fruits which my youth
may have promised had appeared; lost it all at once, under
circumstances scarcely more annoying to my feelings than
revolting to my sense of what was right and just.

"I am not seeking to penetrate what is to me, indeed, no
secret; neither do I form the unavailing wish that our expired
intercourse should revive. C'en est fait. A knot which has
been loosened or untied may be formed again, but this knot has
been cut. Accordingly, I neither address you by your name nor
subscribe my own. My hand-writing, though not disguised, is,
like yourself, much changed; and, though this were not the
case, you could not, after the lapse of so much time, have
recognized it.

"My regard you continue to possess, though I am not certain
of your title to retain it. But you have, by means of your
estrangement, sustained a loss. In ceasing to entertain a
feeling of esteem and cordiality toward me, you have lost that
which is a source of soothing gratification to the mind in
which it is cherished, and which, I flatter myself, I as well
deserved to have retained with regard to me as any other of
your early friends, be that other who he may. Again: though
you have not lost a friend, (for my sentiments toward you
continue friendly,) you have elected to lose the usual and
not unpalatable fruits of friendship in my case: and this at
a time of life (for we are much of the same age) when old
friends can the less be spared, because new friendships are
rarely formed.

"When our earliest meetings and the commencements of a
bygone friendship are called up before me by the letter which,
I scarcely know why, I am writing, I feel myself softened
as well as depressed by the recollection; and, as I write
farewell, it gives me pain to think that I might add to it
the words--probably forever. God bless you."

There is nothing in Robert Ward's life or literary eminence to require
or even justify so large a space as his nephew has bestowed upon it.
Strictly speaking, indeed, the biography occupies but a small portion
of these bulky volumes, which are chiefly filled with remains or
correspondence; and much of that little is not distinguished for
matter or character. The correspondence is indifferent. The latter
portion of it is mainly devoted to literary criticism, or compliments,
having for subject the author'