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’s works or those of his praisers; and is weak and flimsy to a degree.  The earlier portion principally relates to politics, especially to the intrigues carried on by Canning and Malmesbury during the Addington Ministry to procure Pitt’s premature return to office.  To this Lord Mulgrave was judiciously opposed; and although there is nothing very new or particular in the account, and the letters are rather flat, it gives the Mulgrave version of the business.  The most valuable part of the book, and which was, indeed, well worthy of separate publication, is a diary that Mr. Ward kept through a considerable portion of his official life, beginning in June 1809, and continuing with a short interruption till the death of Perceval, when it ceased till 1819; after which it was maintained to a later period than Mr. Phipps thinks it proper to publish it.  This diary consists of gossip, anecdote, on dits, and confidential communications made to Mr. Ward on various occasions and at critical times, together with his own observations and reflections on affairs, or remarks on characters.  As he was much in the confidence of Perceval, saw a good deal of the Duke of Wellington, (Master-General of the Ordnance during the era of the Manchester massacre and Sidmouth’s spy doings,) and was continually behind the scenes, the diary is both curious and amusing.  Allowance must of course be made for the writer’s position as a partisan, and some of his later notions are those of the “laudator temporis acti,” speaking without responsibility; but it is sufficiently interesting to raise a desire for the whole, published as a diary, and not mixed up with other matters to which it has small relation.

The diary begins with Canning’s intrigue against Castlereagh; and Canning is occasionally brought forward in the earlier period, and painted with a good deal of shadow, (he was then in a sort of opposition to Perceval,) and altogether a very different personage from the Wentworth of De Vere.  Lord Palmerston, then a “very fine young man,” and a promising candidate for place, with no other faults, in Mr. Ward’s estimation, than what he has certainly got rid of long since—­nervousness and modesty!—­also figures in the pages, and at a critical conjuncture of his fortunes.