| SIR WALTER SCOTT AND JOHN HENRY
NEWMAN Remarks by Patrick Killough to the 2007 Convention of the Venerable John Henry Newman Association Pittsburgh Holiday Inn Friday August 10 8:30 - 9:20 a. m. FOOTNOTE # 02 2) In 1871 James Hope-Scott sent Newman a copy of the edition he had personally edited of the already classic ten-volume life of Sir Walter Scott by Charlotte's father, John Gibson Lockhart. Newman's letter in reply allows an easy transition from Scott's descendants into the works Father Newman had read by Scott and their influence on him. Newman thanked Hope-Scott for a gift that he found especially apt: My dear Hope−Scott,−−Thank you for your book. In one sense I deserve it; I have ever had such a devotion, I may call it, to Walter Scott. As a boy, in the early summer mornings I read 'Waverley' and 'Guy Mannering' in bed, when they first came out, before it was time to get up; and long before that, I think, when I was eight years old, I listened eagerly to the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' which my mother and aunt were reading aloud. When he was dying I was continually thinking of him, with Keble's words−−'If ever floating from faint earthly lyre,' &c. (Sixth after Trin.). ... It has been a trouble to me that his works seemed to be so forgotten now. Our boys know very little about them. I think F. Ambrose had to give a prize for getting up 'Kenilworth.' Your letter to Gladstone sadly confirms it. I wonder whether there will ever be a crisis and correction of the evil? It arises from the facilities of publication. Every season bears its own crop of books, and every fresh season ousts the foregoing. Books are all annuals; and, to revive Scott, you must annihilate the existing generation of writers, which is legion. If it so fares with Scott, still more does it so fare with Johnson, Addison, Pope, and Shakespeare. ... Ever yours affectionately, JOHN H. NEWMAN Memoirs of James Robert Hope−Scott, Volume 2 http://www.silkpagoda.com/dvdlist/acromax/7mjrh. sirws_jhn_02 |