keep it quiet: I
don't want to be badgered about it, as I should be if people knew that
I was doing it.
{127}
I am executing a paraphrase in English prose, with a critical
commentary, introduction, notes, analysis, and all the rest of it, of
the Scots metrical romance upon the Life of William Wallace, written by
"Blind Harry" in the XVth century.
From my Scotch historical reading, I am gradually compiling a skeleton
chronology of the History of Scotland, with references to every fact:
it is intended to stretch from the fall of Macbeth to that of
Mary--_i.e._ the national, Catholic, and feudal period.
And--pleasure after business--I have in hand a translation of the
Targum (Paraphrastic Commentary by the Jewish Fathers) upon the Song of
Solomon, from the Latin version published at Antwerp in 1570. This has
just been rejected by the Jesuits for one of their publications as
"dull." As I did not compose it, I feel free to differ from their
verdict. I think now of offering it to _Good Words_. It is mystic
(not fleshly) and very wild, picturesque, and diffuse--indeed, in my
opinion, touching not infrequently on the sublime.
So you see I have lots of work in hand.
Bute took an infinity of pains over his English Breviary, polishing and
repolishing his version of the mediaeval Latin text over and over again,
and correcting and revising the proofs with such meticulous care as
greatly to add to the expense of the production (which was defrayed by
himself, not by the publishers) and also to the delay in bringing out
the work. Probably few books of the size and character of these two
portly volumes were ever printed with a smaller proportion of
typographical errors; but Bute professed himself far from satisfied
with the work on its appearance. Sending a copy to a friend, he wrote:
There are a good many things in it--blunders and {128} oversights
(mostly mine, not the printers', who have done their work
extraordinarily well)--which make me anything but contented with it. I
am on the whole, seeing the book in print, least dissatisfied with the
rendering of the _prayers_, in which I venture to think I have not
quite failed to reproduce to some extent the measured and sonorous
dignity of the original Latin.
Reviewers, as a rule, received the Breviary with respectful admiration,
their tributes being, however, paid in many cases less to the work
itself than to the astonishing industry of the translator. Bute
himself was disappointed at the slowness of the sale. "I hope," he
wrote to a friend at Oxford, "you will speak of it if occasion offers,
as the circulation is not large." And some months later he wrote
again, "I am very glad that you find the Breviary of use, and that
there are others who do the same. It is not, however, a feeling as yet
very widely disseminated among the public, seeing that I am still L300
out of pocket by having published it."
There was, in truth, no very considerable body of educated
English-speaking readers to whom these two ponderous and necessarily
expensive tomes were likely to appeal. The Catholic clergy had no
money to spare for literary luxuries, and felt no special need of an
English version of their familiar office-book: the Catholic laity,
devoid for the most part of all liturgical taste, and nurtured on
modern methods and manuals of devotion, knew and cared little about the
ancient and official prayer of the Church, either in Latin or in
English; and thus those chiefly interested in this really monumental
work, to which the translator had devoted such prolonged and unwearied
labour, proved to be, not (pathetically enough) his own
co-religionists, but a small group of scholars and devotees mostly
{129} belonging to one section of the Church of England, and including
liturgiologists of acknowledged eminence. In some religious houses,
however, both of men and women, the Breviary was introduced, and
greatly valued, as a means of instructing novices and others in the
Divine Office; and in a certain number of Anglican communities,
especially in the United States, it was brought into use as the regular
office-book. Bute always heard with sincere gratification of any
instances of this which were brought to his knowledge.[7]
[Sidenote: 1882, The _Scottish Review_]
Next to the Breviary, the "_beloved child_" of his brain, which was
published in the autumn of 1879, Bute's chief literary labours may be
said to have been in connection with the quarterly _Scottish Review_,
to which he first became a contributor in 1882, and of which he
afterwards assumed the control, purchasing the periodical outright in
1886. A series of his letters dealing with the _Review_, all eminently
characteristic of the writer, have been preserved, mostly addressed to
the editor, the Rev. W. Metcalfe, an Established Church minister of
Paisley, who was afterwards closely associated with him during his
Rectorship of St. Andrews University, and was during a long series of
years one of his most intimate friends and most regular correspondents.
One of his first letters, in reply to one suggesting certain subjects
for possible articles from his pen, shows the complete frankness with
which, when necessary, he acknowledged his own ignorance.
{130}
Dumfries House,
_October_ 10, 1882.
I am sensible of the kindness of your offer, but I know my own
limitations. About prehistoric antiquities I can write nothing, for I
know nothing; and of the Scots Men-at-Arms I know if possible even
less. For the latter subject I could no doubt "mug up," as Arthur
Pendennis did for his articles in the _Pall Mall Gazette_; but _cui
bono_? As for early Scottish Christianity, the subject is too vast:
you might almost as well ask me for an article on the history of the
human race. It must be done in _fragments_. I think I might try my
hand on some scrap, say the ancient Celtic Hymns, in Latin; and I am
now taking steps to ascertain if there are known to be any more of such
compositions than I already possess--also to get a legible transcript
of one of mine, a (to me) illegible lithographic facsimile of an
ancient Codex.... As to the Men-at-Arms, I am of opinion that Mrs.
Maxwell Scott of Abbotsford would do this well. She is somewhat of an
invalid, and spends much time in study, in which she has the advantage
both of great natural ability and of her illustrious
great-grandfather's admirable library. She is (unreasonably)
diffident; but were the article once written, I feel sure you would not
find yourself in search of any excuse not to print it.
[Sidenote: 1883, Contributions to the _Scottish Review_]
Bute's own paper on "Ancient Celtic Latin Hymns" appeared in February,
1883, and was the first of over twenty articles contributed by him to
the _Scottish Review_.[8] Other articles followed, dealing
respectively with St. Patrick, the Scottish Peerage, and the Bayreuth
Festival, which he attended for the first time in 1886, the same year
in which he acquired {131} control of the _Review_. The last-named
article has a particular interest of its own, as having been written by
a man quite devoid (as he himself frankly acknowledged)[9] of any
aesthetic appreciation of music, but who was yet moved and impressed to
an extraordinary degree by the Wagnerian cycle as presented at
Bayreuth. "Had you not better," he writes to the editor in sending the
Bayreuth article, "submit my _Festival_ to some expert musician of
Wagnerian mind, that he may add a few technicalities at appropriate
places? (I have indicated in pencil where I think this may fitly be
done.)"
The article on St. Patrick aroused some interest, especially in the
perennial question of the Saint's birthplace--a subject to which Bute
makes whimsical reference in a letter relating to hoped-for
contributions from the Rev. Colin Grant,[10] the learned priest of
Eskadale.
He (G.) is at all sorts of things at this moment, including a memoir of
Simon Lord Lovat, also a {132} formal attack on a priest (one M----)
who writes an article every six months, making St. Patrick be born in a
new place every time, as readily as if he were a kind of early Celtic
Homer or Gladstone. Grant swears by Dumbarton; but whenever he crushes
M---- in one place it is only to find him giving birth to the Saint
again in a new one.
[Sidenote: 1886, A troublesome Greek]
A note to the editor of the _Review_ on the proper designation of a
Greek named Bikelas, who had contributed an article, shows the extreme
attention paid by Bute to such comparatively subsidiary points. The
note was addressed from Dresden, which Lord and Lady Bute were visiting
after their pilgrimage to Bayreuth, and where they prolonged their stay
for several days (in spite of their usual eagerness to get home), in
order to witness there another performance of the Nibelungen Tetralogy
which they had seen at Bayreuth a few days previously.
_Sept._ 14, 1886.
Bikelas kicks against being called "the K. Bikelas": he wants the title
"Mr." I tell him that we usually give foreigners the title they use
themselves--not "Mr." Thus we say "M." not "Mr." Grevy--"Signor" not
"Mr." Depretis--Herr not "Mr." von Hartmann--"Senor" not "Mr."
Canovas." Greeks are vulgarly designated "M.," which must be wrong,
as, whatever they are, they are not Frenchmen, nor are we. It is a
mere blunder founded on ignorance. They themselves always use the
style [Greek: _ho kurios_]--e.g. [Greek: _ho_ K. _peparregopoulos_].
Consequently I maintain that they should be called in English "the K."
So-and-so.[11]
{133}
Under Bute's regime the columns of the _Scottish Review_ were open to
capable writers professing any religion or none; but he seems to have
found the latitudinarian views of "[Greek: _ho K. Bikelas_]" as
troublesome as his title.
_December_ 11, 1886.
B. is very tiresome indeed. The fact is, the man has lived more at
Paris than has been good for him, and looks on anybody taking any
interest in religion as a folly to be apologised for. This is a state
of mind which will appear as strange and shocking in this country as it
would in his own. I told him therefore that I thought I must "cook"
his most free-thinking paragraphs, and he assented. Now he insists on
having it all scepticised. I suppose that I must do as he wishes, and
leave him--and ourselves--to the fate that may befall us. I fear,
however, he won't be redeemed even by being sandwiched in between the
Unknowable in front and the miracles of St. Magnus behind. There is,
however, just the hope that the country ministers who do the notices
won't see what he's driving at.
Bute's view about the application of the term "British" to his
countrymen is expressed in a note referring to an article written for
the number of January, 1887, by Amin Nassif, a Syrian _protege_ of his,
translated from the Arabic by Professor Robertson, and prefaced by a
rather mysterious foreword, apparently from Bute's pen.
I would not call Nassif's article "Egypt under the British," but "Egypt
under the English invasion."[12] I dislike the word "British," which
really only means Cymro-Celtic. It has a tendency to confound us with
{134} the English, and to obscure to the popular mind the extent to
which our forefathers in 1706 tried to make us a mere English
province.[13] To every one their due: to the Westminster Parliament
that of the bombardment of Alexandria and the rest of it.
The appearance of the first number of the _Review_ published subsequent
to Bute assuming control of the periodical is referred to with some
complacency, in a letter written from Mountstuart on April 16, 1887:
It seems to me the best number of the _S.R._ that I have ever seen.
But as I have had more to do with it than with any other, I probably
see it with prejudiced eyes. The first newspaper notice or two will
display it in its true light, in the same way that the impressions of
Moliere's housekeeper on his literary efforts were a precursor of those
of his public audiences.
The "first newspaper notice" which came to hand, that in the _Ayr
Observer_, evoked a comment which seemed to show that Bute was not then
so hardened as he afterwards became to the depreciatory remarks of
"irresponsible reviewers."
_May_ 9, 1887.
The _Ayr Observer_ man had clearly not even glanced at any of the
articles except the first and one other (to which he was attracted by
my name as of local interest). He seems to believe the word
"Byzantine," now seen by him for the first time, to be a synonym for
"German" or "Russian." As none of the sentences parse, I conceive that
the notice was {135} written in the small hours (from a dogged
determination not to go to bed without getting it done), after
separating from some scene freely enlivened by alcoholic stimulants.
[Sidenote: 1887, A London garden party]
A long letter to the editor written on June 18, 1887, contains, _inter
alia_, lamentations on the writer's "hard fate" at having to return to
London in mid-summer, and attend, incidentally, a crowded garden party
there.
Fancy leaving this place [Mountstuart] at its very best, in order to be
jammed in a stuffy back garden in London, in a hollow surrounded by
houses, for hours on a midsummer's afternoon.
[Illustration: THE GREAT HALL, MOUNTSTUART]
I see astrologically that Mars has a good deal to say with regard to
the *******;[14] it may possibly mean sunstroke or apoplexy as well as
dynamite. Really one would think they ought to provide not only an
ambulance tent and nurses, but also a dead-house and a competent staff
of undertakers.[15]
William Skene, the eminent Celtic scholar and historiographer-royal for
Scotland, had proposed writing an article for the _Review_ on the
question of reunion between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches;
and this gave Bute an opportunity of ventilating his deep-seated
animosity against what he considered the hopelessly Erastian element
inherent {136} in, and (as he believed) essential to, Anglicanism. He
wrote from Raby Castle on October 11, 1887:
If Dr. Skene advocates Bishop Wordsworth's views, he is likely to find
himself strongly controverted in the next number. What the Bishop
means by reunion is the unconditional surrender of the Scottish nation
to a foreign body, whose marriages form 2 per cent. of those celebrated
in Scotland. This seems to me simply insane impertinence. A reunion
between Presbyterians and Catholics looks to me far less unlikely; for
the very essence of the Presbyterian position--that the sacramental
character of Order belongs only to the presbyterate, the episcopate
being merely its full exercise--is at least a discutable[16] question
with _us_, and we are already agreed on Christ's Divine Headship "on
earth as it is in heaven": whereas the Anglicans have nailed their
colours to the mast on the first point, and have abandoned every shred
of Catholic principle on the second. Their doing this last is indeed
the sole reason why they exist at all, either in England or in Scotland.
The withers of the historiographer-royal were probably quite unwrung by
this rather polemical outburst, the fact being that Dr. Skene had (as
he himself mildly explained) no sympathy at all with Bishop
Wordsworth's views on reunion, which his article was designed not to
support but to confute.[17]
[1] The vintage of 1885 was also a very good one. "The Mayor of
Cardiff," Bute noted in his diary in July, 1892, "has bought three
dozen of my 1885 wine--like, but in his opinion better (and I really
think it is) than, my Falernian here."
[2] It may be worth while to point out that the suggested Welsh name
for the wine is based on a mistaken etymology. The word "Swanbridge"
has nothing to do with swans, but is from the Norse or Danish proper
name Sweyn (Swegen, Swain or Svend). The narrow neck of land
connecting the place, at low tide, with the island of Sully is the
"bridge" or "brigg" forming the second half of the word. Norse names
are common all along the south coast of Glamorgan.
[3] It is to be observed, in reference to this, that the occasion
referred to was that of an exclusively Scottish deputation to Pope Pius
IX.--an occasion on which Bute doubtless thought it congruous and
becoming to appear wearing only the decoration of the highest Order of
Scottish chivalry.
[4] By a singular sequence of events, the persecuting parent (who was
afterwards created Lord Donington) followed his daughter's example a
few years later, and died a devout member of the Catholic Church in
1895.
[5] Much of the credit of this was due to the sailors from the Clyde
guardship, who arrived on the scene in time to render invaluable
service in the work of salvage.
[6] The writer has been reminded, since the above sentence was penned,
that another standing order to the librarian was to purchase annually
one or two works of fiction among those most in demand during the
current year.
[7] A tale (possibly _ben trovato_) in this connection was told of a
certain nun, a blonde of very homely appearance, whose intonation in
choir of the antiphon, "I am black but comely," provoked such unseemly
giggles in the community, that the Superior promptly ordered the
English Breviary to be discarded, and the Latin one adopted in its
place.
[8] Afterwards reprinted in book form (_post_, p. 143, note). A
complete bibliography of Bute's published writings is given in Appendix
VI.
[9] "Since I have been here," he wrote in January, 1887, from Oban,
where he had built a church and established a choir of men and boys for
the daily celebration of the Liturgy, "I have been attending choir
myself very regularly. I have no natural musical gifts at all, as you
(being musical yourself) are well aware; but I think it better to put
on a surplice when here, as it shows fellow-feeling." The Emperor
Charlemagne, we are told, presided regularly over the choir in his
private chapel; but beyond the fact that he coughed or sneezed
(_sternutabat_) when he wished the lessons to stop, we do not hear of
his taking any audible part in the service. Probably both he and Lord
Bute, having instituted a choir to do the singing, thought it best
themselves to follow the injunction which is, or was, posted up in the
ante-chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, bidding visitors "join in the
service silently."
[10] One of the most deeply learned men of his time in Scotland,
especially on the lore and history of the early Celtic Church. He was
appointed to the See of Aberdeen in 1889, but--to the great loss of
Scottish learning--died only six weeks after his episcopal
consecration. See _post_, p. 147.
[11] The articles contributed by this writer were, as a matter of fact,
signed [Greek: _Demetrios Bikelas_, and appear in the index under the
name of D. Bikelas. In some reviews of his writings he is, however,
styled "the K." His "Seven Essays on Christian Greece," translated by
Bute, appeared in book form in 1890.
[12] The title of the article as published was "Egypt on the Eve of the
English Invasion." It was anonymous.
[13] One cannot but recall, in this connection, Mr. Putney Giles's
words to Lothair in regard to the preparations for the celebration of
his majority. "Great disappointment would prevail among your
Lordship's friends in Scotland, if that country on this occasion were
placed on the same level as a mere English county. It must be regarded
as a Kingdom."--"Lothair," Chap. XXVII.
[14] The asterisked word is, of course, "Jubilee." Some time before
this Bute had written: "I am dabbling, among other things, in
astrology, and find it a curious and in some ways fascinating study."
See _post_, p. 176.
[15] A curious parallel to this curious passage occurs in a letter
written by Disraeli to Lady Chesterfield on July 14, 1887 ("Life," vol.
vi. p. 169). "Garden parties in London are wells, full of dank air.
Sir William Gull told me that if the great garden parties in future are
held at Buckingham Palace and Marlboro' House instead of Chiswick and
so on, his practice will be doubled."
[16] This odd synonym for "discussible" seems almost an [Greek: _hapax
legomenon_]. The Oxford Dictionary gives but one example of its use,
from an article in the _Saturday Review_ of 1893.
[17] Dr. Skene's article did not, as a matter of fact, appear in the
_Review_.
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