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[33] which had most influenced her. Another was Gibbon's “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,” which she read at seventeen.1

She began at an early age to write verse. A manuscript volume has been preserved in which some of these early poems were copied for her father.

The title-page and dedication are here reproduced: “Poems
Dedicated to
Samuel Ward esq
By His
affectionate daughter
Julia Ward.
Let me be thine
Regard not with a critic's eye.
New York 1831.”

Beloved father,

Expect not to find in these juvenile productions the delicacy and grace which pervaded the writings of that dear parent who is now in glory. I am indeed conscious of the many faults they contain, but my object in presenting you with these (original) poems, has been to give you a little memorial of my early life, and I entreat you to remember that they were written in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth years of my life.

Your loving daughter Julia.

The titles show the trend of the child's thought: “All things shall pass away” ; “We return no more” ; “Invitation ”

1 In later life she added to these the works of Spinoza, and of Theodore Parker.

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