_J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Rev. J. H. Newman._

6 Stone Buildings, Linc. Inn: Feast of Purification [Feb. 2], '43.

Dear Newman,--You will think me ungracious for having so long delayed my
answer to your last, but I did not get hold of the _Conservative
Journal_ till Monday, and have been very busy since.

Perhaps you will like to know what effect your article has produced on me.
Simply this: it has convinced me that you are clearing your position of
some popular protections which still surrounded it. Beyond this I do not
see. I mean it does not show me that, esoterically, you have made any great
move, nor yet that, to the world at large, you are disposed to do more than
say, 'Do not cry me up as a champion against Popery; for the rest, you may
judge of me as you please.' People whom I have heard speak of it (few,
perhaps, but fair samples) are rather puzzled than anything else.

I give you this merely as gossip, and not as asking whether my construction
is right, though if you think it material or useful to tell me, of course I
shall be glad.

I need not say that I shall be very thankful for a copy of your sermons--
that is, if you will write my name in it yourself; otherwise I will buy the
book, for Rivington's 'from the author' does not fix the stamp which I
chiefly value.

Do you observe in the papers that Sir R. P. is designing _great_
things for the Church? It gives me some hopes that they will also be
_good_, to see that Gladstone is in his councils. We shall have much
ado about the Eccl. Courts Bill, which, I believe, is certainly to come on.