Robert Hall, the great preacher,
which should not be passed over. 'As to her style,' he says, 'she is
simple and elegant, content to convey her thoughts in their most plain
and natural form, that is indeed the perfection of style. . . . In point
of tendency,' he continues, 'I should class her books among the most
irreligious I ever read. . . . She does not attack religion nor inveigh
against it, but makes it appear unnecessary by exhibiting perfect virtue
without it. . . . No works ever produced so bad an effect on my own mind
as hers.']

Besides Wordsworth and Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Marshall, we
presently come to Sir John Herschell. 'I saw your admirable friend Miss
Edgeworth lately in town,' he writes to Hamilton; 'she is a most warm
admirer of yours, and praise such as hers is what any man might be proud
of.' Later on Miss Edgeworth, corresponding with Sir W. Hamilton, tells
him she is ill and forbidden to write, or even to think. This is what
she thinks of THINKING: 'I am glad to see that the severe sciences do
not destroy the energy and grace of the imagination, but only chasten it
and impart their philosophical influence.'

V

Certain events are remembered and mourned for generations, so there are
others, happy and interesting in themselves, which must continue to give
satisfaction long after they are over, and long after those concerned in
them have passed away. And certainly among things pleasant to remember
is the story of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Ireland in July 1825, when
he received so warm a greeting from the country and spent those happy
hours with Miss Edgeworth at Edgeworthstown. Fortunately for us,
Lockhart was one of the party. Anne Scott, and Walter the soldier, and
Jane Scott the bride, were also travelling in Sir Walter's train. The
reception which Ireland gave Sir Walter was a warm-hearted ovation. 'It
would be endless to enumerate the distinguished persons who, morning
after morning, crowded to his levee in St. Stephen's Green,' says
Lockhart, and he quotes an old saying of Sir Robert Peel's, 'that Sir
Walter's reception in the High Street of Edinburgh is 1822 was the first
thing that gave him (Peel) a notion of the electric shock of a nation's
gratitude.' 'I doubt if even that scene surpassed what I myself
witnessed,' continues the biographer, 'when Sir Walter returned down
Dame Street after inspecting the Castle of Dublin.'

From ovations to friendship it was Sir Walter's inclinat