cott 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 forty-five, 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 neighborhood, they
should think themselves highly honored by receiving him. I am sure
he would be interested by Mr. Butler's conversation and remarks on
various parts of Macaulay's history, and _I_ should exceedingly
like to hear it commented 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 great attributes, of the essential qualities of the historian,
accuracy, fidelity, impartiality, I c