Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/228

216 self-satisfaction, vanity, pride, surprise, delight, I had in finding my own name in a note!!!!!!

Be assured, believe it or not, aa you may or can, that neither my vanity nor my gratitude weighed with my judgment in the slightest degree in the opinion I formed, or in that warmth with which it was poured out. In fact, I had formed my opinion, and expressed it with no less warmth to my friends round me, reading the book to me, before I came to that note; moreover, there was a mixture of shame and twinge of pain with the pleasure, the pride I fell in having a line in his immortal History given to me when the historian makes no mention of Sir Walter Scott throughout the work, even in places where it seems impossible that Genius could resist paying the becoming tribute which Genius owes and loves to pay to Genius. I cannot conceive how this could be. I cannot bring myself to imagine that the words Tory or Whig, or Dissenter or Churchman, or feeling of party or natural spirit, could bias such a man as Macaulay. Perhaps he reserves himself for the 45, and I hope in heaven it is so, and that you will tell me I am very impetuous and prematurely impertinent. Meanwhile, be so good to make my grateful and deeply-felt thanks to the great author for the honor which he has done me. When I was in London some years ago, and when I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Macaulay, I took the liberty of expressing a wish that he would visit Ireland, and that if he did we might have the honor of seeing him at our house. I am very glad to find that the Battle of the Boyne will bring him here. He must have now so many invitations from those who have the highest inducement to offer, that I hardly dare to repeat my request. But will you, my dear friends, do whatever you can with propriety for us, and say how much Mrs. Edgeworth and myself and our whole family would be gratified by his giving us even a call on his way to some better place, and even an hour of his conversation. I am now at Trim with my sister and dear brother. Trim and its ruins, and the tower, and where kings and generals and poets have been, would perhaps, he may think, be worth his seeing. Dean Butler and my sister feel as I do how many claims Mr. Macaulay must have upon his time in his visit to Ireland; but they desire me to say that if anything should bring him into this neighbourhood, they should think themselves highly honoured by receiving him. I am sure he would be interested by Mr. Butler's conversation and remarks on various parts of Macaulay's History, I should exceedingly like to hear commentated and discussed. Little i must come in, you see, at every close. You will observe that, in speaking of Macaulay's work, I have spoken only of the style, the only point of which I could presume to think my opinion could be of any value. Of the