he went—like the young men of olden time—to London to seek his fortunes, and simply by his good looks, winning manners, and incomparable self-reliance became the most popular young man in party-giving London society; but he had many higher qualities.
I needed all the support my friends could give me, for the family feud about the “Memorials” was not the only trouble that pressed upon me at this time.
It will be recollected that, in my sister’s death-bed will, she had bequeathed to me her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was the very fact of this bequest which in 1871 made my poor Aunt Eleanor (Miss Paul) set up a counter-claim to the picture, which was valued at £2000.
Five-and-twenty years before, the picture had been entrusted for a time to Sir John Paul, who unfortunately, from some small vanity, allowed it to be exhibited in his own name instead of that of the owner. But I never remember the time when it was not at Hurstmonceaux after 1845, when it was sent there. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was an intimate family friend, painted it in the house of Bishop Shipley, when my father was two and a half years old. It was painted for my great-aunt Lady Jones, widow of the famous Orientalist. Lady Jones adopted her nephew Augustus Hare, and brought him up as her own son, but, as she died intestate, her personalty passed, not to him, but to her only surviving sister, Louisa Shipley. Miss Shipley lived many years, and bequeathed the portrait to her youngest nephew, Marcus Hare. But Marcus gave up his legacy to my Uncle Julius, who always possessed the picture in my boyhood, when it hung over the dining-room chimney-piece at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. Uncle Julius bequeathed the portrait, with all else he possessed, to his widow, who transferred the picture at once to my adopted mother, as being the widow of the adopted son of Lady Jones.
The claim of the opposite party to the picture was that Mrs. Hare (“Italima”) had said that Lady Jones in her lifetime had promised to give her the picture, a promise which was never fulfilled; and that my sister, after her mother’s death, had said at Holmhurst, “If every one had their rights, that picture would belong to me, as my mother’s representative, for Lady Jones promised it to my mother,” also that she proved her belief in having a claim to it by bequeathing that claim to me. But the strongest point against us was that somehow or other, how no one could explain, the picture had been allowed to remain for more than a year in the hands of Sir John Paul, and he had exhibited it. Though the impending trial about the picture question was very different from that at Guildford, the violent animosity displayed by my poor aunt made it most painful, in addition to the knowledge that she (who had inherited everything belonging to my father, mother, and sister, and had dispersed their property to the four winds of heaven, whilst I possessed nothing which had belonged to them) was now trying to seize property to which she could have no possible moral right, though English law is so uncertain that one never felt sure to the last whether the fact of the picture having been exhibited in Sir John Paul’s name might not weigh fatally with both judge and jury.
For the whole month of November I was in London, expecting the trial every day, but it was not till the evening of the 6th of December that I heard that it was to be the next morning in the law-court off Westminster Hall. The court was crowded. My counsel, Mr. Pollock, began his speech with a tremendous exordium. “Gentlemen of the jury, in a neighbouring court the world is sitting silent before the stupendous excitement of the Tichborne trial: gentlemen of the jury, that case pales into insignificance—pales into the most utter insignificance before the thrilling interest of the present occasion. On the narrow stage of this domestic drama, all the historic characters of the last century and all the literary personages of the present seem to be marching in a solemn procession.” And he proceeded to tell the really romantic history of the picture—how Benjamin Franklin saw it painted, &c. I was called into the witness-box and examined and cross-examined for an hour by Mr. H. James. As long as I was in the region of my great-uncles and aunts, I was perfectly at home, and nothing in the cross-examination could the least confuse me. Then the counsel for the opposition said, “Mr. Hare, on the 20th of April 1866 you wrote a letter, &c.: what was in that letter?” Of course I said I could not tell. “What do you think was in that letter?” So I said something, and of course it was exactly opposite to the fact.
As witnesses to the fact of the picture having been at the Rectory at the time of the marriage of my Uncle Julius, I had subpœnaed the whole surviving family of Mrs. Julius Hare, who could witness to it better than any one else, as they had half-lived at Hurstmonceaux Rectory after their sister’s marriage. Her two sisters, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Plumptre, took to their beds, and remained there for a week to avoid the trial, but Dr. Plumptre[10] and Mr. (F. D.) Maurice had to appear, and gave evidence as to the picture having been at Hurstmonceaux Rectory at the time of their sister’s marriage in 1845,[11] and having remained there afterwards during the whole of Julius Hare’s life. Mr. George Paul was then called, and took an oath that, till he went to America in 1852, the picture had remained at Sir John Paul’s; but such is the inattention and ignorance of their business which I have always observed in lawyers, that this discrepancy passed absolutely unnoticed.
The trial continued for several hours, yet when the court adjourned for luncheon I believed all was going well. It was a terrible moment when afterwards Judge Mellor summed up dead against us. Being ignorant, during my mother’s lifetime, of the clause in Miss Shipley’s will leaving the picture to Marcus Hare, and being anxious to ward off from her the agitation of a lawsuit in her feeble health, I had made admissions which I had really previously forgotten, but which were most dangerous, as to the difficulty which I then felt in establishing our claim to the picture. These weighed with Judge Mellor, and, if the jury had followed his lead, our cause would have been ruined. The jury demanded to retire, and were absent for some time. Miss Paul, who was in the area of the court, received the congratulations of all her friends, and I was so certain that my case was lost, that I went to the solicitor of Miss Paul and said that I had had the picture brought to Sir John Lefevre’s house in Spring Gardens, and that I wished to give it up as soon as ever the verdict was declared, as if any injury happened to it afterwards, a claim might be made against me for £2000.
Then the jury came back and gave a verdict for … the defendant!
It took everybody by surprise, and it was the most triumphant moment I ever remember. All the Pauls sank down as if they were shot. My friends flocked round me with congratulations.
The trial took the whole day, the court sitting longer than usual on account of it. The enemy immediately applied for a new trial, which caused us much anxiety, but this time I was not required to appear in person. The second trial took place on the 16th of January 1872, before the Lord Chief Justice, Judge Blackburn, Judge Mellor, and Judge Hannen, and, after a long discussion, was given triumphantly in my favour, Judge Mellor withdrawing his speech made at the former trial, and stating that, after reconsideration of all the facts, he rejoiced at the decision of the jury.
As both trials were gained by me, the enemy had nominally to pay all the costs, but still the expenses were most heavy. It was just at the time when I was poorest, when my adopted mother’s will was still in abeyance. There were also other aspirants for the picture, in the shape of the creditors of my brother Francis, who claimed as representing my father (not my mother). It was therefore thought wiser by all that I should assent to the portrait being sold, and be content to retain only in its place a beautiful copy which had been made for me by the kindness of my cousin Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre. The portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was sold at Christie’s in the summer of 1872 for £2200, and is now in the National Gallery of America at New York.
A week after the trial, on the 13th of December, I left England for Spain. It had at first been intended that a party of five should pass the winter there together, but one after another fell off, till
