George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[422] saloon, which we entered through a suite of apartments. . . . . A few minutes after seven there were about twenty-five persons in the room. It was an agreeable mixture of rank and fashion with the savants now collected in Dublin. The Provost of Trinity, as President of the Association, Sir Thomas Brisbane, the President of the last year, Lord Cloncurry, Lord Clare, Sir Alexander Creighton, Professor Robinson, Professor Hamilton, old Mr. Dalton of Manchester, Thomas Moore, Babbage, a Norwegian nobleman, a French baron, Whewell, Phillips, Prichard, the three aids, two or three other persons, and myself.

When the company was assembled, Lord Mulgrave came in and went round, each person being presented to him as he passed. To most of them he barely bowed. To others he spoke, and his manners throughout were elegant and kind. As I had brought him a letter from Lord Holland, he inquired about him, talked a little about America, and passed on. When this ceremony was over, he mixed with the company. . . . . He came up to where I was standing with Moore, and talked pleasantly some time about Wilkie, and about Stewart Newton, of whom he spoke with interest. Soon, however, dinner was announced. Lord Mulgrave went in alone. . .. . I sat next to Sir John Franklin, and near Moore, and had a very good time, Sir John talking about his travels and adventures. There was no ceremony at table. Lord Mulgrave drank wine with a few of us, and was pleasant in conversation,—‘ affable,’ we should say in America,—but not striking.

August 14.—This morning, early, I drove out to the Observatory and breakfasted with Professor Hamilton, taking in my carriage Professor Whewell of Cambridge, and Professor Rigaud of Oxford, who much enlivened a drive five miles out and in. Whewell I found full of spirits and vivacity, various and amusing in conversation, and without the least appearance of the awkwardness I saw, or supposed I saw, in him at first. Professor Rigaud was without much humor, but truly good-tempered and agreeable. We met there Sir John Ross, a very stout, easy, quiet gentleman of about fifty-five, with much of the air of a naval commander. While we were in the Observatory he compared with the time-keeper there the chronometer which had been used by Parry, and which had gone with him through all his terrible sufferings.

Hamilton himself was very eager, simple, and direct, but a little nervous; and Whewell made himself merry at a discussion about Kant's philosophy, in which Hamilton showed his metaphysical acumen against a German at table, but showed, too, that he was familiar