{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_35884/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_35884","id":"gutenberg_35884","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35884","summary":null,"tags":["Bute, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Marquess of, 1847-1900","Category: Biographies","Category: History - British","Category: History - Royalty","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: _John, third Marquess of Bute, with his Mother aet 9\nfrom a picture at Mount Stuart_]\n\n\n\n\nJOHN PATRICK\n\nTHIRD MARQUESS OF\n\nBUTE, K.T.\n\n(1847-1900)\n\n\nA MEMOIR\n\nBY\n\nTHE RIGHT REV. SIR DAVID HUNTER BLAIR\n\nBT., O.S.B.\n\n\nAUTHOR OF \"A MEDLEY Of MEMORIES,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n\nWITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n\n1921\n\n\n\n\nAll rights reserved\n\n\n\n\nTO THE MEMORY\n\nOF MY FRIEND\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\nPREFACE\n\nJust twenty years have passed away since the death, at the age of\nlittle more than fifty, of the subject of this memoir--a period of time\nnot indeed inconsiderable, yet not so long as to render unreasonable\nthe hope that others besides the members of his family (who have long\ndesired that there should be some printed record of his life), and the\nsadly diminished numbers of his intimate friends, may be interested in\nlearning something of the personality and the career of a man who may\njustly be regarded as one of the not least remarkable, if one of the\nleast known, figures of the closing years of the nineteenth century.\n\nDisraeli, when he published fifty years ago his most popular romance,\nthought fit to place on the title-page a motto from old Terence: \"Nosse\nomnia haec salus est adulescentulis.\"[1]  Was he really of opinion--it\nis difficult to credit it--that the welfare of the youth of his\ngeneration depended on their familiarising themselves with the wholly\nimaginary life-story of \"Lothair\"? the romantic, sentimental, and\nsomewhat invertebrate youth who owed such {viii} fame as he achieved to\nthe fact that he was popularly supposed to be modelled on the young\nLord Bute--though never, in truth, did any hero of fiction bear less\nresemblance to his fancied prototype.\n\nThe present biographer ventures to think that the motto of _Lothair_\nmight with greater propriety figure on the title-page of this volume.\nFor there is at least one feature in the life of John third Marquess of\nBute which teaches a salutary lesson and points an undoubted moral to a\npleasure-loving generation, such a lesson and moral as it would be vain\nto look for in the puppet of Disraeli's Oriental fancy.  If there is\nany characteristic which stands out in that life more saliently than\nanother, it is surely the strong and compelling sense of duty--a sense,\nit is to be noticed, acquired rather than congenital, for Bute was by\nnature and constitution, as an acute observer early remarked,[2]\ninclined to indolence--which runs all through it like a silver thread.\nOther traits, and marked ones, he no doubt possessed--among them a\npenetrating sense of religion, a curious tenderness of heart, a\nsingular tenacity of purpose, and a deep veneration for all that is\ngood and beautiful in the natural and supernatural world; but these\nwere for the most part below the surface, though the pages of this\nrecord are not without evidence of them all.  But in the whole external\nconduct of his life it may be said that the desire of doing his duty\nwas paramount with him--his duty to God and to man; his duty, above\nall, to the innumerable human beings {ix} whose happiness and welfare\nhis great position and manifold responsibilities rendered to some\nextent dependent on him; and, finally, his duty in such public offices\nas he was called on to fill, and from which his diffidence of character\nand aversion from anything like personal display would have naturally\ninclined him to shrink.  If the writer has succeeded in presenting in\nthese pages something of this aspect of the life and character of his\ndeparted friend with anything like the vividness with which, at the end\nof twenty years, they still remain impressed on his own memory, he will\nbe well content.\n\n\"The true life of a man,\" wrote John Henry Newman nearly sixty years\nago,[3] \"is in his letters\"; and no apology is needed for the inclusion\nin this volume of some, at least, of the large number of Lord Bute's\nletters which have been placed at the disposal of his biographer, and\nfor the use of which he takes this opportunity of thanking the several\nowners.  Bute possessed in a high degree the essential qualities of a\ngood letter-writer--a remarkable command of language, the power of\nclear and forcible expression, and (not least) a salutary sense of\nhumour; and his voluminous correspondence, especially in connection\nwith his literary work, was always and thoroughly characteristic of\nhimself.\n\n{x}\n\nThe writer desires, in conclusion, to express his gratitude not only\nfor the loan of Lord Bute's letters, but for the kind help he has\nreceived from many quarters in the elucidation (especially) of details\nregarding his childhood and youth.  In this connection his thanks are\nparticularly due to the late Earl of Galloway and his sisters for their\ninteresting reminiscences of Bute's boyhood at Galloway House; and also\nto the family of the late Mr. Charles Scott Murray for some particulars\nof his life during the critical years of his early manhood.\n\n+ DAVID OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B.\n\nCHRISTMAS, 1920.\n\n\n\n[1] \"It is for the profit of young men to have known all these things.\"\nTerence, _Eunuchus_, v. 4, 18.\n\n[2] Mgr. Capel.  _Post_, p. 75.  See also p. 111.\n\n[3] \"It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism,\nnot a hobby, that the true life of a man is in his letters....  Not\nonly for the interest of a biography, but for the arriving at the\ninsides of things, the publication of letters is the true method.\nBiographers varnish, they conjecture feelings, they assign motives,\nthey interpret Lord Burleigh's nods; but contemporary letters are\nfacts.\" (_Newman to his sister, Mrs. John Mozley_, May 18, 1863.)\n\n\n\n\n{xi}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                                          PAGE\n\n    I. EARLY LIFE. (1847-1861) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      1\n   II. HARROW AND CHRIST CHURCH. (1862-1866) . . . . . . . . .     18\n  III. RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES--RECEPTION POSTPONED--COMING\n           OF AGE. (1867, 1868)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     39\n   IV. DANESFIELD--RECEPTION INTO CATHOLIC CHURCH. (1867-1869)     60\n    V. THE _WESTERN MAIL_--ROME AND THE COUNCIL--RETURN\n           TO SCOTLAND. (1869-1871)  . . . . . . . . . . . . .     83\n   VI. MARRIAGE--HOME AND FAMILY LIFE--VISIT TO\n           MAJORCA. (1871-1874)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    102\n  VII. LITERARY WORK--THE _SCOTTISH REVIEW_. (1875-1886) . . .    117\n VIII. LITERARY WORK--_continued_. (1886, 1887)  . . . . . . .    137\n   IX. FOREIGN TRAVEL--ST. JOHN'S LODGE--MAYOR OF\n           CARDIFF. (1888-1891)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    156\n    X. FREEDOM OF GLASGOW--WELSH BENEFACTIONS--ST. ANDREWS.\n          (1891-1894)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    179\n   XI. NOTES AND ANECDOTES--ST. ANDREWS (2)--PROVOST\n           OF ROTHESAY. (1894-1897)  . . . . . . . . . . . . .    198\n  XII. ARCHITECTURAL WORK--PSYCHICAL RESEARCH--CONCLUSION.\n           (1898-1900) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    215\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\n    I. PRIZE POEM (HARROW SCHOOL)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    231\n   II. HYMN ON ST. MAGNUS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    236\n  III. HYMN: \"OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS\" . . . . . . . . . . . . .    238\n   IV. A PROVOST'S PRAYER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    240\n    V. RECOLLECTIONS.  BY SIR R. ROWAND ANDERSON . . . . . . .    241\n   VI. OBITUARY.  BY F. W. H. MYERS  . . . . . . . . . . . . .    245\n  VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    247\n\n       INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    249\n\n\n\n\n{xiii}\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\nJOHN, THIRD MARQUESS OF BUTE AET 9, WITH HIS MOTHER    _Frontispiece_\n\n_From a Painting by Mountstuart.  Photo by F. C. Inglis, Edinburgh._\n\n\n                                                          FACING PAGE\n\nTHE MARQUESS OF BUTE, AET 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     6\n  _From a Pencil Drawing by Ross at Cardiff Castle.  This\n  Drawing, executed for Lord Bute's great-grand-aunt (then\n  aged 92), daughter of the third Earl, George III's Prime\n  Minister, was left by her to her niece.  Lady Ann Damson,\n  whose great-niece, Mrs. Clark of Tal-y-Garn, gave it in\n  1906 to Augusta, wife of John, fourth Marquess of Bute._\n\nTHE MARQUESS OF BUTE, AET 17  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    28\n\nTHE COMMUNION OF ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND . . . . . . .    48\n\nCARDIFF CASTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    56\n\nCASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   118\n\nTHE GREAT HALL, MOUNTSTUART  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   134\n    _Photo by Sweet, Rothesay._\n\nFALKLAND PALACE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   152\n    _Photo by Valentine, Dundee._\n\nFACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE MARQUESS OF BUTE TO MISS SKENE . . .   174\n\nTHE MARQUESS OF BUTE AS MAYOR OF CARDIFF . . . . . . . . . . .   176\n\nTHE MARQUESS OF BUTE AS LORD RECTOR OF ST. ANDREWS\n    UNIVERSITY. (1892-1897)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   202\n    _Photo by Rodger, St. Andrews._\n\nPLUSCARDEN PRIORY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   216\n\n\n\n\n{1}\n\nJOHN PATRICK\n\nTHIRD MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T.\n\n(1847-1900)\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nEARLY LIFE\n\n1847-1861\n\nJohn Patrick, third Marquess of Bute, Earl of Windsor, Mountjoy and\nDumfries, holder of nine other titles in the peerages of Great Britain\nand of Scotland, and a baronet of Nova Scotia, was fifteenth in descent\nfrom Robert II., King of Scotland, who, towards the end of the\nfourteenth century, created his son John Stuart, or Steuart, hereditary\nsheriff of the newly-erected county of Bute, Arran and Cumbrae, making\nto him at the same time a grant of land in those islands.  His lineal\ndescendant, the sixth sheriff of Bute, who adhered faithfully to the\nmonarchy in the Civil Wars, and suffered considerably in the royal\ncause, was created a baronet in 1627; and his grandson, a stalwart\nopponent of the union of Scotland with England, was raised to the\npeerage of Scotland as Earl of Bute, with several subsidiary titles, in\n1702.  Lord Bute's grandson, the third earl, was the well-known Tory\nminister and favourite of the young king, George III., and his\nmother--a faithful servant of his sovereign, a man of culture and\nrefinement, admirable as husband, father, and friend, and withal, by\nthe irony of fate, unquestionably the most unpopular prime minister {2}\nwho ever held office in England.  His heir and successor made a great\nmatch, marrying in 1766 the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the\nsecond and last Viscount Windsor; and thirty years later he was created\nMarquess of Bute, Earl of Windsor, and Viscount Mount joy.  Lord\nMountstuart, his heir, who predeceased his father, married Penelope,\nonly surviving child and heiress of the fifth Earl of Dumfries and\nStair; and the former of those titles devolved on his son, together\nwith valuable estates in Ayrshire.  The second marquess, who succeeded\nto the family honours the year before Waterloo, when he was just of age\n(he had already travelled extensively, and had paid a visit to Napoleon\nat Elba), earned the reputation of being one of the most enlightened\nand public-spirited noblemen of his generation.  During the thirty-four\nyears that he owned and controlled the vast family estates in Wales and\nScotland, he devoted his whole energies to their improvement, and to\npromoting the welfare of his tenantry and dependents.  His practical\ninterest in agriculture was evinced by the fact that the arable land on\nhis Buteshire property was trebled during his tenure of it; and\nforeseeing with remarkable prescience the great future in store for the\nport and docks of Cardiff, he spared neither labour nor means in their\ndevelopment.  He was Lord-Lieutenant both of Glamorgan and of Bute, and\ndischarged with tact and success the office of Lord High Commissioner\nto the Church of Scotland in 1842, on the eve of the ecclesiastical\ncrisis which ended in the secession of more than 400 ministers of the\nEstablishment.  His political opinions were in the best sense liberal,\nand he was a consistent advocate of Catholic Emancipation, even when\nthat {3} measure was opposed by the Duke of Wellington, whom he\ngenerally supported.  A few hours before his death, which occurred at\nCardiff Castle with startling suddenness in March, 1848, he had\nexpressed the confident hope that his successor, if not he himself,\nwould live to see Cardiff rival Liverpool as a great commercial seaport.\n\n[Sidenote: 1847, Birth at Mountstuart]\n\nLord Bute was twice married--first to Lady Maria North, of the Guilford\nfamily, by whom he had no issue; and secondly, three years before his\ndeath, to Lady Sophia Hastings, second daughter of the first Marquess\nof Hastings.  By this lady, who survived him eleven years, he had one\nchild, John Patrick, the subject of this memoir, who was born on\nSeptember 12, 1847, at Mountstuart House, the older mansion of that\nname in the Isle of Bute, which was burnt down in 1877 and replaced by\nthe great Gothic pile designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson.  Old\nMountstuart was an unpretending eighteenth-century house, built by\nJames, second Earl of Bute (1690-1723), a few years before his early\ndeath.  It was the favourite residence of his son the third earl,\nGeorge III.'s prime minister, who is commemorated by an obelisk in the\ngrounds not far from the house.  The wings at the two extremities\nescaped the fire, and are incorporated in the modern mansion.\n\nHere, then, on the fair green island which had been the home of his\nrace for nearly five centuries, opened the life of this child of many\nhopes, who within a year was by a cruel stroke of fate to be deprived\nof the guardianship and guidance of his amiable and excellent father.\nThe second marquess died, as has been said, deeply regretted, in the\nspring following the birth of his heir; and the manifold {4} honours\nand possessions of the family devolved upon a baby six months old.  Up\nto his thirteenth year the fatherless boy was under the constant and\nunremitting care of a devoted mother, whose memory he cherished with\nveneration to the end of his life.  Sophia Lady Bute was a woman of\nwarm heart and deep personal piety, tinged, however, with an\nuncompromising Protestantism commoner in that day than in ours.  One of\nher fondest hopes or dreams was the conversion to her own faith of the\nnumerous Irish Catholics whom the development of the port of Cardiff,\nand the rapid growth of the mining industry, had attracted to South\nWales; and the venerable Benedictine bishop who had at that time the\nspiritual charge of the district, and for whom Lord Bute had a sincere\nregard and respect, used to tell of the band of \"colporteurs\"\n(peripatetic purveyors of bibles and polemical tracts) whom the\nmarchioness engaged to hawk their wares about the mining villages of\nGlamorgan.\n\nLord Bute's upbringing as a child was, by the force of circumstances,\nunder entirely feminine influences and surroundings; and to this fact\nwas probably to some extent due the strain of shyness and sensitive\ndiffidence which were among his life-long characteristics.  He seems to\nhave been inclined sometimes to resent, even in his early boyhood, the\nstrictness of the surveillance under which he lived.  His mother once\ntook him from Dumfries House to call at Blairquhan Castle, driving\nthither in a carriage and four, as her custom was.  While the ladies\nwere conversing in the drawing-room, a young married daughter of the\nhouse took the little boy out to see the gardens, ending with a call at\nthe head gamekeeper's.  A day or two afterwards {5} the _chatelaine_ of\nBlairquhan received a letter from Lady Bute, expressing her dismay,\nindignation, and distress at learning that her precious boy had\nactually been taken to the kennels, and exposed to the risk of contact\nwith half a dozen pointers and setters.  When reminded many years later\nof this incident (which he had quite forgotten), Lord Bute said, in his\nquiet way: \"Yes, I was kept wrapped in cotton wool in those days, and I\ndid not always like it.  The dogs would not have hurt me, and I am sure\nthat I made friends with them.\"\n\n[Sidenote: 1859, Death of Lady Bute]\n\nLady Bute died in 1859, leaving behind her, both in Scotland and in\nWales, the memory of many deeds of kindness and benevolence.  Her\nhusband had made no provision whatever in his will for the guardianship\nof his only son, who had been constituted a ward in Chancery two months\nafter his father's death, his mother being nominated by the Lord\nChancellor his sole guardian.  Lady Bute's will recommended the\nappointment as her son's guardian of Colonel (afterwards Major-General)\nCharles Stuart, Sir Francis Hastings Gilbert, and Lady Elizabeth Moore,\nwho was distantly related to the Bute family through the Hastings', and\nhad been one of Lady Bute's dearest friends.  Sir Francis Gilbert being\nat this time absent from England in the consular service, the Court of\nChancery appointed as guardians the two other persons named by Lady\nBute.\n\nIt seems unnecessary to describe in detail the prolonged friction and\nregrettable litigation which were the result of this dual guardianship\nof the orphaned boy; yet they must be here referred to, for it is\nbeyond question that they were not only detrimental to his happiness\nand welfare during his {6} early boyhood, but could not fail seriously\nto affect the development of his character in later years.  The child\nwas deeply attached to Lady Elizabeth Moore, who had assumed the entire\ncharge of him after his mother's death; and his letters written at this\nperiod give evidence not only of this attachment, but of his very\nstrong reluctance to leave her for the care of General Stuart, who\ninsisted that it was time that a boy of nearly thirteen should be\nremoved from the exclusively female custody in which he had been kept\nfrom babyhood.  Lady Elizabeth, yielding partly to her own feelings,\nand partly to the earnest and repeated solicitations of her young ward,\nwas ill-advised enough, instead of committing him as desired to the\ncare of her co-guardian, to carry him off surreptitiously to Scotland,\nand to keep him concealed for some time in an obscure hotel in the\nsuburbs of Edinburgh.  Here is the boy's own account of the affair,\nwritten from this hotel to a relation in India[1] (he was between\ntwelve and thirteen years of age):--\n\n\nI prayed, I entreated, I agonised, I abused the general; I adjured her\nnot to give me up to him.  She was shaken but not convinced.  So we\nwent to Newcastle, to York, and to London, where I got a bad cold, my\ntwo teeth were pulled, etc., etc.  We were delayed some time there, and\nmeanwhile my prayers and adjurations were trebled: Lady E. was\nconvinced, and promised not to let me go.  She got one of the\nsolicitors to the Bank of England in the City to write a letter to\nGenl. S. for her, as civil as possible, but declining to give me up; to\nwhich the general returned a furious answer, conveying his\ndetermination to appeal to the Vice-Chancellor about {7} the matter.\nAfter a month we became convinced that the Vice-Chancellor would decide\nagainst us; and on the night of April 16th Lady E. left the hotel\nsecretly, and with her maid and me shot the moon to Edinburgh, where we\narrived at 7 next morning.[2]\n\n[Illustration: _The Marquess of Bute aet 2_ from a drawing by R. T. Ross\nat Cardiff Castle]\n\n[Sidenote: 1859, Rival guardians]\n\nFor a boy of twelve this is a sufficiently remarkable letter; but an\neven more precocious document is a draft letter dated a fortnight\nbefore the flight to Edinburgh, and composed entirely by young Bute,\nwho recommended Lady Elizabeth to copy it and send it to her\nco-guardian as from herself!\n\n\nDEAR GENERAL STUART,\n\nYou will, I am afraid, be much surprised upon the reception of this\nletter, but I trust that your love for Bute will make you accede to the\nrequest which I am about to make.  B. has lately had much sorrow, and\nhe has formed an attachment to me only to have it broken by separation,\nand in order to go among entire strangers to him--for in that light, I\nam sorry to say, I must regard you and Mrs. Stuart.  With your consent,\nthen, dear Genl. Stuart, I shall be happy to keep him with me until he\nis 14, when he will of course choose for himself.  We could live with\ngood Mr. Stacey very nicely at Dumfries House or Mountstuart, and I\ncould occasionally bring him to England--or indeed you could come to\nsee him at Mountstuart.  I trust, dear Gen. Stuart, you will be the\nmore inclined to accede to my request when I tell you that he has {8}\nexpressed to me the greatest reluctance at parting from me and going to\nyou--a repugnance which I can only regard as very natural, for I was\nmuch grieved to see that you did not follow my advice in walking with\nhim and consulting him (and believe me without so doing you will never\ngain his affections), while I have always done so, as was his poor\nmother's invariable custom.[3]\n\n\nIt does not appear whether this letter, which is dated from 23 Dover\nStreet, and is entirely in the boy's own handwriting, exactly as given\nabove, was actually sent by Lady Elizabeth.  In any case General Stuart\nwas not the man to submit to the compulsory separation from his ward\nwhich resulted from what the House of Lords afterwards characterised as\nthe \"clandestine, furtive, and fraudulent action\" of Lady Elizabeth\nMoore.  He at once laid the case before the Court of Chancery, which\ndirected that the boy was to be immediately handed over to his care,\nand sent without delay to an approved private school, and in due time\nto Eton or Harrow, and then to one of the English universities.  Lady\nElizabeth absolutely refused to comply with the order of the Court, and\nwas consequently removed in July, 1860, from the office of guardian.\nMeanwhile the case was complicated by the intervention of the Scottish\ntutor-at-law, Colonel {9} James Crichton Stuart, who had been since the\ndeath of Lord Bute's father manager and administrator of the family\nestates in Scotland.  Colonel Stuart obtained from the Scottish Courts\nan order that the boy should be sent to Loretto, a well-known school\nnear Edinburgh, and that the Earl of Galloway should be the \"custodier\"\nof his person.  The Court of Chancery promptly issued an injunction\nforbidding the tutor-at-law to interfere in any way with the boy's\neducation, whereupon both Colonel Stuart and the English guardian\nappealed to the House of Lords.  That tribunal gave its judgment on May\n17, 1861, censuring the Court of Session for its delay in dealing with\nthis important matter, confirming General Stuart as sole guardian, and\nsanctioning his scheme for the boy's education.\n\n[Sidenote: 1861, Lords' decision]\n\nThe House of Lords, in giving the decision which brought this long\nlitigation to a close, had raised no objection to the continued\nresidence of the young peer with the Earl of Galloway, an arrangement\nwhich had already been approved by the Court of Chancery.  Bute had, in\nfact, at the time the judgment was pronounced, been living for some\nmonths with Lord and Lady Galloway at their beautiful place on the\nWigtownshire coast; and this was certainly, as it turned out, the most\nfavourable and beneficial solution of the difficult question of\nproviding a suitable and congenial home for one who, whilst the\npossessor of three or four splendid seats in England and Scotland, had\nyet, by a pathetic anomaly, never known what home life was since his\nmother's death in 1859.  At Galloway House he found himself for the\nfirst time the inmate of a large and cheerful family circle, including\nseveral young people of about his own age.  \"I {10} am comfortably\nestablished here,\" he wrote to Lady Elizabeth Moore soon after his\narrival in December, 1860.  \"This house is like Dumfries House, but\nmuch prettier.  I have a charming room, not at all lonely.  Lord and\nLady G. are so kind to me, and the little girls treat me like a\nbrother.\"  \"They are all very very kind to me,\" he wrote a week or two\nlater, adding in the same letter that he had on the previous day\nattended two services in Lord Galloway's private chapel.  \"It is very\nplain,\" was the comment of the thirteen-year-old critic; \"but the\nchaplain's sermons were all about the saints and the Church.  Do you\nknow what he called the Communion? a 'commemorative sacrifice!'  In a\nsubsequent letter he says, \"Mr. Wildman (the chaplain) says that Mary\nshould be called the 'Holy Mother of God.'\"\n\n[Sidenote: 1861, At Galloway House]\n\nThese new religious impressions, contrasting sharply as they must have\ndone with the narrow Evangelical teaching of his early days, are of\ninterest in connection with his first schoolmaster's report of him some\nsix months later, which will be mentioned in its proper place.  \"He was\nvery fond,\" writes one of his former playfellows at Galloway House in\nthose far-off days, \"of sketching with pen and pencil religious\nprocessions and ceremonies, and his thoughts seemed to be constantly\nturned on religion.  He liked having religious discussions with our\nfamily chaplain, who was a clever and well-read man.\"  \"Our dear father\nand mother,\" writes another member of the same large family, \"told us\nthat we must be very kind to him, as he had lost both his parents and\nwas almost alone in the world.  I remember seeing him in the library on\nthe night of his arrival--a tall, dark, good-looking boy, {11} looking\nso shy and lonely, but with very nice manners.\"  \"I recollect him,\"\nsays the son of a neighbouring laird, who was about two years his\nsenior, and was often at Galloway House, \"rather a pathetic figure\namong the swarm of joyous young things there, distinct among them from\nnever seeming joyous himself.\"  This was doubtless the impression which\nhis extreme diffidence generally made on strangers; and it is the\npleasanter to read the further testimony of the playfellow already\nquoted: \"His shyness soon wore off when he got away from the elders to\nplay with us, and he entered with zest into all our amusements.  He was\nintensely earnest about everything he took up, whether serious things\nor games.  He was greatly attached to our brother Walter,[4] whose\nbright, cheery nature appealed to him.  Walter was always full of fun\nand spirits and mischief; and Bute was delighted at this, and soon\njoined in it all.  I remember our old housekeeper, after some great\nescapade, saying, \"Yes, and the young marquis was as bad as any of\nyou!\"  One of his hobbies was collecting from the seashore the skulls\nand skeletons of rabbits, birds, etc.  I spent much time on the cliffs\nand rocks looking for these things, of which we collected boxes full.\nWith his curious psychic turn of mind he liked to conduct some kind of\nceremonies over these remains after dark, inviting us children to take\npart, sometimes dressed in white sheets.  He loved legends of all\nkinds, and used often to tell them to us: I was very fond of hearing\nhim, he told them so well.  History, too, especially Scottish history,\n{12} he liked very much.  He wrote a delightful little history of\nScotland for my youngest brother,[5] of whom he was very fond--a tiny\nboy then.  It was all written in capital letters, with delightful and\nclever pen-and-ink sketches, one on every page.\"\n\nThese recollections of happy home life in a Scottish country house,\nnearly sixty years ago, call up a pretty picture of the orphan boy,\nwhose childhood had been so strangely lonely and isolated, contented\nand at home in this charming family circle.  That he was truly so is\nfurther testified by letters that passed about this time between him\nand his tutor-at-law, Colonel Crichton Stuart.  In reply to a letter\nfrom Colonel Stuart, expressing a desire to hear from Bute himself\nwhether he was comfortably settled at Galloway House, the boy wrote:\n\"In answer to your request, I write to confirm Mr. A.'s statement\nregarding my happiness here.  Lord and Lady Galloway did indeed receive\nme as a child of their own, which I felt deeply.\"\n\nThat these words were a sincere expression of the young writer's\nsentiments there is no reason to doubt; but thoughtful and advanced as\nhe was in some ways for his years, he was too young to realise\nthen---possibly he did later on, though he very seldom spoke of his\nboyhood's days--how much more he owed to the Galloway family than mere\nkindness.  It seemed, indeed, a special providence which had brought\nthe orphaned marquis at this critical moment under influence so\nsalutary and so much needed as that of the admirable and excellent\nfamily which had welcomed him to their beautiful home as one of\nthemselves.  The numerous letters {13} written by Bute at this period,\nof which many have been preserved, are marked indeed by propriety of\nexpression and a command of language remarkable in a boy of his age;\nbut they also reveal very clearly a self-centred view of life even more\nextraordinary in so young a boy, and due, it cannot be doubted, to the\nsingularity of his upbringing.  Surrounded from babyhood by a circle of\nadoring females, in whose eyes the fatherless infant was the most\nprecious and priceless thing on earth, he had grown up to boyhood\npenetrated, no doubt almost unconsciously, with an exaggerated and\noverweening sense of his own importance in the scale of creation, to\nwhich the wholesome influence of Galloway House provided the best\npossible corrective.  Distinguished, high-principled, exemplary in\nevery relation of life, Lord and Lady Galloway held up to their\nchildren, by precept and example, a constant ideal of duty,\nunselfishness and simplicity of life; and the young stranger within\ntheir gates was fortunate in being able to profit by that teaching.  If\nhis future life was to be marked by generous impulses and noble\nambitions--if one of his most notable characteristics was to be a\npersonal simplicity of taste and an utter antipathy to that ostentation\nwhich is not always dissociated from high rank and almost unbounded\nwealth--if he was to realise something of the supreme joy and\nsatisfaction of working for others rather than for oneself; for all\nthis he owed a debt of gratitude (can it be doubted?) to the kindly and\ngracious influences which were brought to bear on his sensitive nature\nduring these years of his boyhood.  He was received at Galloway House\nas a child of the family; and his companions spoke their minds to him\nwith fraternal freedom.  \"You {14} will never find your level, Bute,\"\nthe eldest son of the house (whom he greatly liked and respected) once\nsaid to him, \"until you get to a public school.\"  He did not resent the\nremark, for his good sense told him that it was true.  Harrow was the\npublic school of the Galloway family; but it was not so much for that\nreason that Harrow was chosen for him rather than Eton, as because his\nwise and kind guardians believed, rightly or wrongly, that a boy in his\npeculiar position would be less exposed to adulation and flattery at\nthe more democratic school on the Hill than at its great rival on\nThames-side.\n\nMeanwhile a preparatory school had to be selected; and the choice fell\non May Place, the well-known school conducted by Mr. Thomas Essex at\nMalvern Wells, where one of Lord Galloway's sons was just finishing his\ncourse.  It was locally known as the \"House of Lords\" from its\nconnection with the peerage; and the pupils included members of the\nducal houses of Sutherland, Argyll, Manchester, and Leinster, as well\nas of many other well-known families.  One who well remembers the first\narrival at May Place of the young Scottish peer, then aged thirteen and\na half, has described him as a slight tall lad, reserved and gentle in\nmanner, and particularly courteous to every one.  The shyness and also\nthe reverence for sacred things which always distinguished him as a man\nwere equally noticeable in him as a boy; and it is remembered that when\nhe revisited the school three or four years later, during the Harrow\nholidays, and was asked where he would like to drive to, he chose to go\nand inspect an interesting old church in the neighbourhood.  A school\ncontemporary with whom he occasionally squabbled was William Sinclair,\nthe future Archdeacon of London; and there was {15} once nearly a\npitched battle between them, in consequence of some caricatures which\nSinclair drew, purporting to represent Bute's near relatives, but for\nwhich he afterwards handsomely apologised.\n\n[Sidenote: 1861, First school report]\n\nTowards the end of Bute's first term at Malvern Wells, his master wrote\nto Lord Galloway the following account of his young pupil.  The\nconcluding sentence is of curious interest in view of what the future\nheld in store.  It seems to show that the reaction in his mind--a mind\nalready thoughtful beyond his years--against the one-sided view of\nreligion and religious history which had been impressed upon him from\nchildhood had already begun.\n\n\nMay Place,\n  Malvern Wells,\n    July 14, 1861.\n\nLord Bute is going on more comfortably than I could have expected.  He\nis on excellent terms with his schoolfellows; and though he prefers\n\"romps\" to cricket or gymnastics, yet I am glad to see him making\nhimself happy with the others.  More manly tastes will, I think, come\nin time.  His obedience and his desire to please are very pleasing;\nwhile his strong religious principles and gentlemanly tone are\neverything one could desire.  His opinions on things in general are\nrather an inexplicable mixture.  I was not surprised to find in him an\nadmiration of the Covenanters and a hatred of Archbishop Sharpe; but I\nwas certainly startled to discover, on the other hand, a liking for the\nRomish priesthood and ceremonial.  I shall, of course, do my best to\nbring him to sounder views.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1861, At May Place]\n\nWe have no evidence as to what methods were employed, or what arguments\nadduced, by the excellent preceptor in order to carry out the purpose\n{16} indicated in the concluding lines of his letter.  Bute himself\nnever referred to the matter afterwards, but the result was in all\nprobability nugatory.  It is not within the recollection of the present\nwriter, who was an inmate of May Place a year or two later, that any\nserious effort was ever made there to impress religious truths on the\nminds of the pupils, or indeed to impart to them any definite religious\nteaching at all.  The views and opinions of the young Scot, although\nonly in his fourteenth year, were probably already a great deal more\nformed on these and kindred subjects than those of his worthy\nschoolmaster.  In any case the time available for detaching his\nsympathies from the \"Romish\" priesthood and ritual was short.  The boy\nhad come to school very poorly equipped in the matter of general\neducation, as the term was then understood.  In the correspondence\nbetween his rival guardians, when he was just entering his 'teens,\nallusion is made to the boy's \"precocious intellect,\" also to the fact\nthat he knew little Latin, no Greek, and (what was considered worse)\nhardly any French.  Mathematics he always cordially disliked; and it is\non record that all the counting he did in those early years was\ninvariably on his fingers.  His natural intelligence, however, and his\naptitude for study soon enabled him to make up for much that had been\nlost owing to the haphazard and interrupted education of his childhood;\nand it was not long before he was pronounced intellectually equal to\nthe not very exacting standard of the entrance examination at Harrow.\nA final reminiscence of his connection with May Place may here be\nrecorded.  He revisited his old school not long after his momentous\nchange of creed; and being left alone awhile in {17} the study took up\na blank report that lay on the table, and filled it up as follows[6]:--\n\n  MONTHLY REPORT OF THE MARQUESS OF BUTE.\n\n  LATIN CONSTRUING . . . . . .  Partially preserved.\n  LATIN WRITING  . . . . . . .  Ditto.\n  GREEK CONSTRUING . . . . . .  Getting very bad from disuse.\n  GREEK WRITING  . . . . . . .  Ditto.\n  ARITHMETIC . . . . . . . . .  Entirely abandoned.\n  HISTORY  . . . . . . . . . .  So-so.\n  GEOGRAPHY  . . . . . . . . .  Improved by foreign travel.\n  DICTATION  . . . . . . . . .  Ditto by business letters.\n  FRENCH . . . . . . . . . . .  Ditto by travelling.\n  DRAWING  . . . . . . . . . .  Grown rather rusty.\n  RELIGION . . . . . . . . . .  Unhappily not to the taste\n                                  of the British public.\n  CONDUCT  . . . . . . . . . .  Not so bad as it is painted.\n\n\n\n[1] Charles MacLean, to whom he referred more than thirty years later,\nin his Rectorial address at St. Andrews (p. 188).\n\n[2] During Bute's travels with Lady Elizabeth Moore, in the course of\nher efforts to retain the custody of her little ward, his most trusted\nretainer was one Jack Wilson.  The pertinacity with which the child was\npursued, and the extent of Wilson's devotion, are attested by the known\nfact that on one occasion he knocked a writ-server down the stairs of a\nRothesay hotel where Bute was staying with Lady Elizabeth.  Wilson was\naccustomed always to sleep outside his young master's door.  He rose\nlater to be head-keeper at Mountstuart, and died there on May 23, 1912.\n\n[3] It seems right to mention that Bute had another reason, apart from\nhis attachment to Lady Elizabeth Moore, for his apparently unreasonable\nhostility to his other guardian.  One of his strongest feelings at this\ntime was his almost passionate devotion to the memory of his mother;\nand he never forgot what he called General Stuart's \"gross disrespect\"\nin not accompanying her remains from Edinburgh, where she died, to\nBute, where she was buried.  \"He left her body,\" wrote Bute to an\nintimate friend from Christ Church, Oxford, \"to be attended on that\nlong and troublesome journey, in the depth of winter, only by women,\nservants, and myself, a child of twelve.\"\n\n[4] Hon. Walter Stewart, afterwards colonel commanding 12th Lancers\n(died 1908).  He was about eighteen months younger than Bute.\n\n[5] Hon. Fitzroy Stewart (died 1914).  He was at this time just five\nyears old.\n\n[6] This anecdote was communicated to a weekly journal (_M.A.P._) soon\nafter Lord Bute's death, by the son of the master of his old school.\n\n\n\n\n{18}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHARROW AND CHRIST CHURCH\n\n1862-1866\n\nIn September, 1861, Lord Bute completed his fourteenth year, attaining\nthe age of \"minority\" (as it is called in Scots law), which put him in\npossession of certain important rights as regarded his property in the\nnorthern kingdom.  The young peer had from his childhood, as is shown\nby his early correspondence with Lady Elizabeth Moore, been aware that\nhe would be entitled at the age of fourteen to exercise certain powers\nof nomination in respect to the management of his Scottish estates.\nMost of the members of the Lords' tribunal which had adjudicated on his\nposition in May, 1861, had evinced a curious ignorance of the nature,\nif not of the very existence, of these prospective rights, and even\nwhen informed of them had been inclined to question the expediency of\ntheir being acted upon.  Bute himself, however, was not only perfectly\naware of these rights, but resolved to exercise them; and we\naccordingly find him, a few weeks after his fourteenth birthday,\nwriting as follows, from his private school, to his guardian, General\nStuart:--\n\n\nMay Place,\n  _November_ 25, 1861.\n\nDEAR GEN. STUART,\n\nI wish the necessary steps to be taken in the Court of Session for the\nappointment of Curators {19} of my property in Scotland.  The Curators\nwhom I wish to appoint are Sir James Fergusson, Sir Hastings Gilbert,\nLt.-Col. William Stuart, Mr. David Mure, Mr. Archibald Boyle, and\nyourself.\n\nI wish the Solicitor-General of Scotland to be employed as my legal\nadviser in this buisness (_sic_).\n\nI remain,\n  Your affectionate cousin,\n    BUTE AND DUMFRIES.\n\n\nBute was now entitled to choose from the number of these curators any\none to whose personal guardianship he was willing to be entrusted\nduring the seven years of his minority.  His choice fell on Sir James\nFergusson of Kilkerran, M.P. for Ayrshire, who had recently married the\ndaughter of Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India; but he did not\nimmediately take up his residence with Sir James, as it was thought\nbest that he should continue, at any rate during the earlier part of\nhis public school life, to spend his holidays at Galloway House, where\nhe had become thoroughly at home.  Lord Galloway's younger son Walter\nwas destined for Harrow School; and thither Bute preceded him after\nspending two terms at May Place.\n\n[Sidenote: 1862, Entrance at Harrow]\n\nIt was in the first term of 1862 that Bute entered the school at\nHarrow, then under the headmastership of Montagu Butler.  His position\nwas at first that of a \"home boarder,\" and he was under the charge of\none of the masters, Mr. John Smith, known to and beloved by several\ngenerations of Harrovians.\n\n\nThere was a rather well-known and self-important Mr. Winkley, quite a\nfigure among Harrow tradesmen (writes a school contemporary of Bute's,\nson of a famous Harrow master, and himself afterwards {20} headmaster\nof Charterhouse), a mutton-chop-whiskered individual who collected\nrates, acted as estate agent, published (I think) the Bill Book, sold\nbooks to the School, &c.  He occupied the house beyond Westcott's, on\nthe same side of High Street, between Westcott's and the Park.  There\nJohn Smith resided with the Marquess of Bute.\n\n\nMr. Smith, whose mother lived at Pinner, used to visit her there every\nSaturday, and to take over with him on these occasions one or two of\nhis pupils, who enjoyed what was then a pretty rural walk of three\nmiles, as well as the quaint racy talk of their master, and the\nexcellent tea provided by his kind old mother.\n\nAnother of his schoolfellows, Sir Henry Bellingham, writes:\n\n\nI remember first meeting Bute on one of these little excursions.  Mr.\nSmith had told me that the tall, shy, quiet boy (he was a year younger\nthan me, but much bigger) had neither father, mother, brother nor\nsister, and was therefore much to be pitied.  I wondered why he did not\ncome more forward, and said so little either to Smith himself or to\nMrs. Smith; for Smith was a man who had great capabilities for drawing\npeople out, and was a general favourite with every one.  The impression\nI had of Bute during all our time at Harrow was always the same--that\nof his very shy and quiet manner.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1862, A real palm branch]\n\nUndemonstrative as he was by nature, Bute never forgot those who had\nshown him any kindness, and he always preserved a grateful affection\nfor John Smith, who accompanied him more than once during the summer\nholidays to Glentrool, Lord Galloway's lodge among the Wigtownshire\nhills, and enjoyed some capital fishing there.  Bute wrote to him in\n{21} later years from time to time, and during the sadly clouded\nclosing period of the old man's life, when he was an inmate of St.\nLuke's Hospital, he gave him much pleasure by sending him annually a\npalm branch which had been blessed in his private chapel.  More than\ntwenty years after Bute's Harrow days, he received this appreciative\nletter from his former master:\n\n\nSt. Luke's Hospital,\n  Old Street, E.C.,\n    _Easter Tuesday_, 1887.\n\nDEAR LORD BUTE,\n\nI must try and write a few lines, asking you to pardon all defects.\n\nThe real Palm Branch was most welcome, with its special blessing: it is\nbehind me as I write, and many happy thoughts and messages does it\nbring.  God bless you for your most kind thought.  I intend to forward\nit in due time to Gerald Rendall (late head of Harrow, then Fellow of\nTrin. Coll., Cambridge, now Principal of University College,\nLiverpool), as my share in furnishing his new home: he was married this\nvacation.  The students, male and female, will be glad to see what a\nreal Palm Branch is like.  Your gift of last year is now in the valued\nkeeping of Mrs. Edward Bradby, whose husband was a master of Harrow in\nyour day, and, after fifteen years of hard and successful work at\nHaileybury, has taken up his abode at St. Katherine's Dock House, Tower\nHill, with wife and children, to live among the poor and brighten their\ndull existence with music and pictures and dancing; besides inviting\nthem, in times of real necessity, to dine with himself and his wife, in\nbatches of eight and ten.\n\nI look forward to the _Review_[1] with great interest.  {22} I show it\nto the Medical Gentlemen here, read what I can, and then forward it to\nmy sister at Harrow for friends there.\n\nI try to realise the old chapel on the beach, in which the branches\nwere consecrated,[2] but fail utterly to do so.  _Whereabouts is it_?\nI suppose you have a chapel in the house also, for invalids, &c., in\nbad weather.\n\nGod bless you all: Lady Bute and the children, especially the maiden\nwho is working at Greek.[3]\n\nEver your grateful\n  J. S.\n\n\nFrom John Smith's _quasi_-parental care, Bute passed in due time into\nthe house of Mr. Westcott (afterwards Bishop of Durham), who occupied\n\"Moretons,\" on the top of West Hill (now in the possession of Mr. M. C.\nKemp).  The future bishop, with all his attainments, had not the\nreputation of a very successful teacher in class, nor of a good\ndisciplinarian; but as a house-master he had many admirable qualities,\nand was greatly beloved by his pupils.  For him also Bute preserved a\nwarm and lifelong sentiment of regard and gratitude; and to him, as to\nJohn Smith, he was accustomed to send every Easter a blessed palm from\nhis private chapel, which Dr. Westcott preserved carefully in his own\nchapel at Auckland Castle.  \"See that the Bishop of Durham gets his\npalm,\" were Lord Bute's whispered words as he was lying stricken by his\nlast illness in the Holy Week of 1900.  The tribute of affectionate\n{23} remembrance had been an annual one for more than thirty years.\n\n[Sidenote: 1863, School friendships]\n\nOf all Bute's contemporaries at the great school, there were perhaps\nonly two with whom he struck up a real and close friendship.  One was\nAdam Hay Gordon of Avochie (a cadet of the Tweeddale family), who was\nwith him afterwards at Christ Church, and was one of his few intimate\nassociates there.  The intimacy was not continued into later years, but\nthe memory of it remained.  \"I heard with sorrow,\" Bute recorded in his\ndiary on July 12, 1894, \"of the death of one of my dearest friends,\nAddle Hay Gordon.  Though at Harrow together, and very intimate at\ncollege, we had not met for many years.  In my Oxford days I several\ntimes stayed in Edinburgh with him and his parents, in Rutland Square.\nWe were as brothers.\"[4]\n\nAn even more intimate, and more lasting, friendship was that with\nGeorge E. Sneyd, who was at Westcott's house with Bute, and who\nafterwards became his private secretary, married his cousin, Miss\nElizabeth Stuart (granddaughter of Admiral Lord George Stuart) in 1880,\nand died in the same year as Adam Hay Gordon.  \"It is difficult to\nsay,\" wrote Bute in January, 1894, \"what this loss is to me.  He had\nbeen an intimate friend ever since we were at Westcott's big house at\nHarrow--one of my few at all, the most intimate (unless Addle Hay\nGordon) and the most trusted I ever had.  He had a very important place\nin my will.  For these two I had prayed by name regularly at every Mass\nI have heard for many, many years.\"\n\n{24}\n\nA school contemporary, who records Bute's close friendship with George\nSneyd, mentions (as do others) his fancy for keeping Ligurian bees in\nhis tiny study-bedroom.  \"My only recollection of his room at Harrow,\nwhere I once visited him,\" writes Sir Herbert Maxwell, \"is of an\narrangement whereby bees entered from without into a hive within the\nroom, where their proceedings could be watched.\"  A brother of Sir\nRedvers Buller, who boarded in the adjoining house, has recorded that\n\"Bute's bees\" were a perfect nuisance to him, as they had a way of\nflying in at his window instead of their own, and disturbing him at his\nstudies or other employments.\n\n[Sidenote: 1863, Harrow school prizes]\n\n\"At Harrow,\" said one of Bute's obituary notices, \"the young Scottish\npeer was as poetical as Byron.\"  This rather absurd remark is perhaps\nto some extent justified by one episode in Bute's school career.  \"I\nhave a general recollection of him,\" writes a correspondent already\nquoted, \"as a very amiable, though reserved, boy, not given to games,\nwho astonished us all by securing the English Prize Poem.  He won this\ndistinction (the assigned subject was 'Edward the Black Prince') in the\nsummer of 1863, when only fifteen years of age.\"  \"His winning this\nprize in 1863, when quite young,\" writes the Archbishop of Canterbury,\nwho was in the same form as Bute at Harrow and knew him well, \"was his\nmost notable exploit.  There is a special passage about ocean waves and\ntheir 'decuman,' which has often been quoted as a remarkable effort on\nthe part of a young boy.[5] {25} He was very quiet and unassuming in\nall his ways.\"\n\nA further honour gained by Bute in the same year (1863) was one of the\nheadmaster's Fifth Form prizes for Latin Verse; but the text of this\ncomposition (it was a translation from English verse) has not been\npreserved.  The fact of his winning these two important prizes is a\nsufficient proof that, if not \"as poetical as Byron,\" he had a distinct\nfeeling for poetry, and that generally his industry and ability had\nenabled him to make up much, if not all, of the leeway caused by the\nimperfect and desultory character of his early education.  In other\nwords he passed through his school course with credit and even\ndistinction; and that he preserved a kindly memory of his Harrow days\nis sufficiently shown by the fact that he took the unusual\nstep--unusual, that is, in the case of the head of a great Roman\nCatholic family--of sending all his three sons to be educated at the\nfamous school on the Hill.\n\nBute's career at Harrow, like his private school course, was an\nunusually short one, extending over only three years.  He left the\nschool in the first term of 1865, presenting to the Vaughan Library at\nhis departure a small collection of books, which it may be of some\ninterest to enumerate.  They were Pierotti's _Jerusalem Explained_, 2\nvols. folio; {26} Digby's _Broadstone of Honour_, 3 vols.; Victor\nHugo's _Les Miserables_, 3 vols.; Miss Proctor's _Legends and Lyrics_;\nGil Blas, 2 vols. (illustrated); _Don Quixote_; Napier's _Memoirs of\nMontrose_, 3 vols.; and _Memoirs of Dundee_, 2 vols.\n\nHe further evinced his interest in his old school by presenting to it,\nfive years after leaving, a portrait of John first Marquess of Bute\n(then Lord Mountstuart), wearing the dress of the school Archery Corps\nof that day (1759).  This portrait (which is a copy of a well-known\npainting by Allan Ramsay) now hangs in the Vaughan Library.\n\n[Sidenote: 1865, Pilgrimage to Palestine]\n\nIt was characteristic of the young Harrovian that, his school-days\nover, he took the very first opportunity to turn his steps towards the\nEast, in which from his earliest boyhood he had always been curiously\ninterested.  It was not the first occasion of his leaving England, for\nhe had visited Brussels and other cities several times with his mother\nduring his childhood, and used in later years to note in his diary the\nhalf-forgotten recollections of places which he had seen in those early\nand happy days.  But his visit to Palestine in the spring of 1865--the\nfirst of many journeys to the Holy Land--was an entirely new\nexperience; and to this youth of seventeen, thoughtful and\nreligious-minded beyond his years, it was no mere pleasure trip, but a\nveritable pilgrimage.  \"I am sending you a copy,\" he wrote to a friend\nat Oxford in the autumn of this year, \"of a document which I value more\nthan anything I have ever received in my life: the certificate of my\nvisit to the Holy Places of Jerusalem given to me by the Father\nGuardian of the Franciscan convent on Mount Sion.  Here it is:\n\n\n{27}\n\n[Illustration: Emblem]\n\nIn Dei Nomine.  Amen.  Omnibus et singulis praesentes literas\ninspecturis, lecturis, vel legi audituris, fidem notumque facimus Nos\nTerrae Sanctae Custos, devotum Peregrinum Illustrissimum Dominum Dominum\nJoannem, Marchionem de Bute in Scotia, Jerusalem feliciter pervenisse\ndie 10 Mensis Maii anni 1865; inde subsequentibus diebus praecipua\nSanctuaria in quibus Mundi Salvator dilectum populum Suum, immo et\ntotius generis humani perditam congeriem ab inferi servitute\nmisericorditer liberavit, utpote Calvarium ... SS. Sepulchrum ... ac\ntandem ea omnia sacra Palestinae loca gressibus Domini ac Beatissimae\nejus Matris Mariae consecrata, a Religiosis nostris et Peregrinis\nvisitari solita, visitasse.\n\nIn quorum fidem has scripturas Officii Nostri sigillo munitas per\nSecretarium expediri mandavimus.\n\nDatis apud S. Civitatem Jerusalem, ex venerabili Nostro Conventu SS.\nSalvatoris, die 29 Maii, 1865.\n\nL.S. De mandato Reverendiss. in Christo Patris\n\nF. REMIGIUS BUSELLI, S.T.L., secret.\n\n+ Sigillum Guardiani Montis Sion.\n\n(There is an image of the Descent of the H. Spirit, and of the\n_Mandatum_.)\n\n\n\"It touched and interested me extremely,\" Bute said many years later,\n\"to find myself described in this document as 'devotus Peregrinus,' and\nthis for more than one reason.  The phrase, in the first place, seemed\nto link me, a mere schoolboy, with the myriads of devout and holy men,\nsaints and warriors, who had made the pilgrimage before me.  'Illuc\nenim ascenderunt tribus, tribus Domini.'  And then I remembered that I\ndescended lineally through my mother's family, the Hastings', from a\nvery famous pilgrim, the 'Pilgrim of Treves,' the Hebrew who went to\nRome during the great Papal Schism, sat himself down on one of the\nSeven Hills, and dubbed himself Pope.  When Martin V. (Colonna) was\nrecognised as lawful Pope, {28} my ancestor returned to Rome and, I\nbelieve, reverted to the Judaism from which he had temporarily lapsed.\nBut this celebrated journey earned him the title, _par excellence_, of\nthe Pilgrim of Treves; and the name of Peregrine has been borne since,\nall through the centuries, by many of his descendants, of whom I am\none.\"  All this is so curiously characteristic of Lord Bute's half\nserious, half whimsical (and always original) manner of regarding\nout-of-the-way corners of history and genealogy, that it seems worth\nreproducing in this place.\n\n[Illustration: THE MARQUESS OF BUTE, AET. 17.]\n\n[Sidenote: 1866, Steeplechasing at Oxford]\n\nSoon after his return from his Palestine journey, Bute was duly\nmatriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, and he went into residence in\nthe October term.  He was one of the last batch of peers who entered\nthe university on the technical footing of \"noblemen,\" with the\nprivilege of wearing a distinctive dress, sitting at a special table in\nhall, and paying double for everything.  Among his contemporaries at\nthe House were the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Rosebery, the seventh Duke of\nNorthumberland, and Lords Cawdor, Doune, and Willoughby de Broke.  His\ncousin, the fourth and last Marquess of Hastings, who was five years\nhis senior, had not long before gone down from the university, had been\nmarried for a year, and was at the height of the meteoric career which\ncame to a premature and inglorious end just when Bute attained his\nmajority.  The latter had that strong sense of family attachment which\nis so marked a characteristic of Scotsmen; and _noblesse oblige_ was a\nmaxim which for him had a very real and serious meaning.  It is certain\nthat the contemplation of his cousin's wasted life not only distressed\nhim deeply, but tended to confirm in him an almost exaggerated {29}\nantipathy to the extravagant craze for racing, gambling and betting,\nwhich was the form of \"sport\" most prevalent among the young men of\nfamily and fashion who were his contemporaries at Oxford.  Bute's\nentire want of sympathy with such pursuits and such ideals thus\ninevitably cut him off from anything like intimate intercourse with the\npredominant members of the undergraduate society of his college.  He\nwould not be persuaded to frequent their clubs or share in their\namusements, which to him would have been no amusements at all; although\nhe was elected a member of \"Loders,\" to which the noblemen and\ngentlemen-commoners of the House as a matter of course belonged.  He\nwas, however, induced, on the representations of one of his friends\n(probably Hay Gordon) to own and nominate a horse in the university\nsteeplechases (or \"grinds,\" as they were called).  \"Some one, I do not\nknow who,\" writes one of his contemporaries, \"had informed him that I\nwas the proper person to ride his horse.  When I interviewed him on the\nsubject (which I did with some trepidation, as he was exceedingly shy\nand stiff with strangers), he evinced not the slightest interest either\nin his horse or the contest in which it was to take part.  The animal\ncame in only third, but Bute showed neither disappointment nor pleasure\nin anything it did or failed to do either on this or on subsequent\noccasions.\"  Another anecdote in connection with this episode of\n\"Bute's steeplechaser\" is related by one of his fellow-undergraduates,\nwho was charged, or had charged himself, with the duty of informing the\nowner of this unprofitable horse (for which, by the way, he had paid a\ngood round sum) that it was among the \"Also Rans\" in the Christ Church\n{30} grinds.  \"Ah! indeed?\" was his only comment; \"but now I want to\nknow,\" he continued eagerly, \"if you can help me to solve a much more\nimportant question.  What real claim had the [Greek: kremastoi kepoi]\n(the hanging gardens) of Semiramis at Babylon, to be classified, as\nthey were in ancient times, among the Seven Wonders of the World?\"\n\nWhilst on the subject of Bute's diversions at Christ Church (though\nsteeplechasing, even vicariously, can hardly be said to have been one\nof them), reference may appropriately be made to a rather remarkable\nentertainment which he gave by way of repaying the hospitalities\nextended to him by his companions, including some of his former\nschool-fellows at Harrow.  It took the form of a fancy-dress ball,\nwhich came off in the fine suite of rooms which he occupied in the\nnorth-west corner of Tom Quad (since subdivided).  Here is the\ninvitation card, surmounted with the emblazoned arms of the House,\nwhich was sent out:\n\n\n            MARQUESS OF BUTE\n                AT HOME\n\n  La Morgue               Bal Masque\n    IV. I. Tom.            R.S.V.P.\n\n\"La Morgue\" was the room, adjacent to his own, which was, as a matter\nof fact, used as a mortuary when any death occurred within the college.\nThe young host received his guests at the entrance to this apartment in\nthe character of his Satanic Majesty, attired in a close-fitting\ngarment of scarlet and black, with wings, horn, and tail; and most of\nthe guests figured as dons, eminent churchmen, and other well-known\npersonages in the university, the stately dean being, of course,\nrepresented, as well as {31} Mrs. Liddell, who afterwards expressed\nregret that she had not been present in person.  A fracas in the\nrefreshment room resulted in a jockey (the Hon. H. Needham) being\narrested by a policeman, who conducted him to the police-office before\nthe culprit discovered that the supposed constable was one of his\nfellow-revellers.  The affair was altogether so successful that Bute\ndesigned to repeat it a year later; but the authorities of the House,\nwho had given no permission for the original entertainment,\nperemptorily forbade its repetition.[6]\n\n[Sidenote: 1865, Oxford friends]\n\nBute had come into residence at Oxford a few weeks after his eighteenth\nbirthday; and the above reminiscences show that with all his\nserious-mindedness he possessed, as indeed might have been expected,\nsomething also, at that period, of what Disraeli called \"the\nirresponsible frivolity of immature manhood.\"  His amiability of\ncharacter and remarkable personal courtesy prevented him from being in\nany degree unpopular; but his intimate friends at Oxford were\nundoubtedly very few; and it is curious that the most intimate of them\nall was not an undergraduate, or an Oxford man at all, but a lady much\nhis senior, Miss Felicia Skene, daughter of a well-known man of letters\nand friend of Walter Scott, long resident in Oxford.  Miss Skene was\nherself a person of remarkable attainments and qualities, one of them\nbeing a rare gift of sympathy, which seems to have won the heart of the\nsolitary young Scotsman from the first {32} day of their acquaintance.\nBute corresponded with her constantly and regularly, not only during\nhis undergraduate days, but for many years subsequently; and his\nletters show to how large a degree he gave her his confidence in\nmatters of the most intimate interest to himself.  One of the earliest\nof these is dated from Dumfries House, Ayrshire, in the Christmas\nvacation following his first term at Oxford.\n\n\nDumfries House,\n  Cumnock,\n    _Christmas Day_ [1865].\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nA happy Xmas to you.  Mine is comfortable, if not merry nor ideal.  Let\nme say in black and white that I mean to pay for the meat and wine\nordered by the doctor for the poor woman you mention....  Money I\ncannot send.  I have little more than L100 to spend myself.  My\nallowance is L2000, and I have overdrawn L1630, with a draft for L1000\ncoming due.  I am trying to raise the wind here: it seems absurd that I\nshould be \"hard up,\" but it is a long story.  I am only sorry that the\nofferings I should make at this time to the \"Little Child of Bethlehem\"\nare not procurable.\n\nEver yours most truly,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1865, At Dumfries House]\n\nBute had now finally left Galloway House, which had been his holiday\nresidence during his Harrow days; and his home when not at Oxford was\nat Dumfries House, his Ayrshire seat, then in the occupation of Sir\nJames and Lady Edith Fergusson.  \"I saw a good deal of him when he was\nliving at Dumfries House under the tutelage of Sir James Fergusson,\"\nwrites one who had known him from {33} childhood.  \"He used to come\ndown to the smoking-room at night arrayed in a gorgeous garment of pale\nblue and gold: I think he said he had had it made on the pattern of a\nsaintly bishop's vestment in a stained glass window of the Harrow\nChapel.  Sir James was anxious to make a sportsman of Bute, and bought\na hunter or two for him.  I remember his coming out one day with Lord\nEglinton's hounds, but I never saw him take the field again.\"  The\ntyro, as a matter of fact, got a toss in essaying to jump a hedge; and\nso mortified was he by this public discomfiture that he not only never\nagain appeared in the hunting-field, but he never quite forgave Sir\nJames for being the indirect cause of the misadventure.\n\nMiss Skene not only acted to some extent as Bute's almoner during his\nOxford days (it is fair to say that the \"hard-up\" condition alluded to\nin the above letter was due at least as much to his lavish almsgiving\nas to any personal extravagance), but was his adviser in regard to\nother matters.  \"Mrs. Leighton [wife of the Warden of All Souls] has\ninvited me,\" runs one of his notes, \"to come and meet a Scottish bishop\n(St. Andrews) at dinner, and asks me in the same letter to give 'out of\nmy abundance' a cheque to enlarge the Penitentiary chapel.  Now I\ndislike Scots Episcopalian bishops (not individually but officially),\ntheir genesis having been unblushingly Erastian, and their present\nstatus in Scotland being schismatic and dissenting; and my 'abundance'\nat present consists of a heavy overdraft at the bank.  Read and forward\nthe enclosed reply, unless you think the lady will take offence, which\ncan hardly be.\"\n\nHe often copied for his friend extracts which {34} struck him from\nbooks he was reading.  \"I have transcribed for you,\" he wrote a few\nweeks after his nineteenth birthday, \"the account of the death of\nKrishna from the Vishnu Purana.  A hunter by accident shot him in the\nfoot with an arrow.  When he saw what he had done he prostrated himself\nand implored pardon.  Krishna granted it and translated him at once to\nheaven.  'Then the illustrious Krishna, having united himself with his\nown pure, spiritual, inexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying,\nimperishable and universal spirit, which is one with Vasundera,\nabandoned his mortal body and the condition of the threefold\nqualities.'  To my mind this description of the great Saviour becoming\none with universal spirit approaches the sublime.\"\n\nAt the end of his first summer term (June, 1866) Bute made his second\ntour in the East--a more extended one this time, visiting not only\nConstantinople and Palestine, but Kurdistan and Armenia.  His tutor,\nthe Rev. S. Williams, accompanied him, as well as one or two friends,\nincluding Harman Grisewood, one of his associates at the House, and one\nof the few with whom he maintained an intimacy after their Oxford days.\nA diary kept by Bute of the first portion of this tour has been\npreserved: it describes his doings with great minuteness, and is a\nremarkable record for a youth of eighteen to have written.  In Paris\nnothing seems to have much interested him except the churches, and long\nantiquarian conversations with the Vicomte de Voguee and others.  \"I\nagain visited the Comte de V.,\"[7] {35} runs one entry.  \"We got into\nthe Cities of Bashan, and stayed there three or four hours.\"  Many\npages are devoted to a detailed description of Avignon, and later of\nSt. John's Church at Malta, of Syracuse, Catania, and Messina.  At\nMalta he visited the tomb of his grandfather (the first Marquess of\nHastings, who died when governor of Malta in 1826), and \"was much\npleased with it.\"  Describing the high mass in the Benedictine Church\nat Catania, he says, \"At the end, during the Gospel of St. John, the\norganist (the organ is one of the finest in the world) played a\nmilitary march so well that I, at least, could hardly be persuaded that\nthe loud clear clash, the roll of the drums, the ring of the triangle,\nand the roar of the brass instruments were false.  It seemed to me that\nthis passage, which was admirably executed, harmonised wonderfully well\nwith the awful words of the part of the Mass which it accompanied.\"\n\n[Sidenote: 1866, Ascent of Mount Etna]\n\nThe young diarist's vivid descriptive powers are well shown in his\nnarrative of the ascent of Etna, and the impression it made on him:\n\nWe dined [at Nicolosi] on omelet, bread, and figs, and the nastiest\nwine, and at about 7 p.m. started on mules.  These beasts had saddles\nmore uncomfortable than words can describe.  Their pace was about 2-1/2\nmiles per hour, which it was too easy to reduce, but quite impossible\nto accelerate.  Mine had for bridle a cord three feet long, tied to one\nof several large rings on one side of its head.  The journey lasted\ntill 1.30 a.m. or later....  About {36} 1 in the morning, Mr. W. and\none guide having long dropped far behind, where their shrieks and yells\n(now growing hoarse from despair) could be faintly heard in the\ndarkness far down the mountain, we emerged upon the summit between the\npeaks; and at the same time the full moon, silver, intense, rose from\nbehind the lower summit, and shed a flood of light over the tremendous\nscene of desolation.  As far as the eye could reach, there was nothing\nvisible but cinders and sky.  At every step we sank eighteen inches\ninto the black dust as we stumbled on in single file in perfect\nsilence.  A couple of miles ahead rose the great crater peak, with\npatches of snow at its foot and the eternal white cloud emanating and\nwrithing from the summit.  After an hour's rest at the Casa Inglese, a\nmiserable hovel at the foot of the Cone, we started, wrapped in plaids,\nthe cold being intense.  Mr. W. had now rejoined us.  The Cone is a\nhill about the size of Arthur's Seat, covered with rolling friable\ncinders, from which rise clouds of white sulphureous dust.  The ascent\ntook rather more than an hour.  Mr. W. gave out half-way up, declaring\nhe should faint.  The pungent sulphur-smoke came sweeping down the\nhill-side, choking and blinding one.  Eyes were smarting, lungs loaded,\nthroat burnt, mouth dry and nostrils choked.  On we struggled till the\nvery ground gave forth curling clouds of smoke from every cranny.  A\nfew more steps and we were on the summit, at the very edge of the\ncrater, which yawned into perdition within a few inches of one's foot.\nIt is an immense glen, surrounded by a chain of heights, with\ntremendously precipitous sides, bright yellow in the depths, whence\nrises continually the cloud of smoke.  The whole scene is exactly like\nDore's illustrations of the Inferno....  The sun rose over Italy as we\nsat with our heads wrapped up and handkerchiefs in our mouths; but\nthere was no view at all, the height is too stupendous.  The {37}\nhorror of the whole place cannot be depicted.  We were delighted to get\nback to the Casa Inglese, where we remounted our mules and crept away.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1866, Impressions of Eastern travel]\n\nFrom Sicily the travellers visited Smyrna and Chios on their way to\nConstantinople.  Pages of the diary are taken up with descriptions of\nchurches, and functions attended in them, and it is of interest to note\nthat, profoundly interested as Bute was in the Greek churches and the\nGreek liturgy, his religious sympathies were entirely with the Latin\ncommunion.  The \"spiritual deadness,\" as he calls it, of the schismatic\nchurches of the East, repelled and dismayed him.  \"It strikes me as\nessentially dreadful,\" he writes of a visit to the Church of the\nTransfiguration at Syra, \"that the Photian Tabernacle everywhere\nenshrines a deserted Saviour.  The daily sacrifice is not offered; the\nchurches are closed and cold, save for a few hours on Sunday and\nfestivals; visits to the B. Sacrament are unknown.  Pictures are\nexposed to receive an exaggerated homage, unknown and undreamt of in\nthe West.  But it is absolutely true to say that the Perpetual Presence\n(to which no reverence at all is offered, by genuflection or otherwise)\nreceives less respect than one ordinarily pays to any place of worship\nwhatever, even a meeting-house or synagogue.\"  Later, recording a visit\nto the Greek cathedral at Pera, he describes the service there as \"the\nmost disagreeable function I ever attended: the church crammed with\npeople in a state of restlessness and irreverence characteristic of\nPhotian schismatics; and the whole service as much spoiled as slurring,\ndrawling, utter irreverence, bad music, and bad taste could spoil it.\nAfter breakfast I {38} attended the High Mass at the Church of the\nFranciscans--a different thing indeed from the Photian Cathedral; and I\nwent back there in the afternoon for Vespers and Benediction.\"\n\nIt has been sometimes said that Bute, during the period immediately\npreceding his reception into the Catholic Church, was even more drawn\ntowards the \"Orthodox\" form of belief than he was to the prevailing\nreligion of Western Christendom.  The above extracts show that the very\nreverse was the case.  Genuine and earnest worship stirred and\nimpressed him everywhere: thus he writes, after witnessing an elaborate\nceremonial (including the dance of the dervishes) in a mosque at\nConstantinople: \"I left the mosque very much wrought up and excited.\nThere are those who are not impressed by this.  There are those also\nwho laugh at a service in a language they do not know: there are those\nwho see nothing august or awful even in the Holy Mass.\"  Slovenliness,\nirreverence, tepidity in religion were what pained and repelled him;\nand finding those characteristics everywhere in the liturgical services\nof those whom he called the Photians, he was so far from being\nattracted towards any idea of joining their communion, that he returned\nto England, and to Oxford, after this Eastern journey, with the whole\nbent of his religious aspirations set more and more in the direction of\nthe Catholic and Roman Church.  His conversion was, in fact,\naccomplished before the end of this year, although circumstances, as\nwill be seen, compelled the postponement for a considerable time of the\npublic and formal profession of his faith.\n\n\n\n[1] The _Scottish Review_, which Lord Bute controlled at this time, and\nto which he contributed many articles.\n\n[2] This was the chapel on the edge of the sea, among the Mountstuart\nwoods, which had been built for the convenience of the people living\nand working near the house.  Lord Bute used it as a domestic chapel\nuntil the new chapel at Mountstuart was opened.  He was buried there in\n1900.\n\n[3] Lord Bute's only daughter, Lady Margaret Crichton-Stuart, then in\nher twelfth year, and under the tutelage of a Greek governess.\n\n[4] Adam Hay Gordon married in 1873 the beautiful granddaughter of Sir\nRobert Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone, and died without issue, as above\nrecorded, in July, 1894.\n\n[5] \"'Tis said that when upon a rocky shore\n    The salt sea billows break with muffled roar,\n    And, launched in mad career, the thundering wave\n    Leaps booming through the weedy ocean cave;\n    Each tenth is grander than the nine before.\n    And breaks with tenfold thunder on the shore.\n    Alas! it is so on the sounding sea;\n    But so, O England, it is not with thee!\n    Thy decuman is broken on the shore:\n    A peer to him shall lave thee never more!\"\n\nThe text of the whole poem is given in Appendix I.\n\n[6] The particulars of this whimsical incident in Bute's university\ncareer have been kindly furnished by Mr. Algernon Turnor, C.B., who was\nhis contemporary at Christ Church.  It was he who rode--though not to\nvictory--the steeplechaser mentioned in the text.  Mr. Turner married\nin 1880 Lady Henrietta Stewart, one of Bute's early playmates and\ncompanions at Galloway House.\n\n[7] Eugene Vicomte de Voguee, whom Bute wrongly styles \"Comte\" in his\ndiary, was a few months his junior.  One of the most brilliant and\ncharming men of his generation, he was in turn soldier, diplomatist,\npolitician, and _litterateur_.  He became a member of the Academy in\n1888 and died in 1910.  He published books and articles on a great\nvariety of subjects, all marked with the profoundly religious feeling\nwhich characterised him.\n\n\n\n\n{39}\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nRELIGIOUS INQUIRIES--RECEPTION POSTPONED--COMING OF AGE\n\n1867, 1868\n\nA well-meaning person thought well to compile and publish, some years\nago, a volume in which a few distinguished Roman Catholics, and a great\nnumber of mediocrities, were invited to describe the process and\nmotives which led them \"to abandon\" (as some cynic once expressed it)\n\"the errors of the Church of England for those of the Church of Rome.\"\nLord Bute, who was among the many more or less eminent people who\nreceived and declined invitations to contribute to this symposium, was\ncertainly the last man likely to consent to recount his own religious\nexperiences for the benefit of a curious public.  It is, therefore, all\nthe more interesting that in a copy of the book above referred to,\nbelonging to one of his most intimate friends,[1] was preserved a\nmemorandum in Bute's writing, which throws an interesting light on\nsome, at least, of the causes which were contributory to his own\nsubmission to the Roman Church.\n\n\nI came to see very clearly indeed that the Reformation was in England\nand Scotland--I had not studied it elsewhere--the work neither of God\nnor of the people, its real authors being, in the former country, {40}\na lustful and tyrannical King, and in the latter a pack of greedy,\ntime-serving and unpatriotic nobles.  (Almost the only real patriots in\nScotland at that period were bishops like Elphinstone, Reid, and\nDunbar.)\n\nI also convinced myself (1) that while the disorders rampant in the\nChurch during the sixteenth century clamoured loudly for reform, they\nin no way justified apostacy and schism; and (2) that were I personally\nto continue, under that or any other pretext, to remain outside the\nCatholic and Roman Church, I should be making myself an accomplice\nafter the fact in a great national crime and the most indefensible act\nin history.  And I refused to accept any such responsibility.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1860, Attraction to Roman Church]\n\nThe late Jesuit historian, Father Joseph Stevenson, who spent a great\nnumber of years in laborious study (for his work in the Record Office)\nof the original documents and papers of the Reformation period, frankly\navowed that it was what he learned in these researches, and no other\nconsiderations whatever, which convinced him--an elderly Anglican\nclergyman of the old school--that the Catholic Church was the Church of\nGod, and the so-called Reformation the work of His enemies.  It was one\nof his colleagues in the Society of Jesus[2] who quoted this to Lord\nBute, and his emphatic comment was, \"That is a point of view which I\nthoroughly appreciate.\"  As to Bute himself, there were undoubtedly\nmany sides of his character to which the appeal of the ancient Church\nwould be strong and insistent.  Her august and venerable ritual, the\nordered splendour of her ceremonial, the deep significance of her\nliturgy and worship, {41} could not fail to attract one who had learned\nto see in them far more than the mere outward pomp and beauty which are\nbut symbols of their inward meaning.  The love and tenderness and\ncompassion with which she is ever ready to minister to the least of her\nchildren would touch the heart of one who beneath a somewhat cold\nexterior had himself a very tender feeling for the stricken and the\nsorrowful.  The marvellous roll of her saints, the story of their\nlives, the record of their miracles, would stir the imagination and\nkindle the enthusiasm of one who loved to remember, as we have seen,\nthat the blood of pilgrims flowed in his veins, and found one of his\ngreatest joys in visiting the shrines, following in the footsteps,\nvenerating the remains, and verifying the acts of the saints of God in\nmany lands, even in the remotest corners of Christendom.  His mind and\nheart and soul found satisfaction in all these things; but most of all\nit was the historic sense which he possessed in so peculiar a degree,\nthe craving for an exact and accurate presentment of the facts of\nhistory, which was one of his most marked characteristics--it was these\nwhich, during his many hours of painful and laborious searching into\nthe records of the past, were the most direct and immediate factors in\nconvincing his intellect, as his heart was already convinced, that the\nCatholic and Roman Church, and no other, was the Church founded by\nChrist on earth, and that to remain outside it was, for him, to incur\nthe danger of spiritual shipwreck.\n\nDr. Liddon, who was at this time a Senior Student of Christ Church, and\nresident in the college (he became Ireland Professor of Exegesis four\nyears later, and a Canon of St. Paul's in the same year), {42} was wont\nto say that Bute was far too busy, during his undergraduate career, in\n\"reconsidering and reconstructing his religious position,\" to give more\nthan a secondary place to his regular academic studies.  His reading,\nwhich, undistracted by any of the ordinary dissipations of university\nlife, he pursued with unflagging ardour, sitting at his books often far\ninto the night, ranged over the whole field of comparative religion.\nEvery form of ancient faith, Judaism, Buddhism, Islamism, the beliefs\nof old Egypt, Greece and Rome, as well as the creeds and worship of\nEastern and Western Christendom, were the subject of his studies and\nhis thoughts; and the more he read and pondered, the more clear became\nhis conviction that in the Roman Church alone could his mind, his\nheart, and his imagination find rest and satisfaction.  No external\ninfluence of any kind helped to bring him to that conclusion.  In the\nconduct of his studies and the arrangement of his reading he freely\nsought and obtained the advice and assistance of tutors and professors,\nboth belonging to the House and outside it.  But from no Roman Catholic\nsource did he ask or receive counsel or direction at this time; and he\nonce said that during the first year of his Oxford course he was not\neven aware of the existence of a Roman Catholic church in the\nuniversity city.  Two or three Catholic undergraduates were in\nresidence at Christ Church in his time, but he was not intimate with\nany of them.  He was fond of taking long walks, then, as always, almost\nthe only form of bodily exercise he favoured, though he was a good\nswimmer and fencer; and it was in company with his most intimate\nfriend, Adam Hay Gordon, that he once, after a visit to Wantage (the\nassociations {43} of which with King Alfred greatly interested him),\npenetrated to the ancient Catholic chapel of East Hendred, not far\ndistant.  He was greatly moved at learning that this venerable\nsanctuary was one of the very few in England in which, it was said, the\nlamp before the tabernacle had never been extinguished, and Mass had\nbeen celebrated all through the darkest days of penal times; and he\nknelt so long in prayer before the altar that he had twice to be\nreminded by his companion of the long walk home they had in prospect.\nThis pilgrimage--Bute always considered it as such, and spoke of it\nwith emotion long years afterwards--took place in the autumn of 1866;\nand before he left Oxford for the Christmas vacation of that year he\nhad made up his mind to seek admission without delay into the Catholic\nfold, and (as he hoped) to make his first communion as a Catholic\nbefore the Easter festival of the following year.\n\n[Sidenote: 1866, Decision taken]\n\nAbsorbed in his studies, and cheered and encouraged by the dawn of\nreligious certainty, and his growing confidence in the sureness of the\nground on which his feet were placed, Bute had, it is probable,\nreckoned little, if at all, on the storm of opposition, protest, and\nresentment which was bound to break out the moment his proposed change\nof religion became known.  Lady Edith Fergusson, his guardian's wife,\nfor whom he had a sincere affection, first learned his intention from\nhimself during his Christmas sojourn at Dumfries House.  The news came\nas a great blow to Sir James, who, with all his good qualities, had no\nintellectual equipment adequate to meeting the reasoned arguments of\nhis young ward; and he fled up to London to take counsel with Bute's\nEnglish guardians.  The tidings caused consternation in the {44} Lord\nChancellor's Court, and (it was said) in a Court even more august; and\nthe cry was for a scapegoat to bear the brunt of the general wrath.\nWho and where was the subtle Jesuit, the secret emissary of Rome, who\nhad hatched the dark plot, had \"got hold of\" the guileless youth, and\ninveigled him away from the simple faith of his childhood?  Public\nindignation was heightened rather than allayed by the impossibility of\nidentifying this sinister conspirator.  _Non est inventus_.  He had, in\nfact, no more existence than Mrs. Harris.  The circumstances of the\ncase were patent and simple.  A young man of strong religious\ninstincts, good parts, and studious habits, had, after much reading,\ngrave consideration (and, it might be added, earnest prayer, but that\nwas outside the public ken), come to the conclusion that the religion\nof the greater part of Christendom was right and that of the British\nminority wrong.  And what made matters worse was that he had in his\nconstitution so large a share of native Scottish tenacity, that there\nseemed no possibility of inducing him to change his mind.  The obvious,\nand only alternative, policy was delay.  Get him to put off the evil\nday, and all might yet be well.  The _mot d'ordre_ was accordingly\ngiven; and a united crusade was entered on by kinsfolk and\nacquaintance, guardians, curators, and tutors-at-law, the Chancellor\nand his myrmidons, the family solicitors, and finally the dons and\ntutors at Oxford, to extract from the prospective convert, at whatever\ncost, a promise not to act on his convictions at least until after\nattaining his majority.  After that--well, anything might happen; and\nif during the interval of nearly two years he were to take to drink or\ngambling, to waste his substance on riotous living (like his {45}\nunfortunate cousin), or generally to go to the devil--it would be of\ncourse very regrettable, but anyhow he would be rescued from Popery,\nand that was the only thing that really mattered.\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, Oxford alarmed]\n\nIn the midst of these alarums and excursions the young peer returned to\nChrist Church for the Lent term of 1867, and found himself the object\nof much more public attention and solicitude than he at all\nappreciated.  \"Life is odious here at present,\" he wrote to the always\nfaithful friend of whose sympathy he was sure, \"and I am having a worse\ntime even than I had during all the rows about my guardianship.\nLuckily I am better able to bear it, and nothing will ever change my\nresolution.\"\n\nDr. Liddon concerned himself very actively with the project of getting\nBute to agree to delay in carrying out his purpose; and with him was\nassociated Dr. Mansel, at that time a Fellow of St. John's and\nProfessor of Church History (he became Dean of St. Paul's in 1868).\nThere were some advanced churchmen among the Senior Students[3] of that\nday, including the Rev. R. Benson, first superior of the Cowley\nbrotherhood, and the Rev. T. Chamberlain of St. Thomas's, who claimed\nto be the first clergyman to have worn a chasuble in his parish church\nsince the Reformation.[4]  Such men as these would naturally {46} point\nout that Bute could get all that he wanted in their section of the\nAnglican Church; but by another of the Students, Mr. Septimus Andrews,\nwho afterwards followed Bute into the Catholic Church and became an\nOblate of St. Charles, he was encouraged to remain faithful to his\nconvictions, in spite of the strong pressure brought to bear on him\nfrom all quarters.  It was even said that Dr. Pusey (who seems to have\ntaken no part in the agitation of the time) was to be asked to approach\nDr. Newman in his retirement at Edgbaston, and beg him to use his\ninfluence to secure the delay which was all that was now hoped for.\nThere is no evidence that this step was actually taken; but the\nsuccess, such as it was, of these reiterated appeals for postponement\nof the final and definitive step is attested by the following deeply\ninteresting letter, written by Bute to his friend at Oxford at the\nbeginning of the Easter vacation of 1867.\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, A sad letter]\n\n\n122, George St.,\n  Edinburgh,\n    _Maundy Thursday_, 1867.\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nOn this day, which was to have seen my First Communion, I do not\nbelieve I should have the heart to write and tell you that it has all\nfailed, if it were not for a sort of hard, cold, listless feeling of\nutter apathy to everything Divine which is new to me, but which has, as\nit were, petrified me since my fall.\n\nThe long and short is that the Protestants--_i.e._ the Lord Chancellor\nand his Court; my Guardians; my friends and relations; and Mansel,\nLiddon, and Co. have extorted from me a promise not to become a\nCatholic till I am of age.  They are {47} jubilant with the jubilation\nof devils over a lost soul; but I am hopeless and weary to a degree.\n\nThere remains nothing to say now, except that I am utterly wrecked.  I\nhave not dared to pray since.  I have heard Mass twice, but I looked on\nwith an indifference greater than if I had been at a play.  I feel no\nmoral principle either.  It is simply all up.  Instead of feeling these\nholy days, the thought of the suffering of Christ simply haunts me like\na nightmare.  I try to drown it and drive it away.\n\nThere is no use in going on this way.  It is a triumph for which\nMansel, etc., are _thanking God_ (_!_).  I know what my own position\nis.  It is hopeless, and graceless, and godless.\n\nMost sincerely yours,\n  BUTE AND DUMFRIES.\n\n\nIf the well-meaning divines and others who had wrung from Bute, under\nthe severest moral pressure, the much-desired promise, had had an\nopportunity of perusing the above letter, the \"jubilation\" of which he\nspeaks would surely have been considerably modified.  It is a sad\nenough document to have been written by a youth in his twentieth year,\nto whom his opening manhood seemed to offer, from a worldly point of\nview, everything that was most brilliant and most desirable.  The day\non which it was dated, and the thought of all that day was to have been\nto him, and yet was not, naturally deepened the depression under which\nit was penned, and led him perhaps to exaggerate the condition of\nspiritual dereliction which he so pathetically described.  But if his\nlife was not in reality wrecked, if he had not in truth (and we know\nthat he had not) lost all sense of moral principles, it is impossible\nto avoid the reflection that no thanks for this are due {48} to those\nwho seem utterly to have misapprehended the strength and sincerity of\nhis religious convictions, and the very grave responsibility they\nincurred (to say nothing of the risk to himself) in persuading him to\nstifle them, even for a time.  It was their hope, doubtless, that the\ndelay they had secured would ultimately lead to the abandonment of his\npurpose; but nothing is more certain that while resolved to abide\nfaithfully by his promise, he was inflexibly determined to follow his\nconscience and carry out his declared intention at the very moment that\nhe was free to do so.  This resolution taken, his wonted tranquillity\nreturned, and he went back to Christ Church for the summer term to\nresume undisturbed, and with a mind at rest, his quiet life of study\nand other congenial occupations.  Reproduced here is a rough sketch\nfrom his pen, dated at this time (May 13, 1867), but not otherwise\ndescribed.  The drawing, which is not devoid of charm and power,\ndepicts apparently the Communion of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland.\nOn the same sheet is another sketch which seems to be a design for a\nstained glass window representing Scottish Saints.\n\n[Illustration: THE COMMUNION OF ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND]\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, A long vacation cruise]\n\nA great part of the Long Vacation of 1867 was spent by Bute in a cruise\nto the north of Scotland and to Iceland, in the yacht _Ladybird_, which\nhe had recently purchased.  \"On Sundays in my yacht,\" he writes to a\nfriend from Edinburgh on July 13, 1867, \"I am to conduct Presbyterian\nservices.  There is a book of prayers approved by the Church of\nScotland for the purpose: instead of sermon, some immense bit of\nScripture, _e.g._ the whole Epistle to the Romans.\"  This letter, by\nthe way, is dated \"Feast of S. Anicete\"--a rare instance of\nhagiographical inaccuracy on the writer's part.  {49} July 13 is not\nthe festival of St. Anicetus, P.M. (who is commemorated on April 17),\nbut of an earlier Pope and Martyr, St. Anacletus.\n\nBute visited St. Andrews during this cruise--a fact to which he made\ninteresting reference on a memorable occasion many years\nsubsequently.[5] It {50} was, however, in quest of the relics of\nanother ancient saint and martyr, dear for centuries to Scottish\nChristians under the title of St. Magnus of Orkney, that Bute spent\nmuch time in far northern waters during the summer of 1867.  Magnus\nEarl of Orkney, if not a martyr in the technical sense any more than\nSt. Oswald (called King and Martyr) and some others of the early\nEnglish Saints, was yet a Christian hero who died a violent death at\nthe hands of his enemies.  It was in the little island of Egilshay that\nhe was slain in A.D. 1116 by his treacherous cousin Haco; and there\nBute landed from his yacht, kissing (as he records) the sacred ground\nas he touched the land, and recommending--he does not say with what\nresult--his companion, Mr. George Petrie, F.S.A., to do the same.\nAfter visiting the ancient church, dedicated to the saint, though its\nround tower is probably far older than the time of St. Magnus, Bute\nspent a long time at Kirkwall in the study of its noble cathedral,\nwhere he obtained leave to take the reputed bones of the saint from\ntheir resting-place in the great pier on the north side of the choir.\nA minute inspection of these bones, conducted by himself, Mr. Petrie,\ntwo local doctors, and an apothecary, convinced him that the skull (an\nunusually large one, of a very degenerate type, with an old sword-cut\nin it over which there was a new growth of bone) was not in the least\nlikely to be that of St. Magnus; and there were other remains in the\ncavity, clearly those of a different person.  This conclusion was\nconfirmed by subsequent investigations (nineteen {51} years later)\nwhich Bute made in Orkney, and to which reference is made on a later\npage.[6]  These details are worth mention, as testifying to the\nscrupulous care with which he was always anxious to examine any\nsupposed relic of antiquity (whether the remains of a saint or anything\nelse) before giving credence to its authenticity.\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, St. Magnus of Orkney]\n\nTo the memory, and for the personality, of St. Magnus himself, Bute\nalways cherished a lively devotion and veneration,[7] which was shown\nnot only in some of his later writings, but in a hymn of seven stanzas\nwhich he composed at this time in honour of the saint, and which was\nprinted in the _Orcadian_ over the signature \"Oxonian.\"  It is a free\nparaphrase of the Latin vesper hymn assigned to St. Magnus in the\nAberdeen Breviary on his feast day (April 16), and has more merit than\nwas claimed for it by its author, who described it in a letter to Mr.\nPetrie as \"a very indifferent attempt.\"  Another poetical composition\nof his dating from this period was a pretty set of verses entitled \"Our\nLady of the Snows,\" which was published anonymously this year in the\n_Union Review_ (then edited by Dr. F. J. Lee) after being declined by\nthe editor of the _Month_.[8]  He wrote to Miss Skene from Thurso on\nJuly 16, 1867:\n\n\n{52}\n\nI am tickled pleasurably by the opinion of the editor of the _Union_\nabout my little poem.  Are we to conclude that the standard of the\n_Month_ is the higher of the two, as it rejects what the Union admits,\nand even describes as \"feeling and beautiful\"?  I confess that till now\nthat had not been the result produced on my mind by a comparison of\ntheir respective \"Poet's Corners.\"\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, Lady Elizabeth Moore]\n\nBute continued his yachting cruise from Orkney to Iceland, and spent\nthere his twentieth birthday, viewing the volcano of Hecla in full\neruption, as he had seen Etna a year previously.  One of his birthday\nletters was from Lady Elizabeth Moore, with whom he had renewed a\nregular correspondence, and who was now happy in the belief that her\nformer ward's secession from Protestantism was postponed _sine die_.\nHer letters are always characteristically kind and affectionate, if\nevery phrase is not altogether judicious.\n\n\nMY VERY DEAR COUSIN,\n\nYou are much in my thoughts this day....  My most affectionate good\nwishes on your entering your twenty-first year.  May the Almighty bless\nand protect you.  May you be preserved from evil doings and _erroneous\nopinions_, and prove a bright example of good to others in the elevated\nposition of life in which God has placed you.  Ten years ago I spent\nSeptember 12 at St. Andrews with a little boy, the cherished object of\nhis mother's deepest affection.  We little thought how soon he would be\ndeprived of that excellent parent, and how cruel would be the\nconsequences that followed her sad loss.  You have wonderfully escaped\nthe dangers and survived the difficulties of your too eventful life in\nearly youth.  May the future be more calm, more happy! ... Your\nmother's _bequest_ to me has {53} been a source of more anxiety than\nyou can ever know.  My consolation is that I firmly did my duty towards\nmy cousin who trusted me, and towards her orphan child.\n\n\nLady Elizabeth wrote a week later:\n\n\nMY DEAREST BUTE,\n\nI was charmed to receive your letter of the 16th, _with most\ninteresting details_.  I pass it on to-day to Sir James Fergusson, who\nmerits that attention.  I am thankful you are safe out of cold, dreary,\n_dangerous_ Iceland, though in after times it will be amusing to talk\nof your travels in such a curious unvisited country.  You are a dear\ngood Boy for writing so often, and I thank you _very very_ much; only\nit vexed me to be forced to remain so long silent.  On your birthday we\ndrank your health \"with a sentiment,\" and the servants had a bottle of\nwine for the festive occasion, and Mungo [Bute's dog] was decorated\nwith a new ribbon....  Mr. Henry Stuart has been extremely civil in\nsending me boxes of game and fruit from Mountstuart.  There were great\ndoings on the 12th at Rothesay, from which I gather _you_ are now\nconsidered Somebody, instead of being Nobody (which I always felt you\nwere wrong in ever permitting).  If Sir J. F. had been Guardian long\nago, such a state of things would not have existed.\n\n\nBute was called away from Oxford, soon after his return for the October\nterm, to attend the funeral at Cheltenham of his last surviving aunt,\nLady Selina Henry.  His mother had had three sisters, but he had never\nbeen intimate with any of them, although he appreciated their personal\npiety more, perhaps, than they did his.  \"When I return,\" he wrote from\nCheltenham to his Oxford {54} friend, \"I shall be able, perhaps, to add\nto your knowledge of the ultra-Protestant school, as I have already\nadded to my own.  It is wonderful how holy some people are in spite of\neverything.\"  Bute always recalled with pleasure the extreme piety of\nsome of his Protestant forbears, notably that of his\ngreat-great-grandmother, Selina ninth Countess of Huntingdon,[9] after\nwhom Lady Selina Henry was named.  He gave an old engraved portrait of\nthis esteemed ancestress, who was as homely-looking as she was pious,\nto an intimate friend, with these words written under it by himself:\n\"Fallax est gratia et vana pulchritudo: mulier timens Dominum ipsa\nlaudabitur.\"[10]\n\nNot only tolerant of, but conspicuously fair-minded towards, the\nreligious views of others, Bute gave evidence of this, as well as of\nhis deep interest in theological questions, in a letter written early\nin 1868 on the subject of the _Filioque_ clause in the Creed, which\ndivides East from West.  Himself persuaded of the truth of the doctrine\non this, as on all other points, held in the Latin Church, he could not\npass unchallenged defective or disingenuous arguments even on the right\nside.\n\n\nIt is really breaking a fly on the wheel to attack the argument of the\nwriter in the _Rock_.\n\nWhat he says is this: If the Spirit proceeds from the Father only, and\nnot from the Father and the Son, then the Father, by this attribute of\nemitting {55} the Spirit, which the Son has not, is of a nature so\ndifferent from that of the Son that they cannot be of one substance.\n\nThis visibly ludicrous position can be shown to be an absurdity thus:\nThe Son is by generation, the Spirit by procession, which is a much\ngreater difference between them than there is between the Father and\nthe Son by the Father's being Spirit-emitting and the Son not.\nTherefore, if this difference between the Father and the Son be\nsufficient to make them of different substances, how much more shall\nthe Son and the Spirit be of different substances!\n\nWhich is absurd.\n\n\nHis characteristic reverence in approaching such subjects is shown in\nthe postscript of this letter, dated from Christ Church, March 26, 1868:\n\n\nI have a great shrinking from writing or speaking upon this awful\nmatter.  But as you wanted it, here it is.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, To Russia with Lord Rosebery]\n\nIn the Long Vacation of this year--his last as an Oxford\nundergraduate--Bute again spent some weeks in a yachting cruise, not\nthis time in Eastern waters, but in the North Sea and the Baltic, his\ncompanion being Lord Rosebery, who was just his own age, and had\nmatriculated at Christ Church in the same term as himself.  At the end\nof August he returned home in view of his impending majority, which was\ncelebrated in September all over his extensive estates with much\nrejoicing, the principal festivities being held at Cardiff.  \"It will\nbe a great ordeal,\" he wrote a few days previously, \"and one which I\nwish it were possible to avoid.\"  It was in truth only the strong sense\nof duty by which he was {56} ever actuated that enabled him to overcome\nhis natural repugnance to appearing as the principal figure in such\ndemonstrations; but when the time came he enacted his part with dignity\nand success, and won golden opinions everywhere.  His personal\nappearance, hitherto unknown to thousands of those who acclaimed him in\nthe streets, prepossessed them in his favour.  \"His well-knit and\nstalwart form,\" writes one of those present, \"and the combined\nexpression of amiability and decision of character stamped upon his\ncountenance, struck all present.\"  And the same observer commends in\nthe young peer's speeches on this occasion, the \"simplicity of style,\nconciseness of expression and depth of sentiment which showed him to be\na man of thought and reflection, and one thoroughly alive to the great\nresponsibility entailed on him by the heritage of wealth.\"  His\nprincipal speech was delivered at a great dinner given him by more than\nthree thousand of the tradesmen and workers of Cardiff, and it very\nfavourably impressed all who heard it.  In reply to the toast of his\nhealth, he said:\n\n\nI tell you that when I come into this great and growing town, and see\nthe vast number of men who are nourished by its growing prosperity, and\nwhen I feel the ties of duty which bind me to them; when I consider the\nhopes which they fix on me and the affectionate and precious regard\nwith which for my father's sake they look on me; when it comes home to\nme that I must perforce do great good or great evil to them; and when,\non the other hand, my self-knowledge sets before me my own few years,\nmy inexperience, my weakness, my many faults, my limited ability, my\nloneliness, the weight of responsibility which lies on me seems\nsometimes absolutely crushing.  But it will not do to be {57} crushed\nby it, and I do not mean to be.  I mean to try to do my best for this\nplace to the end of my life, and to do this I would ask you to help me.\n\n\n[Illustration: CARDIFF CASTLE.]\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Rejoicings at Cardiff]\n\nThe rejoicings at Cardiff, which lasted a full week, included the\npublic roasting of two oxen, one in the old river-bed, the other at the\nhead of the west dock.  The Corporation also entertained Bute to a\nbanquet, of which the bill of fare is worth reproducing, as a specimen\nof the Gargantuan scale on which such things were done in mid-Victorian\ndays:\n\n_Soups_.--Mock turtle, ox-tail, Julienne, vermicelli.\n\n_Fish_.--Turbot and lobster sauce, mullet _a la cardinal_, crimped cod\nand oyster sauce, filets de sole.\n\n_Removes_.--Haunch venison, boiled leg of lamb, roast beef, green\ngoose, rouleau of veal, ragout sausages, roast chicken, boiled turkey\n(Bechamel), braised rump beef, saddle mutton, turkey _a la royale_,\nforced calves' head, ducks, rouleau of venison, boiled chicken,\ntongues, hams.\n\n_Entrees_.--Sweetbreads _a la Princesse_, lamb-cutlets au Jersey,\ncompot of pigeons, fillet of chicken _a la royale_, filet de boeuf,\nkidneys au champagne, pork cutlets and tomato sauce, vol-au-vent.\n\n_Game_.--Partridges, hares, grouse.\n\n_Sweets_.--Ice pudding, Snowdon pudding, plum pie and cream, macaroni\nau gratin, Charlotte Russe, cabinet pudding, Italian cream, pastries\n(various), jellies (various).\n\nThe dinner, it was reported, \"gave great satisfaction\"; and it is only\nto be hoped that those of the guests who worked conscientiously through\nthe _menu_ did not live to repent it.\n\nBute spent the rest of the autumn, after coming of age, quietly at\nCardiff, reading much, and preparing {58} himself for the important\nstep--his reception into the Catholic Church--which he now felt himself\nfree to take.  He had already begun to obey the dietary rules\nprescribed to the faithful (he found them always extremely trying,\nthough he observed them strictly all his life).\n\n\nMy chief news [he wrote on October 24, 1868] is that I have begun to\nkeep the laws of the Church about fasting and abstinence, and had my\nfirst fish dinner yesterday.  The series of messes, fish and eggs and\npuddings, nearly made me sick.\n\n\nIn the same letter he refers to a more important matter, the breaking\noff of his projected marriage.  He had formed an attachment to the\nsixth of the seven beautiful daughters of a well-known peer; but the\nrumours of his conversion, which was now known to be certainly\nimpending, had caused the lady's parents to withdraw their sanction to\nthe proposed engagement.\n\n\nTo-day's post [he writes] brings me a long letter from the Duchess of\n----.  It is very disheartening.  Unless the woman _lies_, she will do\neverything in her power to prevent the marriage.  She is, I think, too\nupright a woman to deceive.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, A ghostly warning]\n\nThis autumn was overshadowed for Bute by an event which he felt much\nfor several reasons, the death (on November 10), when only in his\ntwenty-seventh year, of his cousin the fourth and last Marquess of\nHastings, to whose unfortunate career reference has already been made.\nBute had gone up to Scotland a few days previously, leaving at Cardiff\nCastle Mr. John Boyle (the brother of one of his former curators and a\ntrustee of his father's {59} will), who on November 10 was expecting a\nfriend to dinner.  Seated in the library, he heard a carriage roll\nthrough the great courtyard and stop at the door.  After an interval,\nthinking the bell must be broken, he came into the hall, but the\nbutler, who was waiting there, assured him that no carriage had come.\nNext morning he received a telegram announcing that Lord Hastings had\ndied suddenly the night before.  He only heard later, for the first\ntime, that the arrival of a spectral carriage was said always to\nforetell the death of some member of the Hastings family.[11]\n\n\n\n[1] Hartwell Grissell, M.A., of Brasenose, and for many years attached\nto the Papal Court.\n\n[2] The late Father James MacSweeney, Bute's principal collaborator in\nhis opus magnum, the translation of the Roman Breviary.\n\n[3] The Senior Students (now called \"Students\") of Christ Church\ncorrespond to the Fellows of other colleges.\n\n[4] The writer was told by Mr. Chamberlain himself, in his old age,\nthat he had first worn a red chasuble at St. Thomas's Church on Whit\nSunday, 1854.  Dr. Neale, however, had certainly worn the Eucharistic\nvestments before that in his chapel at East Grinstead; and they were\nintroduced at Wilmscote (Warwickshire) as early as 1849.\n\n[5] \"I remember when I was at Oxford,\" he said in his Rectorial address\nat St. Andrews a quarter of a century later (_post_, p. 187), \"and was\ngoing one Long Vacation to Iceland in company with an English friend\n(now the secretary of one of Her Majesty's ministers), I stopped the\nyacht here [at St. Andrews] in order to show him with pride the only\nplace in Scotland, as far as I know, whose appearance can boast any\nkinship with that of Oxford.\"\n\n[6] See _post_, pp. 150, 151.\n\n[7] \"Isn't it perfectly monstrous,\" Bute is recorded to have once asked\na lady in a London drawing-room, _a propos_ of nothing in particular,\n\"that St. Magnus hasn't got an octave?\"  What the lady said or thought\nis not recorded, but Bute had the satisfaction of knowing, before his\ndeath, that Pope Leo XIII. had at least authorised the keeping of St.\nMagnus's festival throughout Scotland; The Scots Benedictine Abbey of\nFort Augustus is probably the only place in Christendom where the\nfeast-day of the holy Earl (April 16) is annually celebrated by a\nsolemn high Mass.\n\n[8] The text of these two poems is given in Appendices II. and III.\n\n[9] Patroness of George Whitefield (the inventor of Calvinistic\nMethodism), and founder of numerous chapels up and down England, which\nwere under her absolute control.  The adherents of this sect (known as\nthe \"Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion\") for the most part joined the\nCongregationalist body later.\n\n[10] \"Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth\nthe Lord, she shall be praised\" (Prov. xxxi. 30).\n\n[11] Mr. Boyle's grandson, who communicates this incident, adds: \"My\ngrandfather always told this story very solemnly, and with the fullest\nconviction of its truth, although he was not at all apt to believe in\nanything except the most positive and material facts.\"\n\nLady Margaret MacRae (Bute's only daughter) has assured the writer that\non the eve of her father's death at Dumfries House (October 8, 1900),\nshe was an ear-witness of a phenomenon precisely similar to that\ndescribed in the text.\n\n\n\n\n{60}\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nDANESFIELD--RECEPTION INTO CATHOLIC CHURCH\n\n1867-1869\n\nThe conversion of Bute to the Roman Church, as to which his mind was\npractically made up before the end of 1866, though the actual step was\ndelayed until nearly two years later, was brought about, as we have\nseen, chiefly by his own reading and reflection, combined with the\nimpression wrought on his mind by foreign travel--not, it is to be\nnoted, mainly in Catholic countries, but in those Eastern lands where\nhe had every opportunity of studying at first hand the various forms of\nworship and belief in which he was so deeply interested.  None of his\ncompanions on these extended journeys were Roman Catholics, nor\napparently in any degree sympathetic with the spirit in which the young\nScottish pilgrim visited those historic spots.  A casual note in one of\nhis journals reveals the fact that he defrayed in most cases the entire\nexpenses of his fellow-travellers on these trips; but though he thus\nsecured companionship, there is no evidence that his varied journeyings\nwere carried out in society particularly congenial to him.  At Oxford,\nas has been already said, his only really intimate friends (in a host\nof acquaintances) were a lady already middle-aged, and two\nundergraduates, whose loyal affection for him certainly {61} did not\ninclude any intelligent sympathy with his religious aspirations.  It\nwas not until the Christmas vacation of 1866, when his conversion was\nto all intents and purposes an accomplished fact, that he became for\nthe first time intimate with a Catholic family, and through them with\none who was destined to be the actual instrument of his reception into\nthe Latin Communion.  Let us pause for a moment at the turning-point in\nhis life which we have now reached, and look back some eighteen months\nto the beginning and the development of this new friendship.\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, Danesfield]\n\nNot far from the old town of Marlow, among chalky downs starred in\nearly summer with masses of golden St. John's wort, stood in those days\nthe pretty country seat of Danesfield, the home of Mr. Charles Scott\nMurray, a Catholic gentleman of Scottish descent and good estate.  He\nhad married a daughter of the twelfth Lord Lovat, and had a large\nfamily; and both his country home and his house in Cavendish Square\nwere centres of much pleasant hospitality.  Lord Bute stayed with him\nseveral times at Danesfield, and made there, early in 1867, the\nacquaintance of the Rev. T. W. (afterwards Monsignor) Capel, who acted\nas chaplain in the beautiful private chapel (one of Pugin's finest\nworks) attached to the house.  \"Lord Bute was often at Danesfield in\nthose days,\" writes a daughter of the house, \"and I remember him\nsitting for hours talking to my mother--almost always on religious\nsubjects--and watching her embroidering vestments for the chapel.\"\nWith the chaplain also he held many conversations, and informed himself\nthrough him about many points in Catholic practice and observance.  But\nhe was already, as has been {62} seen, practically convinced of the\ntruth of the Roman claims; and he subsequently took occasion more than\nonce emphatically to deny that there was any truth whatever in the\npopular idea that he had been \"converted\" by Mgr. Capel.  Writing to an\nintimate friend,[1] four or five years later, on the subject of a\nbiography of that prelate which it was proposed to publish, he says:\n\n\nIf it does come out, the only thing I hope they won't put in is that he\n\"converted\" me, which would be, to put it plainly, a mere lie.  Mgr. C.\nperformed the ceremony of reception in December, 1868.  I chose him for\nthe purpose because, having several times met him at the Scott Murrays'\nthe year before, I knew him fairly well, and was pleased with his clear\nand simple way of explaining certain things I wished to know.  I\nreceived much spiritual help from him at a time when I was greatly in\nneed of such help, and yet was unable, for certain reasons, to take the\nfinal step; and I was, and am, grateful to him for this and for much\nelse.  But that I was in any sense \"converted\" by him is simply\nuntrue.[2]\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1867, Converts to Roman Church]\n\nBute was greatly attracted by the kindness, good sense, and sterling\nCatholic piety of his host {63} at Danesfield, and had a sincere regard\nand affection for both him and his wife, and indeed for the whole\nfamily.  \"His initial shyness once overcome,\" one of them writes, \"he\nbecame like one of ourselves.  He shared all our home life, came to\nMass and Benediction with us as a matter of course, and talked quite\nsimply of how he longed to be a 'real' Catholic.\"  Of his postponed\nreception he wrote to Mr. Scott Murray in much the same terms (though\nmore briefly) as he had written to his friend at Oxford.\n\n\nApril 16, 1867.\n\nMY DEAR MR. SCOTT MURRAY,\n\nIt is all over for the present.  I have yielded to the pressure of the\nCourt of Chancery, my guardians, and the Oxford people, and given them\na promise not to be received until I am of age.  I do assure you that\nthe state of hopelessness in which I am is sad to a degree.  When I see\nyou next I can tell you, if you like, the details of a very wretched\nbusiness.\n\nI have a favour to ask, which is that you will get for me one of those\ncrosses such as you have hanging on your beads.  I hope you will not\nrefuse me this kindness, although I remain external to the Faith.\n\nBelieve me always, with many thanks for all your kindness, most\nsincerely yours,\n\nBUTE.\n\n\nA letter to the same correspondent, towards the close of the year,\nmentions the names of some recent or prospective converts to the Roman\nChurch, in whom Bute was naturally interested.\n\n\nDumfries House,\n  _Christmas Eve_, 1867.\n\nI was for two nights at Blenheim at the end of term; they were rather\nfull of Lady Portarlington's[3] {64} conversion, and told me also that\nthe young Norths had been received and their mother was about to be.\nWe heard there also of the reception of Lord Granard and Lord Louth--an\nunusual event, I imagine, in Ireland.\n\nI met at Blenheim an old Admiral, Sir Lucius Curtis[4] (at least\neighty), who became a Catholic, he told me, soon after Newman, more\nthan twenty years ago.  Two men connected with Aberdeen, George Akers\nof Oriel[5] and William Humphrey,[6] the Bishop of Brechin's chaplain,\nare both going over, I hear, almost at once.  Akers is, I believe, an\nable man; but a more distinguished convert is Clarke, fellow of St.\nJohn's[7] (and a famous rowing man).  George Lane Fox and Hartwell\nGrissell are both _certain_, I believe.  So you see Oxford is moving.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Fatality at Christ Church]\n\nThe friendship between Bute and Capel, begun at Danesfield, was\nstrengthened during the summer term of 1868, the latter part of which\nMr. Capel spent at Oxford, in residence at the Catholic presbytery.  He\narrived there a day or two after a sad fatality at Christ Church, the\nshock of which was deeply felt by all--even the most wild and\nthoughtless--of the members of the House.  A letter from Bute thus\ndescribes it:\n\n\n{65}\n\nCh. Ch., _May_ 14, 1868.\n\nOne of the most frightful accidents I have ever known took place here\nlast night.  A man called Marriott, whom I knew well, one of the\nsporting set (he rode my horse in a steeplechase only last term), fell\nout of the top windows of Peckwater, and died in about half an hour.\nYou may conceive what a state Ch. Ch. is in....  Mr. Capel is coming\nnext Wednesday, and I am sure his visit will do good.  Indeed I think\nthis opportunity an admirable one, when the sight of death has awakened\nmany from the dream of sensuality in which they habitually lie asleep.\n\n\nA letter to the same correspondent next day gives a curious picture of\nthe state of feeling at the House:\n\n\nCh. Ch., _May_ 15, 1868.\n\n_Another_ fatal accident!  What days we are living in.  Yesterday\nafternoon some undergraduates were shooting crows with saloon pistols\nabout Magdalen Walks, when one of them got shot through the stomach and\ndied almost at once.  He was an Exeter man.\n\nWe are all in black and white at the House, and _very_ sad and\ndepressed.  Last night a number of us dined at the \"Mitre,\" so as to\nkeep away from the House.  It was a strange meal--much noisy talk and a\ngood deal drunk, but every now and then came long miserable pauses, and\ntalk about Marriott in low, frightened tones.  Afterwards they came\ndown to my rooms for coffee, and as we sat here we could hear the\npassing bell tolling from St. Aldate's.  Some, almost in desperation,\nrushed off to the billiard-room and played pool in a gloomy sort of\nway.  It was anything to keep away out of the House.  I assure you the\ngloom and misery of it all are excessive.  I hear men saying that they\nsimply _dare_ not die.\n\n{66}\n\nI do feel that Mr. Capel will find men here not unprepared to listen to\nhim.  _Left to themselves_, they are evidently making desperate efforts\nto forget it all....\n\nI had seen him lying in the ground-floor room where he died--totally\nunconscious, and breathing with great difficulty.  The Senior Censor\ncame in when I was there, and read over him the prayers for the dying.\nThis was the very clergyman who told me a few months ago that he did\nnot believe in prayer....  I went into the room again after the men had\ngone to the billiard-room.  It was the room of a friend of his: the\nwalls covered with pictures of horses and actresses, and whips and\nspurs and pipes.  The body lay on a mattress on the floor, covered with\na sheet.  It was all dreadful, and I tried in vain in that room to say\na _De Profundis_ for him.  As I went out I met men coming in carrying\nthe coffin.\n\n\nA letter three days later gives an account of the funeral:\n\n\nOxford, _May_ 18.\n\nWe all assembled in the cathedral, in mourning, at 2.30 p.m.  The Dean\nread the funeral service, making repeated and most painful slips of the\ntongue.  Then the choir sang a really lovely anthem, \"In the sight of\nthe unwise he seemed to die, but he is at peace.\"  All were much moved;\nand the man next me was, I think, crying, as indeed I was myself.  We\nwalked in procession, two and two, to Peck., then formed a lane to\nCanterbury Gate, through which the hearse passed, his friends following\nit down to the station.  All in profound silence, broken only by the\ntramp of feet and the tolling of the bell.  Everything inky black,\nexcept as much of the Dean's surplice as a huge black scarf and stole\nlet be seen.  The coffin was all black, with no cross {67} or anything\nelse to relieve it.  I heard great disgust expressed at the godless\ngloom of it all.\n\nI have mentioned Mr. Capel's visit to several; and they have all hailed\nit, I may say, with pleasure.  What has happened here has made many\nthink and say, \"Now is the time to arise from sleep.\"  Only they are so\nchained by the habits of their lives and by the fear of what the\nworldly consequences may be if they follow their consciences.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Capel at Oxford]\n\nMr. Capel, of whose visit to Oxford, and its possible results, his\nfriend entertained such sanguine hopes, was at that time a man of very\nattractive personality, pleasing alike in appearance, manner, and\naddress, and possessed of a singular gift of eloquence.  Bute's hope,\nno doubt, was that his earnestness, sympathy, and tact might have a\nsoothing effect on the nerves of his friends, still quivering from the\nshock of the recent catastrophe; and to some extent his anticipations\nwere justified.  Several of the undergraduates made Mr. Capel's\nacquaintance, and were pleased and touched by his unaffected kindness.\nOne of them, he found, had been for some months resolved to make his\nsubmission to Rome; and by Mr. Capel's advice he asked for an interview\nwith the Dean and frankly informed him of his intention, adding,\napparently, that he thought it highly probable that his example would\nbe followed by others.  Capel wrote on May 31 to Mrs. Scott Murray:\n\n\nThe Dean of Christ Church is in a great state of mind, having just\nheard from B---- not only of his own decision, but of the likelihood of\nothers taking a like step.  Pusey, I hear, has written to the Dean to\nthe effect that any secessions which might take place were to be\nattributed not to the {68} teaching of the High Church party, but to\nhis (the Dean's) bad government of the college!  Meanwhile Liddon has\nissued a peremptory mandate prohibiting the undergraduates of the House\nfrom making my acquaintance.  As Bute puts it, this is a clear case of\nshutting the stable door after the horse had been stolen.  All those\nwho want to know me, I think, already do.\n\n\nDr. Liddon expressed a desire, a little later, to meet Mr. Capel, who\nthus describes the interview:\n\n\nI saw Liddon for an hour and a half on Saturday.  Our meeting was quite\ncordial: our conversation quite courteous, but quite unsatisfactory,\nfor he kept shifting his ground, and slipped away like an eel from\nevery point I raised.  To me his mind seems as confused as Pusey's,\nwhich is saying much.  Yet to a section of people here he is more than\nPope, a little God, whose every word they accept as an oracle from\nheaven.  Poor good people!  It is hard to understand such idolatry: it\nis, I think, a peculiar product of Oxford, and of one school here.\n\nBute is in admirable dispositions, and during the month of May has been\nleading the life of a true Christian.  The long delay has tried him\nmuch: yet his spiritual progress since last summer has been\nextraordinary.  I am simply amazed at some of the things he has told\nme.  May our dear Lord be eternally blessed for all He has done, and is\ndoing, for this soul so dear to Him.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Religious studies]\n\nThe long vacation of 1868 was, as has been seen, chiefly devoted to a\nyachting tour in the North Sea, and a visit to Russia, undertaken by\nBute in the companionship of Lord Rosebery.  The autumn months after\nthe celebration of his majority were {69} spent quietly at Cardiff and\nin Scotland, as much time as he could spare being given to a course of\nreading recommended to him by Mr. Capel, partly by way of preparation\nfor his reception into the Church of his choice.  He refers to this in\nan interesting letter to his attached friend at Oxford, written soon\nafter his coming of age.\n\n\n_October_ 5, 1868.\n\nYou may imagine how busy I have been and am since my birthday.  Still I\nfind time every day for some serious reading, as to which I have had\ncompetent advice.  I am going through some of the writings of S.\nCyprian, S. Ambrose, and S. Gregory, and doing a little liturgical\nstudy.  Then there are the 12th cent. lives of Ninian and Kentigern,\nand Adamnan's Columba, all of great interest to me; and I have sent for\nBoethius's lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen.  Theiner's great work, not\nlong ago published in Rome,[8] I find most valuable, and throwing a\nflood of light on the mediaeval relations between Scotland and the Holy\nSee.\n\nFor devotion I have St. Bernard (his Letters): a very simple\nprayer-book, such as children use; and the Latin Psalter.  I wish you\nwere able to use this;[9] there is a beauty and fulness of meaning in\nthe Latin version which I think no modern language can give--except,\nyou will say (and as to that you have a right to speak)[10] possibly\nGreek.  I sometimes dream of trying my hand at a new English version of\nthe Psalms; but that is part of {70} a larger scheme which it is\nperhaps presumptuous of me even to think of.[11]\n\n\nIt was natural that when the long-anticipated time at length came for\nactually taking the step prepared for with such anxious deliberation,\nBute should turn to the only Catholic priest with whom he was in any\ndegree intimate.  More than thirty years later Monsignor Capel, who had\nthen been for some time resident in California, wrote in a San\nFrancisco newspaper a short account of Bute's conversion, the steps\nthat led up to it, and his own part in receiving him into the Church.\n\n\nA course of reading was suggested, I seeing him from time to time.\nNewman's pathetic hymn, \"Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling\ngloom,\" was often on his lips.  In course of time he was fully\nconvinced that the true Church is an organic body, a Divine\ninstitution, the source of all spiritual power and jurisdiction, and\nthe channel of sacramental grace, under the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop\nof Rome.\n\nFinally, after an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the\nconvent chapel at Harley House, London,[12] he determined to ask\nadmission to the Church.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Third visit to Holy Land]\n\nBute's conditional baptism, profession of faith, and first Communion\ntook place quite privately on December 8, 1868 (the Feast of the\nImmaculate Conception), in the chapel of the Sisters of Notre {71}\nDame, Southwark.[13]  Mr. Capel officiated at all these acts, with the\nauthorisation of the Bishop of Southwark (Dr. Grant), who himself\nassisted at them.  The event was not generally known until the New\nYear, and it was generally believed, and has indeed often been stated\nsince, that the reception took place on Christmas Eve.  The young\nneophyte left England a few days after the event, and was well out of\nhearing by the time the excited comments of the public and the press on\nhis action had begun to make themselves audible.\n\n\nCardiff Castle,\n  Cardiff,\n    _December_ 16, 1868.\n\nMY DEAR MRS. SCOTT MURRAY,\n\nCircumstances have induced me to come to the resolution of making the\npilgrimage to the Holy Land a _third_ time.  Lady Loudoun and myself\nare going together in my yacht, which is coming round, with her in it,\nto Nice in January.\n\nI am going abroad on Monday next, and expect to arrive at Nice on\nWednesday, this day week.  I venture on your kindness to propose myself\nas your guest.\n\nI will give no further information at present, but to say that thanks\nto the grace of God I am what I am.  You are so kind, I believe you\nwill be glad to see me.\n\nMr. Capel has been having most extraordinary success at Oxford.  He\nleaves it to-day, as the colleges are going down, and will be at Nice\nsome time soon.  His health is giving way from the {72} perpetual\nphysical and mental toil.  He is not going to return till May, when he\nwill recommence.  For the present he has received some converts, is\npreparing some more, has awakened a great many, and, partially at\nleast, sanctified the congregation, and reclaimed the wandering.  The\nmission has received an infusion of life.  On Saturday night he heard\nconfessions till 11.30, and again in the morning.  They had general\nCommunion, and renewal of baptismal vows; at 10.30 High Mass and\nsermon.  During the afternoon he operated privately on some\nrationalists: in the evening they had a very long sermon, and\nBenediction, with an immense congregation, among whom were a vast\nnumber of Protestants, _several Dons_, and the _President of Trinity\nCollege_!\n\nYours ever very sincerely,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Christmas at Nice]\n\nOne of the Scott Murray family writes of Bute at this time:\n\n\nLord Bute was with us at Nice from December 24, 1868, until February 3,\n1869.  He was very shy, and refused all invitations to dances and\npicnics.  At one afternoon dance at our house we all insisted he should\nappear; and then he made himself charming, but he fled as soon as he\npossibly could.  He used to amuse us all at breakfast by reading out\nsome of the wonderful begging-letters he received--from French girls\nasking him for a _dot_ so as to enable them to marry, _cures_ asking\nhim to rebuild their churches, and many more wonderful requests.  I\nthink most of the English begging-letters were seen to in England, and\nonly a few of them sent on.  The numbers addressed to him every day,\nand by every post, were, I believe, quite incredible.\n\nIt was during this visit to Nice that he told my father that he\nintended leaving directions in his will {73} that his heart should be\nsent at his death to Jerusalem to be buried there.\n\nHe was very kind-hearted.  When leaving Nice at the end of his visit,\nhe had got into the carriage to drive with us to the yacht, when he\nremembered that he had not said good-bye to my sister's ugly governess.\nHe insisted on jumping out of the carriage and rushing up to the\nschoolroom for this purpose.\n\nHe was a regular boy, and enjoyed games with us all: one, I remember,\nwas pelting one another with oranges, the little hard ones which had\nfallen from the trees, he leading one side, and Basil (my schoolboy\nbrother) the other.  He was always ready to join in any fun, as long as\nhe had not to meet strangers.\n\n\nThese details, which are wonderfully reminiscent of the childish days\nat Galloway House eight years before,[14] and show how like the young\nman of twenty-one was to the boy of thirteen, may be supplemented by an\nextract or two from the diary of another member of the same family:\n\n\n_Christmas Day_, 1868.--We had midnight Mass at St. Philip's, the\nlittle church in our garden.  Mgr. Capel said it, he, Lord Bute, and\nBasil having arrived from England the day before.  We all went to\nCommunion together (Lord Bute had been received into the Church a short\ntime previously).  Mgr. Capel said his two Christmas Masses, which we\nheard, early next morning; and then we went to the cathedral.  In the\nafternoon we went to Notre Dame, where Mgr. Capel preached.\n\n_Tuesday, February_ 2.--After Mass Lord Bute took us all over his\nyacht, the _Ladybird_, which had arrived on Saturday.  He gave us\nluncheon, and {74} we had to go a little before 2, as the Prince and\nPrincess Charles of Prussia were going to see it.  The cabins are most\ncomfortable, and the saloon beautifully decorated with the arms of the\nports she has put in at.\n\n_February_ 3.---We drove with Lord Bute down to the port, and the\n_Ladybird_ left at 4 o'clock, with Lord Bute, Lady Loudoun, Mgr. Capel,\nMiss Eden, and Dr. Bell safely on board.\n\n\nFrom Nice Bute and his friends went straight to Rome--his first visit\nthere--where he spent a week, including Ash Wednesday, on which day he\nreceived the blessed ashes from the hand of Pius IX. in the Sistine\nChapel.  Next morning he communicated at the private Mass of the Holy\nFather, who afterwards administered to him the sacrament of\nconfirmation.  Bute made a munificent offering of Peter's Pence to the\nPope, who in turn presented him with a magnificent reliquary.  On\nFebruary 23 he wrote to Mrs. Scott Murray from Sicily:\n\n\nR.Y.S. _Ladybird_,\n  Harbour of Messina.\n\nWe arrived here safely last night, and are to continue our voyage this\nafternoon.  As we have spent so much time already we are not going to\nstop at Patmos on the way, but make straight for Jaffa, going north of\nCrete.\n\nAs Mr. Murray prophesied, I was very \"agreeably disappointed\" in Rome.\nI went to only a few of the most celebrated sanctuaries, but I liked\nthem very much.  The sight of the Holy Father had a very great effect\non me, and it is impossible for me to speak too warmly of his kindness.\nEvery one was most civil, which is a rarity for me to meet with.  The\nHoly Father has given all the permissions which we wanted, and we have\nhad Mass {75} three times on board, making up a very nice altar in Mr.\nCapel's cabin.\n\nThe odd thing is that we have not had a row yet, but are all quite on\ngood terms, a state of things which I suppose one need not hope to\ncontinue.\n\nAccept my best wishes and continued thanks for kindnesses received, and\nbelieve me,\n\nSincerely and gratefully, yours ever,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1868, Letter from Jerusalem]\n\nThe journey to Palestine (\"the continuation of my pilgrimage of\nthanksgiving,\" as Bute called it in a subsequent letter) was safely\naccomplished, and Mgr. Capel wrote to Mrs. Scott Murray on Palm Sunday\nfrom Jerusalem:\n\n\nThank God, all is going well.  We have had some physical discomforts,\nindisposition, etc., but our pilgrimage viewed spiritually is\nsingularly blessed.  I hope to lay in a store of grace for my future\nwork.  Certainly nothing could be more touching than our visits to the\nHoly Places.  Bute gives great edification.  He communicates very\nfrequently, and is growing rapidly in Catholic devotion.  Now that I\nlive with him I see, of course, some weaknesses--among others a\ntendency to idleness; but he has much charm of character and\npersonality.  You will probably know through the papers that he has\naccepted the Grand Cross of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.\n\nOur journey will be dreadfully prolonged.  I am afraid we shall not\nreach England until June: our plans change at every moment.  I send for\nyou and Mr. Murray the enclosed pictures, which have touched the Holy\nPlaces.  My affectionate regards to you all, including _the_\nofficer.[15]\n\n\n{76}\n\nAnother letter from Mgr. Capel to Danesfield is dated, \"In the\n_Ladybird_, about the Mediterranean, May 14, 1869.\"  It indicates that\nBute had been, as usual, not particularly fortunate in securing\ncongenial companionship for his journey.\n\n\nWhen we are ever to reach home I cannot say.  We have already been\nfourteen days at sea and have not yet reached our port.  Sicily is in\nsight, and I trust we may very soon reach Messina.  If not we shall be\nstarved!  The steward solemnly tells us we have bread for only three\ndays longer, and that the stores are almost all consumed.\n\nOf our party, I think I may say that Lady Loudoun, Miss Eden, and the\ndoctor are the worse for their visit to Jerusalem.  They had the\nmisfortune to make acquaintance with people, calling themselves\nreligious, whose delight seems to be to deny the authenticity of every\nsingle sacred site.  The result has been, as might have been expected,\na semi-disbelief in everything.\n\nI think, on the other hand, the pilgrimage has been very advantageous\nto Bute.  It has helped him to gather up his thoughts and prepare for\naction and the work of his life.  He has kindly appointed me his\nchaplain.  I am not to live at either of his houses, but to be ready\nwhen needed to go to him and to travel with him.  I cannot but feel\nthat this arrangement (which is entirely his own idea) will allow me to\ndo much more good than if I were settled in any one spot.  I hope it\nmay turn to the advantage of my soul and to God's glory.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1869, Early Catholic experiences]\n\nBute left his yacht at Marseilles (his companions continuing the voyage\nto England by Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay), and repaired to Paris,\nto complete his pilgrimage by a visit of devotion and {77} thanksgiving\nto the famous shrine of Our Lady of Victories.  On returning home he\nwent to Cardiff, and thence he wrote, later in the year, some account\nof himself and his doings in a long and interesting letter to his\nfaithful friend at Oxford.\n\n\nCardiff Castle,\n  _November_ 5, 1869.\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nDuring the past year I have had several kind letters from you, which\nhave gone unanswered.  Before me lie the three first pages of a letter\nto you dated October 1, but never finished.  I had at that time only\njust received your last, as I had been away from home for some months,\nand had skilfully concealed my addresses from every one, lest any\nletters (mine are almost invariably business or beggars) should follow\nand find me out.\n\nThe first thing you will want to know is how I am getting on in the\nChurch.  I don't remember whether I ever wrote to you from Nice or not;\nbut that, if I had, could only have been so soon after my reception as\nto make it almost valueless.  I have not been received a year, so I\nsuppose what I say now is not worth very much.  I am, thank God, _very_\ncomfortable.  I had, no doubt, a first flush of fervour and enthusiasm,\nbut that soon passed away, and I became almost immediately quite a\nhumdrum Catholic.  The practices, as you know, were already familiar to\nme; and I knew also a great many, if not all, of the practical\ndrawbacks, of which florid figured music and appropriated and paid-for\nsittings in church are (to me) the most distasteful.  Florid forms of\ndevotion and piety have never appealed to me any more than florid\nmusic; and in that respect I am (so I am told) considered like the\nslowest type of old English Catholicism.  The old-fashioned \"Garden of\nthe Soul\" is my book, except when visiting some very holy shrine, when\nI find {78} myself able to use occasionally the \"Prayers of St.\nGertrude,\" or at least some of them.\n\nI am perfectly at peace in the Church, and have been.  My taste for\ncontroversy has gone, and for theological inquiry also, to great\nextent.  I think that when one has once entered the Church--well, one\nhas jumped over the cliff and reached the bottom, safe and sound it is\ntrue, but in a condition that renders restlessness impossible and\ncontroversy absolutely superfluous.\n\nI left Nice, as you are aware, at the beginning of February, went to\nRome for a week, to be confirmed by the Holy Father, and then continued\nthe pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Jerusalem.  I performed the last\nceremonies in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Victories in Paris about the\nbeginning of June, and returned to England.  I had kept as much as\npossible out of the way of letters and newspapers, but had inevitably\nheard much that was very disagreeable--all sorts of lying stories, for\ninstance, deliberately and maliciously circulated about me--and I\narrived here in a state of very uncomfortable anticipation.  However, I\nfound everything very much better than I anticipated.  Every one seemed\nglad to see me, and I received much kindness from all the people about.\nReligious matters were easily arranged; and though large mobs of people\nassembled to see me go to Mass, they were disappointed, as I had got a\nlittle oratory ready in the house, which is served every day by the\nFathers of Charity.  And I have special permission from the Pope for\nmyself, my \"familiars\" and guests to satisfy the obligation in it on\nevery day in the year.  We have here between 9,000 and 10,000\nCatholics, who are of course delighted at what has happened.\n\nI am going to Rome about the 23rd of this month, and shall, I think,\ncertainly stay there till about Septuagesima; but if I am tempted I\nshall stop over Easter.  When I return I shall go to {79} Bute.  Bute\nwill be much stiffer than this: they got pictures of me and made them\ninto cockshys; and I have had at least one threatening letter from\nthere.  Besides that there are no Catholics that I know of,[16] and I\ncannot have a daily Mass.\n\nMy old friends are all much the same, except Lady Elizabeth, who takes\nno more notice of me than if I were a dead dog.  I have written her\nletter after letter, without even acknowledgment.  The company of my\ndear friend, Sneyd, is a great pleasure to me.  He is my secretary.  He\nis, however, an awful liberal, and is even now reading Charles\nKingsley's \"Hypatia\" with approval.  I consider it one of the most\nimpure as well as heretical books I ever saw.  I have been reading\nlately, and with the greatest pleasure, Canon Jenkins's \"Age of the\nMartyrs,\"[17] which is really charming, and a worthy product of Oxford,\nwhere, however, I hear that the blighting disease of Liberalism has\nfairly set in.  You have, I hear, Mgr. Capel with you, lecturing on\nsomething or other; but I know not what success or effect he has had.\nEver most sincerely yours,\n\nBUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1869, at Mountstuart]\n\nThere were reasons why the feeling in the island of Bute about the\nyoung peer's change of religion was, as he expressed it, \"much stiffer\"\nthan it was in Cardiff.  The sentiments of resentful surprise which the\nPresbyterians felt at the lord of the island embracing a faith so alien\nfrom their own was fostered and aggravated by the disappointment with\n{80} which the local Liberals learned that he was politically quite out\nof sympathy with the Whig principles of his kinsman and former\ntutor-at-law, the Liberal M.P. for Cardiff and Lord-Lieutenant of\nButeshire.[18]  One Radical newspaper asserted that Lord Bute had\npurposely delayed the profession of his new faith until after the\ngeneral election, so that his influence as a Tory might help the\nConservative candidate for the county to win the seat!  And the Liberal\n_Buteman_ thought fit to devote a page, a month after Bute's reception\ninto the Church, to reprinting a _catena_ of the articles commenting on\nthat event which had appeared in the principal newspapers of the\ncountry.  The feeling with which, in an age more tolerant or more\nindifferent, one peruses these journalistic effusions, is one of\nwonder, first at their extraordinary impertinence, and secondly at the\ncool audacity with which they sit in judgment on the action of one of\nwhose character, personality, and motives they one and all show\nthemselves to be in a state of absolutely abysmal ignorance.  The\n_Times_ summed up a spiteful article by concluding that the \"defection\nof an average curate would have said more for the Roman Catholic\nreligion, and might be expected to lead to more lasting results\"; the\n_Daily News_ announced that the new convert \"had taken up his honours,\nwealth, and influence, and laid them in the lap of the Church of Rome,\"\nadding that it was \"of course a pity when a man believed too much in\nreligion\"; a West of Scotland journal was \"sure that the acquisition\nwould, except in a pecuniary way, be of little advantage to those who\nhad wheedled him out {81} of his wits and into their snares\"; a Glasgow\nevening paper denounced the \"Jesuitism\" with which \"his perverted\nlordship\" had denied the fact of his reception in 1867, and the \"fatal\nfacility\" with which he had been received in 1868; and another Scottish\njournal, after waxing eloquent over the \"lithe figure, agile step, and\npenetrating eye of the handsome young peer,\" lamented that \"the poorest\nlabourer on his vast domains had an immediate access to truth and duty,\nto conscience, and to God, which since last Christmas was denied to his\nunfortunate lord.\"  The _Glasgow Herald_, after admitting that Lord\nBute \"_was believed_ to be a studious, thoughtful youth, with high\nideas of the responsibility of his position,\" dolefully goes on: \"If,\n_as is most likely_, this perversion is the result of priestly\ninfluences acting upon a weak, ductile, and naturally superstitious\nmind, we may expect a continual eclipse of all intellectual vigour.\"\nOne wonders if this sapient prophet ever had the grace to acknowledge\nthe falsity of his forecast.  The _Scotsman_ was an honourable\nexception to the general tone of the contemporary press.  It announced\nthe event \"not in the slightest degree in the spirit of taunt or\nreproach\"; and the final sentence of a temperate article repudiated any\ndesire \"to reproach Lord Bute with a change of religious opinion, which\neven those who most deeply regret it must admit to be made at great\nsacrifices and under the influence only of conscience.\"\n\nOn this reasonable and even generous note the subject may well be left.\nA man of sensitive and impressionable nature, and one who was himself\npossessed by an almost passionate love of truth, could not be\ninsensible to public attacks on his {82} candour and honesty, or to\nmendacious statements of alleged facts, such as he refers to in his\nletter cited above.  But he bore them all in silence, with the quiet\ndignity characteristic of him, and trusting to time for the vindication\nof the rectitude of his motives and conduct.  How amply this trust was\njustified was shown by the mutual respect, regard, and affection which\ndaily grew and strengthened between him and his friends, neighbours,\nand dependents, not only in Bute, but on his extensive estates in other\nparts of the country, during the next thirty years.\n\n\n\n[1] Hartwell Grissell.  The letter was dated from Mountstuart, November\n19, 1872.\n\n[2] Mr. Buckle, in Vol. V. of his \"Life of Disraeli,\" quotes Mr.\nMontague Corry as writing (September 22, 1868): \"Fergusson says no\ningenuity can counteract the influence which certain priests and\nprelates have over him, chief among them being Monsignor Capel.  The\nspeedy result is inevitable.\"\n\nSir James Fergusson, as Bute's guardian, probably felt it necessary to\ntake this view in self-vindication.  The fact, however, was, as is\nabundantly shown by the letter in the text, as well as by the authentic\nhistory of Bute's conversion as given in preceding pages, that the\nevent was brought about by his own study, thought, and prayer, and was\nin no sense due to the influence of Capel, or of any other \"priests or\nprelates.\"\n\n[3] Alexandrina Lady Portarlington (a daughter of the third Marquess of\nLondonderry) was sister-in-law to the seventh Duke of Marlborough,\nBute's host at Blenheim.  Lord and Lady North, who were received into\nthe Church about this time, were not very distant neighbours of\nBlenheim, living at Wroxton Abbey, near Banbury.\n\n[4] Second baronet of Gatcombe, Hants.  He died in 1869, in his\neighty-third year.\n\n[5] A former curate of Dr. F. G. Lee at Aberdeen.  He became a canon of\nWestminster and president of St. Edmund's College, Ware.\n\n[6] M.A. of Aberdeen University; afterwards the distinguished Jesuit\nwriter and preacher.\n\n[7] Became a Jesuit, rector of Wimbledon College, and later first\nMaster of Campion Hall, Oxford.\n\n[8] This was Aug. Theiner's \"Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum atque\nScotorum, historiam illustrantia, 1216-1547,\" published at Rome in 1864.\n\n[9] More than a dozen years later Bute wrote to his friend regretting\nher ignorance of \"the dead languages,\" and recommending her to begin\nthe study of Hebrew!\n\n[10] Miss Skene had lived with her father at Athens continuously from\nher eighteenth to her twenty-fourth year, and was well acquainted with\nthe language and literature of modern Greece.\n\n[11] The allusion, no doubt, is to his projected translation of the\nRoman Breviary, published eleven years later.\n\n[12] The convent of _Marie Reparatrice_, founded at Harley House,\nMarylebone, in 1862.  It was transferred in 1899 to Willesden, and a\nyear later to its present site at Chiswick.\n\n[13] The temporary chapel, now used as the Sisters' community-room.\nBishop Grant was at this time acting as chaplain to the nuns, and\nsaying Mass for them daily.  Bute attended this Mass for a week\nprevious to his reception, breakfasting afterwards with the bishop (who\nwas giving him a course of instruction) in the convent parlour.\n\n[14] _Ante_, Chapter I, p. 11.\n\n[15] Charles Scott Murray, who had just got his commission in the 1st\nLife Guards.\n\n[16] The writer was misinformed as to this.  There had been a Catholic\nchapel at Rothesay since 1839; and a larger church (St. Andrew's) had\nbeen opened two years before Bute's conversion.  The number of\nCatholics at this time was probably between two and three hundred.\n\n[17] See _post_, pp. 102, 103.  This book had just been published at\nOxford.  Two volumes of selections from Canon Jenkins's MSS. writings\nwere issued in 1879, after his death.\n\n[18] Colonel James Frederick Crichton Stuart, Liberal for Cardiff from\n1857 to 1880.\n\n\n\n\n{83}\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE WESTERN MAIL--ROME AND THE COUNCIL--RETURN TO MOUNTSTUART\n\n1869-1871\n\nAlthough Bute's attraction towards a life of simplicity and retirement\nwas, even in his early manhood, as it remained throughout his life, one\nof his most marked characteristics, he never allowed this to interfere\nwith such public duties as he conceived to be rendered incumbent on him\nby the responsibilities of his position.  His first public appearance\nin Cardiff, apart from the celebrations connected with his majority,\nseems to have been in his capacity as chairman of the local Benefit and\nAnnuitants Society, when he acquitted himself to the general\nsatisfaction.  In 1869 he accepted the honorary colonelcy of the\nGlamorgan Artillery Volunteers.  \"It seemed to be expected of me,\" he\nwrote to a friend, \"and though there was never a man of less military\nproclivities than myself, I regard the Volunteer movement as an\nexcellent one, and desire to encourage it.[1]  I look forward also,\nunder proper guidance, to learning something about {84} guns, though I\nfear ours can hardly be said to be altogether up-to-date.  But I hope\nto be instrumental in bringing about some improvement in that respect.\"\nOn November 11, 1869, he appeared in uniform at the inspection of the\nregiment at the new drill-hall, which he had just erected at a cost of\nover L10,000.\n\nA few months previous to the date just mentioned, Bute had, not without\nserious consideration, embarked on an enterprise which, while entailing\nheavy expenditure on himself, was to have a considerable and permanent\neffect on the industrial and political life not only of the\nrapidly-growing town of Cardiff, but of the whole of South Wales.  This\nwas the launch of the _Western Mail_ newspaper, of which the first\nnumber was published in May, 1869.  At this time the principal paper in\nthe district was the Liberal (weekly) _Cardiff Times_, started in 1857,\nthe year in which Colonel James Frederick Crichton Stuart was first\nelected M.P. for Cardiff.  Bute was entirely out of sympathy with the\npolitical views of his kinsman, and had openly declared himself on\ncoming of age an adherent of the Conservative party.  He wrote to a\nfriend at Oxford after the formation of Mr. Gladstone's first Ministry:\n\n\nI suppose I may call myself--you would certainly call me--an\nold-fashioned Tory.  The inclusion of Bright in the Cabinet shows that\nthe new Government is Radical, naked and unashamed.  And whatever else\nI am, anyhow I am not a Radical.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1869, Launching a newspaper]\n\nDeeply and intelligently interested as he was in the future development\nof Cardiff, which he was to do so much to promote, Bute's conviction\nwas that a really healthy public opinion in the district {85} could not\nbe created or maintained if only one school of politicians was to have\nthe chance of making its voice heard.  This was the main reason which\ndetermined him, with full foreknowledge of the heavy financial burden\nit would entail on him, of starting and supporting a Conservative daily\npaper in the heart of Liberal Wales.  The local Liberals were, of\ncourse, disappointed and indignant; and the \"Leap of the wolf into the\nfold,\" as they described the new journalistic venture, was very\nbitterly commented on both in the _Cardiff Times_ and in its successor,\nthe _South Wales Daily News_.  The \"underhand influence of the Castle,\"\nthe \"Castle propaganda,\" the \"pouring out of gold from the Castle\ncoffers,\" were the constant theme of discussion in the opposition\npress, whose acrimony was not diminished by the steadily growing power\nand influence of the Conservative organ.  Yet although Bute was for\nsome years the actual owner of the _Western Mail_, not the slightest\ntrace of his personal influence is to be found in its columns during\nthose early years, nor the least suggestion that he made use of the\npaper to serve any private ends of his own.  \"Not a single line that\nhas ever appeared in the _Western Mail_ has been written or inspired by\nthe Marquis of Bute,\" wrote the Editor when his paper had reached a\nposition of security and success; and the statement was literally and\nexactly true.  The _Western Mail_ won the confidence of the people by\nstrongly upholding their rights at such times of crisis as the serious\nupheaval in the coal and iron industries in 1873; and one of its most\nappreciated tributes was that received from a leading Nonconformist\nminister: \"Though you are Conservative in name you are Liberal in\npractice.\"  After eight {86} years' connection with the paper Bute\nrelinquished all financial interest in it in 1877.  He considered\nhimself that this journalistic enterprise had cost him from first to\nlast not less than L50,000.  \"I have never grudged it,\" he once simply\nsaid when questioned on the subject.\n\nWith these new interests at home, Bute did not lose sight of his\nintention (expressed in a letter quoted in the last chapter) of\nspending the winter of 1869 and the succeeding spring in Rome, and he\narrived there in the last days of November, taking up his residence at\nthe Palazzo Savielli in the Piazza SS. Apostoli.  He wrote shortly\nbefore Christmas:\n\n\nIt is of particular interest to me to find myself living within a\nstone's-throw of the building which sheltered for so many years my\nunfortunate kinsmen (if I may be allowed so to call them) the exiled\nStuarts.[2]  Their cenotaph by Canova in St. Peter's (paid for by their\nHanoverian supplanter on the throne!) strikes me always as one of the\nmost pathetic and beautiful monuments of modern Rome.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1869, Papal infallibility]\n\nBute was of course drawn to Rome, like so many others at this time, by\nthe event on which the eyes of all Christendom were turned with curious\nif widely varying interest--namely, the opening of the Vatican Council\nby Pius IX.  Bute was present at the solemn inauguration on December 8,\nwhen more than 700 mitred prelates walked in procession to St. Peter's,\npreceded by the splendid silver {87} processional cross, set with\nprecious stones, which he had presented to the Pontiff a few days\npreviously.  A day or two after the imposing ceremony he records a\ncurious little incident in a letter to a friend:\n\n\nI heard that the titular Abbot of Westminster, the head of the\nBenedictine Order in England, called to report his arrival on some high\ndignitary, dressed not in his habit but in the get-up of an elderly\nEnglish clergyman.  He was told that if he wanted to process with the\nabbots he must attire himself accordingly, and was asked if he\npossessed the insignia of his office.  \"Certainly,\" he replied.  \"I\nhave the ring of the Abbots of Westminster,\" pulling out of his\nwaistcoat pocket the identical ring worn by Feckenham, the last abbot\nin the reign of Queen Mary!  The lamentable sequel to the story is that\nas he was mounting the steps into St. Peter's on the opening day of the\nCouncil, the precious ring, which he had not taken the trouble to get\nfitted to his finger, fell off, rolled down the steps, and was never\nheard of again.  If this is true it seems very deplorable.\n\n\nDuring his sojourn in Rome Bute had opportunities, which he was not\nlikely to neglect, of meeting many interesting people, and hearing much\nat first hand, and from both sides, of the weighty matters under\ndiscussion at the Council.  The prelate of whom he saw most, and to\nwhom he was very sincerely attached, was Mgr. Clifford, Bishop of\nClifton, who with the Archbishops of Paris, Vienna, and St. Louis, and\nBishop Dupanloup of Orleans, were prominent among the opponents of the\ndefinition of Papal Infallibility.  With the leaders of the opposite\nparty also he had from time to time considerable intercourse, and in a\nletter addressed to {88} him nearly thirty years later by the venerable\nCardinal Gibbons, now (1920) the sole survivor of the Fathers of the\nCouncil, his Eminence reminded Bute of a long drive he had taken with\nhimself and Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, a very strong\npro-definitionist, and of their interesting talk on that occasion about\nthe great subject of the day.  Bute's own habit of mind, and the\ninfluence exercised on his judgment by Bishop Clifford, undoubtedly\npredisposed him to sympathise with those opposed to the definition; and\nhe shared the apprehensions of many of his friends among that\nparty--apprehensions not justified in the event--that the step if\ncarried through might result in a serious defection from the Church.  A\nsubsequent letter from him, however, will show what with instant and\nedifying submission of heart and mind he accepted the decree when once\nit had been promulgated by the supreme authority which he never for a\nmoment questioned.\n\n[Sidenote: 1870, Society in Rome]\n\nBute was not so preoccupied with these grave matters but that he found\ntime for a certain amount of social intercourse with the distinguished\nand cosmopolitan society gathered that winter in the Eternal City.  He\nmade friends with the Papal Zouaves, and often accepted the hospitality\nof the officers of that pleasant international corps, with one of whom,\nCaptain the Hon. Walter Maxwell, he became very intimate.  He liked to\nwatch the Zouaves at rifle-practice in the Borghese Gardens, visited\nthe officers on guard at the Colosseum and elsewhere, and entertained\nthem once at a famous supper of which the recollection long survived in\nthe corps.  About Christmas time he was present at a great reception\ngiven at the Palazzo Bonimi by Mr. and Mrs. Delabarre Bodenham, and\nrecords a {89} \"twenty minutes' conversation with Archbishop Manning,\nin a quite empty little room opening out of the reception hall.\"  Soon\nafter New Year he attended a dinner given in a cafe in the Corso by the\nBritish Committee of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta, and\nmade a speech reported by one of those present to be \"the best speech\nof the evening and very well received.\"  His name is also recorded as\nhaving been present at many notable religious functions--among others\nthe imposing funeral service, in the church of the Holy Apostles, of\nthe Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, at which the Pope assisted and gave\nthe final absolution.  Bute saw much, during these weeks in Rome, of\nthe savants and scholars--by no means all sympathisers with the Papal\nregime--then resident in the city, and his modesty of demeanour,\nearnestness, and intelligence made a very favourable impression on the\nvaried society with which he was brought into contact.  In those days\nhe liked to be amused as well as interested; and there was plenty of\namusement to be found at that time in the kaleidoscopic throngs of\nvisitors which the unique and unrivalled charms of Rome attracted\nwithin her gates.  One of his most agreeable acquaintances--quite\noutside ecclesiastical and antiquarian circles--was Olivia Lady\nSebright, the clever and charming sister of an Irish peer who had been\nhis contemporary at Oxford.  Her lively persiflage was doubtless a\npleasant and piquant contrast to the discourses of Bute's learned\nacquaintances; and it was often jestingly remarked in Anglo-Roman\nsociety that Lady Sebright seemed to do all the talking and Lord Bute\nall the listening.  He alludes to her in one of his letters as \"a very\nvivacious lady, who would {90} have her joke even in the Catacombs.\"\nLady Sebright was included in the party which Bute invited to join him\nin the yachting cruise in the Mediterranean which he made after leaving\nItaly in the summer of 1870.\n\nBute did not remain in Rome for the final Congregation of the Council\non July 18, 1870, when 533 bishops voted in favour of the _schema_ \"De\nEcclesia,\" with the added clauses on Papal Infallibility.  Two only\nvoted \"Non placet,\" the Bishops of Ajaccio and of Little Rock,\nU.S.A.[3]  The decree was immediately confirmed by the Pope in the\nmidst of a terrific thunderstorm; and on the same day Napoleon III.\ndeclared war against Prussia.  In a letter to H. D. Grissell, dated\nfive days before the occupation of Rome by the troops of Victor\nEmmanuel, Bute tells how he first heard of the momentous event:\n\n\nCardiff Castle,\n  _September_ 15, 1870.\n\nHow can I tell in what a state this may find you at Rome? the Pope\nperhaps gone to Malta, and the whole place in revolution, tempered only\nby the presence of Italian troops.\n\nMy first act on returning to England was to go to Clifton to see\n[Bishop] Clifford.  He was away, but two of his chaplains received me\nand told me {91} of the definition, of which I have now received from\nyou the awful description.  My mind bowed itself at once before the\ndefinition, and I believed the doctrine _ex animo_.  I have since found\nthat many most pious Catholics, most heartily willing to believe\nanything on the Church's authority, do not see that that authority\nexists in this case.  They argue in this way: I. It is admitted that an\nOEcumenical Council approved by the Pope can bind the soul.  II. To be\nOEcumenical it is necessary for the Council to be _closed_, the decrees\nsigned by a majority of the Fathers, then published and received in the\nwhole world.  III. This is not at present the case with the Vatican\nCouncil.[4]--_Ergo_.\n\nWhether there is anything in all this I am not personally concerned to\nenquire.  There seems to me no doubt that external disobedience and\ndenial of the doctrine are, as things now are, sinful; though some may,\nand doubtless do, hold a hope that God will some day teach us by His\nChurch that this definition of the Vatican Council is not, after all,\npart of the revealed truth.  Such thoughts sometimes make me unhappy,\nand I endeavour (which is what our confessors advise) to drown them by\npractical Catholic work and such attempts at piety as I am capable of.\nI repeat--from the moment of the definition I had not one doubt of the\ntruth of the doctrine in the bottom of my soul.  The conviction that\nthe doctrine is truly part of God's Eternal Truth--even though it may\nnot yet be officially made known to us as part of that \"faith\" of which\nSt. Paul speaks when he says, \"Being justified by faith, we have peace\nwith God through our Lord JESUS Christ\"--still remains in me; and it\nseems to me that I could never cease to hold it until, or unless, the\nChurch laid down the contrary.  {92} Let us leave the matter here: I\nshall write no more of it.\n\nOur voyage home was very happy and successful.  We travelled across\nCorsica by carriage, after a week in a quiet Sardinian bay, in sight of\nGaribaldi's home at Caprera.  We were nearly three weeks between Nice\nand Cannes, where Lady Sebright left us; then about a fortnight at the\nBalearic Isles--Palma is charming.  We touched at some Spanish ports,\npassed ten days at Gibraltar, and ran up from Cadiz for a week at\nSeville; then eight days at Lisbon and Cintra.  Never in England or out\nof it have I seen cathedrals worked so splendidly as the few Spanish I\nsaw.  I could not have conceived the grandeur of the fabric,\nestablishment, and functions of Seville--_infinitely better than St.\nPeter's_.  Not having witnessed any great solemnity, I fail to imagine\nwhat they must be like.  Some of the Peninsular practices are very\ninteresting, such as the use of the double ambon, and the Portuguese\npractice of administering a glass chalice with wine to communicants.[5]\n\nGeorge Lane Fox was married to Miss Slade by the Archbishop [Manning]\non Saturday.  I gave her for a marriage present that rosary of emeralds\nyou used to admire so much; and she at once wrote to ask my consent to\nits being altered into a necklace! which I refused to give.\n\nG---- (from Parker's) is down here working at my books; he wears a\ncassock, with red worsted slippers embroidered with coloured glass\nbeads.  H told me (1) that Llandaff Cathedral was only a whited\nsepulchre, and (2) that he doubted if Liddon {93} would ever succeed in\nintroducing Christianity into St. Paul's Cathedral.[6]\n\nThank God, it is only within the Church (and that, one trusts and\nhopes, but for a season) that consciences have been disturbed by the\ntroubles of the Definition.  These have had no apparent effect on the\naccession of converts.  Lord Robert Montagu has just been received, and\nI hear of others.  I had lately a long discussion with a clever,\nwell-read, and agreeable Protestant, and he told me it appeared to him\nquite immaterial, once granted the infallibility of the Church--the\nonly real question--in what precise place or person it resided.\n\n[Sidenote: 1870, Foundations at Cardiff]\n\nI have set up a great screen and rood in the Fathers of Charity's\nchurch here, and got it opened daily from 2 to 8 p.m., which enables me\nsometimes to pay a visit to the _Santissimo_.  The change seems\nappreciated, and many persons come to pray.  I hope Our Lord will\nsanctify them out of His holy Tabernacle.\n\nI am about starting a convent of Sisters of the Good Shepherd about a\nmile from this town, in a beautiful spot.  Their church will contain a\ntribune for the public, and they will sing High Mass, Vespers, and\nBenediction on Sundays and holidays of obligation.  Burges is to do the\nchapel, wherein I propose to erect a large gothic baldequin.  The\nbuilding is now an old barn.  The whole will, I think, though simple,\nbe very nice, and a great consolation to me.\n\nI expect to be here till the end of this month, and after that I have a\nfew visits to pay; but I hope to be in Bute by November 1, and intend\nto stay there all the winter.  The place is very charming, {94} and is\nmy real home.  I have not been there since I became Catholic, and the\npeople are all, I fear, very strongly prejudiced; so I am afraid I\nshall have rather a rough time of it--at least at first.  Will you not\nleave Rome and all its troubles, and pay a good long visit to Sneyd and\nme in a country where the Church is in a missionary character?  If so,\ncome and pass Christmas at least with me in Bute.  We shall be\ndelighted to see you, and you will be away from all sorts of\ndisagreeable things, for a time at least.\n\nAlways yours most sincerely,\n  BUTE.\n\n\nBefore leaving Cardiff for his home in Scotland, which he had not\nvisited for two years, Bute attended the annual congress of the Iron\nand Steel Institute at Merthyr, was present at the banquet given to the\ncongress by the South Wales ironmasters, and accompanied several of the\nexcursions to the great works in the district in which he was\ninterested.  The letter which he wrote on the day of his arrival in\nBute to his old friend at Oxford showed what his feeling was about the\nusurpation of the States of the Church by the Sardinian monarch.\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  Rothesay,\n    _October_ 26, 1870.\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nI ought to have written to you long ago, and really do not know what to\nsay--except \"mea culpa.\"  There will be much to tell you when we next\nmeet.\n\nI am quite firm, thank GOD, in the Church.  I have outgrown any\n\"convert enthusiasm\" I may ever have possessed; but I have long ceased\nto think of anything else even as a possibility, or to {95} feel\nanything novel in Catholic practices.  I am quite quiet, and I think,\nthank GOD, so far doing pretty well.\n\nYou ask me about Rome.  As to politics, my feeling in favour of the\nTemporal Power is very strong.  Of course it had its faults, the\nextreme leniency of the criminal tribunals being probably the worst;\nbut, putting the question of right aside, a Christian could institute\nno comparison between the Italian and the Pontifical Governments.\nReligiously, Rome is neither so good nor so bad as the extreme people\nwould make it out.  It was very edifying, and there was a great deal of\npiety--more conspicuous, perhaps, among the foreigners than the Romans,\nbut of course that was to be expected, as the former came on purpose.\nThe sanctuaries of Rome are very precious, especially the Holy Reliques\nand the graves of the Martyrs, and I love them very much.\n\nAt the same time I think that this dreadful Revolution may be possibly\na scourge in the hand of GOD to bring about His Will, though every\nCatholic must be appalled at the wickedness of the new Pontius Pilate\nand his accomplices.  Perhaps the fiery trial may destroy some abuses,\nstop some things one does not like to see, and bring about others more\nprofitable to Rome herself and to us.\n\nAs to the Greeks in America, it is impossible for me, I am sorry to\nsay, to have anything to do with supplying them with my own or any\nother Liturgical books for use in their (as we believe) schismatic\nworship.\n\nAlways most sincerely yours,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1870, The Roman situation]\n\nIt is evident from one or two of his letters already quoted, that Bute,\nwho was well aware of the strong feeling aroused among the people of\nhis titular island by his conversion to the Roman Church, {96} had felt\nsome natural apprehension as to their possible attitude towards him\nwhen he returned after a somewhat prolonged absence to live amongst\nthem.  \"I have been getting along very comfortably here,\" he wrote soon\nafter his arrival at Mountstuart, \"but have so far no opportunity of\nknowing what the people think of me behind my back.\"  A letter\naddressed a little later to the same correspondent in Oxford is\ninteresting in this connection.\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  _November_ 10.\n\nI am getting on very well here up to this, and doing my best to\npopularise myself by going about among the people.  Yesterday, for\nexample, I attended both a funeral and a marriage.  I believe this was\nmuch appreciated, and at the marriage I was very warmly received, was\nbegged to do them the honour of signing the \"lines,\" etc., etc.  The\noddest part of the matter was that at the funeral the Rothesay tag-rag\noutside _cheered_ me as I left the churchyard.  I thought the prayers\nat both ceremonies (of course extemporary) were intended to do me a\nlittle good: there was nothing in them with which I could not heartily\nconcur, but a good deal of stress was laid on the \"One Oblation offered\nonce for all\"--\"the full and free Redemption which is by faith in\nChrist's death,\" etc., which are, I find, commonly supposed to be ideas\nirreconcileable with the teaching of the Holy Roman Church--why, I\ncan't conceive, unless it is for want of reading St. Alphonsus Liguori.\n\nHere at Rothesay we have a chapel and schools, a superannuated bishop,\nDr. Gray, and a young Scottish priest educated in France, Mr. George\nSmith, a man of piety and learning.[7]  The whole {97} island contains\nabout 500 Catholics, either Highlanders or Irish.  I have had one of\nthe rooms here made into a chapel, than which no meeting-house can be\nbarer.  Mass is said here on Sundays and holidays, preceded by a very\nsimple English service.  Last Sunday I was at Largs, on the mainland\nopposite, and heard an early Mass in a very poor cottage--said in the\nkitchen on a small chest of drawers.  The house was crowded by the\ncongregation, standing on the stairs, in the passages, and all the\nrooms.  They are wonderfully devout.  Out of the East I never saw such\na sight.\n\nYours ever most sincerely,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1870, Life at Mountstuart]\n\nBute spent nearly the whole winter and spring of 1870-1871 at his\nbeautiful Scottish home, to which he was deeply attached.  As he came\nto know his neighbours better--and he took much pains to cultivate\nfriendly relations with them all--the stiffness, which was, perhaps, as\nmuch the result of his own shyness and reserve as of their lack of\nsympathy with his religious opinions, to a great extent wore off, and\nhis simplicity, courtesy, good sense, and kindness of heart won for him\nlittle by little the high place in their regard which he ever\nafterwards maintained.  He was from the first on the friendliest terms\nwith the Presbyterian clergy of the island as well as with his own\npastor, and had also established very cordial relations with Mr.\n(afterwards Sir) Charles Dalrymple, then and for the following fifteen\nyears member for the county, and resident in the island.  This cordial\nacquaintanceship ripened, after the marriages of Bute and of Dalrymple,\ninto a warm {98} friendship between the two families which terminated\nonly with death.[8]\n\nLiturgical matters engrossed at this time, as always, a good deal of\nBute's attention, and are dealt with in many of his letters.  Thus, in\nMarch, 1871, he writes very seriously about the \"truly scandalous\nproceedings\" at the London pro-cathedral, news of which had reached him\nin Scotland, and which the context shows to have consisted in the\nwearing of dalmatics instead of folded chasubles at some Lenten\nfunction in the church in question.  As will be seen from a later\nletter, he arranged for the ceremonial of Holy Week and Easter to be\ncarried out as far as possible in his tiny chapel at Mountstuart; and\nwe find him giving minute instructions to his friend Grissell, who was\nto spend that season as his guest in Bute, as to bringing the\nrequisites for the celebrations, including \"18 yellow candles, rather\nslim and 18 inches long, a paschal candle 3 feet long and 1-1/2 inches\nthick, a book on ceremonies, five grains of incense, and a wooden\nclapper for Maundy Thursday.\"  \"We had the rites of the Holy Week,\" he\nwrote subsequently to Miss Skene, \"performed in my little chapel, for\nthe first time in Bute since the change of religion three centuries\nago.  They seldom, if ever, take place in Scotland, and our priest here\nhad never (so he told me) officiated in his life before on Good Friday!\nYou may be surprised to hear that, having no choir to execute the\nliturgical chant, we adopt as far as {99} we can the methodist style of\nsinging emotional hymns during the services.\"\n\n[Sidenote: 1871, Bute as philologist]\n\nAfter Easter Bute stayed for a while in London, and then returned to\nCardiff, where he remained in residence for the greater part of the\nyear.  He took regular lessons in Welsh at this time from one of the\nCardiff clergy, and quickly mastered the language scientifically,\nthough he never learned to speak it fluently.\n\n\nThe science of philology (the late Dean Howell wrote) seemed to cost\nLord Bute no effort, for he was a born philologist, and appeared to\npenetrate and solve linguistic difficulties as it were by instinct.\nAnother thing that used to astonish me was his familiarity with, and\nwide knowledge of, the Authorised Version of the Bible; for at that\ntime (1871) he could not have been more than 23 or 24 years of age.\nHis retentive memory (which I have never seen equalled) enabled him to\nquote exactly lengthy passages; and if I chanced to quote a Welsh word\nfrom Scripture for illustrative purposes, he would give the English\nrendering of the whole passage from memory with ease and perfect\naccuracy.  His tastes and accomplishments were essentially mediaeval;\nand history, art, and archaeology had for him an inexhaustible charm.\n\n\nBute had a little before this shown his practical interest in art by\nnot only presiding at a Fine Art Exhibition in the drill-hall which he\nhad erected, but by exhibiting there valuable plate and pictures,\nincluding a painting executed by himself.  A little later he was in the\nchair at the annual meeting held at Cardiff of the Palestine\nExploration Fund, recounting in very interesting fashion his own\ntravels in that country.  And in July, 1871, he took an {100} active\npart in the congress of the British Archaeological Institute held at the\nTown Hall, entertaining the members at a reception at the Castle and a\nbanquet at Caerphilly.  He also spoke at the congress, taking many of\nthe distinguished visitors by surprise with the extent of his knowledge\nand information on the subjects special to the Institute.\n\n[Sidenote: 1871, Belmont and Llanthony]\n\nSoon after the meeting of the Archaeological Congress, Bute left England\nfor Ober Ammergau to witness the Passion Play, which had been postponed\nfor a year owing to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.  He then\njoined his yacht at St. Malo, and after a cruise off Devon, Cornwall,\nand the Channel Islands returned to Cardiff for the autumn.  During\nthis time he paid several visits to the Benedictine Priory at Belmont,\nnear Hereford, where his liturgical tastes found satisfaction in the\nsolemn rendering of the Divine service by the monastic community.  One\nof the fathers then resident there[9] has some interesting\nrecollections of these periodical visits:\n\n\nLord Bute came to Belmont three or four times, I think, in the year\nbefore his marriage.  He left on us the impression of a modest,\nunassuming, and extremely intelligent young man with serious tastes,\nwho seemed quite at home in the simple surroundings of a monastery.  He\nfrequented the Divine Office regularly, and followed all the Church\nfunctions with interest.  He joined the Fathers at coffee after meals,\nand conversed very pleasantly, telling us sometimes of his Cardiff\ninterests or of his early experiences and travels.  He was a good deal\nwith {101} Prior Vaughan,[10] of course; but as I was acting\nguestmaster and about his own age, I walked out with him several times,\nand we talked of many subjects, chiefly, perhaps, archaeological or\ntheological topics.  I remember his telling me of a conversation with a\nProtestant clergyman who came to interview him, possibly with hope of\ninfluencing an unformed mind.  Lord Bute proposed for discussion the\nprecise theological value of the verse on the Precious Blood[11]--\n\n  \"Cujus una stilla salvum facere\n  Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere;\"\n\nand I gathered that they soon came to an end of the poor parson's\ndivinity, and of his efforts to \"snatch a brand from the burning.\"\n\nThe prior took Lord Bute to Llanthony, where they saw \"Father\nIgnatius,\" who told them that he reserved the Holy Eucharist under\nthree rites--Anglican, Greek, and Roman.  He also said (which struck\nLord Bute as very whimsical) that he insisted on his visitors keeping\nstrict silence when walking over a field in which his cloisters were\none day to be built.[12]\n\n\n\n[1] As a little boy of twelve Bute had been enrolled as an honorary\nmember of the 1st Bute Rifle Volunteers, and had occasionally appeared\nin the dark-grey uniform with blue facings.  When the Cardiff Yeomanry\nwent on service in the South African War, Bute showed his patriotism by\nsubscribing L500 to the funds of the corps.\n\n[2] The kinship was undoubted, if somewhat remote.  Bute was fifteenth\nin direct male descent from King Robert II. of Scotland, the lineal\nancestor of James VIII. (the \"Chevalier de St. George\"), to whom the\nPope made over the Palazzo Santi Apostoli as a residence in 1720, the\nyear of the birth of Prince Charles Edward.\n\n\n[3] The caustic comment in Vatican circles was, of course, that it was\na case of the \"Little Rock\" in conflict with the Rock of Peter; but it\nshould be added that the two dissentient prelates, immediately after\nvoting against the decree, left their places and prostrated themselves\nbefore the Papal Chair in token of their submission.  Similarly every\none of the eighty-eight bishops who had voted \"Non placet\" in the\nCongregation of July 13--not, of course, against the dogma, but against\nthe opportuneness of its definition--accepted the decree without\nqualification as soon as it was officially promulgated.\n\n[4] On October 20, 1870, a month after the forcible occupation of Rome\nby the Piedmontese troops, Pius IX. issued a brief proroguing the\nCouncil.  It has never been either closed or reassembled.\n\n[5] Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J., in a learned article in _The Month_\n(October, 1911), has shown that the custom of offering a \"purification\"\nof unconsecrated wine and water to lay communicants, after their\nreception of the Host, was practically universal in England down to the\nperiod of the Reformation, and was continued until the reign of James\nII.  The practice is still generally observed at Ordination Masses, and\non one or two other rare and special occasions.\n\n[6] The learned and eloquent Professor of Exegesis had been appointed a\ncanon of St. Paul's by Mr. Gladstone in the spring of this year, and\nhad preached his first sermon under the dome as canon-in-residence on\nSeptember 11, four days before the above letter was written.\n\n[7] Father George Smith, who had studied at St. Sulpice, and was an\nexcellent scholar and theologian, became Bishop of Argyll and the Isles\nin 1893, occupying the see for a quarter of a century until his death\nin 1918.\n\n[8] Long after the termination of his political connection with Bute,\nSir Charles Dalrymple used to recall with pleasure the remark once made\nto him on Rothesay Pier by a Buteshire farmer of the old school: \"Weel,\nsir, we've got three things to be thankful for in the Isle of Bute, and\nforbye they all begin with an M: we've a gude mairquis, and a gude\nmember, and a gude meenister.\"\n\n[9] Right Rev. J. I. Cummins, O.S.B., now (1920) titular Abbot of St.\nMary's, York.\n\n[10] This was Dom Roger Bede Vaughan, younger brother of Cardinal\nHerbert Vaughan of Westminster.  He was cathedral prior of Belmont from\n1862 to 1872, and in 1877 became Archbishop of Sydney, N.S.W.  He died\nin 1883.\n\n[11] From the Eucharistic hymn _Adoro Te devoie_, written by St. Thomas\nof Aquin about A.D. 1260, and known as the \"Rhythmus S. Thomae\nAquinatis.\"  Sixteen English versions of it have been published at\nvarious times.\n\n[12] The Rev. J. Leycester Lyne--commonly known as \"Father\nIgnatius\"--was at this time endeavouring, with no great success, to\nestablish an Anglican Benedictine monastery among the Black Mountains\nof Wales.  About a year previous to Bute's visit he had laid the\nfoundation of the conventual buildings.\n\n\n\n{102}\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMARRIAGE--HOME AND FAMILY LIFE--VISIT TO MAJORCA\n\n1871-1874\n\nIncluded in Bute's great inheritance were a considerable number of\nadvowsons, carrying the right of presentation to livings in the\nEstablished Church.  Nearly a dozen of these benefices were in\nGlamorgan, two (St. Mary's and Roath) being within the town of Cardiff.\nBute was, of course, from the time of his conversion to the Roman\nChurch, legally disabled from the exercise of his right of patronage in\nregard to these livings; but instead of allowing them to \"lapse\" (as\nthe technical phrase is[1]) he from time to time made over the next\npresentations to two _quasi_-trustees, friends of his own, and members,\nof course, of the Church of England.  One of these \"trustees\" was for a\ntime Canon John David Jenkins, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, with\nwhom Bute had become intimate during his university career.  Dr.\nJenkins became vicar of Aberdare, one of the Bute livings, in 1870, and\nwe find Bute writing to an Oxford friend about a year later:\n\n\n{103}\n\nCanon Jenkins has just appointed the Revs. Puller[2] and Stuart to two\nout of the three parishes here; and Puller, at any rate, will be\ninducted in Ember week.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1871, Church Patronage in Wales]\n\nThe practice adopted by Bute with regard to the livings in his gift--a\npractice probably unique among Roman Catholic patrons, and one which,\nin the case of a man less conscientious and honourable than himself,\nmight have been open to obvious objections--was not continued by his\nsuccessor after his death; nor, indeed, could it have been, after the\nassignment of next presentations ceased to be legally permissible.  The\nten family livings in the county of Glamorgan fell accordingly, as\nprovided by the statute, to the gift of the University of Cambridge.[3]\nThe advowsons of other livings, in Monmouthshire and Northumberland,\nwere sold in Bute's lifetime or by his successor.\n\nThe friendship between Canon Jenkins and Bute was maintained until the\ndeath of the former in 1876[4]; and he was one among the little group\nof learned men--scholars, antiquarians, and ecclesiastics--much senior\nin age to the young Scottish peer, whom he gathered round him at this\ntime, and often invited to share the solitude of his Welsh {104} castle\nor his island home in Scotland.  That it was something of a solitude,\nand that he felt it to be so there are many indications in his letters\nat this period.  His only intimate friend of his own age was his old\nschoolfellow George Sneyd, with whose views on many subjects, sincere\nas was his affection for him, he was (as has been seen) in some\nrespects entirely out of sympathy.  What he was longing for and looking\nforward to, as he found himself approaching his twenty-fourth birthday,\nwas domestic happiness and the home life of which he had known so\nlittle since his early boyhood; and this, as was natural, he hoped to\nsecure by an early and happy marriage.\n\nIn the summer of 1871 his name was connected by the rumour, or gossip,\nof the day with that of the charming ward of a well-known Catholic\npeeress, whose hospitality had often been extended to him on the\noccasions of his visits to London.  Bute took the opportunity, when\nwriting to an old friend on whose sympathy he could rely, to deny\ncategorically the truth of the rumour in question, and at the same time\nto give expression with his usual frankness to the feelings of\ndissatisfaction and discontent with which he was entering on his\ntwenty-fifth year.\n\n\nCardiff Castle,\n  _July_ 29, 1871.\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nAs there is, I fear, little chance of my being in Oxford just now, I\nwill not delay longer in replying to your kind letter.\n\nI had not seen the reports to which you refer, although I knew that\nthey had been circulated by the scandalmongers of the press.  I may\ntell you at {105} once--I had meant to do so before--that there is no\ntruth in them whatever.  There is no engagement between Miss ---- and\nmyself, and nothing is less likely than that there ever should be.  I\nwill tell you all about it some day when I see you, or in a future\nletter: I cannot write more about it at present, except to say that\nhere I am thrown out on the world again, feeling very lonely and\ndesolate.  My future, indeed, looks pretty blank just now, as you may\nimagine easily enough.  There is nothing for it but to go on one's way,\ntrying to do one's duty--and literature.  I have also a considerable\ntaste for art and archaeology, and happily the means to indulge them.\nWhen I return from Ober Ammergau, whither I go next month, to see the\nPassion Play, I shall do a little yachting in home waters, and then\nreturn here for the autumn and winter.  There is plenty to do here, of\ncourse; and building, archaeology, and writing will perhaps help me to\nforget my troubles.  After Christmas this place will be unbearable, and\nI think I shall go to Bute.\n\nYours ever very sincerely,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1872, Engagement and Marriage]\n\nWhatever may have been the disappointment or mortification occasioned\nto Bute by the episode in his life referred to in the above letter,\nthey were amply compensated for, and indeed wholly forgotten, in the\nhappiness of the event which he was able to announce to his friends at\nthe close of this year.  This was his engagement to the Hon. Gwendoline\nFitzAlan Howard, eldest daughter of the first Lord Howard of Glossop by\nhis first wife.  The marriage took place at the Oratory Church on April\n16, 1872, Archbishop Manning officiating, assisted by five Oratorian\nfathers.  Bute's cousin, Lord Mauchline (afterwards Earl of Loudoun),\n{106} wearing Highland dress, was the best man, the principal\nbridesmaid being the Hon. Alice Howard of Glossop, who married Lord\nLoudoun in 1880.  Mgr. Capel said the Nuptial Mass and preached the\nsermon; and the register was signed by the Duke of Cambridge, the Dukes\nof Northumberland and Argyll, and Mr. Disraeli.  The wedding aroused an\nextraordinary amount of popular interest and even excitement; and the\n_Spectator_ commented with satiric surprise on the fact that the London\nnewspapers devoted entire pages to describing the ceremony, which\nactually occupied--but that perhaps was less astonishing--thirty\ncolumns of the Cardiff _Western Mail_.  How distasteful this public\nexcitement was to the chief actors in the ceremony may be gathered from\na letter written by Bute to a friend in Rome a fortnight later:\n\n\nCardiff Castle,\n  _April_ 29, 1872.\n\nThe whole thing went off very well; the religious part of it, which\nmost concerned us, was very well done, and, I hear, pleased and\nimpressed the many Protestants who were present.  I suppose you will\nhave seen descriptions and pictures of it.  You will understand that to\nthe principals the whole thing--I mean the secular part of it--was\nabsolutely detestable.  As Lord Beauchamp says: \"There is only one\nthing more disagreeable than being married in London, and that is being\nmarried in the country.\"  Of course we have been extremely quiet ever\nsince, and expect to be so.  My Lady is the last person in the world to\n\"rout one out\" and want to make a flare-up and a splash.\n\nThe Pope sent presents to us both,[5] and I wrote to Mgr. Howard to\nexpress our gratitude, enclosing {107} a letter of thanks in very\nindifferent Latin, which I composed and we both signed; but it was not\nto be given if it was contrary to etiquette.\n\nI find it the custom of Protestants, when they are married by an\nArchbishop, to present that dignitary with a pair of gloves--theirs\nbeing always white kid sewn with gold.  I think I shall have a pair of\ncloth-of-gold _chirothecae_ made for Abp. Manning, and shall get Burges\nto design them.  I know the Roman ones are often made of spun silk, but\nyou can have them of other stuff, too, can you not?\n\nA relique of St. Margaret of Scotland has been got for me, and I think\nof having a bust made for it, of silver-gilt; but I have not yet\nreceived it and don't know what it is like.  I think also of sending to\nChur (Choire) for a relique of St. Lucius of Glamorgan (Lleurwg\nMawr).[6]  _A propos_ of Reliques, they have been making wonderful\ndiscoveries of the shrine of St. Alban in his abbey.[7]\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1872, Reception at Cardiff]\n\nLord and Lady Bute had gone immediately after their marriage to\nCardiff, where they received a very cordial welcome, the mayor reading\nan address to them at the Castle gates.  \"I assure you,\" said Bute in\nhis brief reply, \"that my wife comes here to-day with a sincere desire\nto do what is right, and to be of service not to me only, but to all by\nwhom {108} she is surrounded, and among whom her life is to be\nhenceforth spent.\"  It is sufficient to say here that Bute's\nanticipations of the new happiness that this step would bring into his\nlife were more than justified by the event.  \"I cannot but thank God,\nand congratulate myself, on this marriage,\" he wrote in May, 1872; \"and\nI hope and believe that it will bring me many blessings.\"  A little\nlater he wrote to the same friend:\n\n\nI have done two good things (besides some foolish ones) since my\ntwenty-first birthday; the first on December 8, 1868, when I was\nreconciled to the Catholic Church; the second on April 16, 1872, when\nthe same Church blessed my happy marriage.  It is a satisfaction to\nfeel that twice in one's life, at any rate, one has done what one is\ncertain never to repent of nor to regret.  Do you not agree with me?\n\n\nBute's marriage brought him into intimate relations, and indeed some\ndegree of kinship, with some of the ancient Catholic families of\nEngland, of whom he had up to that time known very little.  Profoundly\ninterested as he always was in every phase of religious belief and\npractice, he welcomed the opportunity now afforded him of witnessing a\ntraditionally religious life as unostentatious as it was obviously\nsincere, and contrasting alike with the austere Puritanism of his\nchildish days and the fussy restlessness which was the chief\ncharacteristic of the earlier adherents of the advanced school of\nAnglicanism.  Writing of some Catholics of the old school, to whose\ncountry home he and his wife had been paying a visit, he says:\n\nThey have edifying habits of piety, but of a very Low Church type--the\nschool of \"Hymns Antient {109} and Modern without the Appendix,\" red\nbaize boxes in galleries, family prayers and daily Mass in the most\nunadorned of private chapels, and an absolute minimum of ritual.  You\nwill understand that the unassuming simplicity of it all appeals to a\nperson like me--especially when I see the goodness that accompanies it.\nBut some of our \"advanced\" Anglican friends would stare if they saw the\ngood old-fashioned practices which prevail in old Catholic circles.  I\nonly wish they could.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1873, Old English Catholic homes]\n\nA visit to Arundel Castle in the year following his marriage gave him\nevident pleasure; and a letter thence gives a pleasant glimpse of the\nhome circle in that historic Catholic home:\n\n\nThe party here is an entirely family one;[8] and Whitsuntide and the\nMonth of Mary [May] add by a shade to the amount of church-going, which\nis considerable here always: for, as you know, they are a very devout\nas well as a very merry and very nice family.  I am rather looking\nforward to the procession of the Blessed Sacrament on Sunday week for\nCorpus Christi.  The \"Fete-Dieu\" in the streets of an English country\ntown will be rather an experience.\n\nWe have been down at the sea for the last month.  We have no London\naddress, neither of us caring for the place, where no one left me an\nhouse and where I have not the least intention of buying one.\n\n\nHaving at this time, as mentioned above, no London residence, Lord and\nLady Bute spent their year chiefly between Cardiff and Mountstuart,\nwith occasional visits to Dumfries House, for which Bute had always a\nparticular affection.  The stay at {110} Cardiff after their marriage\nwas unexpectedly prolonged owing to Lady Bute being laid up there with\nscarlet fever, while he had the misfortune to break his arm.  As soon\nas they could travel they went to Mountstuart for the autumn and\nwinter, and Bute dictated thence the following letter, the last\nsentence of which illustrates the curious displeasure with which,\nnotwithstanding his theoretical and archaeological admiration of\nmonastic institutions, he always received the news of any friends of\nhis own entering a religious order:[9]\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  _September_ 23, 1872.\n\nYou will perceive by the handwriting that I am still incapable of using\nmy right hand, which is, indeed, tied up with a piece of wood.  I am\nglad to say that my Lady is now very nearly well; and I trust that her\nescape from the climate of Cardiff will soon complete her recovery.\n\nThe quiet routine of my life here is the same as formerly.  My Lady\nplays the harmonium in our little chapel: we venture on nothing more\nthan hymns, and get along pretty well.\n\nThe histories one hears from Rome seem all to be so \"cooked\" to suit\nthe varying views of people who retail them, that one really feels\nquite uncertain as to how things are going on.  I am told that there is\nan Italianising party among the Cardinals, from which much trouble may\nbe expected in the event--may it be very far distant!--of the election\nof a successor to Pius IX.\n\n{111}\n\nI greatly regret to report that H---- G----[10] in a convent as a\nRedemptorist novice.  I can only say that I most sincerely trust, as\nfar as I lawfully may, that he may soon find that he has made a mistake.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1873, Oxford revisited]\n\nThe reference to the learned Jesuit Father MacSweeney in the following\nletter, written to his old Oxford friend in the spring of 1873, shows\nthat Bute was now entering on what was to be the most considerable\nliterary work of his life, namely, the translation into English of the\nentire Roman Breviary.\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  _April_ 27, 1873.\n\nWe are really coming south for a little, after a peaceful sojourn here\nof many months; and I hope for an opportunity of seeing you.  I am not\nforgetful, and it will be a great pleasure.  There is not much to bring\nme to Oxford now, as except yourself and very few others I have no\nfriends there now, and I have not the footing I should have had if I\nhad taken my degree.  One day, however, I am to come, and my wife is to\nbe \"lionised\" by old Mr. Parker, between whom and me archaeology has\nformed ties.  I have also business with the erudite Jesuit Fr.\nMacSweeney,[11] who has just been sent there.  Most of my Oxford\nfriends are married and changed and away--and I suppose I am very much\nchanged myself.  I fear I am not less indolent than I was, and my life\nis devoid of stirring incidents.  My luxury is art, and perhaps the\nfavourite pursuit Antiquarianism, as {112} History is the favourite\nreading.  I study, too, a little science.  I wish I were better as\nregards devotion--I want stirring up in that; but my associations of\nthat kind are so much with the South, and so difficult to adapt (though\nI know I ought to try to adapt them) to the environment in which one\nhas to live.  We are both, however, looking forward to a Mediterranean\ntrip next winter.\n\n\nThe projected visit to Oxford--Bute's first since his change of\nreligion five years previously--duly came off, and he thus refers to it:\n\n\nTo \"do\" Oxford in a day is suggestive of the American tourists who \"do\"\nRome in three; but my wife saw the most noteworthy things under the\nskilled guidance of old Parker, whom I fear we unduly fatigued.  You\nmay imagine the feelings and memories that came over me as I led my\nyoung wife through Christ Church.  It is difficult to estimate exactly\nwhat I owe to Oxford, but the debt is a heavy one....  Materially the\nplace seemed to me very little changed.  The newest thing I noticed was\nSt. Barnabas's, which impressed me.  Only I wish they'd had the courage\nto Romanise it enough to put the Altar so--\n\n[Illustration: Sketch of altar arrangements]\n\nApropos of Americans \"doing\" Italy, Story told me that Gibson, the\nAmerican sculptor, once met and talked with a countryman of his, who\nwas \"doing\" Italy in some incredibly short space of time.  \"Yes, I\nguess I have been nearly everywhere,\" he said (the conversation took\nplace in a North Italian {113} railway-carriage), \"and one place that\nstruck me very much was--I can't remember the name, but it begins with\nR.\"  Gibson suggested Ravenna, Reggio, Recanati, and other names.  \"No,\nno, it was a shorter name than any of those: there was a big church\nwith a dome, and a colonnade and fountains in front.\"  \"Good heavens!\nyou surely don't mean _Rome_?\" said Gibson, aghast.  \"Yes, that was\nit--Rome.  I knew it was a short name, but I couldn't recall it for the\nmoment.\"  This is a fact, as newspapers sometimes say after telling a\nmore than usually unbelievable story.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1873, A winter in Majorca]\n\nThe second winter after his marriage Bute had the pleasure of spending\nin the south which he loved so well, and in more congenial and\nsympathetic company than he had always secured for his bachelor\njourneyings, even those which in some degree partook of the nature of a\npilgrimage.  \"Our plan,\" he wrote on November 6, 1873, \"is to dawdle\nthrough France and winter by the Mediterranean--we have been thinking\nof the Island of Majorca.\"  The project was successfully carried out,\nand we see, from a letter written early in the following spring to the\nsame friend, how much quiet enjoyment he was deriving from the rest and\nsunshine which he found in the Balearic Isles.  The latter part of the\nletter refers to the recent death of his first cousin Edith Countess of\nLoudoun, who, it will be remembered, had been one of the party that\naccompanied him to the Holy Land a few weeks after his reception into\nthe Roman Church.\n\n\nBendinat,\n  Palma, Mallorca,\n    _February_ 24, 1874.\n\nThis is a very fair place indeed, the best of it being the climate.\nI'm nearly always happy when {114} I'm abroad, particularly in the\nMediterranean.  I suppose there's something in fogs and perpetual rain\nand cold and darkness which is especially uncongenial to me.  Also\nthere are no business and bothers here to speak of, which is certainly\na great change from home.  We have the quiet and peace which we both\nenjoy and value, and I am glad to say that I have been getting on very\nwell with the Breviary; for whereas I had hoped before returning to\nhave reached Ascension Day, I now venture to think of the third Sunday\nafter Pentecost.\n\nA drawback (my Lady reminds me) to our residence here is its distance\nfrom any church, our only accessible service being one Low Mass each\nSunday.  There's an impressive, and very Spanish, Cathedral at Palma,\nwith functions well and carefully done; but it is remote from us here.\n\nThe death of Edith[12] was a great shock to me, as well as a source of\nsincere sorrow.  _Requiescat in pace_.  We shall all go the same way in\nthe long run, 100 years {115} hence it'll be all the same; but it does\nseem rather hard that the axe should fall on the neck of all of us\n(however much it may grieve or inconvenience the survivors), and cut us\noff from the only world we have any experience of.  Not, for the matter\nof that, that it's much worth stopping in--still, it's all we've got.\nHowever, crying over this spilt milk--and I confess to having shed some\ntears since I heard the news--will never put it back into the pitcher,\nso perhaps there is not much use in crying.  But I am sincerely\ngrateful for your kind sympathy.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1874, Domestic happiness]\n\nLater in the same year, after his return to England, Bute took\noccasion, in a letter to his ever-faithful friend at Oxford, to repel\nwith indignation some malevolent rumours which had reached him to the\neffect that he had not found in his home life the happiness which he\nhad anticipated.\n\n\nNot one jot of truth is there, or has there ever been, in these\niniquitous calumnies.  Our happiness indeed is complete, and the terms\non which we live completely affectionate and intimate.  I find myself\nmore attached to G. the longer I have the privilege and honour of\nliving with her, and of seeing, as St. Augustine says of St. Monica,\n\"her walk with God, how godly and holy it is, and to us-ward so sweet\nand gentle.\"\n\n\nThis letter was written from Heath House, Weybridge--\"a little house,\"\nwrites Bute, \"which we have hired for a month or two.  I go hence to\nLondon nearly every day to read Hebrew with a Rabbi [this was in view\nof the new version of the Psalms for his projected translation of the\nBreviary], and all sorts of things with a Jesuit.  Besides the sacred\nlanguage 'in which the Eternal spoke,' and certain branches {116} of\nLiturgiology, I continue, as formerly, to read history and\nscience--very humbly.\n\n\"We go to Scotland this month, but perhaps shall be at Cardiff for\nChristmastide, though Mountstuart, as you know, is the home of our\npredilection.\"\n\nBefore Christmas of this year, which Bute spent not at Cardiff but at\nMountstuart, he published (anonymously) a little book containing a\ntranslation of the Christmas Offices from the Roman Breviary.  \"I hope\nand believe,\" he wrote, \"that it may be of some service to those (there\nmust be many) who desire to follow with intelligence the Liturgy of\nthat holy season, but are prevented from doing so by their partial or\ntotal ignorance of the language of the Church.  For this reason I\nshould wish the booklet made known through the ordinary channels--a\nmatter in which I confess to thinking our Catholic publishers very much\nless enterprising and business-like than those who cater for devout\nAnglicans.  But for this state of things, I fear, _non c'e remedio_.\"\n\nIn Bute's own chapel he was accustomed to have the church offices (with\nthe exception, of course, of the Mass) recited in the vernacular.\n\"Christmas went well here,\" he wrote to a friend in January, 1875.  \"We\nhad the Monsignor [Capel] down.  Mattins and Lauds were said in\nEnglish, the altar being incensed at the _Benedictus_; and Mgr. C.\ntreated us to a short and rather eloquent _fervorino_ after the gospel\nat Mass.  By the way, the progress of my Breviary is most\ndiscouragingly slow: _eppur si muove_.\"\n\n\n\n[1] \"Lapsed\" livings are those in the gift of Catholics, who are\nlegally incapable of presenting to them.  By statutes passed in 1603\nand 1715, the patronage of such livings is vested, according to their\nsituation, in the universities of Oxford or Cambridge.  All such\nbenefices in Glamorgan were assigned to Cambridge.\n\n[2] The Rev. F. W. Puller, the well-known Anglican divine and\ncontroversialist, resigned the vicarage of Roath in 1880 to join the\nSociety of St. John the Evangelist at Cowley.\n\n[3] The Welsh Disestablishment Act of 1920 has, of course, abolished\nprivate patronage in Wales.\n\n[4] Canon Jenkins had held one of the \"missionary fellowships\" founded\nat Jesus by his namesake Sir Leoline Jenkins in the seventeenth\ncentury, and had accordingly gone out to Natal in 1853, and become a\ncanon of Maritzburg.  He had returned to Oxford when Bute came into\nresidence at Christ Church, and was successively dean and bursar of\nJesus between 1864 and 1870.  A fine portrait of him by Holman Hunt\nhangs in the common-room of his college.\n\n[5] Pius IXth's wedding gifts were beautiful cameos set in gold.\n\n[6] The (probably mythical) \"king of Britain\" whom Bede reports to have\nwritten to Pope Eleutherius asking for instruction in Christianity.\nLucius is supposed to have left Britain, preached among the Rhaetian\nAlps, and died at Chur or Coire, where he is still venerated as a\nsaint.  The Welsh legend makes him founder of the churches of Llandaff,\nRoath, etc.  Lleurwg or Lleurfer (Light-bearer) is the Welsh rendering\nof Lucius.\n\n[7] More than 2000 fragments of the fourteenth-century base of St.\nAlban's shrine were discovered in 1872, built into the walls, and were\npieced together again with extraordinary patience and skill, and\nre-erected on the original site.\n\n[8] The Duke of Norfolk and his four unmarried sisters were at this\ntime living at Arundel with their widowed mother.\n\n[9] One recalls in this connection the cases of two of the most devout\nand accomplished Catholic writers of the nineteenth century, the Count\nde Montalembert and Kenelm Digby.  Both expended the utmost enthusiasm\nand eloquence in their description of the religious life of the Middle\nAges; and both resisted to the utmost, and not without bitterness, the\nentry into religion of members of their own immediate family circles.\n\n[10] A contemporary of Bute's at Harrow and Christ Church.  He had\nbecome a Catholic in 1871.\n\n[11] In the preface to his translation of the Breviary, published six\nyears later, Bute pays a handsome tribute to the \"long pains and\nunwearied patience and kindness\" which the learned Jesuit had expended\nin assisting him in the work.  Father MacSweeney read the whole of it\nin proof, and contributed much valuable criticism, especially in\nconnection with the translation of the Psalter.\n\n[12] One of the testamentary dispositions of Edith Lady Loudoun, who\nhad succeeded to the Scottish earldom in 1868 on the premature death of\nher brother, fourth and last Marquis of Hastings, curiously recalls a\nprovision afterwards made by Bute in his own will.  Lady Loudoun\ndirected that her right hand should be severed after death, and buried\napart from her body (which was interred in the family vault in\nScotland) in the park at her husband's seat at Donington, her home\nbefore she inherited her brother's title.  Curiously enough, a similar\nprovision had been made by her grandfather (and Bute's), the first\nMarquis of Hastings, the distinguished Governor-General of India, who\ndied in Malta in 1826, his wife and children being at the time in\nScotland.  He was buried at Malta, but his right hand was by his wish\ncarried to Loudoun, and placed in the grave destined for his wife.\nWhen the latter was dying fourteen years later, her daughter Sophia,\nafterwards Marchioness of Bute, wrote a note to the parish minister,\nasking him to bring her a small iron box which he would find in the\nfamily vault.  \"There must be no delay,\" the missive ended.  The young\nminister did Lady Sophia's bidding: the box was taken to her mother's\ndeathbed, and two days later was enclosed in her coffin according to\nher husband's desire.  This minister was the Rev. Norman Macleod,\nafterwards the chaplain and intimate friend of Queen Victoria.\n\n\n\n\n{117}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWINE-GROWING--LITERARY WORK--THE _SCOTTISH REVIEW_\n\n1875-1886\n\nBute's domestic happiness was crowned, at the close of the year 1875,\nby the birth of his eldest (and for some years his only) child, the\nevent taking place at Mountstuart on December 24, 1875.  \"At twenty\nminutes to five a.m. on Christmas Eve,\" he wrote to a friend, \"the\nfirst cries of my daughter were heard, and the little thing is and has\nbeen in excellent health and strength.  I cannot believe there is ever\nmuch likeness in babies to one parent or the other; but what she has\n_absolutely_, such as the colour of the eyes, formation of the ears,\netc., is after me, and not after her mother ...  She was baptised that\nevening at six, I asking the farmers round about.  Mgr. Capel made a\nkind of little sermon for the occasion, very well done.\"\n\nThe autumn of the following year was marked by a Royal visit to the\nIsle of Bute--a rare event in those parts, and one which for that\nreason aroused all the greater interest and appreciation.  H.R.H.\nPrince Leopold was the guest of Lord and Lady Bute for four days at\nMountstuart, arriving in the evening in Lord Glasgow's yacht _Valetta_\nat the picturesque harbour of Rothesay, which was illuminated for the\noccasion.  The Prince next day paid a kind of official visit to the\n{118} Aquarium (the chief public attraction of Rothesay), and had a\nmost enthusiastic reception.  On Sunday he attended service in the\nparish church, accompanied by the Protestant members of the\nhouse-party; and in the evening he was present at the Catholic service\nof vespers in Lord Bute's private chapel.  A ball was given at\nMountstuart during his visit; and he much enjoyed a cruise in the yacht\nround the islands, as well as a visit to the interesting colony of\nbeavers which Bute had established some little time before on a spot\nadapted for their damming and tree-cutting operations.\n\n\n[Illustration: CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN]\n\n[Sidenote: 1875, The Cardiff vintage]\n\nFrom his boyhood Bute had been a lover of animals, though, unlike the\nyoung hero of \"The Mill on the Floss\" (who \"was very fond of\nanimals--that is, of throwing stones at them\"), he took no interest\nwhatever in their destruction.  Besides the beavers, to whose\nconstitutions the dampness of the Bute climate ultimately proved fatal,\nhe introduced a number of kangaroos (or rather wallabies) into the\nsheltered woods round Mountstuart; and his visitors used to view with\nsurprise these agile little marsupials leaping about among the bushes,\nas much at home as, and indeed much less shy than, the familiar hare or\nrabbit of our English coverts.  The acclimatisation of exotic shrubs in\nthe grounds of his island home (where the prevailing mildness of\ntemperature encouraged such experiments) was always a source of\ninterest to him; whilst at Cardiff he derived particular pleasure from\nthe success of his efforts to grow grapes there for wine-producing\npurposes.  Vines were selected from the colder districts of France, and\nwere planted in 1875 on the slopes of Castell Coch, near Cardiff, in\nlight fibrous loam soil.  One particular vine, the _Gamay Noir_ (a\nfavourite in the Paris {119} district), so flourished that a second and\nlarger vineyard was propagated from it.  Forty gallons of wine were\nmade in the second year after planting, and after two or three bad\nseasons so good a vintage was secured in 1881 that the wine, pronounced\nby connoisseurs to resemble good still champagne, was all sold at\nexcellent prices.  The record year, however, was 1893, when the entire\ncrop of forty hogsheads, or over a thousand dozen, of the wine realised\na price which recouped all the expenses incurred during the previous\neighteen years.  Dr. Lawson Tait, as famous for his taste in wine as\nfor his surgical skill, bought some of it; and when sold with the rest\nof his cellar after his death it fetched 115_s._ a dozen.[1]  The\nsuccess of Bute's viticultural experiments aroused very general\ninterest in England; and it is perhaps worth while putting on record,\nas a good specimen of the now discredited art of the punster, a notice\nof the new industry which appeared, now nearly half a century ago, in\nthe principal comic paper of the day:\n\n\nThe Marquis of Bute has, it appears, a Bute-iful vineyard at Castle\nCoch, near Cardiff, where it is to be hoped such wine will be produced\nthat in future Hock will be superseded by Coch, and the unpronounceable\nvintages of the Rhine will yield to the unpronounceable vintages of the\nTaff.  Cochheimer is as yet a wine _in potentia_, but the vines are\nplanted, and the gardener, Mr. Pettigrew, anticipates no petty growth.\n\n\nNo distinctive name was, as a matter of fact, ever given to the wine\nmade from the Castle Coch grapes; {120} and Bute on more than one\noccasion asked good Welsh scholars (including some of the Cardiff\nclergy) to dinner, in order to consult with them as to this point.  The\nsite of one of the vineyards was a place called Swanbridge\n(Pont-yr-alarch), and it was suggested that \"Sparkling\nPont-yr-alarch\"[2] would look well in a wine merchant's list.  \"True,\"\nwas Bute's comment, made in the serious vein in which he loved to treat\nsuch subjects: \"yet I fear that such a name would militate against the\ncasual demand for my wine in hotels or restaurants.  One can hardly\nimagine the ordinary diner calling for a bottle of Pont-yr-alarch at\nthe beginning of his meal, still less asking for a second bottle at a\nmore advanced stage of the repast.  All orders for this particular\nvintage would have, in practice, to be given in writing.\"  The wine\ncontinued to be anonymous; and Bute, who frequently had it served at\nhis own table, used to puzzle his guests by asking their candid opinion\nof it.  \"Well, now, Lord Bute,\" said a distinguished connoisseur once,\nafter tasting the 1893 vintage and rolling it over his palate _secundum\nartem_, \"this is what I should call an _interesting_ wine.\"  \"I wonder\nwhat Sir H---- M---- exactly meant by that,\" Bute would sometimes say\nafterwards, recalling the incident.\n\n[Sidenote: 1875, Order of the Thistle]\n\nThe year 1875 was marked for Bute by an incident which gratified him\nnot a little, namely, the {121} bestowal on him by Queen Victoria of\nthe Knighthood of the Thistle.  It was characteristic of him that he\ndid not accept this honour, as some noblemen of high rank and large\npossessions might easily have done, as a mere matter of course.  He\nregarded it, on the contrary, as a recognition of the services he had\nendeavoured to render to education, learning, and the civic life; and\nhe valued and appreciated it accordingly.  Apart from any question of\npersonal merit, he was gratified, as a patriotic Scot, by his admission\ninto the most exclusive order of chivalry in the kingdom, and one which\nhad been conferred for generations on the most eminent of his\ncountrymen.  He had held for some years the Grand Cross of two\ndistinguished Papal Orders--those of St. Gregory and of the Holy\nSepulchre; but on the occasion of his next ceremonial visit to Rome and\nto the Pope, it was remarked at the Vatican (where such details never\npass unnoticed) that he was not wearing the Pontifical decorations, but\nonly the insignia of the Scottish Order.[3]\n\nThe loyal affection cherished by Bute for his few near relatives has\nalready been mentioned; and it may therefore be easily imagined with\nwhat sympathetic interest he learned in the summer of 1875 that his\ncousin Lady Flora Hastings, elder sister of Lord Loudoun, had been\nreceived into the Catholic Church, and was in consequence being\nsubjected to a species of domestic persecution which seems strange in\nthese more tolerant days, but was {122} by no means uncommon fifty\nyears ago.  Bute wrote as to this to an intimate friend:\n\n\n_Jan._ 10, 1876.\n\nThe treatment to which she has been submitted at home has naturally\nbeen extremely trying and painful to her;[4] but she has endured it\nwith admirable patience, being reinforced and supported by the\nremarkable kindness of her brother.  Loudoun's behaviour has indeed\nbeen considerate to a degree that can hardly be imagined, and far more\nso than could have been at all expected.  You will understand, without\nmy saying more, what we all feel about this.  Norfolk has been kindness\nitself to her, and so, too, have others.\n\n\nAn interesting sequel to the reference in the last sentence was the\nhappy engagement concluded in 1877 between the Duke of Norfolk and Lady\nFlora.  As first cousins respectively to the bride and bridegroom, Lord\nand Lady Bute were of course very specially interested in this\nmarriage, which took place at the Oratory on November 21, 1877.  \"We\nare all occupied all day here,\" Bute wrote from a London hotel on\nNovember 16, \"talking about the wedding next week, and some of us with\nother things besides talk, for there is much business to be done and\nsettled.\"\n\nNeither on this nor on any other occasion did Lord and Lady Bute care\nto remain away from their own home longer than was absolutely\nnecessary.  Bute wrote a few days afterwards from Lord Glasgow's seat\nin Fife, where they were paying a short visit:\n\n\n{123}\n\nWe quitted London--as usual, with much satisfaction--the very day after\nthe ceremony, which was decorously done, and the mob of sightseers was,\nI am inclined to think, better behaved (anyhow inside the church) than\nat our marriage five years ago.  Lord Beaconsfield, who was in the\nfront row next to Princess Louise, sat throughout the function wrapped\nin his long drab overcoat, and gazing at the altar with Sphinx-like\nimmobility.  He told me at the reception afterwards that he had thought\nthe music (which at Norfolk's express wish was plain-chant throughout)\n\"strangely impressive.\"\n\nThe bridegroom, by the way, forgot to order a carriage to take them\naway after the ceremony, but finding his father-in-law's carriage at\nthe church door, handed in the bride with great presence of mind.  They\nwere just driving off when Mr. Hastings came out fuming, and insisted\non a seat in his own carriage.  So they all drove away together, quite\nin violation, I imagine, of the established etiquette on such occasions.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1877, Burning of Mountstuart]\n\nBute's hopes of spending the winter of 1877-1878 quietly at his old\nhome near Rothesay were rudely frustrated by the catastrophe of\nDecember 3, 1877, when Mountstuart House was practically burnt to the\nground, only the two wings (one of them containing the little private\nchapel) escaping the flames.  He wrote early in December, in reply to a\nletter of condolence:\n\n\nMany thanks for the kind expressions in your letter.  It has all been,\nof course, very distressing.  Nearly all moveables (including books and\npictures) were most fortunately saved,[5] but the confusion is {124}\nand has been so great that I am practically bookless for a while, and\nfeel like a snail that has lost its shell.  But the Breviary is slowly\nproceeding.\n\n\nThe destruction of his birthplace was, of course, far from leaving Bute\nin any sense homeless; for Cardiff Castle as well as Dumfries House,\nthe fine old seat of the Crichtons, were still at his disposition, and\nto these he added in course of time two other country-places in\nScotland, besides leasing for a term of years first the Duke of\nDevonshire's cedar-shaded villa at Chiswick, and later the beautiful\ndomain of St. John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, which was almost as much\na _rus in urbe_ as Holland House itself.  Superficially, and in one\nrespect, he may thus be said to have resembled the anonymous duke in\nDisraeli's most popular novel, who was the owner of so many magnificent\nseats that he could never feel (it was his one grievance) that he\npossessed a home.  But Bute, who considered it a matter of duty and\nconscience to spend a certain time at all his places in turn, contrived\nto find in each of them the _Lar domestico_ (as the Portuguese call it)\nwhich makes a house a veritable home.  Happy in the society of his wife\nand growing family (three sons were born to him between 1880 and 1887)\nand surrounded by the books which he loved, he was well contented to\nlive remote from cities, although quite devoid of any instincts\nwhatever for the sports which alone make country life tolerable to so\nmany Englishmen.  A good swimmer and fencer (as we have seen) in his\nearly manhood, he indulged in middle life in no other bodily exercise\nthan that of country walks; and even in these, given a congenial\ncompanion, what is called the \"object of the walk\" was often forgotten\nin the interest of some conversation on {125} topics strangely remote\nfrom the picturesque surroundings of a Scottish country house.  One who\nwas often his associate in such rambles, perhaps on the high moorlands\nabove Mountstuart, recalls how they would pause at some notable point\nof view, and how his companion, gazing with unseeing eye (though in\nreality far from insensible to the beauties of nature) at the matchless\npanorama of woods and mountains, sea, and sky spread out before them,\nwould dismiss the prospect, as it were, with a wave of the hand, and\ncontinue his discourse on the claim of some mediaeval anti-pope to the\nrecognition of Christendom, or the precise relation between the\nliturgical language employed by the Coptic Church and the tongue of\nancient Egypt as spoken by the Pharaohs.\n\n[Sidenote: 1877, Bute as a landowner]\n\nBute was scrupulous and exact in the performance of his duties as a\nlandowner; he kept himself informed of all the details connected with\nthe management of his extensive estates, and never grudged the demands\non his time and patience made by the lawyers, agents, and others for\nbusiness interviews extending over many hours and sometimes even days.\nThat he found these prolonged transactions irksome and fatiguing enough\nis clear from some expressions in his correspondence; and it was always\na pleasure and relief to him to get back to his books and literary\nwork, which were, perhaps, on the whole the chief interest of his life.\nAlthough he expended annually a considerable sum on the equipment of\nhis libraries, Bute was no bibliophile in the sense in which that word\nis now often used.  Tall-paper copies, first editions, volumes unique\nfor their rarity, and publications de luxe had no interest for him at\nall.  What he aimed at was to surround himself with a first-rate\nworking library, furnished especially with those {126} works of\nreference--_sources_, as the French term is--most likely to be of\nservice to him in the historical and liturgical researches with which\nhe was chiefly occupied.  His librarian had standing orders, in the\ncase of new books of interest and utility, to purchase three copies, so\nthat wherever he chanced to be resident he found the tools of his craft\nready to his hand.[6]  A letter written in the autumn of 1877 shows\nthat the work at that time occupying most of his attention was his\ntranslation of the Roman Breviary, which after several years of\nassiduous (though not, of course, continuous) labour was now nearing\nits completion.\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  _August_ 28, 1877.\n\nAt last I am relieved from a more than usually tedious spell of\nbusiness with lawyers and factors, and am able to fulfil my promise to\ntell you of my liturgical _opus magnum_ (I call it so, though my office\nhas been but the humble one of the translator).  For the present, keep\nthe matter to yourself.\n\nI have been engaged since the winter of 1870 in translating the whole\nof the Roman Breviary into English; and the MS. is nearly finished, and\nthe printing now going on.  I expect it will be published next year.  I\nhave learnt Hebrew (more or less) for the purpose, and done an amount\nof reading which it quite frightens me to think of.  This translation\nis _my beloved child_.  I send you a volume of proof, and will give you\na copy of the two volumes when they come out.  Please keep it quiet: I\ndon't want to be badgered about it, as I should be if people knew that\nI was doing it.\n\n{127}\n\nI am executing a paraphrase in English prose, with a critical\ncommentary, introduction, notes, analysis, and all the rest of it, of\nthe Scots metrical romance upon the Life of William Wallace, written by\n\"Blind Harry\" in the XVth century.\n\nFrom my Scotch historical reading, I am gradually compiling a skeleton\nchronology of the History of Scotland, with references to every fact:\nit is intended to stretch from the fall of Macbeth to that of\nMary--_i.e._ the national, Catholic, and feudal period.\n\nAnd--pleasure after business--I have in hand a translation of the\nTargum (Paraphrastic Commentary by the Jewish Fathers) upon the Song of\nSolomon, from the Latin version published at Antwerp in 1570.  This has\njust been rejected by the Jesuits for one of their publications as\n\"dull.\"  As I did not compose it, I feel free to differ from their\nverdict.  I think now of offering it to _Good Words_.  It is mystic\n(not fleshly) and very wild, picturesque, and diffuse--indeed, in my\nopinion, touching not infrequently on the sublime.\n\nSo you see I have lots of work in hand.\n\n\nBute took an infinity of pains over his English Breviary, polishing and\nrepolishing his version of the mediaeval Latin text over and over again,\nand correcting and revising the proofs with such meticulous care as\ngreatly to add to the expense of the production (which was defrayed by\nhimself, not by the publishers) and also to the delay in bringing out\nthe work.  Probably few books of the size and character of these two\nportly volumes were ever printed with a smaller proportion of\ntypographical errors; but Bute professed himself far from satisfied\nwith the work on its appearance.  Sending a copy to a friend, he wrote:\n\n\nThere are a good many things in it--blunders and {128} oversights\n(mostly mine, not the printers', who have done their work\nextraordinarily well)--which make me anything but contented with it.  I\nam on the whole, seeing the book in print, least dissatisfied with the\nrendering of the _prayers_, in which I venture to think I have not\nquite failed to reproduce to some extent the measured and sonorous\ndignity of the original Latin.\n\n\nReviewers, as a rule, received the Breviary with respectful admiration,\ntheir tributes being, however, paid in many cases less to the work\nitself than to the astonishing industry of the translator.  Bute\nhimself was disappointed at the slowness of the sale.  \"I hope,\" he\nwrote to a friend at Oxford, \"you will speak of it if occasion offers,\nas the circulation is not large.\"  And some months later he wrote\nagain, \"I am very glad that you find the Breviary of use, and that\nthere are others who do the same.  It is not, however, a feeling as yet\nvery widely disseminated among the public, seeing that I am still L300\nout of pocket by having published it.\"\n\nThere was, in truth, no very considerable body of educated\nEnglish-speaking readers to whom these two ponderous and necessarily\nexpensive tomes were likely to appeal.  The Catholic clergy had no\nmoney to spare for literary luxuries, and felt no special need of an\nEnglish version of their familiar office-book: the Catholic laity,\ndevoid for the most part of all liturgical taste, and nurtured on\nmodern methods and manuals of devotion, knew and cared little about the\nancient and official prayer of the Church, either in Latin or in\nEnglish; and thus those chiefly interested in this really monumental\nwork, to which the translator had devoted such prolonged and unwearied\nlabour, proved to be, not (pathetically enough) his own\nco-religionists, but a small group of scholars and devotees mostly\n{129} belonging to one section of the Church of England, and including\nliturgiologists of acknowledged eminence.  In some religious houses,\nhowever, both of men and women, the Breviary was introduced, and\ngreatly valued, as a means of instructing novices and others in the\nDivine Office; and in a certain number of Anglican communities,\nespecially in the United States, it was brought into use as the regular\noffice-book.  Bute always heard with sincere gratification of any\ninstances of this which were brought to his knowledge.[7]\n\n[Sidenote: 1882, The _Scottish Review_]\n\nNext to the Breviary, the \"_beloved child_\" of his brain, which was\npublished in the autumn of 1879, Bute's chief literary labours may be\nsaid to have been in connection with the quarterly _Scottish Review_,\nto which he first became a contributor in 1882, and of which he\nafterwards assumed the control, purchasing the periodical outright in\n1886.  A series of his letters dealing with the _Review_, all eminently\ncharacteristic of the writer, have been preserved, mostly addressed to\nthe editor, the Rev. W. Metcalfe, an Established Church minister of\nPaisley, who was afterwards closely associated with him during his\nRectorship of St. Andrews University, and was during a long series of\nyears one of his most intimate friends and most regular correspondents.\nOne of his first letters, in reply to one suggesting certain subjects\nfor possible articles from his pen, shows the complete frankness with\nwhich, when necessary, he acknowledged his own ignorance.\n\n\n{130}\n\nDumfries House,\n  _October_ 10, 1882.\n\nI am sensible of the kindness of your offer, but I know my own\nlimitations.  About prehistoric antiquities I can write nothing, for I\nknow nothing; and of the Scots Men-at-Arms I know if possible even\nless.  For the latter subject I could no doubt \"mug up,\" as Arthur\nPendennis did for his articles in the _Pall Mall Gazette_; but _cui\nbono_?  As for early Scottish Christianity, the subject is too vast:\nyou might almost as well ask me for an article on the history of the\nhuman race.  It must be done in _fragments_.  I think I might try my\nhand on some scrap, say the ancient Celtic Hymns, in Latin; and I am\nnow taking steps to ascertain if there are known to be any more of such\ncompositions than I already possess--also to get a legible transcript\nof one of mine, a (to me) illegible lithographic facsimile of an\nancient Codex....  As to the Men-at-Arms, I am of opinion that Mrs.\nMaxwell Scott of Abbotsford would do this well.  She is somewhat of an\ninvalid, and spends much time in study, in which she has the advantage\nboth of great natural ability and of her illustrious\ngreat-grandfather's admirable library.  She is (unreasonably)\ndiffident; but were the article once written, I feel sure you would not\nfind yourself in search of any excuse not to print it.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1883, Contributions to the _Scottish Review_]\n\nBute's own paper on \"Ancient Celtic Latin Hymns\" appeared in February,\n1883, and was the first of over twenty articles contributed by him to\nthe _Scottish Review_.[8]  Other articles followed, dealing\nrespectively with St. Patrick, the Scottish Peerage, and the Bayreuth\nFestival, which he attended for the first time in 1886, the same year\nin which he acquired {131} control of the _Review_.  The last-named\narticle has a particular interest of its own, as having been written by\na man quite devoid (as he himself frankly acknowledged)[9] of any\naesthetic appreciation of music, but who was yet moved and impressed to\nan extraordinary degree by the Wagnerian cycle as presented at\nBayreuth.  \"Had you not better,\" he writes to the editor in sending the\nBayreuth article, \"submit my _Festival_ to some expert musician of\nWagnerian mind, that he may add a few technicalities at appropriate\nplaces?  (I have indicated in pencil where I think this may fitly be\ndone.)\"\n\nThe article on St. Patrick aroused some interest, especially in the\nperennial question of the Saint's birthplace--a subject to which Bute\nmakes whimsical reference in a letter relating to hoped-for\ncontributions from the Rev. Colin Grant,[10] the learned priest of\nEskadale.\n\n\nHe (G.) is at all sorts of things at this moment, including a memoir of\nSimon Lord Lovat, also a {132} formal attack on a priest (one M----)\nwho writes an article every six months, making St. Patrick be born in a\nnew place every time, as readily as if he were a kind of early Celtic\nHomer or Gladstone.  Grant swears by Dumbarton; but whenever he crushes\nM---- in one place it is only to find him giving birth to the Saint\nagain in a new one.\n\n[Sidenote: 1886, A troublesome Greek]\n\nA note to the editor of the _Review_ on the proper designation of a\nGreek named Bikelas, who had contributed an article, shows the extreme\nattention paid by Bute to such comparatively subsidiary points.  The\nnote was addressed from Dresden, which Lord and Lady Bute were visiting\nafter their pilgrimage to Bayreuth, and where they prolonged their stay\nfor several days (in spite of their usual eagerness to get home), in\norder to witness there another performance of the Nibelungen Tetralogy\nwhich they had seen at Bayreuth a few days previously.\n\n\n_Sept._ 14, 1886.\n\nBikelas kicks against being called \"the K. Bikelas\": he wants the title\n\"Mr.\"  I tell him that we usually give foreigners the title they use\nthemselves--not \"Mr.\"  Thus we say \"M.\" not \"Mr.\" Grevy--\"Signor\" not\n\"Mr.\" Depretis--Herr not \"Mr.\" von Hartmann--\"Senor\" not \"Mr.\"\nCanovas.\"  Greeks are vulgarly designated \"M.,\" which must be wrong,\nas, whatever they are, they are not Frenchmen, nor are we.  It is a\nmere blunder founded on ignorance.  They themselves always use the\nstyle [Greek: _ho kurios_]--e.g. [Greek: _ho_ K. _peparregopoulos_].\nConsequently I maintain that they should be called in English \"the K.\"\nSo-and-so.[11]\n\n\n{133}\n\nUnder Bute's regime the columns of the _Scottish Review_ were open to\ncapable writers professing any religion or none; but he seems to have\nfound the latitudinarian views of \"[Greek: _ho K. Bikelas_]\" as\ntroublesome as his title.\n\n\n_December_ 11, 1886.\n\nB. is very tiresome indeed.  The fact is, the man has lived more at\nParis than has been good for him, and looks on anybody taking any\ninterest in religion as a folly to be apologised for.  This is a state\nof mind which will appear as strange and shocking in this country as it\nwould in his own.  I told him therefore that I thought I must \"cook\"\nhis most free-thinking paragraphs, and he assented.  Now he insists on\nhaving it all scepticised.  I suppose that I must do as he wishes, and\nleave him--and ourselves--to the fate that may befall us.  I fear,\nhowever, he won't be redeemed even by being sandwiched in between the\nUnknowable in front and the miracles of St. Magnus behind.  There is,\nhowever, just the hope that the country ministers who do the notices\nwon't see what he's driving at.\n\n\nBute's view about the application of the term \"British\" to his\ncountrymen is expressed in a note referring to an article written for\nthe number of January, 1887, by Amin Nassif, a Syrian _protege_ of his,\ntranslated from the Arabic by Professor Robertson, and prefaced by a\nrather mysterious foreword, apparently from Bute's pen.\n\n\nI would not call Nassif's article \"Egypt under the British,\" but \"Egypt\nunder the English invasion.\"[12]  I dislike the word \"British,\" which\nreally only means Cymro-Celtic.  It has a tendency to confound us with\n{134} the English, and to obscure to the popular mind the extent to\nwhich our forefathers in 1706 tried to make us a mere English\nprovince.[13]  To every one their due: to the Westminster Parliament\nthat of the bombardment of Alexandria and the rest of it.\n\n\nThe appearance of the first number of the _Review_ published subsequent\nto Bute assuming control of the periodical is referred to with some\ncomplacency, in a letter written from Mountstuart on April 16, 1887:\n\n\nIt seems to me the best number of the _S.R._ that I have ever seen.\nBut as I have had more to do with it than with any other, I probably\nsee it with prejudiced eyes.  The first newspaper notice or two will\ndisplay it in its true light, in the same way that the impressions of\nMoliere's housekeeper on his literary efforts were a precursor of those\nof his public audiences.\n\n\nThe \"first newspaper notice\" which came to hand, that in the _Ayr\nObserver_, evoked a comment which seemed to show that Bute was not then\nso hardened as he afterwards became to the depreciatory remarks of\n\"irresponsible reviewers.\"\n\n\n_May_ 9, 1887.\n\nThe _Ayr Observer_ man had clearly not even glanced at any of the\narticles except the first and one other (to which he was attracted by\nmy name as of local interest).  He seems to believe the word\n\"Byzantine,\" now seen by him for the first time, to be a synonym for\n\"German\" or \"Russian.\"  As none of the sentences parse, I conceive that\nthe notice was {135} written in the small hours (from a dogged\ndetermination not to go to bed without getting it done), after\nseparating from some scene freely enlivened by alcoholic stimulants.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1887, A London garden party]\n\nA long letter to the editor written on June 18, 1887, contains, _inter\nalia_, lamentations on the writer's \"hard fate\" at having to return to\nLondon in mid-summer, and attend, incidentally, a crowded garden party\nthere.\n\n\nFancy leaving this place [Mountstuart] at its very best, in order to be\njammed in a stuffy back garden in London, in a hollow surrounded by\nhouses, for hours on a midsummer's afternoon.\n\n[Illustration: THE GREAT HALL, MOUNTSTUART]\n\nI see astrologically that Mars has a good deal to say with regard to\nthe *******;[14] it may possibly mean sunstroke or apoplexy as well as\ndynamite.  Really one would think they ought to provide not only an\nambulance tent and nurses, but also a dead-house and a competent staff\nof undertakers.[15]\n\n\nWilliam Skene, the eminent Celtic scholar and historiographer-royal for\nScotland, had proposed writing an article for the _Review_ on the\nquestion of reunion between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches;\nand this gave Bute an opportunity of ventilating his deep-seated\nanimosity against what he considered the hopelessly Erastian element\ninherent {136} in, and (as he believed) essential to, Anglicanism.  He\nwrote from Raby Castle on October 11, 1887:\n\n\nIf Dr. Skene advocates Bishop Wordsworth's views, he is likely to find\nhimself strongly controverted in the next number.  What the Bishop\nmeans by reunion is the unconditional surrender of the Scottish nation\nto a foreign body, whose marriages form 2 per cent. of those celebrated\nin Scotland.  This seems to me simply insane impertinence.  A reunion\nbetween Presbyterians and Catholics looks to me far less unlikely; for\nthe very essence of the Presbyterian position--that the sacramental\ncharacter of Order belongs only to the presbyterate, the episcopate\nbeing merely its full exercise--is at least a discutable[16] question\nwith _us_, and we are already agreed on Christ's Divine Headship \"on\nearth as it is in heaven\": whereas the Anglicans have nailed their\ncolours to the mast on the first point, and have abandoned every shred\nof Catholic principle on the second.  Their doing this last is indeed\nthe sole reason why they exist at all, either in England or in Scotland.\n\n\nThe withers of the historiographer-royal were probably quite unwrung by\nthis rather polemical outburst, the fact being that Dr. Skene had (as\nhe himself mildly explained) no sympathy at all with Bishop\nWordsworth's views on reunion, which his article was designed not to\nsupport but to confute.[17]\n\n\n\n[1] The vintage of 1885 was also a very good one.  \"The Mayor of\nCardiff,\" Bute noted in his diary in July, 1892, \"has bought three\ndozen of my 1885 wine--like, but in his opinion better (and I really\nthink it is) than, my Falernian here.\"\n\n[2] It may be worth while to point out that the suggested Welsh name\nfor the wine is based on a mistaken etymology.  The word \"Swanbridge\"\nhas nothing to do with swans, but is from the Norse or Danish proper\nname Sweyn (Swegen, Swain or Svend).  The narrow neck of land\nconnecting the place, at low tide, with the island of Sully is the\n\"bridge\" or \"brigg\" forming the second half of the word.  Norse names\nare common all along the south coast of Glamorgan.\n\n[3] It is to be observed, in reference to this, that the occasion\nreferred to was that of an exclusively Scottish deputation to Pope Pius\nIX.--an occasion on which Bute doubtless thought it congruous and\nbecoming to appear wearing only the decoration of the highest Order of\nScottish chivalry.\n\n[4] By a singular sequence of events, the persecuting parent (who was\nafterwards created Lord Donington) followed his daughter's example a\nfew years later, and died a devout member of the Catholic Church in\n1895.\n\n[5] Much of the credit of this was due to the sailors from the Clyde\nguardship, who arrived on the scene in time to render invaluable\nservice in the work of salvage.\n\n[6] The writer has been reminded, since the above sentence was penned,\nthat another standing order to the librarian was to purchase annually\none or two works of fiction among those most in demand during the\ncurrent year.\n\n[7] A tale (possibly _ben trovato_) in this connection was told of a\ncertain nun, a blonde of very homely appearance, whose intonation in\nchoir of the antiphon, \"I am black but comely,\" provoked such unseemly\ngiggles in the community, that the Superior promptly ordered the\nEnglish Breviary to be discarded, and the Latin one adopted in its\nplace.\n\n[8] Afterwards reprinted in book form (_post_, p. 143, note).  A\ncomplete bibliography of Bute's published writings is given in Appendix\nVI.\n\n[9] \"Since I have been here,\" he wrote in January, 1887, from Oban,\nwhere he had built a church and established a choir of men and boys for\nthe daily celebration of the Liturgy, \"I have been attending choir\nmyself very regularly.  I have no natural musical gifts at all, as you\n(being musical yourself) are well aware; but I think it better to put\non a surplice when here, as it shows fellow-feeling.\"  The Emperor\nCharlemagne, we are told, presided regularly over the choir in his\nprivate chapel; but beyond the fact that he coughed or sneezed\n(_sternutabat_) when he wished the lessons to stop, we do not hear of\nhis taking any audible part in the service.  Probably both he and Lord\nBute, having instituted a choir to do the singing, thought it best\nthemselves to follow the injunction which is, or was, posted up in the\nante-chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, bidding visitors \"join in the\nservice silently.\"\n\n[10] One of the most deeply learned men of his time in Scotland,\nespecially on the lore and history of the early Celtic Church.  He was\nappointed to the See of Aberdeen in 1889, but--to the great loss of\nScottish learning--died only six weeks after his episcopal\nconsecration.  See _post_, p. 147.\n\n[11] The articles contributed by this writer were, as a matter of fact,\nsigned [Greek: _Demetrios Bikelas_, and appear in the index under the\nname of D. Bikelas.  In some reviews of his writings he is, however,\nstyled \"the K.\"  His \"Seven Essays on Christian Greece,\" translated by\nBute, appeared in book form in 1890.\n\n[12] The title of the article as published was \"Egypt on the Eve of the\nEnglish Invasion.\"  It was anonymous.\n\n[13] One cannot but recall, in this connection, Mr. Putney Giles's\nwords to Lothair in regard to the preparations for the celebration of\nhis majority.  \"Great disappointment would prevail among your\nLordship's friends in Scotland, if that country on this occasion were\nplaced on the same level as a mere English county.  It must be regarded\nas a Kingdom.\"--\"Lothair,\" Chap. XXVII.\n\n[14] The asterisked word is, of course, \"Jubilee.\"  Some time before\nthis Bute had written: \"I am dabbling, among other things, in\nastrology, and find it a curious and in some ways fascinating study.\"\nSee _post_, p. 176.\n\n[15] A curious parallel to this curious passage occurs in a letter\nwritten by Disraeli to Lady Chesterfield on July 14, 1887 (\"Life,\" vol.\nvi. p. 169).  \"Garden parties in London are wells, full of dank air.\nSir William Gull told me that if the great garden parties in future are\nheld at Buckingham Palace and Marlboro' House instead of Chiswick and\nso on, his practice will be doubled.\"\n\n[16] This odd synonym for \"discussible\" seems almost an [Greek: _hapax\nlegomenon_].  The Oxford Dictionary gives but one example of its use,\nfrom an article in the _Saturday Review_ of 1893.\n\n[17] Dr. Skene's article did not, as a matter of fact, appear in the\n_Review_.\n\n\n\n\n{137}\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nLITERARY WORK (_CONTINUED_)\n\n1886, 1887\n\n\"They will say that we are dull, of course,\" Bute wrote to his editor\nin 1887, discussing the contents of a forthcoming number of the\n_Scottish Review_.  \"But they say that anyhow, without reading us,\nwhatever we put in or leave out.\"  Bute did not always feel sure that\nhis own contributions, written as they were with an immensity of care\nand painstaking, were not open to this charge.  \"I feel rather low\nabout the 'Coronations,'\"[1] he wrote a few weeks later.  \"It seems to\nme dull, very long, and intensely technical....  It is true that the\nLord Lyon has returned my proof with a note calling the article 'most\nvaluable,' and saying he could scarcely suggest any improvement.  So\nfar so good; but then he is a professional State Master of Ceremonies.\"\n\nAt other times Bute appeared rather to resent the charge of \"heaviness\"\nnot infrequently applied to his _Review_.  \"They call us\n_ponderous_--it is their favourite adjective,\" he wrote in this mood a\nlittle later.  \"It is easy to bandy epithets, but I should say that we\nare positively _light_ in comparison with {138} some other quarterlies\nI could name.  I was drowsing for two hours last night over one of\nthem, which I can designate by no other word than _stodgy_.\"\nNevertheless it must be frankly admitted that Bute did not possess the\npower of treating with any kind of light touch (or perhaps of inspiring\nothers to do the same) the various interesting and important subjects\nwhich were the staple of the _Review_.  The gift of humour he certainly\npossessed, and in a high degree: he could see as well as any man the\nincongruous and ridiculous side of the most serious subject: he liked a\ngood story, and could tell one himself, with a sort of solemn jocosity\nwhich, combined with his singular felicity in the choice of language,\nadded vastly to the effect of the anecdote.  Moreover, he could write\nas well as talk wittily, as is evident from the caustic and sometimes\nmordant humour which characterises many of his letters.  But this\nfeature is almost or wholly absent from his published writings; and in\nthese he seems to have adopted the principle which Dr. Johnson\ncertainly practised as well as preached: \"The dignity of literature is\nlittle enhanced by what passes for humour and wit; and the true man of\nletters will do well to reserve his jests for the ears of his private\nfriends, and to treat serious subjects, on the printed page, in a\nserious manner.\"\n\nBute hardly seemed to realise that the following of the sage counsel\njust quoted could be any bar to the popularity of the _Review_ with the\ngeneral reader; and he was at times almost querulous with what he\ncalled the \"unaccountable apathy\" of the Scottish public in particular.\n\"I think,\" he wrote to a literary friend, \"you ought to pitch strongly\ninto the Scottish people for their distaste for anything like serious\nreading.  I am told that of the books borrowed from {139} the Edinburgh\nPublic Library for home perusal, more than 75 per cent. are works of\nfiction.  One thing which I have particularly noticed about them is\ncrass ignorance of their own history, to a point which is really quite\nastonishing.\"\n\nIn order to increase the circulation of the _Review_, and make it if\npossible self-supporting (\"a state of things which, for the sake of the\nprinciple involved,\" wrote Bute, \"I am extremely desirous to bring\nabout,\") the desperate expedient was proposed of transferring the\n_Review_ to London, following the precedents of the _Edinburgh_ and the\n_North British_.  But this was too much for Bute's _amor patriae_.  He\nwrote to the Oxford friend from whom the suggestion had emanated:\n\n\n_October_ 1, 1887.\n\nOne might, of course, do better business by dropping it as a _Scottish_\nreview, and starting another English magazine in London under the same\nname, and with a continuity of numeration.  This, however, would be to\ndestroy in its very essence the attempt to keep going a Scottish\nquarterly in Scotland.  It must be owned that the apathy of the\nScottish public is quite enough to drive any one to such a course, and\nit would be entirely their own fault if it were taken.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Bute's historical method]\n\nA typical example of Bute's method of treating subjects drawn from the\nbyways of history may be seen in his studies on the trial and execution\nof Giordano Bruno,[2] whose memory a noisy party in Italy was at that\ntime (1888) endeavouring to exalt as that of an innocent victim and\nmartyr.  The opinion of educated Catholics might have been thought\npretty well made up as to the justice of the {140} sentence on the\nnotorious Neapolitan philosopher and ex-Dominican, of whom not a Roman\nInquisitor, but a Protestant divine, had said that he was \"a man of\ngreat capacity, with infinite knowledge, but not a particle of\nreligion.\"  Bute, however, approached the subject in his usual attitude\nof complete intellectual detachment, with no trace of _parti pris_.\n\"There is much obscurity about the whole matter,\" he wrote from\nSorrento on March 21, 1888, \"but I flatter myself that my paper will at\nleast be a triumph of impartiality, of absolutely colourless\nneutrality.\"  It is sufficient to record here that his conclusion,\nafter many months of patient sifting of evidence, much of it drawn from\ncontemporary sources hitherto unexplored, was much the same as that of\nBruno's accusers and judges in Venice and in Rome.  He wrote as follows\nto Dr. Metcalfe, before his articles appeared in print:\n\n\nWhat I fail to understand is why they executed him at all.  If the\nChurch Courts had kept him to themselves and imprisoned him for life,\nhe could not have done any one any harm, and might with advancing age\nhave repudiated and repented some of his blasphemous utterances (one\nbeing that Christ was not God, but only a magician of extraordinary\ncunning).[3]  In the case of this obscure and repulsive vagabond, whose\nchief literary work could not be printed to-day without the author\nbeing prosecuted for obscenity, there was surely no need of a terrible\npublic example, such as might have been (and was) urged in the case of\nthe burning of Servetus.\n\n\n{141}\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Garibaldi's Autobiography]\n\nEqually characteristic of his zeal for what he calls \"colourless\nneutrality\" in the presentment of historic facts are his observations\non a proposed article for the _Review_ on the autobiography of\nGaribaldi, then recently published.  As to this he writes (February,\n1888):\n\n\nPerhaps the Contessa M---- C---- could do it; and if the book is on the\nIndex (which is not unlikely),[4] she could easily get a dispensation\nby stating her object in wishing to read it.  I suppose she is not a\nGaribaldian, by the way? that would never do.  She should express as\nlittle opinion of any sort as possible--I don't mean, of course, that\nshe should abstain from stating known facts--and should leave the man\nto speak for himself by an analysis and a string of quotations, which\nmust be given from the Italian text, and severely literal.\n\n\nThe above example--many others could of course be cited--are sufficient\nto indicate the spirit of rigid impartiality in which Bute treated, and\ndesired that others should treat, historical questions of every kind,\nand his almost passionate endeavours to follow in all such researches\nthe old maxim, _Audi alteram partem_.  It must be confessed,\nhowever--indeed he himself practically owned--that were his\nhistoriographical principles universally adopted, English literature,\nif not the cause of historic truth, would be the poorer.  \"Most\nhistory,\" he said in one of his addresses to a body of university\nstudents, \"is not history at all, but romance, sometimes fascinating\nbut seldom trustworthy, coloured, as it often is deeply, with the\nprejudices and prepossessions of its {142} writers.\nNames--facts--dates--there is true history; but when a man gets beyond\nthat, when he begins to dissect characters, to attribute motives, to\nanalyse principles of action, then in nine cases out of ten he ceases\nto be a historian and becomes a romancer.  Gibbon, with his enormous\nerudition, could have presented to us all the details of Rome's decline\nas they really were---he has given us instead a travesty of them\ndistorted by his own devilish hatred of Christianity.  Macaulay, whose\nwhiggery may have been all very well on the hustings, disgusts us by\nintruding it into every page of his so-called \"History of England.\"\nFroude vaunts that his history of the English Reformation is entirely\nbased on original documents; by which he really means that he has used\nall those which have helped him in his self-imposed task of\nwhitewashing Henry VIII., and has suppressed all the rest.[5]  I need\nnot give other instances.\"\n\nBute might have pointed to his own laborious work on Scottish\nChronology in illustration of his theory of how history should be\nwritten--the immense folio volumes, specially constructed for the\npurpose, in which day by day and year by year he inserted dates, with\nthe barest and briefest statement of facts bearing on the history of\nScotland and her early kings, as he encountered them in the course of\nhis omnivorous reading.  He could hardly have seriously maintained the\nparadox that history in this skeleton {143} form was the only true\nhistory worthy of the name.  But no historic student (and he disclaimed\nfor himself any higher title) ever aimed more anxiously than he did, in\nevery line that he wrote, to set forth the plain facts of history\nabsolutely uncoloured by any views or prepossessions of his own.  It\nwas this marked characteristic, coupled (it is not necessary to say\ncontrasted) with his complete and unquestioning loyalty to the\nteachings of his Church, which, especially to those who knew him, gave\na unique interest to everything that came from his pen.  Genuine\nerudition--a virile independence of thought and judgment--an engaging\npersonal diffidence and a complete absence of anything like obtrusion\nof the writer's own opinions, combined with a gift of expression and a\ncommand of language which often soars to real, if sober,\neloquence--these qualities may all be found in the essays which he\nwrote during the years which were the most intellectually productive of\nhis life; and it is well that they have been rescued from the _pozzo\nprofondo_ of the pages of a provincial periodical of limited\ncirculation, and are accessible, in two handsome volumes,[6] to all who\ncare to read them.\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Tribute from Lord Rosebery]\n\nIt may be well at this point, and in this connection, to cite an\ninteresting tribute to Bute's literary abilities paid by one who had\nbeen among the earliest friends of his dawning manhood, and whose own\ndistinction in the world of letters gives a particular value to his\njudgment.  Lord Rosebery said of him as follows:--[7]\n\n\n{144}\n\nThe late Lord Bute was a remarkable character to the world at large,\nwhether they knew him well or did not.  To some it may often have\nseemed that he was out of place in the nineteenth century.  His mind,\nhis thoughts, his studies were so entirely thrown back into a past more\nor less remote; and I think, had he had more incentive to make known\nthe objects and subjects of his researches, he would have left no mean\nname in the republic of letters.  And even as it is he has left behind\nhim a rectorial address to the University of St. Andrews, which\ncontains, I think, one of the strangest, most pathetic, most striking\npassages of eloquence with which I am acquainted in any modern\ndeliverance.\n\n\nThis is high praise; but to those who are familiar with the passages to\nwhich Lord Rosebery refers, it will not seem exaggerated or misplaced.\nThey form the peroration to Bute's inaugural address delivered at St.\nAndrews on the occasion of his election to the lord-rectorship of that\nUniversity; and they run as follows:--\n\n\nOn the 5th of March, in this year, I took a walk with Professor Knight\nto Drumcarrow.  It was a fine, sunny day.  We stood among the remains\nof the prehistoric fort, and looked over the bright view, the glorious\nlandscape enriched by so many memories, the city of St. Andrews\nenthroned upon her sea-girt promontory, the German Ocean stretching to\nthe horizon, from where it chafes upon the cliffs which support her\nwalls.  And we remarked how God and man, how nature and history, had\nalike marked this place as an ideal home of learning and culture.  And\nthen the view and the name of the Apostle together carried my thoughts\naway to another land and a narrower and land-locked sea.  I do not mean\nthat where Patrai, the scene of Andrew's death, looks from the shores\nof Achaia towards the home of {145} Ulysses over waters rendered for\never glorious by the victory of Lepanto.  I do not mean the City of\nConstantine, where the first Christian Emperor enshrined his body, and\nwhere the union of ineffably debased luxury and ineffably debased\nmisery, which drains into the Sea of Marmora, excites a disgust which\nalmost chokes grief and humiliation.  Neither do I mean those sun-baked\nprecipices which, by the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, beetle over the\ngrave where lies the body that was conformed in death to the likeness\nof the death of the Lord.  I mean the land of Andrew's birth--the hot,\nbrown hills, which, far below the general sea-level of the world, gird\nin the Lake of Gennesareth--that strange landscape which also is not\nunknown to me, the environing circle of arid steeps, at whose feet,\nnevertheless, the occasional brakes of oleander raise above the line of\nthe waters their masses of pink blossom, and whence the eye can see the\nsnows of Hermon glistering against the sky far away;--and I pray that\nsome words which he heard uttered upon one of those hills may be\nrealised here--that the physical situation of this place may be but a\nparable of its moral position--and that it may yet be said of the House\nof the Apostle that \"the rain descended, and the floods came, and the\nwinds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was\nfounded upon a rock.\"[8]\n\n\nIn 1888 Mr. Gardner of Paisley, publisher of the _Review_, was honoured\nwith the appointment of publisher to the Queen.  Bute, who was\ninterested in every detail concerning the periodical, wrote to the\neditor with one of his quaint comments:\n\n\n_September_ 30, 1888.\n\nI think it would be just as well that Gardner should put his Royal\ntitle at the foot of the title-page, as in his other publications, and\njust in the same way.  {146} I suppose H.M. will not consider that she\nis thus made responsible for all the opinions to be found within.  If\nshe does, it will be time for her to say so when it strikes her.\n\nI have just attacked a great frequenter and pillar of the Athenaeum Club\nfor not having us taken in there; and I hope he will succeed in wiping\nthis reproach from the institution.\n\n\nBute's control of the _Scottish Review_ was maintained until the end of\nhis life.  The seventy-second and final number appeared in October,\n1900, the month in which he died.  Occasional entries in his diaries\nshow that he had incurred very heavy expenses in connection with the\n_Review_--perhaps, from first to last, almost as heavy as those\nentailed on him by the establishment and support, twenty years before,\nof a Conservative daily newspaper in the heart of Liberal Wales.  As he\nhad not grudged that outlay in what he believed to be a good cause, so\nhe did not consider the money expended on this literary enterprise to\nhave been expended in vain.  If the _Scottish Review_ under his control\nhad not proved precisely a commercial success--and perhaps he had never\nreally expected that it would--its conduct and management had at least\nprovided him with congenial work and occupation during a period\nextending over several years.  It afforded him a convenient vehicle for\nthe publication of his curious researches into some of the obscurer\ncorners of ecclesiastical and general history: it brought him into\ncontact, either personally or by correspondence, with many\ndistinguished scholars and men of letters whom he might otherwise have\nhad no opportunity of knowing: it led indirectly to the forming of at\nleast one intimate friendship which was the source of pleasure and\ninterest to him until the {147} end of his life; and it brought him\nopportunities which he valued of playing the part of an unostentatious\nMaecenas--in other words, of giving practical encouragement to literary\nbeginners in whom he discerned actual ability or promise for the\nfuture, enabling them to make their first public appearance in a\nperiodical of repute, and thus assisting them to mount at least the\nfirst slopes of the Parnassus to which they aspired.\n\n[Sidenote: 1889, Death of Bishop Grant]\n\nReserved, undemonstrative, and cold as Bute was often deemed, there is\nabundant evidence that his colleagues and collaborators on the\n_Scottish Review_ appreciated highly the uniform courtesy,\nconsideration, and kindness which they received at his hands.  His real\nwarmth of heart and loyal affection to his friends are well shown in\nthe touching letter which he wrote on hearing of the death of his old\nand dear friend Bishop Colin Grant, who had not only contributed to the\n_Review_, but had given him, for many years past, constant and very\nhighly valued assistance in his researches into the early history of\nScotland.\n\n\n_September_ 28, 1889.\n\nMy own feelings are divided between grief for the loss of my old and\nesteemed personal friend, and a sense of desolation, almost amounting\nto despair, at the loss which Scottish historical science has\nsustained.  There must be among his papers masses of notes which ought\nnot to be lost to the world.  I have written to his nephew to implore\nhim not to let a single scrap of paper be destroyed.  As for himself,\nif we can only put aside our grief at the loss to ourselves, and at the\napparent loss to the Church upon earth, we can only feel a curious joy\nas we picture his admission, far beyond the sphere where time works,\ninto the blessed company of the just made perfect (especially those of\nour own land, on whose {148} earthly lives he loved so much to\ndwell[9]) and above all, into the very presence of their Divine Head,\nthe great Shepherd of the sheep, Whom to please he so humbly and\ncheerfully devoted a lifetime in striving to serve His flock.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Scottish Home Rule]\n\nA short time before writing this tribute to his old friend and\nfellow-worker, Bute had attended a meeting held at Dundee to advocate\nthe claims of Scotland to Home Rule--a claim which he regarded with a\ngreat deal of interest and not a little sympathy, as is evident from\nthe article he wrote for the _Scottish Review_ (October, 1889) on\n\"Parliament in Scotland.\"  He thus gives his impressions of the meeting:\n\n\nThe Home Rule meeting in Dundee seemed to me to be really a sort of\nbattle between Dr. Clark and the Edinburgh Executive on the one hand,\nwho gave me the impression of being well-informed, able, and educated\npeople, either Tories or very moderate Liberals, with whom I get on\nperfectly; and on the other hand the great body of delegates, who\nseemed to me to be extreme Radicals unconscious of their own ignorance.\nMrs. Maxwell Scott has read the proof of my forthcoming article, and is\nexceedingly pleased with it.  The Home Rule people all wanted to know\nwhether the _Scottish Review_ could not be turned into their monthly\norgan!  but I replied that such a change would be equivalent to\nannihilation of what the _S.R._ was designed to be, has always been,\nand is.\n\n\nBute had already accepted an engagement to preside this year (1889) at\nthe St. Andrew's Day dinner of the Scottish Corporation in London, but\n{149} was extremely dubious as to what kind of reception he would have\nfrom a company of whom many were doubtless quite out of sympathy with\nthe views on Scottish Home Rule set forth in this article.  His letter\non this subject, expressing his obvious relief at the manner in which\nthings had turned out, makes amusing reading:\n\n\nChiswick House,\n  _December_ 1, 1889.\n\nThe St. Andrew's Day dinner came off last night.  I had been extremely\nnervous about it, so that I could really take up nothing else until it\nwas over.  This was folly, and really almost sinful folly, because the\ndesire to be liked is only vanity at bottom, and vanity is a bastard\ncousin to pride.  But I knew also (and there I was on fair enough\nground) that, although politics were not to be mentioned, the thing was\nin fact to be a political demonstration, and that it was not yours\ntruly, John M. of B., who was to be placed in the chair, but the author\nof \"Parliament in Scotland\"; and the question was, how the Scottish\ncommercial colony in London would receive him.  It had even been\npublicly suggested in print that the charity should be boycotted\nbecause I had been asked to take the chair, \"although, no doubt,\" (the\nwriter charitably added,) \"that must have been done before the article\nappeared.\"  Well, the festival duly came off, and I think I was never\nmore cheered in my life.  They cheered for quite long periods every\ntime I had to come forward, from the time I entered the drawing-room\nbefore the dinner.  And I will not quote the language which was used to\nme about the speech which I made.\n\n\nThe interest which Bute had always felt in St. Magnus of Orkney since\nhis visit, or pilgrimage, to the scene of the saint's martyrdom in his\nunder-graduate days,[10] was evinced by the new and careful {150}\ninvestigations which he undertook in 1886, in view of an article on the\nsubject in his _Review_.  His cautious, yet reverent, attitude towards\nthe supernatural is well shown in a passage of a letter to his\npublisher, relating to the local tradition about a perennially green\nspot of ground said to mark the site of Magnus's death in the isle of\nEgilsay:\n\n\nI own that, with such information as I have ever had, together with my\nown recollections of the place, I am inclined to think that the\nphenomenon is, if not strictly miraculous, in the strongest sense of\nthe word, a special intervention of Divine Providence, which may be\ncalled a preternatural testimony of God's favour towards His martyred\nservant.\n\n\nBute later entered into negotiations for the purchase of the site above\nreferred to, with a view to its preservation; but this was not carried\nout.  He also wrote at considerable length to his correspondents in\nOrkney, throwing great doubts (as he had done nineteen years\npreviously) on the supposed bones (or \"reliques,\" as he calls them) of\nSt. Magnus preserved at Kirkwall--chiefly on account of the degenerate\ntype of the skull.  \"It may be,\" he characteristically says, \"that this\nonly indicates a triumph of grace over nature.  But it seems to me to\nbe incompatible, I will not say with holiness, but with the\nintellectual, high-minded, and beautiful character and tastes of the\nMartyr.\"  On these and other grounds he urges that the local\nphotographer of the skull must be strictly enjoined not to circulate\nthe photograph under false pretences.\n\n{151}\n\n[Sidenote: Relics of St. Magnus]\n\nA letter which Bute addressed (in Latin) to the Cardinal Archbishop of\nPrague as to reputed \"reliques\" of St. Magnus preserved in the\ncathedral there elicited no response.  \"The reliques of St. Magnus\nthemselves,\" Bute wrote in some displeasure, \"could not be more\nvoiceless than the Cardinal of Prague in regard to my (I hope)\ncourteously-worded request.\"  Through Cardinal Manning, however,\ninformation finally reached him that the relics at Prague (venerated\nthere for several centuries) included a shoulder-blade.  This was\nmissing from the bones in Kirkwall Cathedral--so far satisfactory; but\nthey also included a shin-bone (_crus_), whereas the shin-bones\n(_crura_) at Kirkwall were complete and intact.[11]  Bute's final\nconclusion (and the incident is recorded as showing the curious\ninterest with which he pursued such minute investigations) was that the\nbones at Kirkwall were not St. Magnus's at all, but probably those of\nEarl St. Rognwald, nephew to St. Magnus, another Norse saint and hero\nvenerated in the same locality.  He thought it worth while to insert in\nthe _Review_ a letter from Orkney informing him that there was a\ntradition in Egilsay that one would always find an open flower on the\nsite of the martyrdom, and that the writer had found there on December\n10, after heavy snow and gales, several daisies in full bloom.[12]\n\n{152}\n\nThe first two years of Bute's connection with the _Scottish Review_\nwere perhaps among the busiest of his life, not only because of the\nassiduous care which, as we have seen, he devoted to the conduct and\ncontrol of that journal, but also by reason of the increasing duties\nwhich devolved on him in connection with his extensive estates.  To the\nlatter he made very considerable additions at this period, increasing\nhis Buteshire property in 1886 by the acquisition of the island of\nCumbrae from the trustees of the sixth Earl of Glasgow, and also\npurchasing in the following year the important estate of Falkland in\nFife, to which was annexed an office of the greatest interest to him,\nthe hereditary keepership of the ancient palace of Falkland.  In\nCardiff, also, there was a great increase of business connected with\nthe reorganisation of the vast docks.  The new Roath Dock was opened in\n1887 by his six-year-old heir, Lord Dumfries (his first appearance in\npublic), and on the same day his youthful daughter cut the first sod of\nRoath Park, for which he had made a free gift of land valued at\nL50,000.  His generosity was further shown after the disastrous failure\nof the Cardiff Savings Bank, when it was sought to make him liable as\nhonorary president of the institution.  As soon as it was judicially\ndecided that there was no claim whatever against him, he voluntarily\ncontributed L3,000 towards making up the deficiency.  In the previous\nyear he had manifested his liberality towards his Scottish tenants by\nobtaining (in view {153} of the prevalent agricultural depression) an\nindependent valuation of his farms in Bute, and reducing the rents by a\nthird.  It was not without reason that the local Liberal newspaper, in\nmany respects even vehemently hostile to him, described him as \"a just\nand generous landowner\"; whilst in Cardiff this handsome tribute was\npaid to him by one extremely well qualified to pronounce an opinion:\n\"As regarded his estates, he was, of course, a most excellent and\nliberal landlord, as all who had the privilege of being his tenants\nwould certainly admit.\"\n\n[Illustration: FALKLAND PALACE.]\n\n[Sidenote: 1889, A cathedral foundation]\n\nMuch of Bute's correspondence at this period is taken up with a scheme\nwhich he had greatly at heart, namely, the establishment of the full\nliturgical service of the Church at Oban, where his diocesan (the\nBishop of Argyll and the Isles) had his see, and where he himself had\nbuilt a handsome church.  He was concerned that the canonical office of\nthe Roman Breviary, for which he had so high a veneration, should not\nbe recited daily in a single cathedral church throughout Britain;[13]\nand he incurred a great deal of trouble and expense in his efforts that\nthis reproach should be wiped out at least in one church in Scotland.\nHe defrayed the whole cost of organ and organist, choirmen and\nchorister-boys, instituted and supported a convent-school for the\neducation of the last-named, and paid a chaplain for the exclusive work\nof presiding in choir and singing the daily Mass.  The question of\nproviding a chaplain {154} exercised him much, and he wrote to a friend\nin Italy on this point:\n\n\n_May_ 8, 1886.\n\nI imagined that, the duties being light and the remuneration (I venture\nto think) adequate, a chaplain could easily be found; but the\ndifficulties seem endless.  Whether the cause be chronic ill-health,\nconstitutional indolence, or an entire want of interest in the Liturgy,\nI know not; but so far no priest has been found in England or Scotland\nable or willing to celebrate the daily sung Mass.  Kindly set on foot\ninquiries among the unattached clergy of Rome, popularly known as\n_preti di piazza_--many of them, I believe, estimable priests,\nunoccupied through no fault of their own--and see if one can be found\nto supply our needs.  Unexceptionable references would be, of course,\nrequired.\n\n\nThis and other difficulties were in time overcome, and the daily choral\noffice was duly carried out for a period extending over several years,\nand was much appreciated by the numerous Catholic visitors who\nfrequented Oban during the summer and autumn.  Unfortunately it was not\nfound possible to continue the daily services for any long time after\nthe death of the founder.\n\nBute expressed, with his usual frankness, his sentiments on the subject\nof the rather nondescript festivals commonly known as \"church openings\":\n\n\nChiswick House,\n  _April_ 17, 1886.\n\nI am suffering much at present from the persistent wish of my Lord of\nArgyll to have what he calls an \"opening\" of the tin temple[14] in\nAugust--_i.e._ {155} during the tourist and shooting season.  This\nanomalous celebration is not designed in honour of the inauguration for\npublic worship, which was last Sunday; nor its ecclesiastical blessing,\nwhich is arranged for an earlier date, nor the inception of the Divine\noffice--but something in the nature of the \"opening\" of the Westminster\nAquarium, a new Dissenting Chapel, municipal washhouses, or a fancy\nfair, with (I presume) tickets, placards, and posters, and probably\nexcursion-trains.  The bishop seems moved by a conviction that the\nlocal Protestants are anticipating a junketing of this kind with even\nmore eagerness than the Catholics.  But he is a gentleman; and I am\nsure when he knows how I hate the whole thing he will give it up.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1886, Church building in Scotland]\n\nBesides the pro-cathedral at Oban, Bute was interesting himself this\nyear (1886) in building a church at a mining town in Ayrshire, near\nLoudoun Castle, the ancestral home of his mother's family.  Discarding,\nas usual, conventional ideas, he chose for his model the great church\nof St. Sophia at Constantinople, of which the church at Galston was a\ncarefully-executed miniature copy.  One of the first solemn services\nheld in it was a Requiem Mass celebrated for Lord Loudoun's sister,\nFlora Duchess of Norfolk, who died on April 11, 1887.  Lord and Lady\nBute attended her funeral at Arundel, and also that of Clara Lady\nHoward of Glossop, Lady Bute's sister-in-law, whose death occurred a\nfew days later.\n\n\n\n[1] \"The Earliest Scottish Coronations\": \"The Coronation of Charles I.\nat Holyrood\"; \"The Coronation of Charles II. at Scone.\"  These appeared\nin the _Review_, 1887-1888, and were reprinted, with an additional\narticle and an Appendix, in 1902, after Bute's death.\n\n[2] \"Giordano Bruno before the Venetian Inquisition\" (July, 1888): \"The\nUltimate Fate of Giordano Bruno\" (October, 1888).\n\n[3] In his first trial (at Venice) Bruno tried to defend himself on the\nprinciple of \"two-fold truth,\" maintaining that he had held and taught\nthe errors imputed to him \"as a philosopher, and not as an honest\nChristian.\"\n\n[4] It does not appear on the official _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_\npublished at the Vatican Press.\n\n[5] This may seem a severe judgment; but some contemporary French\ncritics of Mr. Froude had much harder things to say about his literary\nhonesty.  \"L'historien d' Henry VIII. et d'Elizabeth,\" wrote M. de\nWyzewa, \"etait victime de ce q'un critique a appele 'la folie\nd'inexactitude.'  Il ne pouvait pas copier un document sans y\nintroduire des variantes qui souvent en alteraient le sens.\"--\"Rev. des\nDeux Mondes,\" tom. xv. (1903), p. 937.\n\n[6] \"Essays on Foreign Subjects\" (1901), and \"Essays on Home Subjects\"\n(1904).\n\n[7] The occasion of this striking utterance was an annual meeting of\nthe Scottish History Society, held subsequent to Bute's death.\n\n[8] Reprinted in \"Essays on Home Subjects\" (1904), pp. 263, 264.\n\n[9] Bishop Grant was, among other things, a noted hagiographer, having\nmade profound studies of the lives and acts of the early Celtic saints\nof Scotland.\n\n[10] See _ante_, p. 50.  The writing of the article on St. Magnus was\nentrusted to Mrs. Maxwell Scott of Abbotsford, but illness prevented\nher from completing it, and Bute himself, as he says, \"saw it through.\"\nIt was published in January, 1887.\n\n[11] Although the high authority of the Bollandists (_Acta Sanctorum_,\nApril, tom. II. p. 435) is on the side of the relics at Prague being\nactually those of St. Magnus of Orkney, King and Martyr, it is\nimpossible not to remember that there was another St. Magnus (popularly\nknown as St. Mang), monk of St. Gall and Apostle of the Algau, who was\ngreatly venerated in Germany, and whose _cultus_ would seem more\nantecedently probable at Prague than that of the holy Norse Earl.\n\n[12] In March, 1919, thirty-three years after Bute's second\ninvestigation of the supposed relics of St. Magnus, a discovery was\nmade fully justifying his grave doubts as to the identity of the bones\ninterred in the north pillar of the choir of Kirkwall Cathedral.  A\ncasket was found in one of the _southern_ pillars of the choir,\ncontaining remains (including a skull with a clean cut in the parietal\nbone and a sword-cut through the jaw,) which there seems reason to\nbelieve may be the actual relics of St. Magnus.\n\n[13] At Belmont Abbey, until recently cathedral of the diocese of\nNewport (in which Cardiff lay), the daily Divine office has been\nchanted by monks without intermission for more than sixty years; but\ntheir office is of course the Benedictine, not the Roman.  The latter\nhas been recited daily, and continuously, in Westminster Cathedral\nsince its opening in 1902.\n\n[14] The Oban pro-cathedral was a provisional structure of iron, but\nits interior was handsomely and even richly fitted up at Bute's\nexpense.  He usually gave the name of \"tin temples\" to the iron chapels\nwhich he set up in various parts of the country.\n\n\n\n\n{156}\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nFOREIGN TRAVEL--ST. JOHN'S LODGE--MAYOR OF CARDIFF\n\n1888-1891\n\nNotwithstanding the increasing and incessant claims on his time and\nattention of literature, business, and family duties, there were few,\nif any, years in which Bute was not able to secure an interval of what\nto him was real enjoyment, in foreign travel.  Even from such\njourneys--and they were not infrequent--as were undertaken purely for\nreasons of health, he seldom failed to derive both pleasure and profit.\n\"I am ordered abroad at once,\" he wrote on one occasion, \"to drink the\nwaters of Chales, in Savoy.  They are, I believe, exceptionally nasty,\nbut you know how I like being abroad, and I am quite in spirits at the\nprospect of the trip.\"  He never travelled very far afield, his most\ndistant journeyings having been, perhaps, to Petersburg (in Lord\nRosebery's company) and to Teneriffe in 1891.  The countries bordering\non the Mediterranean, France and Italy, Spain and Portugal, Palestine,\nEgypt and Greece, were the scenes of most of his foreign sojournings;\nand in them all he found sources of continual and inexhaustible\ninterest.  He had travelled a good deal abroad with his mother in his\nchildhood, and often recalls in his diary these early visits:\n\n\n{157}\n\n_July_ 30, 1886.  The very same rooms at the Belle Vue, Brussels, as we\nhad when I came here in childhood....  The house is full of Americans,\nas like one another (to English eyes) as Chinese or negroes.  It is\nimpossible to tell them apart.[1]\n\n\nAt Dresden also, a few months later, he records his vivid recollections\nof an early visit to that capital.  This was the year of his first\npilgrimage to the shrine of Wagner at Bayreuth (he attended the\nfestival there also in 1888 and 1891).  Many of his letters to the\neditor of the _Scottish Review_ are dated from foreign addresses; and\ninterspersed in these with business and literary details are numerous\npicturesque notes on the customs and doings of the people among whom he\nwas living.  The descriptions of the religious observances of the\ninhabitants of Sorrento have a certain piquancy, when one remembers\nthat they were addressed to a minister of the Scottish Presbyterian\nChurch.  Bute wrote on such matters _currente calamo_, and took for\ngranted--no doubt with reason--that his friend would be as much\ninterested in such matters as he was himself.\n\n\nRome,\n  _February_ 15, 1888.\n\nWe had a magnificent voyage, which made me feel immediately in a most\nrobust and lively condition.  I find, however, that a calm in the Bay\nof Biscay, such as we had, is considered ill-omened by the sailors; and\none of the passengers committed {158} suicide on the night before we\nleft Gibraltar.  Curiously enough, the same thing happened in the same\ncircumstances on another occasion which I remember of a calm in the\nsame spot.  We landed at Naples last Saturday.  The lewdness, cruelty,\netc., of the Neapolitans seems as bad as usual; but some non-Neapolitan\nclergy have lately been introduced, who say Mass very reverently, and\npreach and pray in the vernacular.  I hear they are beginning to do\nmuch good.  We arrived here yesterday, and are fasting to-day (Ash\nWednesday) in great discomfort.  Rome is crowded.  The Scotch\ndeputation (about 140 persons) is to be received by the Pope to-morrow\nat 10.30 a.m.\n\n\nBute read the address to Pope Leo XIII. on behalf of the Scottish\npilgrimage, which had come to Rome to join with the rest of Christendom\nin congratulating the venerable Pontiff on the celebration of his\nsacerdotal jubilee.  From Sorrento, where he afterwards spent several\nweeks, he wrote to Dr. Metcalfe on Holy Saturday:\n\n\nThe people had their fill (I should hope) of services, and especially\nof preaching, yesterday (Good Friday).  They began with a procession\nround the town at 4 a.m., which I did _not_ join, commemorative of the\nprocession to Calvary.  The Liturgy began in the cathedral at 8, and\nended at 11.  At 1 a man began preaching in the cathedral and went on\ntill 4.15--I wonder he could do it.  The church was full, and all, even\nsmall boys and girls, very attentive.  He preached nine sermons, or\nrather one enormous sermon in nine points, with short and very sweet\nItalian anthems sung between each.  Many of the congregation were\naffected to tears.  The service of _Tenebrae_ began at 5 and lasted an\nhour and a half; then they began another procession through the\nstreets, this time in commemoration of Christ being {159} borne to the\ngrave.  A spectator said to me quite cheerily that this procession was\ngoing the round of seven churches; and that there would be a sermon in\neach.  At 9.30 p.m. I heard from our garden the town band (which\naccompanied the procession) still playing in the distance sacred music\nand funeral marches.  The people are now buying at the confectioners'\nsmall lambs made of the least indigestible sugar procurable, so that\nthey may \"eat the lamb this night\" without violating the Lenten law of\nabstinence from flesh meat.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Easter at Sorrento]\n\nA long letter addressed to the same correspondent on Easter Monday\nseems worth reproducing almost in its entirety.  It affords testimony,\nmore convincing than any words of a biographer could be, of Bute's\nextraordinary interest in the religious services of his Church, and of\nthe vivid and even moving eloquence which inspired his pen when\ndescribing the worship and the devotion of the simple Campanian folk\namong whom he was temporarily sojourning:\n\n\nThe people go on hearing sermons.  There were at least two delivered in\nthe Cathedral on Sunday, at 7 and 10 a.m.  These preachments have their\npeculiar features, besides their length.  They seem very often to\nconclude with an _extempore_ prayer.  I call it _extempore_, although\nit is of course prepared beforehand, and, in the works at any rate of\nSt. Alfonso Liguori, these prayers are printed along with the sermons\nto which they belong; but no MS. is used.  When the prayer begins the\npeople generally kneel down, and sometimes the preacher asks them to\njoin with him, in which case he prays very slowly, and they repeat\nafter him.  One day I went into the large Church of the Saviour at\nMeta.  There was barely standing-room.  A man was preaching against\n{160} blasphemous swearing.  After a time he dictated to the\ncongregation a sort of pledge never to commit this sin again, and many\nof them repeated it after him.  He then, after the manner of old\nprecentors I have heard of in the Highlands, when the people could not\nread, sang an hymn line by line, the people singing every line after\nhim.  After this he knelt down in the pulpit and offered a long and\nvehement _extempore_ prayer; and when this was over he rose and began\non the same subject again.  I then left.\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Church services at Sorrento]\n\nOn the Feast of St. Benedict there were special services in the\nBenedictine convent church here.  Before Benediction, the Archbishop\nofficiating, the whole congregation sang the _Te Deum_ together by\nheart, in Latin.  Then the Archbishop began to preach, from the\naltar--a series of puns on the name of Benedict (_Benedetto_,\n\"Blessed\"), very well done.  He spoke of the blessedness of the\nservants of God, here and hereafter, and in reference, no doubt, to the\nnuns behind their grating as well as to the women in the church, made\nallusion to the special blessedness of the women who serve God.  This\nwas followed by a long _extempore_ prayer, the people (who had stood\nwhile he preached) sinking on their knees.  He besought a blessing on\nhimself and his flock, naming the different classes of his people in\nturn with great simplicity and fervour.  The final supplication that\nall--not one being missing from the flock--might at last be brought\ntogether in the glory of heaven, was very moving.  Then he gave the\nSacramental benediction.\n\nThe use of the vernacular seems to be very considerable.  At the\nparochial Mass on Sundays, besides the sermon, and Italian prayers\nbefore Mass begins, at certain moments the whole congregation repeat\nItalian prayers together.  The similarity of their language to Latin\nrobs the latter of much of its terror.  Many of the commoner Latin\nhymns, etc., they seem all to know by heart quite familiarly.  {161} I\nhave spoken of the _Te Deum_.  On Saturday they all sang the Litany,\nrepeating every clause after the precentors.  On Thursday, while the\nSacrament for next day's Communion was being carried to the Chapel of\nRepose, the whole congregation sang on their knees the hymn of Thomas\nAquinas upon the Last Supper; and the sublimity of the words, the\nspectacle of the kneeling multitude, and the solemnity of the\nprocession moving through the church, made a very impressive whole.\nThe clergy here are all extremely clean and respectable-looking, and\nvery decorous and reverential, both out of church and in.  And this\nremark applies also to the whole of the Divinity students, and the\nwhole choir and staff of the Cathedral.  The music--even when poor--is\nvery grave and solemn; the services are conducted (and evidently\nprepared) with the utmost care, and a certain effect of subdued\nsplendour is produced--with the air of being produced incidentally and\nunintentionally--by the real costliness and richness, combined with\nscrupulous cleanliness and neatness, of every object and garment\nemployed, in their several degrees.\n\nThe admirably conducted services in the Cathedral have had a damaging\neffect on the Anglican chapel, some of the congregation of which have\nbeen assiduously attending them, to the not unnatural annoyance of the\nclergyman in charge, whose own domestic circle is not unaffected by the\ncontagion.  The erratic sheep, when summoned to private interviews of\nremonstrance, meet their pastor with questions as to what possible\ngrounds Bishop Sandford of Gibraltar can have for pretending to possess\nand exercise Episcopal authority in the diocese of Sorrento.\n\nI hope these details may interest you.\n\n\nIt may be said that practically every one of Bute's journeyings to\nforeign lands either partook {162} more or less of the nature of a\npilgrimage, or else was made in search of health.  Pre-eminent among\nthe first class were his frequent visits to the Holy Land, of which\nsome account has already been given.  Except for occasional references\nin his letters, we have little about these from his own pen.  \"My\nlatest pilgrimage to the Holy Places,\" he writes on one occasion, \"has\nbeen extraordinarily blessed to me.\"  It is of interest in this\nconnection to cite some passages inserted in the fly-leaf of a copy of\nStanley's \"Sinai and Palestine,\" presented by Bute to a friend.  They\nare not in his own handwriting--except the Latin quotation (from St.\nLuke xii. 34) at the end--nor is there any evidence as to their\nauthorship; but their sentiment is undoubtedly one which would strongly\nappeal to him:\n\n\nThe attractions of Rome and Jerusalem are not comparable, and should\nnot be compared.  The interest of Rome is of course by far the more\nvaried.  Not all who journey thither go to venerate the Tombs of the\nApostles.  There are those to whom the Palace of the Caesars appeals\nmore than do basilicas built by Popes, who regard the Colosseum rather\nas the monument of emperors than as the palaestra of martyrs, to whom\nthe Mamertine prison speaks of Catiline rather than of St. Peter.[2]\nPeople throng {163} to Rome not only to pray, but to study art,\nantiquities, and music, to enjoy the most cosmopolitan society in\nEurope, sometimes to hunt foxes on the Campagna.  Jerusalem, on the\nother hand, is a city of faith, and (roughly speaking) all who visit it\ndo so as pilgrims.  _Illuc enim ascenderunt tribus, tribus Domini_.\nRome has a thousand charms--Jerusalem one, but that one transcendent.\nIts sacred soil has been trodden by the feet of God made man, and it is\nthe Holy City as no other city can ever be.  _Ubi enim thesaurus vesler\nest, ibi cor vestrum erit_.[3]\n\n\nThe last words, written by Bute himself at the foot of the manuscript\njust quoted, are of particular interest, referring, as they doubtless\ndo, to his long-cherished resolve that his heart, after his death,\nshould mingle with the sacred dust of the Mount of Olives.\n\n[Sidenote: At Ober-Ammergau]\n\nThe visits to the Ober-Ammergau Passion-play, which Bute made in 1871,\nin company with Bishop Clifford and two Oxford friends, again in 1880\nwith his wife, and also in 1890, were undertaken, too, in the pilgrim\nspirit.  \"We start for Ober-Ammergau on Monday,\" he wrote on September\n11, 1880, \"and are both hoping to reap spiritual good from our stay\nthere.\"  A letter to his old friend at Oxford on his return home gives\nsome interesting impressions:\n\n\nThe new theatre looks like a railway station, and the stage\narrangements are considerably more elaborate than they were nine years\nago.  The crowd, too, was infinitely greater, but its behaviour was on\nthe whole decent, except for some attempts to applaud (emanating, I\nfear, from our countrymen), {164} which were extremely distressing.\nThe play itself was not less impressive than I remember it; and I was\npleased with the simplicity and piety of the people, who seem unspoilt\nby the leap within recent years of their retired village into fame.  I\nventured to express, through a German-speaking friend, my satisfaction\non this point to one of the most respected inhabitants of the place\n(one of the principal actors); and his reply (of which my friend gave\nme a translation) pleased me very much.  \"God be thanked,\" he said,\n\"that is true; but it would not be so if we accepted the many offers\nmade to us to give representations of the Passion-play in various\ncities of Europe.  Also it is well for our people that the play is\ngiven but once in ten years; for in the intervals we lead our\naccustomed quiet life in this valley, and a new generation of children\nhas time to grow up in the old traditions of the place.\"[4]\n\n\nBute refers later, in letters written from Bayreuth, to what he calls\nthe \"outrage\" of applause from the audience during the performance of\n_Parsifal_, in terms which indicates how strongly he felt the religious\nappeal of the Wagnerian drama:\n\n\nBayreuth,\n  _July_ 23, 1888.\n\nOn Sunday the illiterate part of the audience insisted on applauding\nActs II. and III. of _Parsifal_, in spite of all the protests of the\ncultured hearers; and the effect was most distressing and shocking.\nThe {165} allusions to the Eucharist are of such a nature that it was\nalmost as unseemly as it would be to clap a church choir during the\nCommunion Service; and putting aside the gross irreverence and\nunseemliness of such conduct, it is an outrage and fraud on the public,\nwho are at these moments wrapped in religious thought, and whom it is\nbrutal and shameful to disturb by a revolting noise.\n\n\nIn his diary for 1891, Bute notes that he had written a letter to Frau\nWagner, begging her to take steps to prevent any applause during the\nrepresentation of _Parsifal_; but it is not recorded if this appeal had\nthe desired effect.\n\n[Sidenote: Incognito in Sicily]\n\nThe travels on the Continent were carried out without any sort of\nostentation; and Bute found it even expedient occasionally to preserve\nhis incognito when abroad.  Thus he wrote on one occasion to one of his\noldest friends:\n\n\n_Ascension Day_, 1882.\n  Aci Reale, Sicily.\n\nThe outside of your letter gave me, I confess, less pleasure than any I\nhave ever had from you.  You know the state of Sicily, and the way\nbrigands have with people whom they believe to have money.\nConsequently, when ordered here by the doctors I was urged both in\nNaples and Messina to drop my title absolutely; and I am known here\nonly as \"B. Crichton Stuart.\"  You may thus imagine the discontent with\nwhich I saw \"The Marquess of Bute\" staring me in the face out of the\nletter-rack in the hall.\n\nPray be most careful both to address me only as B.C.S., and also to\nkeep your knowledge of my whereabouts most strictly to yourself.  I\nneed not point out the great annoyance and possible danger to which you\nmight otherwise expose me.\n\nI have been very ailing for more than a year.  {166} Sometimes I feel\nas though the horizon of life were closing in, and wish I could recall\nthe rest of the verse beginning:\n\n  When languor and disease invade\n    This trembling house of clay....[5]\n\nBut the warmth and sunshine here are helping me.  I propose, when my\n\"cure\" is over (for good or evil), to go to Greece, and look for\nquarters in Athens where I may spend the winter with my wife and child.\n\nI prefer this place to Italy, at least to Naples, whose people on the\nwhole impress me as the off-scourings of humanity.  The great\ndifference between Sicily and Italy strikes me very much: it is,\nperhaps, due to the fact that Sicily belongs (I believe), both\ngeographically and geologically, to Africa.\n\n\nFrom Egypt, where he spent one spring, being ordered a spell of dry\ndesert air by the doctors, he wrote characteristically to a friend (a\nBenedictine monk), then resident in a remote corner of Brazil:\n\n\nHelouan, Egypt.\n\nI deserve your reproaches for not writing before.  But really one has a\nfeeling (I know _I_ have) that writing to a distant address is,\nliterally and physically, an heavier undertaking than writing to a near\none.  Query: If some philosophers are right in thinking that space, as\nwell as time, is purely subjective, may not this have something to do\nwith it?\n\n\nOne or two notes from his diary in Egypt are interesting:\n\n\"_March_ 7.  Amin Nassif brought a \"professed {167} sorcerer to see me\"\n(a later note adds, \"I believe him to be a pure impostor\").\n\n\"_March_ 15.  Tried the ascent of the great Pyramid, but collapsed from\ngiddiness half-way.  Margaret [his daughter, then aged sixteen] had no\ndifficulty.\"[6]\n\n\"_April_ 6.  Monophysite Copts do not now reserve the B. Sacrament\n(although they formerly did so), because the species was once eaten by\na snake, which was then eaten by a priest, who died in consequence!\"\n\n\"_April_ 24 (Alexandria).  At the Greek Catholic church the new French\nConsul was received with extraordinary honour by three priests, vested\nrespectively in red, white, and blue!  There was no sermon, but a\nspeech in which the benefits conferred by France on Syria and Egypt\nwere highly praised.\"\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1891, Trip to Teneriffe]\n\nAnother journey which may be mentioned here was his trip to Teneriffe\nin the spring of 1891.  His health at this time was far from robust,\nand was indeed causing some anxiety to his friends; but he was\ndetermined as usual to gain from his visit intellectual profit as well\nas (if possible) some benefit to his health.  He wrote to H. D.\nGrissell on March 16, 1891:\n\n\nOrotava, Teneriffe.\n\nI date to you from this eccentric place, whither I have come to try and\npatch myself together by a stay of a few weeks.  Of course these\nislands are utterly unknown to me, and the vegetation in particular is\nat first sight quite startlingly novel.  The air is delicious, but I\nfeel the want of sun, and there is much cold wind.  As Piazzi Smyth\nspeaks much of the clouds here, I suspect that this stupendous {168}\nmountain (of which we rarely see the top, and only in early morning or\nlate evening) has much to do with it.\n\n\nThe outcome of Bute's sojourn in the Canary Islands was a remarkable\npaper, \"On the Ancient Language of the Inhabitants of Teneriffe,\" which\nhe read at the meeting that summer of the British Association at\nCardiff, and afterwards published in the _Scottish Review_.  Like most\nof his writings on such recondite subjects, it was more or less\n\"caviare to the general\"; but it aroused considerable attention among\nphilologists, who recognised it as a genuine and valuable contribution\nto linguistic science.  Professor Sayce wrote to him from Queen's\nCollege, Oxford:\n\n\n_October_ 17, 1891.\n\nMany thanks for your kindness in sending me your monograph on the\nextinct language of Teneriffe.  I wish that all linguistic\ninvestigations had been conducted with similar care and caution; we\nshould have had fewer difficulties to contend with in the study of\nlinguistic science.  You have shown us exactly what are the materials\non which we can base our opinion on the ancient language of Teneriffe,\nand how far those materials can be trusted.  For this reason your paper\nseems to me to be of very real value.\n\n\nIt seems right to refer in this place to another and later tribute paid\nby another and equally distinguished man of science, who in his\nestimate of Bute's remarkable attainments makes special allusion to the\narticle we are now considering.  Sir William Huggins, who was very\nintimate with him in the later years of his life, wrote as follows:\n\n\nThe Marquess of Bute was one of those, the deeper side of whose mind\nand character could be duly {169} appreciated only by those who had the\nprivilege of his friendship.  A man of great natural gifts, he was\nhighly cultured on many sides; and the extent and the variety of his\ninformation on a vast variety of subjects was really remarkable.  No\nscientist[7] could discuss a scientific matter with him without being\nstruck by the clear-sighted way in which he saw into the heart of the\nmatter, and the fairness and patience with which he would weigh and\nconsider it from various points of view.  These qualities were well\nshown in the very interesting and valuable paper on \"The Ancient\nLanguage of the Natives of Teneriffe\" contributed by him to the British\nAssociation when it met at Cardiff....  Lord Bute's sensitive nature\nrevolted from the killing of any living thing.  But he was keenly\ninterested in natural history, and had a knowledge of many creatures\nand of their habits as intimate and searching as that of the most\nscientific sportsman.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Home in Regent's Park]\n\nThe reference in the last paragraph recalls the fact that when (in\n1888) Lord Bute first acquired a London domicile, purchasing the\ntwenty-seven years' lease of St. John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, he was\nparticularly interested in finding himself in close proximity to both\nthe Zoological and the Botanic Gardens.  A priest who was often his\nguest there used to say that he could walk on the terrace, with its\nmatchless view of garden and park and forest trees, and recite his\nOffice in perfect quietness, with the tumult of London reduced to a\ndistant hum, and the silence only occasionally broken by the roar of\nwild beasts in the \"Zoo\" not far away.  Bute was {170} a fellow of both\nsocieties, and often strolled in one or other of the gardens with his\nguests or members of his family of a Sunday afternoon, talking freely\nwith the custodians of animals and plants, and not infrequently\nastonishing them with the variety of his knowledge.  One of his guests\nwas looking, in the Botanic Gardens, at a remarkable and\nrecently-acquired collection of dwarf Japanese trees, and observed that\nLord Bute would be interested in seeing them.  \"Yes,\" was the reply,\n\"his lordship knows a lot about plants.  But then, he knows a lot about\nmost things, don't he, sir?\"[8]\n\n[Sidenote: 1888, Hospitalities in London]\n\nThat Bute did know \"a lot about most things\" was undoubtedly true; and\nwhat used often to strike those who were intimate with him was the\nsingular _orderliness_ of his knowledge.  \"His memory was prodigious,\"\nwrites one who often consulted him on points of history, \"and he seemed\nto me to keep everything which he had ever learned or read stored away,\nso to speak, in watertight compartments of his brain, ready for instant\nuse when called for.\"  But he never paraded his knowledge of history or\nanything else, and one of his most engaging characteristics was the\nextreme respect and, indeed, deference which he paid to acknowledged\nmasters of any branch of learning or science.  He welcomed the\nopportunity which his occasional periods of residence in London\nafforded him of offering hospitality to such.  \"My experience of men of\nintellectual eminence,\" he once said, \"has been that they are not only\ninteresting, {171} but as a rule extremely agreeable.\"  Among those who\nfrom time to time were his guests at St. John's Lodge were men of such\nvaried distinction as Lord Halsbury, Lord Rosebery, Mr. W. H. Mallock,\nSir Ernest A. W. Budge, F.S.A., Cardinal Vaughan, Sir William Huggins,\nMr. Walter Birch, Mr. Westlake, Sir William Crookes, Mr. F. W. H.\nMyers, etc.  Later on, after the presentation of his only daughter, his\ncharming house in Regent's Park (which, as well as its spacious\ngardens, he did much to improve and adorn) became the centre of much\nagreeable hospitality of a more general kind.  Bute himself was pleased\nto think that the entertainments given there in the beautiful\nball-room--lit from garlands of Venetian glass, and opening on to the\nilluminated grounds--were popular and appreciated by society.  \"I\nreally think,\" he wrote, \"that people enjoy making up parties to come\nto us on these occasions.  Regent's Park is a _terra incognita_ to a\ngreat many Londoners; and there is perhaps a certain piquancy about a\nplace which almost simulates to be a country house and is yet only a\nshilling cab-fare from Piccadilly Circus.\"\n\nIn 1888, the same year in which he acquired his London residence, Bute\npaid his first visit to Falkland, his new possession in Fife--his\nfirst, that is, as owner of the estate and keeper of the ancient\npalace; for (as he notes in his diary) he had visited it as a boy of\nthirteen, nearly thirty years previously, in the company of Lady\nElizabeth Moore, and had been there before more than once with his\nmother.  The firstfruits of his new connection with the place was a\ncarefully-written paper on \"David Duke of Rothesay,\" the hapless heir\nof Robert III., said to have been starved to death in Falkland Palace\nin March, {172} 1402.[9]  Of this article the friendly critic already\nquoted[10] appreciatively writes:\n\n\nLord Bute's qualities as a historian appear conspicuously in the\nlecture on David Duke of Rothesay, where the scanty material available\nabout this unfortunate prince is treated in a truly scientific spirit.\nThe zeal for truth shown in it is only equalled by his noble desire,\neven at the eleventh hour, to do justice to the poor lad so cruelly\nmurdered by his contemporaries and misrepresented by posterity.\n\n\nA rumour had been widely current, in the year of Queen Victoria's\ngolden jubilee, that Bute was to be created \"Jubilee\" Duke of\nGlamorgan.  It is permissible to question whether his patriotism would\nhave allowed him to consent to the merging of his historic Scottish\ntitle in a brand-new one derived from a Welsh county; but his only\nwritten reference to the matter appears in a letter to a friend who had\nsent him a newspaper-cutting on the subject:\n\n\nI cannot believe that there is anything in the report to which you have\ncalled my attention.  Were it so, I imagine that I should have heard of\nit before now through some other channel than the Society columns of a\nhalfpenny newspaper.\n\n\nIn the spring of 1890 the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Glamorganshire,\nthen vacant, was offered to him {173} by the Prime Minister (Lord\nSalisbury), but he did not see his way to accept it.  A single line in\nhis diary records the fact; but there is a brief further mention of it\nin a letter written at the time:\n\n\nI have little or no acquaintance with the county, or with \"them that\ndwell therein\" beyond the limits of Cardiff and of my own property.\nFor this and other more personal reasons, I have--in, I hope, a not\nunbecoming letter--begged leave to decline the honour.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1890, Mayor of Cardiff]\n\nWith another offer made to him a little later in the same year Bute\nfound himself able to comply, much to the satisfaction of all\nconcerned.  This was a requisition that he should allow himself to be\nnominated as Mayor of Cardiff for 1890-91.  It is a point of\nconsiderable interest, and one certainly illustrative of the strong\nsense of duty which always animated him, that the first peer to hold\nthe highest municipal office in any English or Welsh borough for\nseveral generations--certainly since the Reform Bill--should have been\none whom his natural love of retirement, and aversion from public\ndisplay, might have prompted to refuse any office of the kind.  Once\nelected, he attended with sedulous care to such duties as devolved on\nhim in virtue of his office; and early in 1891 he wrote to his old\nfriend Miss Skene, giving a cheerful account of his stewardship.  The\nlast part of this letter, in which some of his deeper feelings are\ntouchingly disclosed, would have appealed with very special force to\nhis correspondent, one of the chief works of whose life at Oxford was\nthe rescue of girls and women; and for that reason a portion of her\nreply is appended:\n\n\n{174}\n\nCardiff,\n  _January_ 23, 1891.\n\nMY DEAR MISS SKENE,\n\nThis gorgeous paper[11] is that which the town of Cardiff supplies for\nthe use of its mayors.  As I have had nothing to do personally with\noriginating it, I may freely say that I think it very pretty.  And the\narms of the town are certainly interesting historically, as a memorial\nof the De Clares, Lords of Glamorgan, of whom the last male\nrepresentative fell at Bannockburn in 1314.\n\nI get on pretty well with my civic government here.  My official\nconfidants are nearly all Radical Dissenters, but we manage in quite a\nfriendly way.  They only elected me as a kind of figure-head; and\nalthough they are good enough to be glad whenever I take part in\ndetails, I am willing to leave these in the hands of people with more\nexperience than myself, as far as I properly and conscientiously can do\nso.\n\nI have, however, felt it to be my duty (owing to some terrible facts)\nto insist upon the enforcement of the laws for the protection of little\ngirls; and here I find unanimous and hearty support from quite a\nmajority of the officials, who differ from one another as widely as\npossible upon every religious, political, and social question.  I\nlearned yesterday of a certain lot of children whom I have been\nhonoured to be the instrument of getting out of a bad house of the\nworst kind.  This will cheer me on my death-bed--or beyond, for I shall\nhave forgotten, but Another will not.\n\nSincerely yours,\n  BUTE.\n\n\n======================================================================\n\n{175}\n\n[Illustration: FACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE MARQUESS OF BUTE TO MISS SKENE]\n\n======================================================================\n\n{176}\n\nMiss Skene replied a few days later:\n\n\nI cannot tell you what immense pleasure it gave me to receive your kind\nletter, and I think you were indeed most good, in the midst of all your\nwork, to write to me yourself....  I am most deeply interested in what\nyou have been able to do for the rescue of the poor little victims of\nevil-doers.  I wish with all my heart that the mayors of other towns\nwould take the same view of their duty in these matters; but alas! this\nis not always the case....  I am sure it will always be a happiness to\nyourself to feel that you have saved the poor children of whom you\nspeak.  These things are not forgotten in heaven.\n\nEver your faithful old friend,\n  FELICIA SKENE.\n\n\n[Illustration: _The Marquess of Bute, Mayor of Cardiff, 1890-1891_]\n\nBute gave his mayoral banquet in the Drill Hall at Cardiff on February\n4, 1891, wearing the beautiful chain which he had had specially\ndesigned and made for the chief magistrate of the borough.  Some alarm\nwas caused, in the middle of the dinner, by the sudden breaking out of\nfire in the decorations of the roof; but no one was injured, and\n(largely owing to Bute's own coolness) there was no panic of any kind.\nIn one of his letters he makes this curious comment on the mishap:\n\n\nI should have been prepared for the misadventure, for I was suffering\nat the time under an evil direction of [Symbol: Mercury], who was just\nthen in [Symbol: Mars] with [Symbol: Uranus], so that I was almost\nbound to anticipate some untoward happening.[12]\n\n\n{177}\n\nOn his return from Teneriffe, Bute spent several months at Cardiff,\nwhere, as already mentioned, he entertained the Royal Association at\ntheir meeting there, and read his paper on the ancient language of the\nislanders.  He attended the corporation-meetings regularly between\nApril and November, and was able to note in his diary in the latter\nmonth that his year of municipal office had been a success.  He was\nparticularly gratified by a letter from the Duke of Norfolk, himself\nthe mayor-elect for Sheffield, asking his advice on various points\nconnected with the office--\"advice,\" added the Duke, \"which your most\nsuccessful tenure of the mayoralty of Cardiff renders you so admirably\nqualified to give.\"  Bute showed this letter to a friend, remarking in\nhis quiet way: \"The local press has spoken very kindly of my conduct as\nmayor, but I value this letter more than any number of newspaper\narticles.\"\n\nBute went up from Cardiff in May to attend the Royal Academy dinner, as\nhe did on several subsequent occasions.  It was of a later one of these\nentertainments that he noted: \"The Academy was bad, and the dinner the\ndullest I have been at, only redeemed by Rosebery's very witty speech,\nwhich was, however, obviously the result of long toil.  The Lord\nChancellor's [Halsbury] seemed much more spontaneous.\"  Bute does not\nseem to have spoken at any of these functions, as he did occasionally\nat the dinners of the Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.\n\n{178}\n\nSir Mountstuart Grant Duff records in his diary the impression made on\nSir Alexander Grant, at one of these dinners, by Bute's oration.\n\n\nI met Sir A. Grant, who was full of the speech which Lord Bute\ndelivered the other night at the Scottish Academy dinner, in which he\nsaid that \"Athens and Assisi had spoilt him for everything else.\"[13]\n\n\n\n[1] Froude makes the same remark (\"Oceana,\" Chap. XIV.) about the\nChinamen on board the steamer by which he travelled from Australia to\nNew Zealand.  \"I suppose,\" he adds, \"that to Chinamen the separate\npersonalities are as easily recognised as ours.  To me they seemed only\nwhat Schopenhauer says that all individual existences are--'accidental\nillustrations of a single idea under the conditions of space and time.'\"\n\n[2] A friend of J. H. Newman, referring to some papers contributed by\nhim, under the title of \"Home Thoughts Abroad,\" to the _British\nMagazine_, after his memorable tour in Italy and Sicily in 1833, says:\n\"These papers were the first to turn people's thoughts from the\nclassical antiquities and fine arts of Rome to its Christian\nassociations.  It was a new idea to me when I read the papers, and, I\nreally think, to everybody else.  Now (1885) any one would say it never\nwas otherwise; the fact was, however, that no one then thought of Rome\nin connection with St. Peter and Paul, much less St. Leo and St.\nGregory, or of sumptuous worship as anything but a kind of theatrical\nsight.\"  This paper was reprinted in 1872, in the volume called\n\"Discussions and Arguments,\" under the new title of \"How to Accomplish\nit.\"\n\n[3] \"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.\"\n\n[4] The original German text (of which Bute's letter contained a copy)\nran as follows: \"Got sei Dank, das ist wahr; aber es waere nicht so,\nwenn wir die vielen Anerbieten, das Passionspiel in verschiedenen\nStadten Europas aufzufuehren, annehmen wuerden.  Es ist auch gut fuer\nunsere Bevoelkerung, dass das Spiel nur alle zehn Jahre gegeben wird,\ndenn in der Zwischenzeit fuehren wir unser gewohntes und ruhiges Leben\nin diesen Tale, und ein neues Geschlecht von Kindern hat Zeit\nheranzuwachsen in den alten Ueberlieferungen unseres Ortes.\"\n\n[5] Bute was only in his thirty-fifth year when he wrote these words.\n\n[6] He had made the ascent of the Pyramids before--in 1865, when in his\neighteenth year, and again in 1879.\n\n[7] The eminent astronomer was, of course, himself a man of science\nrather than a man of letters, and as such must be pardoned the use of\nthe uncouth word \"scientist,\" which disfigures his otherwise eloquent\ntribute to his friend.\n\n[8] Bute was interested in the longevity of parrots, and had many talks\non the subject with the intelligent parrot-keeper at the Zoological\nGardens.  \"The parrot they had longest,\" he notes, \"lived with them\nfifty-four years; but they do not know how old it was when they got it.\"\n\n[9] This article, published in the _Scottish Review_ in April, 1892,\nwas in substance a reproduction of a lecture given by Bute in January,\n1872, to the Associated Societies of Edinburgh University, of which he\nwas honorary president.\n\n[10] Sir William Huggins.\n\n[11] Emblazoned with the scarlet and gold arms of Cardiff--or three\nchevronels gules.  Since 1906 this charming and historic coat-armorial\nhas unfortunately given place to one described by a respected citizen\nof Cardiff as \"an abomination\"--a shield bespattered with red dragons\nand leeks, and other Welsh emblems, and surmounted by three ostrich\nfeathers.  The last-named assumption is particularly indefensible, the\nostrich plume being, of course, the badge of the King's son and heir,\nand not of the Prince of Wales as such.\n\n[12] Bute's interest in astrology has been already noted (_ante_, p.\n135), and is also referred to in Mr. Myers' obituary notice (_post_,\nAppendix V.).  He was not, of course, unaware that the _practice_ of\nastrology had been forbidden to the Christians of the early Church, and\ncondemned by a sixteenth-century Pope.  But he also had the authority\nof St. Thomas for believing, if he desired to do so, that the heavenly\nbodies do influence the bodies of men, and so indirectly their passions\nand their conduct.  This is a matter of science, not of theology, which\nforbids, not the study of the science, but the belief, once so widely\ncurrent, that the astrologer can predict with certainty the course of\nevents and man's future actions.\n\n[13] _Notes from a Diary_ (1873-1881), vol. ii. p. 101.\n\n\n\n\n{179}\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nFREEDOM OF GLASGOW--BENEFACTIONS TO WALES--LORD RECTOR OF ST. ANDREWS\n\n1891-1894\n\nAn incident which gave Bute sincere pleasure, during the year of his\nmayoralty of Cardiff, was the presentation to him of the freedom of the\ncity of Glasgow, which took place on October 7, 1891.  The honour was\nconferred on him, according to the burgess-ticket which he received,\n\"in recognition of the distinguished services he has rendered to\nScotland, by erecting and gifting[1] to Glasgow the Bute Hall, by his\npersonal contributions to literature, and by the warm sympathy he has\never shown in whatever is fitted to promote the interests of art and\nscience.\"\n\nBute replied to the presentation in a speech which he himself described\nin anticipation as \"maddeningly dull,\" but which was nevertheless very\nwell received; and on the same day he performed the opening ceremony of\nthe new Mitchell Library, delivering an address which he thought, in\ncontrast with the other, appeared \"almost lively, with a tendency even\nto flippancy.\"  It was not his first public appearance in Glasgow; for\nsome time before this he had made an oration at the opening {180} of\nthe new Jesuit College of St. Aloysius, and had warmly congratulated\nScottish Catholics on taking another step in the resumption of a\ntradition which identified higher culture with the Catholic Church.[2]\n\nCherishing as he did, to the end of his life, feelings of grateful\naffection towards all those who had shown him kindness during his\nsomewhat solitary childhood, Bute was sincerely grieved to hear, in the\nautumn of 1892, of the death of Lady Elizabeth Moore, one of his\nearliest and most devoted friends.  The temporary estrangement between\nthem caused by his change of religion had long passed away; and only\nnine days before her death, on the occasion of her eighty-eighth\nbirthday, his daughter had written to her a letter of good wishes which\nLord and Lady Bute and all their children signed.  He wrote thus\nfeelingly of this loss:\n\n\nOf her affection for me, and mine for her, I cannot speak too strongly.\nIt is an event which finally cuts me off (till my own death) from the\ngeneration to which my mother belonged, and in which I was born....  A\ngreat friend of my mother's, and a second mother to me; and I am ever\ngrateful to her for her defence of me against General Stuart and others\nin 1860.\n\n\nBy a strange coincidence, General Stuart himself died two days later.\nThe death of Colonel J. B. Crichton Stuart, Bute's former tutor-at-law,\nhad occurred in the previous year; and the Lord-Lieutenancy of\nButeshire, which he had held since 1859, {181} was in due course\noffered to Bute and accepted by him.  He performed all the duties\npertaining to the office with the scrupulous conscientiousness which\ncharacterised him; and he told a friend, some time afterwards, that he\nhad been particularly gratified by the Lord Chancellor expressing his\napprobation of the care which he (Bute) had exercised in the\nrecommendation of persons for the commission of peace in his titular\ncounty.\n\n[Sidenote: 1892, Benefactions to South Wales]\n\nIn September, 1892, Bute attended the meeting of the National\nEisteddfod, and delivered an address with which he was himself\nextremely dissatisfied, though it is only fair to say that on such\noccasions he was the severest critic of his own orations, with which\nhis audiences appeared well content.  He had always been warmly\ninterested in the Eisteddfodan, had subscribed liberally to their\nfunds, and had presided and given an address at a previous meeting held\nat Cardiff in 1882.  He also gave generous assistance to the\nCymrodorion Society for its publication of Welsh Records, and enabled\nthe Cardiff Library, by his subscription of L1000, to acquire the\nvaluable MSS. which had belonged to Sir Thomas Phillips.  Nor was it\nonly the cause of learning which he assisted by his judicious\nbenefactions.  Every scheme set on foot for the benefit of the\ndistricts with which he was connected found in him a generous\nsupporter.  To King Edward VII.'s Hospital (then the Glamorgan and\nMonmouthshire Infirmary) he gave a site for the new building worth some\nL5000, having before this paid off the debt on the institution.  For\nmany years he maintained entirely a cottage hospital at Aberdare; he\ngave a large donation to the building fund of the Merthyr Hospital, and\na still larger one to the Seamen's {182} Hospital at Cardiff, and\ncontributed liberally both to the \"Rest\" at Porthcawl, and to the\nMiners' Relief Fund for Monmouthshire and South Wales.\n\nUnostentatious as were his innumerable charities, it is right that\nthese things (which include his benefactions in South Wales alone)\nshould be recorded.  Bute's name was known in his lifetime, and has\nbeen handed down to posterity, as that of a munificent patron of\nscholarship and learning, of science and architecture and art.  He\nrichly deserves this tribute; but it is not to be forgotten that he was\nalso a wise, discriminating,[3] and most generous benefactor of a score\nof institutions designed only for the relief of the distressed, the\nneedy, and the suffering.  Every one knew him to be a scholar, and a\nfriend and patron of scholars, but it was only his innermost circle of\nfriends, and the countless beneficiaries of his far-reaching\ngenerosity, who knew how truly, how continually, his heart was open to\nthe calls of mercy and of charity.\n\nBute never hesitated about expressing his opinion of men whom the world\ncalled famous, but whose claim to any such distinction he failed to\nrecognise.  Writing of Lord Randolph Churchill, whom he had met at\nluncheon in September, 1892, he says:\n\n\nHe seemed to me ill-informed, ill-mannered, and stupid.  I used to know\nhim slightly at Oxford, and thought little of him there.  I wonder\nwhether his wife writes his speeches.\n\n\n{183} His notes on Royalties are, on occasion, quite as frank as on any\none else.  After attending the Lord Mayor's dinner in October, 1892, he\nwrote:\n\n\nThe Maharajah of Baroda (it is a mere ignorant vulgarism to call him\n\"the Gaikwar\") spoke, I found, much better English than the Duke of\n----.  The latter went off home from the Lady Mayoress's boudoir,\nwhither we men were taken to smoke, without returning to the\ndrawing-room to wish her good-night.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1892, Relations with Universities]\n\nThe closing weeks of 1892 were marked by an event which brought Bute\ninto intimate connection with the oldest of the four Scottish\nUniversities, namely, his unanimous election as Lord Rector of St.\nAndrews.  The honour was one which he very greatly appreciated, and the\nduties of the office would have been not only extremely interesting,\nbut altogether congenial to him, had he not been involved by the\npeculiar circumstances of the time in a series of highly contentious\nquestions, which, in his somewhat enfeebled state of health, caused him\nfor a period of time extending over several years considerable trouble\nand anxiety.\n\nBute's keen and practical interest in educational matters, and\nespecially in the promotion of higher studies throughout the country,\nhad naturally brought him into relation, at different times of his\nlife, with several of the national universities.  With Oxford, since\nhis student days there at the most memorable crisis in his life, he had\nlittle subsequent connection.  He refers occasionally in his letters to\nthe disadvantage which he had suffered from having been prevented by\ncircumstances from taking his degree; and Oxford never saw fit to\nhonour him, {184} or herself, by conferring on him an honorary degree\nin recognition of his services to learning and scholarship.  He never,\nhowever, lost his interest in his original _Alma Mater_; and nothing\ngave him greater pleasure, during the closing years of his life, than\nthe news of the removal of the restrictions which had hitherto\nprevented Roman Catholic students from frequenting the universities of\nOxford and Cambridge.  A friend, head of one of the Oxford Halls, was\nvisiting him in London some time subsequently, and informed him that\nthere were already, in consequence of this change of policy, more than\nseventy Catholic undergraduates in residence at that university.  Bute,\nwho was at that time quite an invalid, raised himself on his couch, and\nsaid with the quiet emphasis with which he always spoke when strongly\nmoved: \"I wish there were seven hundred.\"  He only visited Oxford once\nor twice after his marriage, but his continued affection for it was\nevinced in many ways; and the Catholic church and mission there, as in\nso many places, benefited by his munificence.[4]\n\nThe establishment of a University College at Cardiff was to Bute\nnaturally a matter of great interest, of which he gave many practical\nproofs.  He accepted the presidency of the institution in 1890, when he\ncontributed generously to the foundation of a chair of engineering; and\nsix years later he gave a special donation of L10,000 to the funds.\nBesides his inaugural address, he gave another, in 1891, to the pupils\nof the science and art schools.  His many gifts to the college included\na complete {185} set of the valuable _Acta Sanctorum_ of the\nBollandists; and he was particularly gratified by the very appreciative\nacknowledgment of this present which he received from the librarian.\nBute proposed Mr. Gladstone as the first Chancellor of the University\nof Wales.  Although profoundly opposed to some of the political views\nof that statesman, he had an admiration for his character and\nattainments; and he looked on it as a special honour, some years later,\nto receive the Honorary Doctorate of St. Andrews on the same occasion\nas the veteran Liberal leader.\n\n[Sidenote: 1892, Honorary Doctorates]\n\nThe first of the Scottish universities with which Bute found himself\npractically connected was that of Glasgow, to which he presented in\n1877 the noble hall, for graduation and other ceremonies, since known\nas the Bute Hall.  Two years later, in recognition of this splendid\ngift, which is said to have cost him nearly L50,000, the Honorary\nDoctorate of Laws was bestowed on him by the university.  He received\nthe same honour from Edinburgh in 1882, and from St. Andrews in 1893,\nthe first year of his rectorship.  In 1883 he was invited to stand for\nthe Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, being nominated in the\nConservative interest against Mr. Fawcett as the Liberal candidate.\nJohn Ruskin was also nominated.  A regrettable element of religious\nanimus was introduced into the contest, but the leading Glasgow journal\nwarmly supported Bute.  Mr. Fawcett was elected, the figures\nbeing--Fawcett 796, Bute 690, Ruskin 329.\n\nBy his appointment in 1889 as a member of the Scottish Universities\nCommission, Bute came, of course, into intimate relation with the\naffairs of all the four universities.  He was an active member of the\nCommission, attending its meetings regularly, {186} and giving much\ntime and attention to the important questions which came up for\ndiscussion and solution.  But as a member of a mixed body of this kind,\nof which some--and these not the least distinguished--were sure to\nhold, and to express, views sharply conflicting with his own, Bute was\nnot, it must be frankly said, at his best or happiest.  The candid\nbiographer must admit that, with all his admirable qualities, he was\nnot of a temperament that could easily or patiently brook opposition to\nhis matured views.  The absolute impartiality and freedom from\nprejudice with which, as we have seen, he approached the consideration\nof any subject, literary or other, on which he had to form an opinion,\nmade him, perhaps not unnaturally, all the more tenacious of that\nopinion when once formed.  \"I know no one,\" remarked one of his friends\nand admirers, \"to whom the description of Horace, _Justum et tenacem\npropositi virum_, could be applied with greater truth\"; and the tribute\nwas a deserved one.  But he did not always find it easy to realise that\nthe views of those opposed to him might be as considered and as\nconscientious as his own; and he was, perhaps, too apt to regard their\nopposition in the light of personal hostility to himself.  \"It might, I\nthink, have been observed,\" he wisely says in one of his university\naddresses, with reference to Peter de Luna's disputed claim to the\nPapacy, \"that where so many learned and able persons were divided in\nopinion, a difference of judgment from one side or the other did not\nnecessarily imply moral obliquity.\"  It is not suggested that Bute\nimputed \"moral obliquity\" to those who differed from him either on the\nUniversities Commission, or afterwards in the vexed questions which he\nhad to encounter at St. Andrews.  But {187} that he resented their\naction, and in some cases even with a certain bitterness, is clear from\nmany passages of his correspondence; and this feeling was in one\ninstance sufficiently acute to interrupt and suspend a friendship which\nhad lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, though it is pleasant to\nadd that the breach was entirely healed, and cordial relations resumed,\nlong before his death.\n\n[Sidenote: 1892, Rectorial address]\n\nBute's election to the Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews took place on\nNovember 24, 1892.  \"I had great difficulty in accepting,\" he wrote to\nhis friend Dr. Metcalfe, \"because I had already declined Glasgow[5] on\nthe grounds of want of unanimity and probable inability to fulfil the\nduties, and only accepted St. Andrews on an assurance of unanimity, and\nthat the duties are almost nominal.\"  The latter hope was disproved by\nthe event; but whether light or heavy, Bute entered on the duties of\nhis office with his usual conscientious resolve to fulfil them all to\nthe utmost of his ability,[6] and for the benefit of the ancient seat\nof Scottish learning which he had loved and venerated from his earliest\nyears.  He alluded in his inaugural address, with charming simplicity,\nto these childish memories, \"associated with that of the only parent\nwhom I ever knew, and with those of friends of hers, nearly all of whom\nare now passed away\":\n\n\nI dimly recall the old garden of St. Leonard's and a variety of\nmechanical toys working by wind and water, with which Sir Hugh Playfair\nhad adorned it.  I remember gazing from St. Andrews at the {188} great\ncomet which there was about the time of the Indian Mutiny; and when we\nwere living in the Principal of St. Mary's House, my kinsman, Charles\nMacLean,[7] came home wounded from India and stayed with us, and with\nhis maimed hand gave me some elementary lessons in fortification, with\nwet sand in a box.  I find in my diary, under date of July 20, 1889:\n\"To St. Andrews ... saw the last of the old garden of St. Mary's\nCollege, where I used to play (and eat unripe pears) as a child: they\nare going to build the library extension over it.\"  Well, I can only\nhope that the fruits of the tree of knowledge, to the cultivation of\nwhich that spot is now dedicated, may prove less crude and more\nwholesome than the grosser dainties, to the attractions of which I\nthere formerly yielded.\n\n\nIt was an undoubted satisfaction to the new Lord Rector to be able to\nnominate, as he did in the month following his own election, to the\noffice of his assessor his old friend and fellow-worker on the\n_Scottish Review_.  He gives his reasons, with his usual clearness, in\na letter addressed to Dr. Metcalfe himself:\n\n\nI have come to the conclusion to nominate you, because you are a man of\npublic position versed in these matters--you are (if you will allow me\nto say so) on most friendly and even intimate terms with me for years\npast--we are, I believe, after many conversations with you, quite at\none upon University questions--and you are almost bound to be _persona\ngrata_, having quite recently received the Honorary Doctorate of the\nUniversity.  Besides which, I think that an outside expert is better\nadapted to see questions fairly than somebody who is necessarily inside\nsome local groove.\n\n\n{189}\n\n[Sidenote: 1892, St. Andrews and Dundee]\n\nDr. Metcalfe was duly appointed to the assessorship; and with one at\nhis side in whose sound judgment as well as his personal attachment to\nhimself he had the fullest confidence, Bute was greatly encouraged in\nthe assumption of his important duties with regard to the university,\nin which he had already shown his practical interest by giving it, at a\ntime of some financial distress, very timely and welcome help.  This\nhelp had been all the more welcome in view of the unsympathetic\nattitude of successive Governments towards St. Andrews.  Mr. Arthur\nBalfour had indeed during his Rectorship (1886-1889) persuaded the\nadministration of which he was a member to build the addition to the\nlibrary to which Bute refers in the extract from his diary quoted\nabove.  But, generally speaking, Tories and Liberals alike had shown\ntowards the premier university of Scotland the minimum of interest and\ngenerosity.  This was the more remarkable, inasmuch as the patronage of\nthe principalships of the United College as well as of St. Mary's, and\nalso of the chairs of Church History, Biblical Criticism, and Hebrew\nand Oriental Languages, was vested in the Crown.  In 1889 Parliament\nhad actually entrusted to the newly appointed Universities Commission\npowers to abolish St. Andrews University altogether--a proposal which\nfound a certain measure of support in Dundee, where University College\nhad been founded in the same year.  The relations of this new college\nto the ancient university were still indeterminate when Bute took\noffice in 1892; but its medical possibilities, situated as it was in\nthe heart of a populous and growing city, had of course become quickly\napparent to its managers.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that medical degrees had all along been\ngranted by St. Andrews itself after due {190} examination by the\nprofessors of the university, who were assisted by external examiners\nof high distinction.  The number of such degrees, originally unlimited,\nhad been afterwards reduced to ten.  At the time of Bute's coming into\noffice there were two main contentions as to medical teaching at St.\nAndrews.  The first was that provision should be made for one _annus\nmedicus_ only, so that practically the whole weight of medical teaching\nshould be thrown on Dundee.  The second was that there should be two\ncomplete _anni medici_ in St. Andrews; but this was at the time\nimpracticable, owing to the insufficiency of adequate medical teaching.\nBute saw clearly that if, as was his great desire, the science of\nmedicine should be worthily represented in the university, proper\nprovision for the teaching of that science must be made in St. Andrews\nitself, and students of medicine must be encouraged to come to St.\nAndrews for the completion of their medical course.  At no stage of the\nlong controversy between St. Andrews and Dundee did he ever seek or\npropose to establish a complete medical school at St. Andrews; and he\nwould have been the first, with his robust common sense, to see the\nabsurdity of such a proposal as regarded the university city, where\nthere was not even a hospital, and therefore no opportunity for the\nnecessary clinical instruction.  Unguarded language on this subject may\nhave been employed by some of his supporters, but never by himself.  He\naimed only at what was practicable and desirable, and this he made it\npossible to attain by instituting a lectureship (now the Bute\nprofessorial chair) of Anatomy, by promoting the refoundation of the\nChair of Physiology,[8] and by {191} building at his own cost the new\nmedical school, the completion of which, though he did not live to see\nit, was a source of satisfaction to him only a few weeks before his\ndeath.  It would have been not less gratifying to him to foresee, had\nthat been possible, the natural result and development of his\nenlightened munificence, as shown in the following figures.  The number\nof students of anatomy in the Bute Medical School was, in 1914,\neighteen; in 1915-16 thirty; in 1916-17 thirty-seven; in 1917-18\nfifty-four; and in 1919-20 ninety.\n\nIt would be doing Bute a great injustice to suppose that in his\nattitude towards Dundee he was actuated by any feeling of hostility\ntowards the newly-founded college.  The very contrary was indeed the\ncase.  Keenly interested as he was in the higher education of the\npeople, especially in large centres of population, he was naturally as\nfavourably disposed towards University College, Dundee, as he had shown\nhimself to be towards University College, Cardiff.  But he could not\nview with equanimity the prospect which was, as he well knew, hopefully\ncontemplated by some of the supporters of the new college, namely, that\nof its ultimately not only absorbing the ancient university to which it\nhad been united within the last three years, but even possibly of\ncrushing it out of existence altogether.  Of this prospect he wrote on\nMarch 12, 1893:\n\n\nThe object of the Dundee people is evidently to obtain entire command\nof the university, which they {192} will employ by secularising St.\nMary's and translating all the Science subjects to Dundee, as well as\nstarting, I take it, a complete Arts curriculum there, possibly\nallowing the United College to exist as a kind of outhouse.\n\n\n\"It has been said, and said publicly, by one of that party,\" he wrote\non another occasion, \"'Give us two years more of the union, and we will\ndrag St. Andrews at our chariot wheels.'\"  To Bute, with his almost\npassionate veneration for the ancient university, which for centuries\nhad been the chief home of religion and learning in Scotland, it was\nintolerable to think of St. Andrews being deposed from its pride of\nplace and sinking into a decaying village, a mere resort of sea-bathers\nand golfers.  From this fate he was resolute, if possible, to save the\n\"House of the Apostle\" (as he loved to call it), at whatever cost to\nhimself.  \"For months past,\" he wrote a little later, \"I have been\nslaving for St. Andrews.  The people--or some of them--may not be worth\nsaving, but the place surely is.  My vital force is, it is plain to\nmyself, much diminished by all this anxiety and strain; but I shall\nwork on as long as I have strength to do so.\"\n\nIn the long and elaborate memorandum which he drew up in the second\nyear of his Rectorship, on the four possible relations in which the\nUniversity of St. Andrews and the college at Dundee might conceivably\nstand to one another, Bute gives clear evidence of his genuine desire\nthat the cause of education and learning should flourish equally in\nboth institutions.  But both he and those who thought and acted with\nhim were perfectly convinced that this would never be so long as Dundee\ncontinued its intrigues to become the predominant partner in {193} what\nhe calls the \"ill-assorted union\" between them; and he was equally\nconvinced that an absolutely essential preliminary step in this\ndirection was the dissolution of the Order of the University Commission\nof March 21, 1890 (_dies nefastus_, as Bute calls it in one of his\nnotes), by which the existing union between St. Andrews and Dundee had\nbeen brought about.  It was with this object that an action was brought\nin the Court of Session in July, 1894, for the \"reduction\" of the union\nin question, and also that a bill was introduced into the House of\nLords by the Chancellor of the university, the Duke of Argyll, whose\nsympathies were entirely with Bute in the question at issue.[9]\n\n[Sidenote: 1893, St. Andrews and Oxford]\n\n\"I have sometimes dreamt,\" wrote Bute in one of the most picturesque\npassages of his Rectorial Address, \"of the primeval headland, still\nlifting skyward its crown of ancient towers, but with that crown\nencircled by an aureola of affiliated colleges--a commonwealth of seats\nof learning, an Oxford of the North.\"  It may have been with some such\nvision as this before him that Bute had suggested to his assessor, some\ntime before drawing up the memorandum above referred to, another\nsolution of the difficulty:\n\n\n{194}\n\n_March_ 28, 1893.\n\nWhy should it not be suggested to Dundee, that instead of a division of\nforces, difference of place, etc., etc., they should build a college\nfor themselves at St. Andrews, just as we hope Blairs will do, confined\nto Dundee people?  I think that would meet the foundress's intention,\nand it might be called Dundee College.  This would be transferring her\nbenefaction to St. Andrews, instead of St. Andrews being bled into such\nveins as Dundee possesses.\n\nI do not see why St. Andrews, holding a unique position, geographically\nand otherwise, should not also hold a unique position in being\nconstituted, as Oxford and Cambridge are, of a congeries of free and\naffiliated colleges.\n\n\nThe above mention of \"Blairs\" has reference to another scheme which\nBute hoped might, if carried out, fulfil the two-fold object of\nstrengthening the position of St. Andrews, and of raising the\neducational standard--an object he had much at heart--of his\nco-religionists in Scotland.  With this view he had proposed the\ntransference to St. Andrews, and the affiliation to the university, of\nthe College of Blairs, near Aberdeen, the training-school of the Scots\nCatholic clergy; and had promised substantial help both towards the\nacquirement of a site, and in the endowment of the new seminary.  The\nsuccess of such a scheme obviously depended to great extent, if not\nentirely, on the concurrence of the ecclesiastical authorities.  They\nwere divided on the matter, among those opposed to the plan being the\nthen Metropolitan of Scotland, as well as the rector of the college;\nand finally the Holy See, much to Bute's disappointment, decided\nagainst the project.  An alternative scheme, providing for the\nestablishment in {195} the university city of a house of studies in\nconnection with the abbey of Fort Augustus, also proved impracticable.\nThe Benedictines were only invited to make the foundation on the\nunderstanding that, and as long as, Bute's offer was not taken\nadvantage of by the secular clergy, and they did not see their way to\naccept it under those conditions.\n\n[Sidenote: 1894, Interest in the Jews]\n\nSimultaneously with the plan just referred to, Bute likewise cherished\nthe hope of attracting to the university members of the Jewish body, in\nwhich he had always been warmly interested.  He wrote as to this on\nJune 8, 1894:\n\n\nMr. Mocatta has given me a tract, and talked to me at length of the\nreligious desolation of the young Jews who are sent to Christian\nschools and colleges without any provision for their own religious\ninstruction and practices.  I am trying to persuade him and others that\nall they seek to gain would be gained, and all they deplore avoided, by\nstarting a Jewish college at St. Andrews.  I think the idea is dawning\non them.\n\n\nThree months later he wrote to the Chief Rabbi that he was much\ngratified at the prospect of young Hebrews matriculating at St.\nAndrews.  \"I do not pretend,\" he added, \"to have any other motive in\nthe matter than zeal for the good of the university; but I sincerely\nthink that the benefits would be reciprocal.\"[10]  Bute was not a\nlittle incensed at this time by what he called a \"most unseemly\" letter\nwritten to the newspapers by one of the professors, who said that he\nwould much prefer that a group of Jewish students should have \"a\ncomfortable {196} berth in Abraham's bosom\" than that they should come\nto St. Andrews.  A question subsequently arose as to the unsuitability\nof a certain Saturday--which was not only, of course, the Hebrew\nSabbath, but chanced to be also their solemn Day of Atonement--for the\nentrance examination of Jewish candidates.  The Principal suggested, as\nan alternative, holding an examination on the following Sunday--a\nproposal that drew from Bute a characteristic protest, in which he\ngives interesting proof of his sympathy with Hebrew religious ideals:\n\n\nThe Day of Atonement is, as the Chief Rabbi feelingly wrote me, the\nmost solemn day in all their year....  Anything more defiantly\ncontemptuous of their race and religion than the original selection of\nthat particular day for the examination can hardly be conceived, nor\nany device better calculated to raise contempt for St. Andrews in the\nwhole Jewish world.  I fear it can hardly have been inadvertent....\nThe amended proposal, of holding the examination on the Sunday, seems\nto me hardly less objectionable.  I had suggested Thursday, in order\nthat the young men's minds might be as free as possible on their\nsolemnity.  On the Principal's plan, they would have to reach St.\nAndrews--a place utterly strange to them--on Friday evening and there\npass the Day of Atonement alone, presumably in an inn.  When night set\nin on Saturday, they would have been 26 hours without so much as a\ncrumb or a drop of water--unwashed, barefooted, and probably dressed in\ngrave-clothes--their minds having been fixed as far as possible on Sin,\nDeath, and Eternity--and worn out by hours of recitation of Hebrew\nprayers.  Would they be likely in this state to do themselves justice\nin an examination held a few hours later?\n\n\n{197}\n\n[Sidenote: 1893, Bute's disinterestedness]\n\nIt seems unnecessary, after a lapse of a quarter of a century, to enter\ninto further details of the regrettable controversy between St. Andrews\nand Dundee, which persisted throughout Bute's term of office in the\nuniversity, but of which all, or nearly all, the protagonists have now\npassed over\n\n  \"To where, beyond these voices, there is peace.\"\n\nThere is no doubt but that the part taken by Bute in the affair was\nmuch misinterpreted in many quarters; and he in turn may have to some\nextent misunderstood, and unconsciously misjudged, the actions and\nmotives of his opponents.  Enough, however, has perhaps been said to\nshow, what no impartial person can question, that he was throughout\nanimated by a single-hearted desire to act for the best, and to promote\nby every means in his power the highest interest of the university\nwhich he loved so well.  That this was the view of those whose\nsuffrages had placed him in office, and with whom he had never ceased\nto maintain the most cordial relations, namely, the students of the\nuniversity, was shown by the substantial majority by which, as will be\nseen, they voted for his re-election to the Rectorship.\n\n\n\n[1] It is to be feared, from their use of this particularly\nobjectionable word, that the then Glasgow Corporation did not combine a\nliterary sense with their other (doubtless) admirable qualities.\n\n[2] Bute's speech on this occasion, delivered in reply to two addresses\npresented to him, was in Latin.  Some of those present were rather\ndisconcerted by this classical outburst, for which they were not in the\nleast prepared.\n\n[3] Bute's far-reaching charities were regulated, like everything else\nin his busy life, by strictly business-like methods.  Every appeal for\nhelp which reached him was carefully sifted and inquired into through\nthe almoner to whom, from the time of his coming of age, he entrusted\nthe investigation of all such cases before dealing with them himself.\n\n[4] The marble altar in the church was given by him.  An inscription on\nit, inconspicuous yet visible to every priest who celebrates there,\nasks for prayers for Bute himself and for his wife.\n\n[5] This was on a subsequent occasion to the election of 1883, referred\nto on a previous page.\n\n[6] \"I pray God bless my Rectorship of St. Andrews,\" he wrote in his\ndiary on the last day of this year.\n\n[7] It was to this same kinsman that Bute, then in his thirteenth year,\nhad addressed the remarkable letter quoted on p. 6.\n\n[8] A condition attached by Bute to his foundation of the Chair of\nAnatomy was that a new Chair of Physiology should be constituted from\nthe former Chair of Medicine, which a majority of the University\nCommissioners had wished to transfer to History.\n\n[9] The Court of Session refused to grant the \"reduction\" of the union;\nand the House of Lords, after some further litigation, finally decided,\non July 27, 1896, that Dundee College was not merely affiliated to, but\nactually incorporated in, the University of St. Andrews, and that the\nunion between them was valid, permanent, and irreversible.  In\nNovember, 1900, a month after Bute's death, the same tribunal dismissed\nan action raised by certain members of St. Andrews University, craving\nthe reduction of all the documents constituting the Union.  Since the\nlast-named date the union has remained as constituted in 1890, except\nthat University College, Dundee, is no longer represented by two\nmembers in the University Court.\n\n[10] In the same letter Bute expresses his willingness to give a site\nfor the new synagogue to be erected at Cardiff.  He did, as a matter of\nfact, a little later grant a ninety-nine years' lease, on very\nfavourable terms, of an excellent site for the Jewish place of worship.\n\n\n\n\n{198}\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nNOTES AND ANECDOTES--SECOND RECTORSHIP OF ST. ANDREWS--PROVOST OF\nROTHESAY\n\n1894-1897\n\nAlthough Bute (who was not given to exaggeration) found occasion to\nwrite at the end of 1894, in his usual brief summary of the events of\nthe past twelve-month, \"The whole year has been spent in the struggle\nfor the University of St. Andrews,\" he nevertheless found time, with\nthe ordered industry which was one of his marked characteristics, not\nonly for the numerous other duties incumbent on him, but also for the\nsocial amenities which the _debut_ of his only daughter had brought\ninto his retired life.  His note on the Caledonian ball in London,\nwhich he attended this year, is amusing, if not altogether appreciative:\n\n\nThe ball was doubtless a great success as regarded the charity which\nbenefited by it; but it was mismanaged, crowded, and hot beyond\nexpression, and the dancing was a mere rough-and-tumble (as seems to be\nthe way now), with neither science, grace, nor even an elementary idea\nof time.  The poetry of motion seems to be asleep.\n\n\nA dinner given to Lord Rosebery[1] by his old {199} contemporaries at\nChrist Church, which Bute attended, must have evoked curious memories\nof long-past days.\n\n\nR's cynical witticisms (when the doors were shut) on the state of\npolitics were quite startling: we were all his political opponents\nexcept one.  The well-remembered names and changed faces were rather\npathetic.\n\n\nBute has a note on the famous Ardlamont murder trial, which was\narousing general interest in the early days of 1894:\n\n\nLord Kingsburgh said that ten of the jury were determined to hang\nMonson, and _he_ was determined they should not, as he did not consider\nthe evidence legally conclusive.  Nobody doubts M.'s guilt morally.[2]\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1894, Maiden speech in Parliament]\n\nOn June 4 Bute made his maiden speech in Parliament (it was his last as\nwell as his first,) in reference to certain petitions he had occasion\nto present on the affairs of St. Andrews University.  He wrote of this\nto Dr. Metcalfe:\n\n\nI had a conversation with Lord Salisbury on Saturday, and consequently\nmade my maiden speech in the House of Lords to-day.  There were only\ntwo {200} or three Peers present, but I was so nervous that I don't\nknow what I said.  However, Lord Windsor told me that I had been\nperfectly smooth and lucid, so I suppose I repeated mechanically the\nfew sentences I had prepared.\n\n\nA sequel, and to himself a very interesting one, to Bute's new and\nintimate connection with St. Andrews was his acquisition of the site of\nthe ancient priory of canons-regular adjoining the ruined cathedral.\nPart of this was occupied by a modern villa, around and under which\nBute carried out a series of exploratory excavations which must have\nbeen somewhat disconcerting to the occupants of the house.  The\ndiscoveries consequent on these digging operations (_Scotice_\n\"howkings\"), including that of a hitherto unknown vaulted chamber\nbeneath the old refectory, were a very welcome diversion from the\nharassing duties of the Lord Rectorship.  Bute always undertook and\npursued such researches with the acutest zest and interest.  \"I think,\"\na friend wrote of him with kindly humour, \"some of the happiest hours\nof his life were spent standing by, wrapped in his long cloak and\nsmoking innumerable cigarettes, while a band of workmen, directed by\none of his many architects, dug out the foundations of a mediaeval\nlady-chapel, or broke through a nineteenth-century wall in search of a\nthirteenth-century doorway.\"\n\nHow seriously Bute took his unremitting efforts \"to save St. Andrews,\"\nas his own expression was, is shown in a characteristic passage of one\nof his letters describing a recent discovery among the priory remains:\n\n\nA head of Christ in stone, seemingly life-size, has just been found\nunder the earth at the Priory.  {201} I would I could take this as an\nintimation of His favour towards the [Greek: _temenos_] of His [Greek:\n_protokletos_].[3]  I have written for much prayer at the grave of the\nApostle, primarily thanksgiving for the graces bestowed upon him in\ntime and eternity.\n\n\nBute had of course visited more than once the tomb of St. Andrew at\nAmain, of which he speaks in the striking peroration, already quoted,\nof his Rectorial address.  At his request the Archbishop of Amalfi sent\nhim a large number of photographs, including some of the tomb, and one,\nspecially taken, of the skull of the Apostle, which Bute, who attached\nmuch importance to craniological evidence, greatly valued.\n\n[Sidenote: 1894, Winter sports in Scotland]\n\nThe winter of 1894-1895 was an unusually severe one, even in the mild\nand sheltered Isle of Bute; and Bute, always complacent towards the\nfrolics of the younger generation, speaks of curling, sleighing, and\ntobogganing as the order of the day, and of the \"extraordinary descent\nof a snow-covered slope by Mr. S---- (a distinguished architect at that\ntime a guest at Dumfries House) upon, or rather with, a tea-tray.\"  He\nwrites further, in this connection, of his schoolboy sons:\n\n\nJ---- and N---- seem both devoted to curling; and this fact, and the\nway in which it associates them with the people, delights me.[4]\n\n\n{202}\n\nThe latter reference is interesting, and even pathetic, recalling as it\ndoes the pleasure Bute himself had always taken from his boyhood,\nnotwithstanding his natural shyness, in associating on kindly terms,\nwhether at weddings or less formal social gatherings, whenever\nopportunity offered, with his humbler neighbours in Buteshire and\nelsewhere.  It was this characteristic, combined with his singular\ncourtesy and unpretentiousness of manner, which won the affection as\nwell as the respect of the reserved and undemonstrative people among\nwhom, for the most part, his life was spent.[5]\n\n[Illustration: _The Marquess of Bute, Lord Rector of St. Andrews\nUniversity, 1892-1897_]\n\nA letter written in March, 1895, just after the death of Professor\nBlackie, gives a thumbnail sketch of that eccentric scholar, who was as\nunconventional in dress as in everything else:\n\n\nThe last time I met him (by invitation) he was dressed in a long velvet\ngown bound with a bright cherry-coloured sash, and a big _sombrero_\nhat.  There was a middle-aged lady present, to whom he introduced me,\nand whom he insisted on my _kissing_.  I think we kissed to please him.\nHis accent (pronunciation) was so vile in Greek, and I believe in\nGaelic, as almost to argue a physical defect of ear.\n\n\nIn this same spring Bute visited Sanquhar, where {203} he had lately\nbought back the ancient Crichton Peel tower, which the first Earl of\nDumfries had sold to the Buccleuch family in 1639.  \"The Duke,\" he\nnotes, \"had allowed the tower to fall almost completely down.  I bought\nsome mugs here--'Presents from Sanquhar'--for the children, and found\non investigation that they were made in Germany!\"\n\nAn interesting little bit of Fife folk-lore is noted on April 6:\n\n\nI found the children of Falkland rolling Easter eggs downhill, calling\nthe day \"Pace (Pasch) Saturday.\"  It was a week too soon, according to\nthe Kalendar; but one little girl said that Pace Saturday was always\nthe first Saturday in April.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1895, Lord Acton]\n\nBute received this summer a letter, which pleased him much, from the\neminent historian Lord Acton, a recently \"capped\" doctor of St. Andrews\nUniversity, to whom Bute had presented a hood made in the mediaeval\nfashion.[6]\n\n\nThe Athenaeum,\n  _July_ 5, 1895.\n\nDEAR LORD BUTE,\n\nI have just received the historic and venerable hood you are so very\nkind as to bestow on me.  It has a very real value to me as coming from\nyou, personally as well as from your sovereign position in the\nuniversity to which I am proud to belong; and I beg to thank you for it\nas heartily and sincerely as it is possible to acknowledge an act of\nfriendship.\n\nIf I was not one of your own recommendation,[7] {204} I shall deem\nhenceforward that you have adopted me, just as if you had named me for\nthe distinguished honour I have received.\n\nBelieve me, most sincerely and gratefully yours,\n\nACTON.\n\n\nTowards the close of his three years' Rectorship, Bute showed his\ninterest in the city, as well as the university, of St. Andrews, by\npresenting to it a handsome chain of office for the use of the\nprovosts.  A member of the council, who had himself passed the civic\nchair, wrote thus to him in reference to this gift:\n\n\n_February_ 3, 1893.\n\nI need not say what our appreciation is of your most handsome act.  In\nan informal conversation held yesterday by the Provost, Dr. Anderson\nand myself, it was agreed that while it was in the power of any wealthy\nman to perform the mere act, yet there was only one nobleman in the\nthree kingdoms who could perform it in the delicate and gracious way in\nwhich it will now come before the Town Council.\n\n\nIn the early autumn of 1895 Bute was able, in the course of a cruise in\nhis yacht _Christine_, to revisit the Orkneys, and to set foot again in\nKirkwall, Egilsay, and other spots sacred in his eyes to the memory of\nSt. Magnus, as he had done when a youth of twenty, nearly thirty years\npreviously.  \"These islands,\" he notes, \"are far more picturesque than\nI remember them before, and I am much struck by the number, industry,\nand wealth of their inhabitants.\"\n\n[Sidenote: 1895, Bute opposed by Lord Peel]\n\nA cause of special satisfaction to Bute, and that for more than one\nreason, was his re-election, at the end {205} of November, 1895, to the\nLord Rectorship of St. Andrews University.  Viscount Peel had been\nnominated for the office by the party opposed to Bute's policy, and the\nMaster of Balliol had sent to the students a printed testimonial to\nLord Peel's qualifications, and an urgent appeal to them to support his\ncandidature.  \"This,\" wrote a member of the professorial staff to Bute,\n\"is quite a new departure in Rectorial elections, and its legality is,\nI should say, as questionable as its taste.\"  He adds in the same\nletter:\n\n\nWe had a very large and influential meeting [in London] last evening of\nthe St. Andrews Graduates' Association.  The President, Sir Benjamin\nWard Richardson, made a very strong speech in your favour.  It was\nfollowed by what was virtually an ovation, so enthusiastic was the\nwhole assemblage.\n\n\nA letter to the press, shortly before the election, stated that the\nwriter could not understand how any man of honour and intelligence,\n_knowing all the facts_, could possibly stand in opposition to Bute.\nHis comment on this letter was as follows:\n\n\nI cannot for a single moment believe that Lord Peel knows the facts, or\nthat he in the least realises the fearfully burdensome nature of the\nduties.  His only alternative, if elected, would be either to take that\nyoke upon him, or to neglect the duty of doing so.  The writers of some\nthings that have appeared in the papers seem to be under the impression\nthat the Lord Rector's sole duty is to deliver a literary address!\n\nI enclose a letter received a few months ago: you may show it to any\none you please.  It may be good for some people at this juncture to\nknow what the great Presbyterian Duke thinks.\n\n\n{206}\n\nThe last sentence, of course, refers to the Duke of Argyll, Chancellor\nof St. Andrews University since 1851, whose eminent abilities and\ndistinguished personal character placed him at that time in the very\nforefront of the Scottish nobility.  The Duke had written:\n\n\nInveraray,\n  _March_ 7, 1895.\n\nI wish I could accept your invitation, but in my present state of\nhealth, barely recovered from a sharp attack of this insidious\nepidemic, it is impossible.  You have always made Falkland very\npleasant to me, and I enjoy seeing the great public spirit with which\nyou discharge all your duties.  I hope I need not assure you of the\nindignation with which I have seen the attempt to arouse a sectarian\nspirit against you,[8] whose whole course of conduct has been so\nsignally liberal, in the best sense of that much-abused word.\n\n\nOn learning the result of the election, in which Bute defeated his\nopponent by a majority of forty votes, the Duke at once wrote:\n\n\nInveraray,\n  _November_ 28, 1895.\n\nThe telegram this afternoon was very acceptable.  I am glad that the\nUniversity has not disgraced itself by electing _any one_ else than you\nat this juncture.  As to Lord Peel himself, I suspect that he now feels\nvery much relieved.\n\n\nNo one of the many congratulatory letters received by Bute on his\nre-election gave him more {207} sincere pleasure than the following,\nwritten by a member of the students' committee:\n\n\nThe 120 who won the election were the resident students of the\nuniversity--those who, without distinction of sect or political\npartisanship, were most touched with the spirit and traditions of the\nplace.  We feel sure that you look on this circumstance as having a\nvalue far above the mere figures of the majority.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1896, A scheme that failed]\n\nIt was during his second term of office that Bute conceived the\nproject--which would probably have occurred to no one but himself--of\nrestoring the vast ruined Cathedral of St. Andrews, or a portion of it,\nfor the purposes of a university church.  The plan might, he thought,\nbe realised if every member of the Scottish peerage could be induced to\nsubscribe a thousand pounds towards it.  But there were at least three\nreasons which militated against the success of the proposal.  In the\nfirst place, the pedigrees of the peers of Scotland were in most cases\na great deal longer than their purses; in the second, few of them were\nprobably much interested in university education in general, or in St.\nAndrews in particular; in the third, the majority of them were members\nof the Episcopalian body, not of the Established Church, to which the\nuniversity church would as a matter of course be aggregated.  It is\ncurious that the only promise of substantial support received by the\nCatholic Rector towards a scheme which must, it is to be feared, be\npronounced fantastic, came from a wealthy nobleman who was not a member\nof either the Episcopalian or the Established Church, but a devoted and\nalmost fanatical Free Churchman.\n\n{208}\n\nBute's academic labours and anxieties were diversified at this time by\nthe preparation of a book in which he took great interest, on the\nsubject of the \"Arms of the Royal and Parliamentary Burghs of\nScotland.\"  The study of heraldry had always had an attraction for him,\nalthough he was perhaps, in practice, sometimes more inclined to follow\nhis own fancy than the rigid rules of that most exact of sciences.  \"I\ncall Bute a sentimental rather than a scientific herald,\" a friend much\ninterested in the subject once said of him; and perhaps the criticism\nwas a just one.  In any case, his curious and out-of-the-way erudition\nfound its scope in the production of this volume, which he published in\ncollaboration with Mr. S. R. N. Macphail and Mr. H. W. Lonsdale in\n1897.  A copy with plates specially coloured under Bute's supervision,\nand handsomely bound, was presented by the Town Council of Rothesay to\nQueen Victoria, who accepted it very graciously.[9]\n\nAn acquisition which Bute was able to make at the beginning of 1896,\nand which gave him great satisfaction, appealing as it did to his\nintense veneration for the religious monuments of the past, was that of\nthe ancient friary and chapel of the Greyfriars in Elgin.  He restored\nthe chapel in its original Franciscan simplicity, and made it over for\nthe use of the Sisters of Mercy, already established in Elgin.  The\nancient stone tabernacle or sacrament-house, detached from the altar,\nwas still preserved in the chapel; and a long letter from the Bishop of\nAberdeen (then in Rome), among Bute's papers, shows that the {209}\nlatter was engaged in the difficult task of trying to induce the Sacred\nCongregation of Rites to derogate from modern rules and practice, and\nto allow this interesting relic of the past to be again used for the\npurpose for which it had been originally intended.[10]  Writing to the\nProvost of Elgin, in acknowledgment of a presentation made to him by\nthe contractors and clerk of works employed at Greyfriars, Bute said\nwith his usual felicity of expression:\n\n\nMy purchase was one on which I must congratulate myself, not only\nbecause in interest it has exceeded my expectation, but because it has\nenabled me to be of some service to Elgin by preserving an historical\nmonument of considerable value to the town and district.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1896, Elected Provost of Rothesay]\n\nBute had several years before this been solicited to allow himself to\nbe nominated to the provostship of the Royal Burgh of Rothesay.  He had\nnot seen his way at that time to accept the offer, but when it was\nrenewed in the autumn of 1896, he signified his willingness to\nundertake the office, and he was unanimously elected on November 6,\n1896.  It was a source of legitimate pride to him to be called to the\nchief magistracy of the ancient burgh with which his family had been\nassociated for five hundred years, and in which five of his lineal\nancestors had held the office of provost.[11]  He applied himself to\nthe duties {210} of the position with his habitual assiduity and care,\nnot infrequently travelling long distances to attend the meetings of\nthe corporation, and presiding at them with a combined dignity and\naptitude for business which favourably impressed all with whom he was\nbrought into contact.  He only once took the chair in the police-court,\nsensibly leaving that department, as he had done at Cardiff, to the\ncharge of those better versed in police administration than himself;\nnor, as it happened, was he qualified to preside at licensing-courts,\nowing to the fact that he was himself a licence-holder for the sale of\nthe produce of his Cardiff vineyards.\n\nNo extensive schemes were carried out in Rothesay during Bute's tenure\nof the provostship; but it is of interest to note that whereas the\nharbour had been greatly improved, and gas first introduced into the\ntown, during the time (1829-1839) that his father was provost, he\nhimself, during his term of office, made a large extension of the pier,\nand introduced the electric light.  He also interested himself in the\nsanitary improvement of the burgh, and entertained the members of the\nSanitary Congress, which met at Rothesay in 1898, at a garden party at\nMountstuart.  Following his own precedent at Cardiff, St. Andrews, and\nFalkland, he presented to the corporation a beautiful chain of office\nfor the use of the provosts.\n\nThe occurrence of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee during Bute's\nprovostship gave occasion for his further munificence; and in\ncommemoration of the event he placed in the council-chambers a series\nof heraldic stained-glass windows.  To each of the Town Councillors he\npresented a replica of the medal which he and the other provosts of\nScottish burghs received at a special audience given to them by the\n{211} Queen.  Bute gave pleasure to the councillors by reminding them\nthat the Scriptural quotation on the obverse of the medal--\"Longitudo\ndierum in dextera ejus, et in sinistra gloria\"[12]--would probably be\nmore familiar to them all in the rendering of the Scottish Paraphrase:\n\n  In her right hand she holds to view\n    A length of happy days:\n  Riches with splendid honours joined\n    Are what her left displays.\n\n\nBute himself drafted the jubilee address from the corporation to her\nMajesty, and had it engrossed in facsimile after the original charter\nto the burgh of the year 1400 A.D., preserved in the British Museum.\nSealed with the ancient seal of the burgh, and enclosed in a box made\nof the old oak beams of the drawbridge of Rothesay Castle, lined with\ncloth of gold, the address was, at Bute's instance, presented to the\nQueen by H.R.H. the Duke of Rothesay (Prince of Wales).  It was one of\nthe very few addresses on exhibition in London, where it aroused\nconsiderable attention and admiration.\n\nAn anniversary of more personal interest to Bute in the spring of 1897\nwas his own \"silver wedding day.\"  The event was celebrated with quiet\nhappiness in the family circle, and, later in the year, by a great\nreception in the Exhibition-building at Cardiff, at which some three\nthousand guests were entertained.  Bute, who received a congratulatory\n{212} address on the occasion, enclosed in a silver casket, from his\nTown Council at Rothesay, gave public and permanent expression to his\nthankfulness for twenty-five years of happy married life, by\ninstituting both there and at Cardiff, what came to be known as the\n\"Bute Dowry.\"  This was the provision of an annual sum to be handed, on\nthe recommendation of the municipal authorities, to some girl or girls\nof the poorer classes, to enable her to get married.  The religious\nspirit in which Bute founded this benefaction is seen from a letter he\naddressed to the minister of Rothesay, announcing his intention of\nattending on the first occasion of the dowry being awarded:\n\n\nMountstuart,\n  _December_ 23, 1897.\n\nI will put on the chain, but not, I think, the gown, as I will leave\nthe religious ceremony entirely to you; and I think it would be better\nif _you_ read John ii. 1-11 (as well as the passage from Ephesians).\nThe only reason why I stipulated for the reading of John ii. 1-11 as a\npart of the ceremony, was to impress the idea that that marriage is\ntruly blessed to which Jesus is called by humble prayer, and at which\nnothing takes place but the natural and harmless gaiety which is\nconsonant with His sacred presence and approval.  It does not matter at\nall who reads it.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1899, Failing health]\n\nThe success of Bute's three years' tenure of the office of provost was\nproved by the unanimity with which the council, at its conclusion,\nexpressed its wish that he would accept re-election for another term.\nThis would have included the fifth centenary of the erection of the\nroyal burgh, which it was proposed to celebrate in 1900; and Bute,\nnotwithstanding his rapidly failing powers (of which no one {213} was\nmore conscious than himself), consented to be nominated for a second\nterm on certain conditions, one of which was that he should be\npermitted to resign the office immediately after the centenary.  In his\nletter thanking the council for their invitation he thus alluded to his\nstate of health:\n\n\nI spoke of this, when I first entered on the provostship, by saying\nthat I realised that circumstances might arise in which I should feel\nmyself unable any longer to be of service to the burgh, and should\nconsequently be obliged to resign; but that in any case nothing could\nreverse the past or delete the fact of the honour of the office having\nonce been conferred upon me.  Should the council re-elect me, I can\nonly say the same thing again....  I take this opportunity of thanking\neach and all of the Members of Council for the honour they have paid me\nnow for the second time, as well as for all the kindness which I have\nalways received at their hands.\n\n\nWhile fulfilling his municipal duties at Rothesay to the satisfaction\nof every one concerned, Bute had continued, to the best of his ability,\nand with undiminished interest, to discharge his functions as Lord\nRector of St. Andrews.  He was still able to carry out, though not\nwithout fatigue and strain, what he called the \"routine work\" of his\noffice; but he was no longer physically able to take the strenuous part\nhe had formerly done in the government of the university, and the\ndefence of her interests at the University Court and elsewhere.  Early\nin 1897 he had heard with some dismay of the urgent desire of the\nstudents (who were doubtless very imperfectly acquainted with the\ncondition of his health) that he should deliver a second Rectorial\naddress, on the occasion of his re-election.  To this {214} effort he\nfelt absolutely unequal, and he wrote as follows to his assessor:\n\n\n_Jan._ 19, 1897.\n\nYou must do what you can to prevent the students insisting on another\naddress.  They cannot know what they are asking.  I can get through my\nordinary business, but cannot attempt the impossible, such as a\nRectorial address.  If I did, my failure would be as annoying to them\nas it would be painful to myself.  Please try to make them understand\nthis.\n\nI do not complain.  \"The night cometh when no man can work,\" sooner or\nlater.  It has come to me through overwork and anxiety as Rector, and\nit is perhaps better that way than many others.  But I am sure that\nthose on whose behalf I have incurred it would not try to goad me into\na fiasco which could only be distressing to all concerned.\n\n\nBute probably knew well that this pathetic appeal to the good sense and\ngood feeling of the St. Andrews students would not be made in vain.\nBetween them and himself the feeling had never been otherwise than\nkindly and cordial, with no trace of the misunderstandings or\nbitterness which had sometimes clouded his relations with other\nsections of the university.  They respected him as a great Scottish\nnoble: they admired his zeal for, and jealousy of, the honour and\nreputation of their Alma Mater: they were proud of his position in the\nworld of letters, of his deserved distinction as a munificent and\ndiscriminating patron of learning, science, and art.  Most of all, they\nwere grateful to him for his continual and unfailing kindness towards\nthemselves--kindness which he had proved not only by the generosity of\nhis public gifts, but by acts of private beneficence of which the\noutside world knew nothing, and which he himself would have been the\nlast to wish made public.\n\n\n\n[1] Lord Rosebery's brief tenure of the Premiership (1894-95) had just\ncommenced at the date of this entertainment.  He had been Foreign\nSecretary during the two previous years.\n\n[2] The verdict was the unsatisfactory one of \"Not\nProven\"--unsatisfactory, that is, to the public, although doubtless\npreferable from the prisoner's point of view to one of \"Guilty.\"  The\npresent writer, who chanced to hear the concluding part of the case,\nwell remembers the surprise caused, both within and without the court,\nby the judge's strong summing up in the prisoner's favour.  A legal\nkinsman of the writer told him subsequently what he had never before\nheard--that a Scottish judge, unlike an English one, considered it his\nduty not merely to sum up the evidence impartially, but also to direct\nthe jury how to regard it from the point of view of a trained mind.\n\n[3] Bute felicitously applies to St. Andrews, seat of the first-called\n([Greek: _protokletos_]) of the Apostles, the word [Greek:\n_temenos_]--land \"cut off\" and assigned or dedicated to divine or\nsacred purposes.  Syracuse was of old the [Greek: _temenos_] of Ares\n(Mars), as the Acropolis at Athens was that of Pallas Athene.\n\n[4] Bute himself was a keen curler, thoroughly enjoying a spell at the\n\"roaring game\" with his country neighbours.  A family tradition records\nhow, night falling before the end of a hotly-contested march on The\nMoss, above Mountstuart, Bute sent for footmen to bear lighted candles\nround the rink, so that the game might be concluded that evening.\n\n[5] See _ante_, p. 96.  The popular appreciation of such kindly\nintercourse could hardly be shown more neatly, and at the same time\nmore humorously, than it was on the occasion of a garden party given at\nMountstuart, some years later, in celebration of the majority of Bute's\neldest son and successor.  Sir Charles Dalrymple, who was present,\nremarked on the success of the fete to one of the guests, a Buteshire\nfarmer.  \"Ou ay,\" was the reply, \"it was just grand a'thegither; and\nthe young Mairquis--did ye obsairve, Sir Charles?--he was _mixing\nfine_.\"\n\n[6] It is probable that the hood given to Lord Acton was a facsimile of\nthat worn by Bute himself with his academic robes.  This was copied by\nthe university robe-maker (but in richer material and colours) from the\nancient form of hood as worn by a Scots Benedictine monk who\noccasionally acted as his chaplain.\n\n[7] University College, Dundee, had the right of presenting certain\ncandidates for the Honorary Doctorate of St. Andrews University; and\nLord Acton was one of those so nominated.\n\n[8] The allusion is to an unworthy effort which had been made in\ncertain quarters to stir up an _odium theologicum_ against Bute, in\nconnection with the proposed transference of Blairs College to St.\nAndrews.\n\n[9] A supplementary volume, \"The Arms of the Baronial and Police Burghs\nof Scotland,\" in which Messrs Stevenson and Lonsdale collaborated, was\npublished in 1903.\n\n[10] An attempt had been made in Belgium, at the time of the Gothic\nrevival, to restore the ancient use of detached Sacrament-houses, but\nit had been very decidedly negatived by the Roman authorities.  In 1863\nthe Sacred Congregation of Rites definitely prohibited the placing of\nthe tabernacle elsewhere than in the middle of the altar.\n\n[11] Portraits of four of these--the second and fourth Earls, John\nViscount Mountstuart, and the second Marquess, were presented by Bute\nto the Town Council of Rothesay.\n\n[12] \"Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches\nand glory.\"--Prov. iii. 16.  Bute's Presbyterian friends and neighbours\nknew and respected his familiarity with, and veneration for, the\nScriptures.  \"He was a Bible-loving man, and very religious-minded,\"\none of them said of him: \"I have heard that he always opened the\nmeetings [of the Town Council] with a prayer he wrote himself.\"  See as\nto this, Appendix IV.\n\n\n\n\n{215}\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nPLUSCARDEN--BUTE AS ARCHITECT--PSYCHICAL INTERESTS--CONCLUSION\n\n1898-1900\n\nThe latest addition made by Bute to his large landed possessions in\nScotland was one which on several accounts was the source of much\ninterest to him during the last years of his life.  Just as the chief\nattraction of Falkland, which he purchased in 1887, had been the fact\nthat it included the ancient royal palace and its hereditary\nKeepership, so the principal inducement to him to acquire, as he did in\n1897 from the Earl of Fife, the Morayshire estate of Pluscarden, was\nthat he thereby came into possession also of one of the most beautiful\nand interesting ecclesiastical relics in Scotland.[1]  This was the\nroofless church, as well as considerable remains of the domestic\nbuildings, of Pluscarden Priory, founded by King Alexander III. seven\ncenturies before for monks of the little-known Order of the\nCabbage-valley.[2]  In {216} the middle of the fifteenth century\nPluscarden had passed into Benedictine possession; and connected with\nthis change of ownership were several architectural problems of the\nkind which it always interested Bute to attempt to solve.  He had a\ndislike of the word \"restoration,\" as applied to ancient edifices which\nwere, and still are, so often spoiled in the process; but he expended\nmuch time and care, and not inconsiderable sums of money, in putting\nthe different portions of the venerable buildings--choir,\nchapter-house, dormitory, and calefactory--into such repair as was\npossible.  He was deeply moved and gratified at being able to arrange,\nin the summer of 1898, for the celebration of Mass (the first for fully\nthree hundred years) by a Scottish Benedictine monk, in the\nperfectly-preserved oratory of the prior's lodgings.\n\n[Illustration: PLUSCARDEN PRIORY.]\n\nIt was characteristic of Bute's scrupulous regard for tradition and\norder, that before taking possession of Pluscarden he applied to Rome,\nthrough the Bishop of Aberdeen, for a _sanatio_, in other words, a\nsanction of his acquisition of the property of the Church, and asked if\nhe should, as a preliminary step, give the refusal of the buildings to\nthe Benedictines of Fort Augustus.  A reply was received in September,\n1897, from Cardinal Ledochowski, Prefect of the Congregation of\nPropaganda, to the effect that such an offer was not necessary, and\nthat the great benefactions already made by Lord Bute to the Catholic\nChurch were to be considered as ample compensation.\n\n{217}\n\n[Sidenote: Building achievements]\n\nPluscarden Priory was the last, and to himself not the least\ninteresting, of the many ancient and historic buildings to the\nmaintenance of which Bute was in a position to apply his profound\narchaeological knowledge as well as the architectural skill and taste\nwhich made him, as it was expressed by one well qualified to pronounce\nan opinion, \"the best unprofessional architect of his generation.\"  It\nwill be appropriate in this place to give a brief _conspectus_ of the\nprincipal building operations which he undertook in the course of the\nthirty-two years between his coming of age and his too early death.\n\nThe restoration and partial rebuilding of Cardiff Castle was the\nearliest work of the kind undertaken by Bute.  The lofty tower\nconspicuous on the southwest of the castle enclosure, the restoration\nof the great southern curtain wall, with its covered way, and the\nerection of the noble staircase were among the most important of his\nbuilding operations at Cardiff, which included also the discovery and\npartial restoration of the old Roman walls and gateway, the\nre-excavation of the moat, and the clearing and re-marking the sites of\nthe mediaeval friaries of the Dominicans and Franciscans.  Most of the\nwork at Cardiff was carried out under the direction of the\ndistinguished architect William Burges, who was responsible for the\nwhole of the fanciful and elaborate interior decoration both of the\ncastle and of Castell Coch, the thirteenth-century fortress some five\nmiles north of Cardiff.  This castle, which was in a completely ruined\ncondition, was restored by Bute, under Burges's direction, to its\noriginal state; and experts in such works have pronounced it one of the\nmost perfect restorations ever carried out.\n\nTwo anecdotes of Burges, whose personality and {218} genius were both\nsomewhat of the eccentric order, may be here related on the authority\nof a distinguished and venerable member of his own profession, who knew\nhim well.  Bute invited him to come and see his new house at\nMountstuart, then nearly complete, and took him into the great\ndrawing-room, where he called his attention to the ceiling with its\nlining of panelled mirrors, on which were painted clusters of grapes\nand vine-leaves.  Burges looked up, shrugged his shoulders, muttered \"I\ncall that damnable,\" and walked on.\n\nBurges was accustomed to keep with him in his office a favourite\nterrier, which made itself occasionally disagreeable to visitors who\ncalled.  When it was pointed out that the effect of this might be to\nkeep away possible clients, Burges only grumbled out, \"A good thing\ntoo!  I have far too many as it is.\"  Once a sporting friend came in to\nsee him, bringing his own terrier, which he boasted was the best ratter\nin the country.  Burges would not hear of this, and the matter was at\nonce put to the test.  The office-boy was sent out to some neighbouring\npurlieu for a sack of rats: a rat-pit was extemporised out of\ndrawing-boards, architectural folios, and other paraphernalia of the\noffice; and an elderly and distinguished client who chanced to call,\nintent on business, found the rat-hunt in full cry, and the eminent\narchitect and his friend in their shirt-sleeves, hallooing on their\nrespective champions to the slaughter.\n\n[Sidenote: Restorations in Bute]\n\nBute contributed handsomely to the restoration funds of such historic\nedifices as St. John's Church at Cardiff and others on his Glamorgan\nestate; and he re-roofed and put in complete repair the small\ntwelfth-century church of Cogan, near Cardiff, which {219} had fallen\ninto decay.  It may be of interest, in this connection, to quote a\nletter which he addressed to his brother-in-law and fellow-Catholic,\nLord Merries, who had consulted him as to the propriety of his\nsubscribing to the restoration fund of Selby Abbey, which had been in\ngreat part destroyed by fire:\n\n\nThe question is one of some delicacy; but its solution is facilitated\nby the circular which you have sent me, which specifies various objects\nfor which subscriptions are invited.  I can only advise you in\naccordance with my own practice in such matters.  You may reasonably\ndecline to provide such adjuncts or accessories to Anglican worship as\npulpits and litany-desks, service-books and altar-cloths, lecterns and\ncandlesticks.  But to give a donation towards the actual rebuilding of\na most venerable monument of Christian piety (which your ancestors\nprobably helped originally to erect) is a thing which, I conceive, you\nmay very properly do--and all the more so in view of your official\nconnection with the county.[3]\n\n\nBute's native and titular island, which within its comparatively small\narea contains perhaps as many interesting remains of feudal and\necclesiastical antiquity as any district in the kingdom, afforded him,\nof course, many opportunities of applying his archaeological and\narchitectural knowledge to the congenial task of repairing and\npreserving these venerable fragments of the past.  Prominent among them\nis the ruined eleventh-century castle in the middle of Rothesay, of\nwhich Bute was hereditary keeper, and of which he restored the gateway,\ndrawbridge, and moat, clearing away the mean modern {220} tenements\nabutting on the castle, and also re-building and re-roofing the great\nhall.  The ruined church of St. Blane, also of the eleventh century,\nwas likewise partially restored by Bute four years before his death,\nwhen a large number of interesting objects were discovered among the\nfoundations of the early Celtic buildings.[4]  Bute also restored the\nancient castle of Wester Kames, and rebuilt the wall round the\nvenerable chapel of St. Michael in North Bute, to preserve it from\nfurther depredations.\n\nThe greatest architectural enterprise undertaken by Bute in his native\nisland, or, indeed, anywhere else, was the erection, from the designs\nof Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Rowand Anderson, of the palatial house\nof Mountstuart, which replaced the plain old mansion burned down in\n1877.  This great pile of pink sandstone, with its curious upper storey\nof brick and oak, vast marble hall and staircase, high-pitched roofs,\ncorbelled oriel windows, and beautiful private chapel with vaulted\ncrypt, was begun in 1879, and at Bute's death twenty-one years later\nwas still unfinished.  His characteristic slowness in completing any\narchitectural work which absorbed him is treated of, with much else of\ninterest in the same connection, by Sir R. Rowand Anderson in his\nvaluable appreciation of Bute in his relation to architecture and\narchitects.[5]\n\n[Sidenote: Work at Falkland Palace]\n\nBute's acquisition in 1887 of the estate of Falkland, carrying with it\nthe hereditary keepership of the ancient royal palace, gave him even\nmore scope {221} than Mountstuart for indulging what some one once\ndesignated his \"passion for stone and lime,\" or, as the phrase would\nrun in England, for bricks and mortar.  Falkland appealed to him not\nonly as an architect, but as an antiquarian.  The varied beauty of its\nsadly-dilapidated buildings, and the long and romantic story of the\npalace and its occupants, were to him of equally absorbing interest.\nHe spared neither time nor money in his work of restoring the historic\npile to something of its ancient grandeur; and it was said that for a\nnumber of years he devoted the whole available income of the estate to\nhis building operations at the palace.  The corridors and floors were\nlaid with oak and teak; many of the rooms were elaborately panelled in\noak, and their ceilings emblazoned with heraldic and other devices;\nwhile in the Chapel Royal, the royal pew and ancient pulpit, and the\nmagnificent oaken screen, were completely and carefully restored.[6]\nBesides the costly interior work, mostly in the main or southern block,\nBute executed much judicious excavation in and about the palace; and it\nwas a great satisfaction to him to discover in the garden the\nfoundations of the great twelfth-century round tower, dating from the\ntime when Falkland was in the possession of the Earls of Fife.  Another\ninteresting work was the restoration of the old royal tennis-court,\nwhich Bute was accustomed to say had been, he believed, last used for\nplay in the reign of James V., the father of Mary Queen of Scots.\n\n{222}\n\nMention has already been made of Bute's purchase of the site and\nremains of the Augustinian priory of St. Andrews, where he did a great\ndeal of careful excavation and made many valuable discoveries.  At\nElgin, too, as has been seen, he was able to acquire the interesting\nold monastery and church of the Greyfriars; and it was a particular\nhappiness to him, as it has been also to his youngest son, who\ninherited his property in the county of Elgin, that this unpretending\nsanctuary--now a convent of Sisters of Mercy--should have been once\nagain, after more than three centuries, made available for the\nreligious worship to which it was originally dedicated.\n\n[Sidenote: 1899, Catholicity of taste]\n\nIt is unnecessary, even were it possible, to give anything like a\n_catalogue raisonne_ of Bute's less important architectural\nachievements.  For more than thirty years, in the graphic phrase cited\nby one of the most distinguished members of the profession, \"his hands\nwere never out of the mortar-tub.\"  No one familiar with the\nmultitudinous and varied work executed under his immediate supervision\nduring those years could fail to be struck by the catholicity of his\ntaste, as well as by his curious and detailed knowledge of all\narchitectural styles and periods.  The feudal massiveness of Cardiff\nand Castell Coch, of Rothesay Castle and Mochrum, the graceful Gothic\nof Pluscarden, the Franciscan austerity of Elgin, the rich Renaissance\nand Jacobean details of Falkland, the Byzantine perfection of Sancta\nSophia (copied by him in miniature at Galston)--all these appealed to\nhim, each in its degree, with equal interest and force; and this\ncatholicity of taste was reflected not only in the new buildings which\nhe raised, but in the ancient buildings which he {223} repaired,\nre-roofed, or restored with such careful reverence.  Every detail of\nsuch work was personally supervised by himself; and he would be equally\nat home, and equally absorbed, in working out an heraldic design for\nthe roof of an abbey church,[7] excavating among the almost shapeless\nruins of a mediaeval cathedral,[8] elaborating a purely Greek scheme of\ndecoration for the oratory of his house in London,[9] or studying the\ndetails of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, the upper basilica of Assisi,\nand the Gothic dome of Zaragoza,[10] in order to reproduce something of\ntheir varied beauties in his exquisite private chapel at Mountstuart.\nThe transparent honesty which was part of his character was manifested\nin such restorations as he undertook at Cardiff, Rothesay, and St.\nAndrews, where at the cost of some aesthetic sacrifice, and often at\nmuch added expense (for the materials had sometimes to be brought from\nafar), he carried out the work in a stone different in colour from the\nancient building, so that there should be no possible future confusion\nbetween the old and the new.  Altogether it must be said that to Bute's\nother titles of honour is to be added that of a noble patron of a noble\nart.  He enriched his native land with many splendid edifices, and he\nprobably did more than any man of his generation to preserve and secure\nfor posterity the venerable and priceless relics of his country's'\npast.  _Cor suum dabat in consummationem operum, et vigilia sua ornabat\nin perfectionem_.[11]\n\nOne of the last publications issued by Bute (it {224} appeared in 1899)\nwas a book entitled \"The Alleged Haunting of B---- House,\" a curious,\nif not altogether convincing, account of certain phenomena said to have\noccurred at a country residence in Perthshire, which Bute had leased\nfor the purpose of psychical investigation.  He had always, and more\nespecially in the later years of his life, been attracted by such\nquestions, and was at the time of his death a vice-president of the\nSociety for Psychical Research.  He was particularly interested in the\nsubject of second sight, of which he endeavoured to obtain first-hand\nevidence by instituting inquiries among the Catholic Highlanders of\nnorth-west Scotland; but the person whom he commissioned to conduct the\ninquiry was to a great extent baffled by the insuperable reluctance of\nthe Highlanders to communicate on such matters with a stranger.  Bute\nhimself maintained a very open mind as to all such phenomena, although\nhe did not of course dispute their objective possibility.  He had a\nprofound distrust of paid and professional mediums, and was fully alive\nto the physical, moral, and spiritual risks attendant on all such\nresearches unless conducted with due precaution and under proper\nguidance.\n\nOne of the chief ornaments of the judicial bench, who knew Bute well,\nonce observed of him that if his vocation had been to the law, he might\nhave reasonably looked to attain the highest honours of that profession:\n\n\nIndustry, learning, patience, impartiality, capacity for work, a\nremarkable power of grasping facts and weighing evidence, clearness of\nexpression, and a single-minded desire for truth--if these, combined\nwith a noble presence and a lofty integrity {225} of character, are\nqualifications for judicial office, Bute possessed them all, and in a\nhigh degree.\n\n\n[Sidenote: 1899, Effect of psychical study]\n\nSuch qualities, or most of them, were no doubt equally serviceable when\nbrought to bear on the obscure phenomena of psychical research, which\nBute approached with the same unprejudiced detachment as he did the\nstudy of astrology, or the problems from the nooks and corners of\nhistory with which he loved to grapple.  A friend ventured to ask him,\nnot very long before his death, if he grudged the many hours he had\ndevoted to these recondite investigations.  He replied emphatically in\nthe negative, adding after a pause: \"I cannot conceive any Christian,\nor, indeed, any believer in life after death, _not_ being painfully and\ndeeply interested in such questions.  For my own part, I have never\ndoubted that there is permitted at times a real communication between\nthe dead and the living, but I am bound to say that I have never\npersonally had any first-hand evidence of such communication which I\ncould call absolutely convincing.\"  The last words were spoken with a\ncertain melancholy earnestness which made a deep impression on the\nhearer.  That Bute's interest in these matters had no frightening or\ndepressing effect on himself is shown clearly enough from a note in his\ndiary in which, after referring to his own rapidly-declining health, he\nadds: \"My study of things connected with the S.P.R. has had the effect\nof very largely robbing death of its terrors.\"[12]\n\nWith the resignation of his Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews at the end\nof his second term of office, {226} Bute's public work may be said to\nhave come to an end.  He had, as has been seen, conditionally accepted\nhis re-election as Provost of Rothesay, but as the time drew near his\nresumption of the office was seen to be impossible.  It was, in fact,\nin August, 1899, three months before the time due for the election,\nthat he was struck down with what proved to be the beginning of his\nfatal illness.  He rallied for a time, and his mind remained as\nunclouded, and his interest in many things as keen, as they had ever\nbeen; but it became before long increasingly evident that there was no\nprospect of any return to the activities of the past.  1900 was the\nyear of the Passion-play at Ober-Ammergau; and he had always hoped to\ngo thither once again with his family, and to renew in their company\nthe well-remembered impressions made by his three previous visits.\nWhen this could not be, he rejoiced that his children were able to make\nthe pilgrimage under the escort of an old friend, and he interested\nhimself in every detail of their journey.\n\nAs time passed on, and his weakness increased, reading and writing,\nwhich had been the chief solace of his life, were of course no longer\npossible to him.  He suffered little bodily pain during his last\nillness, but much weariness and depression, which he bore with his\nusual quiet fortitude and patience; and the gradual declension of his\nremarkable mental faculties, his keen intellect, vivid imagination, and\nretentive memory, was (it is a consolation to believe) far less\ndistressing to himself than it was to the devoted watchers at his\nsick-bed.  In the summer of 1900 he was removed to Dumfries House, in\nthe hope that its more bracing air might be beneficial to him.  He had\nalways, as has been already remarked, loved {227} the beautiful old\nhome of his Crichton ancestors, which both within and without was one\nof the most notable works of the brothers Adam, although the amenity of\nits surroundings had been to some extent spoiled by the numerous\ncoalpits.  \"Falkland is probably, the most luxurious of my houses,\" he\nhad once remarked, \"but I think Dumfries House is, perhaps, the\nhomeliest of them all.\"  The improvement to his health wrought by this\nchange was unhappily only transient: he grew gradually weaker, and on\nOctober 9, 1900, a few hours after being attacked by a second stroke,\nhe quietly breathed his last, being then in the fifty-fourth year of\nhis age.\n\n[Sidenote: 1900, Death and funeral]\n\nBute was buried, according to his own wish, in the chapel close to the\nsea, within the grounds of Mountstuart, which he had fitted up some\ntwenty years previously for Catholic worship.  The funeral service was\nall the more impressive because of hired pomp and grandeur there was\nabsolutely none.  His coffin, made by his own carpenters, was borne by\nhis own workmen from Dumfries House to the little wayside station,\nwhence it was conveyed to the sea, and thence across the Firth of Clyde\nto Kilchattan Bay, in Bute, where a great assemblage awaited its\narrival, and followed it for nearly five miles on foot, the only\ncarriage being that of the widow.  One who was present thus describes\nthe sad procession:\n\n\nThrough the russet and gold of the October woods it passed, preceded by\nthe cross and a long array of bishops and clergy, and followed by the\nyoung sons, the Duke of Norfolk, Lords Loudoun, Glasgow, and Herries,\nand many other notable people.  Night was falling as our _cortege_\nreached the little chapel on {228} the shore where the remains were to\nrest; and the pine torches carried by the assistants threw a sombre\nglare on the coffin, on which were laid a black and gold pall, and the\ndead peer's coronet and the chain and green velvet mantle of the\nThistle.  Vespers of the dead were sung: black-robed sisters watched by\nthe bier all night; and next morning the dirge was chanted, the requiem\nmass celebrated, the five absolutions reserved for prelates and great\nnobles solemnly pronounced.  The single bell tolled from the little\nturret as the mourners silently dispersed, leaving John Lord Bute to\nrest in peace within the ivy-covered walls washed by the waves which\nencircled his island home.\n\n\nA few days after the last sad rites, Bute's widow, with her daughter\nand three sons, left England for the Holy Land, in order to carry out\nhis long-cherished desire that his heart should be interred in the\nsacred soil of Olivet.  It was reverently laid in the tiny garden of\nthe Franciscans, outside the humble chapel known as _Dominus\nFlevit_--\"The Lord wept\"--the traditional spot, half-way up the holy\nmountain, where the Saviour shed tears over the approaching fate of the\nbeloved city.  An oleander tree alone marks the place of sepulture; but\nat the entrance of the little sanctuary is affixed a marble tablet\nbearing the following inscription:[13]\n\n\n{229}\n\nPAX ESTO AETERNA\n\nANIMAE PIENTISSIMAE\n\nJOANNIS PATRICII MARCHIONIS III DE BUTE\n\nIN SCOTIA\n\nVII ID OCTOBR\n\nANNO DOMINI MDCCCC\n\nMORTEM IN CHRISTO OBEUNTIS\n\nCUJUS COR\n\nIN TERRAM SANCTAM\n\nSUPREMA TESTAMENTI CAUTIONE\n\nDELATUM\n\nGUENDOLINA CONJUX\n\nIN HORTO\n\nHUIC DOMINUS FLEVIT AEDICULAE\n\nANNEXO\n\nQUATUOR ADSISTENTIBUS FILIIS\n\nID NOVEMBR EODEM ANNO\n\nPROPRIIS RELIGIOSE MANIBUS\n\nSEPELIVIT\n\n\n\n[1] Conversing with a friend not long before his death, Bute thus\ncharacteristically referred to the point of view from which he regarded\nhis acquisition of these two interesting estates.  \"Having bound myself\nto provide landed property of a certain value for my younger sons, I\nlooked about for places which I might play with during my own life, and\nleave to them afterwards.  Hence Falkland and Pluscarden.\"\n\n[2] The Valliscaulians (\"Val des Choux\" was the name of their first\nhouse, in Burgundy), founded about 1193 by Viard, a Carthusian\nlay-brother, had about thirty houses, most of them in France.  There\nwere none in England, but three in Scotland--Pluscarden, Beauly, and\nArdchattan, of which the last two became Cistercian priories a century\nbefore the Reformation.  The Order dwindled and became finally extinct\nabout thirty years prior to the French Revolution.\n\n[3] Lord Merries held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of the East Riding\nof Yorks from 1880 until his death in 1908.\n\n[4] These are described in much detail, and copiously illustrated, in\nthe \"Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland\" (vol. x. 3rd\nseries, pp. 307 _seq._).\n\n[5] This appreciation, specially written by the distinguished architect\nfor the present biography, is given in Appendix V.\n\n[6] Lord Bute's second son (and successor as Keeper of Falkland\nPalace), the late Lieut.-Col. Lord Ninian Stuart, M.P., who fell\ngallantly in action in 1915, further enriched the Chapel Royal in 1906,\nby hanging on its walls some magnificent Flemish \"verdure\" tapestries\nof the seventeenth century.\n\n[7] Paisley.\n\n[8] Whithorn.\n\n[9] St. John's Lodge.\n\n[10] Called by the people the \"media naranja,\" or half orange.\n\n[11] \"He gave his heart to the consummation of his works, and by his\nwatchful care brought them to perfection.\"--Ecclesiast. xxxviii. 31.\n\n[12] See Mr. F. W. H. Myers' remarkable obituary notice Appendix VI.\n\n[13] Written by Dowager Lady Bute, and translated into Latin at her\nrequest by the author of this memoir.\n\n\n\n\n{231}\n\nAPPENDIX I (p. 2)\n\nENGLISH PRIZE POEM\n\n(Written by Bute at Harrow School, _aet._ 15-1/2.)\n\n_Subject_: EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE.\n\n(The footnotes are the young author's own)\n\n\n  When the long requiem's assuaging strain\n  Sounds high and solemn through the holy fane,\n  And loud and frequent in the darkened pile\n  The organ's heavy swell is heard the while,\n  Askest thou, pilgrim stranger, wherefore low,\n  In prayer unceasing, mournful hundreds bow;\n  Why choral hymns unceasingly arise,\n  And thuribles with incense cloud the skies,\n  While dying tapers glimmer pale and low\n  Upon the bloodless alabaster brow\n  That only represents the hero now?\n  Read sculptured on a grave that royal name,\n  So often blown abroad by noisy fame:\n  Yes; low as other men, the caitiff tomb\n  Has dared to shroud his splendour in its gloom!\n  Edward, who once the Knight of England shone,\n  Lies cold and stiff beneath this sculptured stone.\n  The brilliant Phosphor of a brighter day\n  Too soon in night is passed for aye away!\n  The lordly thistle blooms in purple pride;\n  The shamrock clusters by her sheltering side;[1]\n  And, though from each full many a spray is riven,\n  Unshaken yet they rise to friendly heaven.\n  The golden lily, even in her tears,\n  Full many a flower of vernal promise bears;\n  {232}\n  The pomegranate hangs fruitful on the tree;\n  The olive waves o'er many an eastern sea;\n  And strong beneath her eagle's sable wings\n  The pine upon her fir-clad mountains clings;\n  The rose alone, the fairest of them all,[2]\n  Is doomed to see her bud of promise fall!\n  The green genista's golden bloom is shed,\n  Her brightest offspring numbered with the dead.\n  O! plundered flower, O! doubly plundered bloom\n  Whose fairest fragrance only feeds the tomb!\n    'Tis said that when upon a rocky shore\n  The salt sea billows break with muffled roar,\n  And, launched in mad career, the thundering wave\n  Leaps booming through the weedy ocean cave;\n  Each tenth is grander than the nine before,\n  And breaks with tenfold thunder on the shore.\n  Alas! it is so on the sounding sea;\n  But so, O England, it is not with thee!\n  Thy decuman is broken on the shore:\n  A peer to him shall lave thee never more!\n\n  Ring forth, O mournful harp--no nobler strain\n  Than this to-day shall e'er be thine again.\n  See where amid her ruined towns and towers\n  France broods upon her country's shattered powers.\n  Ask her his glories--at the fatal name\n  Her olive cheek grows red with burning shame,\n  The tear starts flashing to her careworn eye,\n  She points where stiff and cold her children lie,\n  Beneath the bloody sod of many a plain,\n  By victor Edward's dreaded arrows slain;\n  From where on Cressy's dark and trodden ground\n  Two kings were slain and princes died around,\n  To where Limoges' streets ran red with blood,\n  And lives of thousands fed the crimson flood;\n  Or where, again, in Poitiers' fatal lane\n  The flower of all her gay noblesse were slain,\n  And trodden down amid the gory clay,\n  In useless valour threw their lives away;\n  {233}\n  While many a lordly tower and holy spire\n  Fell blackened ruins to the invader's fire.\n\n  But not upon thy fields, O France, alone\n  Like meteor shot from sphere of light he shone.\n  Rise, Spain, and witness how thy fair Castile\n  Has bled upon Najarra's fatal hill,\n  When sullen Najarilla's voiceless flow\n  Rang to the buckler's clang and falchion's blow,\n  And legions melted as a morning's snow.\n  But own that, when before his victor brand\n  He stretched defenceless all the humbled land,\n  It then was Edward's voice that stemmed the tide,\n  And Guzman only for his treason died.\n  Ungrateful Pedro! gilt and sceptred slave!\n  Ill hast thou merited the crown he gave!\n\n  \"The crown he gave,\" and now, alas! has he\n  Who was the heir to England's sovereignty\n  No diadem except the cerecloth band,\n  No sceptre but the taper in his hand!\n  The glory that embalms his brilliant name\n  Alone is deathless through the voice of fame;\n  Or where, adorned in many a loyal heart,\n  It burns unmoved till life itself shall part--\n  It lives undying there.  What other throne\n  So meet for him who called those hearts his own?\n\n  But O! when history with frigid eye\n  Shall write the lengthened list of deeds gone by,\n  And deal with justice, passionless but true,\n  The meed deserved the living never knew,\n  Forbid it, Heaven! her voice divine should stay\n  The tide of praise that swells his name to-day.\n  Tell how, when victory had wreathed his arms,\n  And peace at length replaced war's dread alarms,\n  (Such peace is theirs who can resist no more)\n  When captive led from France's vanquished shore\n  A conquered monarch graced the victor's car,\n  The splendid trophy of the finished war.\n  Say how, eclipsed in an inferior's guise,\n  He scorned to feed with show the people's eyes;\n  {234}\n  And spurning Roman conqueror's gaudy pride,\n  Rode, humble, by the French usurper's side.\n  Such deed as this shall live to mock decay\n  When time has borne war's fading wreaths away.\n\n  The golden corn shall wave on Cressy's plain,\n  The thrush shall sing in Poitier's woods again;\n  The rosemaries upon Najarra's hill\n  Shall perfume Najarilla's noiseless rill;\n  The fields of France shall bloom in verdant pride,\n  Unstained by ruthless conquest's crimson tide;\n  The summer roses bloom in far Castile--\n  While, levelled by the dart we all must feel,\n  The mortal victor lies--a wreck of clay,\n  Once brilliant and as perishing as they.\n  There mark the armour that in life he wore\n  Hangs o'er his dreamless head!  O never more\n  Shall coat so princely fence so meet a heart!\n  And still, as if demanding ne'er to part,\n  There yet the leopards in their sanguine shield\n  Alternate with the lilies' heavenly field.\n\n    One step aside, and blazing through the gloom,\n  The pinnacles that deck the martyr's[3] tomb\n  Rise high and glittering o'er the golden urn;\n  And there for aye the dying tapers burn,\n  As if they cried to men in protest high\n  That soon their earthly honours all must die;\n  But that upon the Christian's sainted shade\n  Alone is bound a wreath that cannot fade.\n  O! ye who lie together, levelled here,\n  In life so sundered and in death so near--\n  He who has shed men's blood to win a throne,\n  And he who for Religion shed his own;\n  What thoughts unnumbered on the rapid mind\n  Arise, with mingled grief and awe combined!\n\n    O! for a worthier art with skill to paint\n  The light eternal that surrounds the saint:\n  And justly mete the song of swelling praise\n  The hero's virtues force our hearts to raise!\n  {235}\n  Shades of the great, the holy, and the brave,\n  Whose earthly vestment slumbers in the grave,\n  Teach us by bright example each to tread\n  The heavenward pathway hallowed by the dead.\n  What though the trembling element of earth\n  May swell again the clay that gave it birth;\n  What though again the wanton breeze reclaim\n  The vital breath it lent to warm your frame;\n  Not less ye live because our feebler race\n  Your lordly presence now no more shall grace.\n  Where'er the wild and careless winds can blow,\n  Where'er the ocean's cold, dark waters flow,\n  Where'er the heart heroic dares to die,\n  There--there your fadeless memory lives for aye,\n  Till Ruin claims her universal sway,\n  And worn-out Time himself shall pass away.\n\n  BUTE.\n\n\n\n[1] Edward Bruce was once King of Northern Ireland.\n\n[2] The symbols of the chief powers of Europe are taken from a royal\nmasque in the reign of Henry VIII.  The pomegranate represents Spain,\nthe olive Italy, and the pine-cone Germany.\n\n[3] St. Thomas of Canterbury.\n\n\n\n\n{236}\n\nAPPENDIX II (p. 51)\n\nHYMN ON ST. MAGNUS\n\n(Written by Bute at Kirkwall during a visit to Orkney, in July, 1867,\n_aet._ 19.)\n\n\n  Glory be to Jesus\n  In the highest heaven,\n  For His grace triumphant\n  Unto Magnus given--\n  Wondrous grace that made him,\n  Looking on the Cross,\n  For the love of Jesus\n  Count all things but loss.\n\n  Born to all earth's splendour,\n  Cradled by a throne,\n  He in very childhood\n  Knew God's love alone;\n  Nazareth's holy stripling\n  Boyhood's pattern made;\n  Through the years of manhood\n  By his Saviour stayed.\n\n  Like to Paul converted\n  From a world of sin,\n  He into our Master's\n  Sheepfold entered in--\n  Till God's love within him\n  Lit and warmed him through,\n  As the bush of Horeb\n  Burned but ever grew.\n\n  With the saintly maiden.\n  Whom he made his bride,\n  For ten years a virgin\n  Lay he side by side;\n  {237}\n  Like unto the angels\n  Of our God in heaven,\n  Who in carnal wedlock\n  Give not nor are given.\n\n  From the Lord's own altar\n  Haled, the martyr died;\n  Him the Lord's own offering\n  His last breath supplied.\n  Earthy lilies stricken\n  Perish on the ground,\n  But God's witness dying\n  Fadeless glory found.\n\n  Jesus, by whose mercy\n  Magnus was victorious,\n  Give us grace to follow\n  In his footsteps glorious;\n  So by Thee, our Saviour,\n  Truth, and life, and way,\n  We may come where he is\n  In undying day.\n\n  Glory to the Father,\n  Glory to the Son,\n  Glory to the Spirit,\n  Three, and three in one,\n  Glory from his creatures\n  Both in earth and heaven\n  To the King of Martyrs\n  Endlessly be given.  Amen.\n\n\n\n\n{238}\n\nAPPENDIX III (p. 51)\n\n\"OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS\"\n\n(Written by Bute in November, 1867, _aet._ 20.)\n\n\n  The world is very foul and dark,\n    And sin has marred its outline fair;\n  But we are taught to look above,\n    And see another image there.\n  And I will raise my eyes above--\n    Above a world of sin and woe,\n  Where sinless, griefless, near her Son,\n    Sits Mary on her throne of snow.\n\n  Mankind seems very foul and dark,\n    In some lights that we see it in,\n  Lo! as the tide of life goes by,\n    How many thousands lie in sin.\n  But I will raise my eyes above--\n    Above the world's unthinking flow,\n  To where, so human yet so fair,\n    Sits Mary on her throne of snow.\n\n  My heart is very foul and dark;\n    Yes, strangely foul sometimes to me\n  Glare up the images of sin\n    My tempter loves to make me see.\n  Then may I lift my eyes above--\n    Above these passions vile and low,\n  To where, in pleading contrast bright,\n    Sits Mary on her throne of snow!\n\n  And oft that throne, so near our Lord's,\n    To earth some of its radiance lends;\n  And Christians learn from her to shun\n    The path impure that hellward tends,\n  {239}\n  For they have learnt to look above--\n    Above the prizes here below,\n  To where, crowned with a starry crown,\n    Sits Mary on her throne of snow.\n\n  Blest be the whiteness of her throne;\n    That shines so purely, grandly there!\n  With such a glory passing bright,\n    Where all is bright and all is fair!\n  God make me lift my eyes above,\n    And love its holy radiance so\n  That some day I may come where still\n    Sits Mary on her throne of snow.\n\n\n\n\n{240}\n\nAPPENDIX IV (p. 211)\n\nA PROVOST'S PRAYER\n\nThe following was the prayer always said by Bute at the opening of the\nmeetings of the Town Council of Rothesay, during the term of his\nprovostship.  It was composed by himself, or rather compiled from two\nprayers contained in the Roman Breviary--one the Collect for\nWhit-Sunday, and the other a prayer at the end of the Litany of the\nSaints.\n\n\nPRAYER.\n\n\"O God, Who dost teach the hearts of Thy people by sending to them the\nlight of Thine Holy Spirit; grant unto us that the same Thy Spirit may\ninspire us in all our doings by His heavenly grace, and bless us\ntherein by His continual help, that every prayer and work of ours may\nbegin from Thee and by Thee be duly ended, and that we, who cannot do\nanything that is good without Thee, may so by Thee be enabled to act\naccording to Thy will, which is our sanctification; through Jesus\nChrist our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit,\none God, world without end.  Amen.\"\n\n\n\n\n{241}\n\nAPPENDIX V (p. 220)\n\nRECOLLECTIONS BY SIR R. ROWAND ANDERSON\n\n\n16, Rutland Square, Edinburgh,\n  _October_ 4, 1920.\n\nI quite appreciate your desire that I should send you something of my\nrecollections of the late Marquis of Bute, for whom I had the honour of\ndoing some important work.  Lord Bute's architects certainly had\nconsiderable opportunity of meeting him and getting to know him as he\nappeared in their department, for one of the outstanding facts of his\nlife was that he was never out of the mortar-tub.\n\nIt was one of his brothers-in-law, the late Lord Herries, I think, who\nused to tell him that he would go down to posterity as the\nBrick-and-Mortar Lord.  But no one who had the privilege of knowing him\never associated his works with any of the ideas of quantity, monotony,\nand mere utilitarianism, which the mention of the humblest of building\nmaterials might conjure up in the minds of people who had not that\nprivilege.  Quantity of production, and expenditure of time and money\nhad no prescribed relations to each other when time or money was\nrequired to procure the most appropriate material, or time was required\nto determine the precise design.  I remember saying to him once, when\nsomething had been delayed till I thought it must be tiresome to him,\n\"Why not let it be finished, and off your mind?\"  His reply was, \"But\nwhy should I hurry over what is my chief pleasure?  I have\ncomparatively little interest in a thing after it is finished.\"  That\nsaying supplied the key to much that, without it, might be misconstrued\nin the annals of his architectural undertakings.  What he did not\nconsider of importance was allowed to go through at once.  What he\nthought of importance he made a matter for his personal thought, and no\ndetail was so small as to be secure of passing unobserved, or so\napparently insignificant {242} that an indefinite delay might not be\nsuffered till he had determined whether it was to be converted into a\nfeature, or at least the vehicle of an allusion to some idea which\ninterested him.\n\nThe fact is that Lord Bute possessed great imagination, learning, and\ntaste, and an inexhaustible patience and power of calm deliberation\nbefore coming to any conclusion which he deemed to be of any\nimportance; and it so came about that he seldom, if ever, changed his\nmind and ordered anything to be altered after it had once been done.\n\nI have heard a tale which was supposed to exemplify the nicety of his\ntaste and the grand scale on which he gratified it.  The story may have\nbeen meant for a parable only, but it narrated circumstantially how\nthat his architect had imported a shipload of marble columns from\nItaly, and put them up in a certain palace which he was building for\nthe Marquis, but that when his lordship came to see them, behold, they\nwere not of the exact tint which he wanted, so incontinently they were\nthrown out, and another shipload was brought, which turned out, of\ncourse, to be perfection, of which the pillars themselves, as they\nstand there to-day, are the lively proof.\n\nThat the story of the throwing out of the pillars, like the tale of the\nthree hundred and sixty Celtic Crosses in Iona, which were said to have\nbeen thrown into the sea, is apocryphal, I gravely suspect.  The thing\nwhich it professes to relate never occurred in connection with any work\nin which I was concerned, and I think I would have heard of it had it\nhappened in any of Lord Bute's other undertakings, at least in\nScotland.  The unlikely part of the story is that he had allowed\nhimself to be landed with a vast quantity of the wrong stuff for such\nan important purpose.  The rest of it, his fabled measures for getting\nhimself out of the difficulty, is quite true to his character.  I, at\nleast, never knew him to be diverted from his intention on the score of\ndelay or cost.\n\nI remember a case which is somewhat in point, his choice of the\nrailings for the gallery of the great hall of his house, or, rather,\npalace of Mountstuart, although the case is more interesting as an\nillustration of his mind in a more important aspect.  I had proposed,\nin accordance with my duty, a design strictly in keeping with the\nmediaeval character of the building.  Lord Bute, however, had seen and\n{243} remembered the ancient and curious bronze railings which stand\nround the tomb of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and he determined to\ntake, what was to him the opportunity of erecting a facsimile of them\nin Scotland.  I went, therefore, to Aix and made measured drawings of\nthem on the spot.  By his directions I had the copies cast in\nEdinburgh, and they stand now in their place in Mountstuart in all the\nvariety and yet unity of their originals.  They are not Florentine, but\nif you ask me what should have prevented a Florentine nobleman from\nerecting them in his palace in Florence, I could not tell you.\nSentimentally, at any rate, they would have been appropriate.  I refer,\nof course, to the historical fact, of which I am sure the Marquis was\naware, that it was no other than Charlemagne who relieved the\nFlorentines from the tyranny of the Longobards, and conferred upon them\nthe freedom of a municipal government.\n\nThe influence of the art of Peter de Luna, as seen in the style which\nwas chosen by Lord Bute in matters connected with the Chapel at\nMountstuart, occurs to mind in this context.  That the famous Spaniard\nwas an architect, or a discriminating patron of architecture, Saragossa\ntestifies; but he was more to Lord Bute, he was the Pope, the Benedict\nXIII., whose papal bull confirmed the foundation charter of St. Andrews\nUniversity.  He was not acknowledged as Pope by England or Italy, but\nhe was acknowledged by Scotland, and that went a long way with Lord\nBute.  That his lordship reflected on the possibility of his choice\ngiving pain to any one who did not accept de Luna's pontificate is, I\nthink, unlikely, seeing that without question, he was confiding the\nexecution of his whole ideas to an architect who was actually a member\nof a Reformed Church.  I pointedly omit to make any allusion in this\ncontext to the traditional authorship of the design of the Cathedral of\nCologne.\n\nLord Bute's mind was steeped in history; and on that account, though he\nby no means always bowed the knee to authority, his ideas, like his\nconversation, in matters of architecture were always interesting.  Soon\nafter the first occasion on which he did me the honour to consult me,\nhe told me that he made it his practice not to give all his\nundertakings into the hands of any one architect, that he liked always\nto be in touch with several of the profession; it was to his advantage,\nhe was good enough to say, as well {244} as his pleasure, to hear the\nopinions of different men on the things of their trade.  If I may judge\nby the numbers of specialists in very different departments, whom I\nused to meet on my visits to his lordship, he had a satisfaction in\ntheir conversation and their ways of looking at things which was\nperhaps similar to that which Sir Walter Scott records in his Journal\nthat he had found in the conversation of Robert Stevenson, the engineer\nto the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses.\n\nSo far as I know, Lord Bute never had any building done for himself in\nthis country after any varieties of the style of Ancient Greece.  That\nthis abstention in his particular case should be credited only to his\nwise sense of its unfitness for his purposes in a climate such as ours,\nmust be the opinion of any one, who, like myself, ever had the\nprivilege of visiting the remains of Ancient Greece in his company, and\nof observing the extraordinarily deep impression which they made on him.\n\nR. ROWAND ANDERSON.\n\n\nP.S.--By way of footnote to the paragraph in which I mention Peter de\nLuna, I may say that it was on a visit which I made to Saragossa on\nLord Bute's behalf that I was fortunate enough to procure a cast of de\nLuna's now mummified head.  The cast I have now confided to the care of\nSt. Andrews University.\n\n\n\n\n{245}\n\nAPPENDIX VI (p. 225)\n\nOBITUARY NOTICE BY MR. F. W. H. MYERS\n\n(From the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, November,\n1900.)\n\n\nTHE MARQUIS OF BUTE, K.T. (VICE-PRESIDENT, S.P.R.).\n\n_Magnus civis obit_.  The death of the Marquis of Bute has removed from\nearth a great chieftain, a great magnate, a great proprietor, yet\nwithal a figure, a character, which carried one back into the Ages of\nFaith.  Many will mourn the close of that life,--magnificent at once\nand munificent; far-governing, and yet gently thoughtful in minute\ndetail.  Some will miss in more intimate fashion the massive simplicity\nof his presence; the look in his eyes of trustfulness at once and\ntenacity--that look which we call doglike, when we mean to imply that\ndogs are nobler than men.  The youth whose vast wealth and eager\nreligion suggested (it was said) to Lord Beaconsfield the idea of his\n\"Lothair\" had become constantly wealthier and more religious as years\nwent on.  Amid the palaces of his structure and of his inheritance he\nlived a life simple and almost solitary; a life of long walks and long\nconversations on the mysteries of the world unseen.  To a fervent Roman\nCatholicism he joined a ready openness to the elements of a more\nCatholic faith.  That same yearning for communion with the invisible\nwhich showed itself in his Prayer-books and Missals, his Byzantine\nChurches restored, his English Churches built, showed itself also in\nthe great crystal hung in his chapel at St. John's Lodge; as it were\nthe mystic focus of that green silence in the heart of London's roar;\nand in the horoscope of his nativity painted on the dome of his study\nat Mountstuart; and in that vaster, strange-illumined vault of\nMountstuart's central hall.\n\n[Greek: _'En de ta teirei panta ta t' ou'ranos e'stephanotai_]\n\n{246} Hardly had such a sight been seen since Hephaestus wrought in\nflaming gold the Signs of Heaven, and zoned the Shield of Achilles with\nthe firmament and the sea.  For in like manner at Lord Bute's bidding\nwas that great vault encircled with a translucent zone which pictured\nthe constellations of the Ecliptic; the starry lights represented by\nprisms inserted in that \"dome of many-coloured glass.\"  Therethrough,\nas through a fictive Zodiac, travelled the sun all day; with many a\ncounterchange of azure stains or emerald on the broad floor below, and\nhere and there the dazzling flash of a sudden-kindled star.  It seemed\nthe work of one who wished, by sign at least and symbol, to call down\n\"an intermingling of heaven's pomp\" upon that pavement which might have\nbeen traversed only by the pacings of earthly power and pride.\n\nThrough such scenes their fashioner would walk; weary and weighted\noften with the encumbering flesh; but always in slow meditative\nbrooding on the Spiritual City, and a house not made with hands.  \"A\ncruel superstition!\" he said once of those who would presume to fetter\nor forbid our communication with beloved and blessed Souls behind the\nveil.  A cruel superstition indeed! and hardly with any truer word upon\nhis lips might a man pass from the company of those who listen, to\nthose who speak.[1]\n\nF. W. H. M.\n\n\n\n[1] Mr. Myers himself died on January 17, 1901, only a few weeks after\npenning this striking tribute to his departed friend.\n\n\n\n{247}\n\nAPPENDIX VII\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nLORD BUTE'S PUBLISHED WRITINGS.\n\n(This list does not include certain articles separately reprinted from\nthe _Scottish Review_, and all contained later in the two volumes of\n\"Essays on Home and Foreign Subjects,\" published after his death.)\n\nOrder of Divine Service for Christmas Day, according to the Use of the\nChurch of Rome.  1875.\n\nThe Early Days of Sir William Wallace.  1876.\n\nThe Burning of the Barns of Ayr.  1878.\n\nThe Roman Breviary: translated out of Latin into English.  2 vols.\n1879.\n\nThe Altus of St. Columba, with prose paraphrase and notes.  1882.\n\nThe Coptic Morning Service for the Lord's Day.  1882.\n\nAddress written for the Rhyl Eisteddfod.  1892.  (English and Welsh.)\n\nAddress delivered November 20, 1893, at University of St. Andrews\n(inaugural address as Lord Rector).  1894.\n\nA Form of Prayer following the Church Office, for the use of Catholics\nunable to hear Mass upon Sundays and Holidays.  1896.\n\nOn the Ancient Language of the Natives of Teneriffe.  1897.\n\nThe Arms of the Royal and Parliamentary Burghs of Scotland (in\ncollaboration with J. R. N. Macphail and H. W. Lonsdale).  1897.\n\nOrder of Divine Service for Palm Sunday and Whitsuntide. 1898.\n\n{248}\n\nThe Alleged Haunting of B---- House (in collaboration with A. G.\nFreer).  1899.\n\nThe Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of the Epiphany (in collaboration\nwith E. A. W. Budge).  1901.\n\nEssays on Foreign Subjects (reprinted from the _Scottish Review_).\n1901.\n\nEssays on Home Subjects (reprinted from the _Scottish Review_).  1904.\n\nThe Arms of the Baronial and Police Burghs of Scotland (in\ncollaboration with J. H. Stevenson and H. W. Lonsdale).  1903.\n\nThe Inquisition in the Canary Islands: Catalogue of a collection of\noriginal MSS. formerly belonging to the Holy Office.  1903.\n\nLenten Readings from the Writings of the Fathers.  1906.\n\n\n\n\n{249}\n\nINDEX\n\n\nACTON, John Lord, letter to Bute from, 203\n\nAdvowsons owned by Bute, 84\n\nAkers, George, 64\n\nAnderson, Sir R. Rowand (architect), 3, 220; his recollections of Bute,\n241-244\n\nAndrews, Septimus, at Ch. Ch., 45\n\nArdlamont murder trial, 199\n\nArgyll, George 8th Duke of, witnesses Bute's marriage, 106; letters to\nBute from, 206\n\nArgyll and the Isles, Angus Bishop of, 153, 154\n\n-- -- -- --, George Bishop of, 96, _note_\n\nArundel Castle, Bute at, 109\n\nAstrology, Bute's interest in, 135, 176, _note_\n\n\nBALFOUR, Arthur J., Lord Rector of St. Andrews University, 189\n\nBaroda, Maharajah Gaikwar of, 183\n\nBayreuth, festival at, 131, 132, 157, 164, 165\n\nBellingham, Sir Henry, at Harrow, 20\n\nBelmont, Benedictine Priory at, 100, 153, _note_\n\nBenson, Rev. R., at Ch. Ch., 45\n\nBikelas, [Greek: _ho kurios_], 132, 133\n\nBlack Prince, Bute's poem on the, 24, 231\n\nBlackie, Professor, death of, 202\n\nBlairquhan Castle, 4\n\nBlairs College, 194, 206, _note_\n\nBodenham, Delabarro, in Rome, 88\n\nBoyle, Archibald, curator to Bute, 19\n\n-- John, 58\n\nBreviary, Roman, Bute's first idea of translating the, 70, _note_; work\nbegun, 115, 116; his \"beloved child,\" 126; published, 129\n\nBruno, Giordano, Bute's studies on, 139, 140\n\nBurges, William (architect), anecdotes of, 217, 218\n\nBute, John 3rd Earl of, 1; monument to, 3\n\n-- -- 1st Marquess of, 2; portrait of, as Harrovian, 26\n\n-- -- 2nd Marquess of, character of, 2; early death of, 3; Provost of\nRothesay, 210\n\n-- -- 3rd Marquess of, his descent, 1; childhood of, 3, 4; litigation\nabout, 5, 6; at Galloway House, 9-14; at private school, 14-17; at\nHarrow, 19-26; first visits Holy Land, 26, 27; at Ch. Ch., 28 _et\nseq._; travels in East, 34-38; religious studies of, 39-43; postpones\nreception, 40, 63; facsimile of sketch by, 49; his cruise to Iceland,\n52; and St. Magnus, 50, 150, 151; poems written by, 24, 25, 51,\n231-239; to Russia, 55, 68; comes of age, 55-57; at Danesfield, 61;\nreceived into Roman Church, 71, 72; to Rome, 74; to Palestine, 75; on\nhis conversion, 77, 78; the newspaper press on, 80, 81; founds _Western\nMail_, 84-86; at Rome during Vatican Council, 86-90; at Cardiff and\nMountstuart, 78, 90-98; as philologist, 99; marriage of, 105, 106;\nvisits Majorca, 113, 114; his love of animals, 118, 169; created K.T.,\n121; as landowner, 125; acquires _Scottish Review_, 129; his\ncontributions to it, 130, 143; as historical student, 143; a Home Ruler\nfor Scotland, 149; and foreign travel, 156-168; _incog._ in Sicily,\n165; mayor of Cardiff, 173, 174; receives freedom of Glasgow, 179;\nLord-Lieutenant of Buteshire, 180; his benefactions to S. Wales, 181,\n182; Hon. LL.D. of three Scottish universities, 185; on Universities\nCommission, _ib._; Lord Rector of St. Andrews, 187 _et seq._;\ninterested in Jews, 195, 196; makes maiden speech in Parliament, 199;\nre-elected Lord Rector, 206; as a herald, 208; acquires Greyfriars,\nElgin, 208, 209; Provost of Rothesay, 209-213; \"silver wedding day\" of,\n211; purchases Pluscarden Priory, 215; his achievements as a builder,\n217-222; his interest in psychical research, 224, 225; end of his\npublic work, 226; last illness and death of, 226, 227; funeral of, 227;\nhis heart taken to Jerusalem, 228; obituary notice of, by F. W. H.\nMyers, 245; bibliography of, 247\n\nBute, Gwendoline, Marchioness of, marriage of, 105; takes her husband's\nheart to Jerusalem, 228\n\n--, Sophia, Marchioness of, 3; her character, 4; death of, 5\n\n\nCANTERBURY, Randall, Archbishop of; on Bute as a Harrovian, 24\n\nCapel, Rev. T. W. (Mgr.), at Danesfield, 61; at Oxford, 67 _et seq._;\nhis interview with Liddon, 68; receives Bute into Church, 71; preaches\nat Oxford, 71, 72, 79; at Nice, 73; to Palestine, 74-76; at\nMountstuart, 116, 117\n\nCardiff, coming-of-age celebrations at, 56, 57; _Western Mail_ started\nat, 84; wine-growing at, 118-120; Bute mayor of, 173, 174; arms of,\n174, _note_; University College at, 184: restoration of castle at, 217\n\nCastell Coch, vineyards at, 118; restored, 217\n\nChamberlain, Rev. T., at Ch. Ch., 45\n\nChiswick House, leased by Bute, 124\n\nChrist Church (Oxford), Bute at, 28 _et seq._; his contemporaries at,\n_ib._; he gives ball at, 30; fatal accident at, 65, 66; revisited by\nBute, 112\n\nChurchill, Lord Randolph, 182\n\nClarke, William, at Oxford, 64\n\nClifford, Bishop William, at Vatican Council, 87, 88\n\nConstantinople, visit to, 34, 38; Bute on, 145\n\nCrichton-Stuart, Col. Jas. Frederick; Bute's tutor-at-law, 8, 12; M.P.\nfor Cardiff, 80, 84; death of, 180\n\n-- -- Lady Margaret, 22, _note_; psychical experience of, 59, _note_,\n117, 152, 167\n\nCumbrae, Greater, bought by Bute, 152\n\nCummins, Abbot, 100, _note_\n\nCurtis, Admiral Sir Lucius, 64\n\n\nDALRYMPLE, Sir Charles, 97, 98; at Mountstuart, 202, _note_\n\nDanesfield, Bute's intimacy at, 61 _et seq._\n\nDisraeli, B., witnesses Bute's marriage, 106; at Norfolk's marriage,\n123; his novel of \"Lothair,\" 124, 134, _note_\n\nDumfries, John Earl of, opens Roath Dock, 152; at garden party, 131,\n_note_\n\nDumfries House, 32, 109; death of Bute at, 227\n\nDundee University College, its relations with St. Andrews, 189 _et seq._\n\nDupanloup, Bishop, at Vatican Council, 87\n\n\nEAST HENDRED, chapel at, 43\n\nEgypt, visit of Bute to, 166\n\nElgin, Bute acquires Greyfriars in, 208, 222\n\nEssex, Thomas (schoolmaster), 14; his report of Bute, 13\n\nEtna, Mount, ascent of, 35; Bute's description of, 35-37\n\n\nFALKLAND, purchased by Bute, 152; visit to, 171; Easter eggs at, 203;\nrestorations at, 221\n\nFergusson, Lady Edith, 43\n\n-- Sir James, curator to Bute, 19; at Dumfries House, 32, 43, 53; on\nBute's conversion 62, _note_\n\nFort Augustus, Benedictines of, 195\n\n\nGALLOWAY, Randolph 9th Earl of, appointed Bute's custodier, 9, 19\n\nGalloway House, Bute's boyhood at, 9-14\n\nGalston, new church at, 155\n\nGardner, Alexander, 145\n\nGaribaldi's Autobiography, Bute on, 141\n\nGibbon as historian, Bute's estimate of, 142\n\nGibbons, Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) James, at Vatican Council, 88\n\nGilbert, Sir F. Hastings, 5, 19\n\nGladstone, W. E., first Chancellor of University of Wales, 185; Hon.\nLL.D. of St. Andrews University, _ib._\n\nGlasgow, Bute receives freedom of, 179; presents Bute Hall to, 185; Hon\nLL.D. of, _ib._\n\nGlasgow, George 6th Earl of, 117, 122, 152\n\nGranard, George 7th Earl of, 64\n\nGrant, Bishop Colin (of Aberdeen), and the _Scottish Review_, 131;\nBute's grief at the death of, 147\n\n-- Bishop Thomas (of Southwark) assists at Bute's reception, 71\n\nGrisewood, Harman, at Ch. Ch., 34\n\nGrissell, Hartwell, 39 _note_; conversion of, 64; letters to, 62, 90,\n167\n\n\nHALSBURY, Earl of, 171, 177\n\nHarrow, Bute at, 19-26\n\nHastings, Francis 1st Marquess of, tomb of, at Malta, 35\n\n--, Henry 4th Marquess of, at Ch. Ch., 28; early death of, 58\n\n--, Lady Flora, conversion and marriage of, 122; death of, 155\n\nHay-Gordon, Adam, 23, 29\n\nHenry, Lady Selina, death of, 53\n\nHome Rule for Scotland, Bute in favour of, 148, 149\n\nHoward of Glossop, Clare Lady, death of, 155\n\n-- -- --, Hon. Alice, married to Earl of Loudoun, 106\n\n-- -- --, Hon. Gwendoline, Bute's marriage to, 105\n\nHowell, Dean, on Bute as a philologist, 99\n\nHuggins, Sir William, tribute paid to Bute by, 168, 172\n\nHumphrey, William, 64\n\nHuntingdon, Selina, Countess of, Bute's veneration for, 54\n\n\"Hypatia\" (Kingsley's), Bute's opinion of, 79\n\n\nICELAND, Bute's cruise to, 48, 52\n\n\"Ignatius, Father,\" at Llanthony, 101\n\n\nJENKINS, Canon, books by, 79, 102, 103\n\nJerusalem, Bute's first visit to, 26, 27; subsequent pilgrimages to,\n34, 75; compared with Rome, 162; Bute's heart buried at, 228\n\nJews, Bute's interest in, 195, 196\n\n\nLANE FOX, GEORGE, conversion of, 64; married, 92\n\nLeighton, Mrs., 33\n\nLeo XIII., Pope, sacerdotal jubilee of, 142\n\nLeopold, H.R.H., at Mountstuart, 116, 117\n\nLiddon, Dr. H. P., at Ch. Ch., 41, 45; his interview with Capel, 68; at\nSt. Paul's, 92, 93\n\nLlanthony, visit to \"Father Ignatius\" at, 101\n\nLoudoun, Charles 11th Earl of, 105, 106\n\n--, Edith Countess of, accompanies Bute to Palestine, 74, 76; death of,\n113-115\n\nLouth, Randall 13th Lord, conversion of, 64\n\n\nMACSWEENEY, Father James, S.J., 40, _note_; 111\n\nMagnus, St., visit to shrine of, 50; relics of, 50, 150, 151; Bute's\nhymn on, 51, 238; investigations as to, 150, 151, 204\n\nMajorca, visit of Bute to, 113, 114\n\nMalta, visit of Bute to, 35\n\nMalvern Wells, Bute's private school at, 14-17\n\nManning, Archbishop, in Rome, 89, 92; officiates at Bute's marriage,\n105; cloth-of-gold gloves for, 107\n\nMansel, Dr. H. L., at Ch. Ch., 45, 47\n\nMaxwell, Sir Herbert, on Bute's bees, 24\n\n--, Hon. Walter, in Papal Zouaves, 88\n\nMaxwell-Scott of Abbotsford, Hon. Mrs., and the _Scottish Review_, 130,\n148, 150, _note_\n\nMetcalfe, Rev. Dr., editor of _Scottish Review_, 129; assessor to Bute\nat St. Andrews, 188, 189\n\nMontagu, Lord Robert, conversion of, 93\n\nMoore, Lady Elizabeth, co-guardian to Bute, 5; removed from office, 8;\nletters from, 52, 53; death of, 180\n\nMountstuart, old house of, 3; Bute at, 94-98, 111; beavers and\nwallabies at, 118; burnt down, 123; description of new house at, 220;\nBute buried at, 227\n\nMyers, F. W. H., obituary notice of Bute by, 245\n\n\nNAPLES, Bute on the people of, 158, 166\n\nNewspaper press, the, on Bute's conversion, 80, 81\n\nNice, visit of Bute to, 64\n\nNorfolk, Henry 15th Duke of, at Arundel, 109; marriage of, 122; Mayor\nof Sheffield, 177\n\n--, Flora Duchess of, _see_ Hastings, Lady Flora.\n\nNorth, Lord and Lady, conversion of, 64\n\nNorthumberland, Henry 7th Duke of, 28; witnesses Bute's marriage, 106\n\n\nOBAN, cathedral, services at, 131, _note_, 153\n\nOber-Ammergau, visits to, 100, 163, 226\n\nOrkney, Bute's cruises to, 50, 204\n\n\"Our Lady of the Snows,\" Bute's hymn on, 51, 238\n\nOxford, Bute at, _see_ Christ Church; Mgr. Capel at, 67, 71; visit of\nLord and Lady Bute to, 111, 112; St. Barnabas' Church at, 112; Bute's\ninterest in, 184\n\n\nPARIS, visits of Bute to, 34, 76\n\nPatrick, St., the birthplace of, 131, 132\n\nPeel, Arthur 1st Viscount, opposes Bute at St. Andrews, 205; defeated,\n206\n\nPius IX., Pope, receives Bute, 74; opens Vatican Council, 86; prorogues\nCouncil, 91, _note_; sends marriage presents to Bute, 106\n\nPluscarden Priory, purchased by Bute, 215\n\nPortarlington, Alexandrina Countess of, 63\n\n\"Provost's Prayer, A,\" 240\n\nPsychical Research, Bute's interest in, 224, 225\n\nPuller, Rev. F. W., Vicar of Roath, 103\n\nPusey, Dr. E. B., at Ch. Ch., 46; on secessions to Rome, 67\n\n\nROME, Bute's first visit to, 74; during Vatican Council, 86-90; his\nviews on situation in, 91, 95, 110; anecdote of American in, 112; with\nScottish pilgrimage in, 158; compared with Jerusalem, 162\n\nRosebery, Archibald 5th Earl of, at Ch. Ch., 28; to Russia with Bute,\n55, 68; his tribute to Bute, 143; speech of, at R. Academy banquet,\n177; Ch. Ch. dinner given to, 198\n\nRothesay, catholics at, 79; Royal visit to, 117, 118; Bute Provost of,\n209-213\n\nRothesay, David Duke of, Bute's paper on, 171, 172\n\nRuskin, John, candidate for Lord Rectorship at Glasgow, 185\n\n\nST. ANDREWS, Bute's visits to, 49, etc., 188, 200; Lord Rector, 187 _et\nseq._; his rectorial address at, 143, 187, 193; he acquires\npriory-buildings at, 200; his re-election at, 206, 207; proposed\nrestoration of cathedral at, 267 [Transcriber's note: no such page\nexists in the source book]\n\nSt. John's Lodge, leased by Bute, 169; hospitalities at, 171\n\nSanquhar, purchase of Peel tower at, 202\n\nSayce, Professor, letter to Bute from, 168\n\nScott-Murray, Charles, 61; at Nice, 72\n\n_Scottish Review_, the, Bute's connection with, 21, _note_; acquired by\nhim, 129; his articles in, 130, 136 _et seq._; proposed transference to\nLondon of, 139; Bute's contributions to, 143\n\nSebright, Olivia Lady, 89, 92\n\nSicily, Bute _incog._ in, 165; contrasted with Italy, 166\n\nSinclair, Archdeacon William, 14, 15\n\nSkene, Felicia, Bute's early friendship with, 31; letter to Bute from,\n175\n\n--, Dr. William, 31; and the _Scottish Review_, 135, 136\n\nSmith, Bishop George, of Argyll, 96, _note_\n\nSneyd, George E., at Harrow, 23; \"an awful liberal,\" 79, 94\n\nSorrento, Bute's letters from, 158-161\n\nSpain, impressions of cathedrals in, 92\n\nSpalding, Archbishop Martin, of Baltimore, at Vatican Council, 87\n\nStevenson, Father J., S.J., on the Reformation, 40\n\nStewart, Hon. Fitzroy, 12; Hon. Walter, 11\n\nStuart, _see_ Crichton-Stuart.\n\n--, General Charles, Bute's co-guardian, 5 _et seq._; death of, 180\n\n\nTENERIFFE, Bute visits, 167; on the ancient language of, 168\n\n\nVALLISCAULIANS, Order of the, 215, _note_\n\nVatican Council, the, 86; opened by Pius IX., _ibid._; prorogued, 91,\n_note_; decree of the, 90, 91\n\nVaughan, Archbishop Bede, O.S.B., 101, _note_.\n\n--, Cardinal Herbert, at St. John's Lodge, 171\n\nVictoria, Queen, golden jubilee of, 135, 172; diamond jubilee of, 210;\naddress of Rothesay corporation, to, 211\n\nVoguee, Eugene Vicomte de, 34, _note_.\n\n\nWESTCOTT, Bishop, a master at Harrow, 22\n\n_Western Mail_, the, started at Cardiff, 84-86; on Bute's marriage, 106\n\nWestminster, anecdote of the titular abbot of, 87\n\nWestminster Cathedral, divine office chanted in, 153, _note_\n\nWine-growing at Cardiff, 118-120\n\n\nZOOLOGICAL Gardens, Bute at the, 169, 170\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,\n\nLONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (1847-1900), a Memoir","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":75295}