* * * “Allow me to assure you that, however my vanity
may be gratified in being thus
LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE.
295
noticed, that sentiment is
wholly absorbed in the pleasure I feel in this additional proof of your
friendship, and in finding that, in this somewhat advanced period of life, the
esteem and attachment which I so early imbibed, and have for so many years
invariably felt for you, are so cordially and affectionately returned. Though
we have neither of us arrived at the age of Huet, yet it is highly pleasing to reflect that you and I have
hitherto retained the same invariable attachment to literary studies which
animated us in our youthful days, and, I believe, I may justly add, the same
sensibility to all the pleasures of friendship and the delights of social
intercourse. That we shall rival in longevity the French scholar is not perhaps
to be either expected or wished; but I trust the same occupations and the same
enjoyments will continue to throw over the evening of our lives a beam as
pleasing, if not as bright, as that of our morning; and if when the scene is
closed my name should ever be recalled to memory, be assured it cannot be found
in a situation more gratifying to my wishes than as associated in any manner
with your own.”
