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Remark.

And while those "we love" find happiness in us, as well as accept "services" at our hands, we must "not be wholly miserable." Is there not a positive happiness in the consciousness of producing happiness? There is something divine in the prerogative, that elevates the soul, and gives it an earnest of beatitude. Absolute misery cannot abide with virtue in affliction; and when friendship is our solace, grief itself is the root of joy.

11.

What is mine, even to my life, is her's I love; but the secret of my friend, is not mine!

12.

Death is a less evil than betraying a trusting friend.

Remark.

The blow which was aimed at the heart of Pythias on the scaffold, would have occasioned him less pain than the thought, that he had

been abandoned to his fate by the desertion of Damon. We fear not corporeal death, but the extinction of that mental life which breathes upon us from the breast of a beloved friend. The perfidy of a friend tortures the soul; his death merely bereaves it of happiness: but

"Most wretched he who latest feels the blow! "Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low; "Dragg'd lingering on, from partial death to death, "Till dying—all he can resign is breath!”

13.

To a heart fully resolute, counsel is tedious, and reprehension is loathsome; but there is nothing more terrible to a guilty heart, than the eye of a respected friend.

14.

Be friendly without factiousness.

Remark.

"Would you comprehend all hell in one

word (says Lord Orrery,) call it party, or a

spirit of faction." A graver author shall continue the comment on this necessary maxim. "It behoves us not to engage ourselves so deeply in any singular friendship; or in devotion to any one party of men, as to be entirely partial to their interests, and prejudiced in their behalf, without distinct consideration of the truth and equity of their pretences in the matters of difference: and above all things, not for the sake of a fortuitous agreement in disposition, opinion, interest or relation, to violate the duties of justice and humanity; to approve, favour, or applaud, that which is bad in some; to dislike, discountenance, or disparage, that which is good in others. For he that upon such terms is a friend to any one man, or party of men, as to be resolved (with an implicit faith, or blind obedience,) to maintain, whatever he or they shall affirm to be true; and whatever they shall do, to be good; doth, in a manner, undertake enmity against all men beside; and as it may happen, doth oblige himself to contradict plain truth, to deviate from the rules of virtue, and offend Almighty God himself. This unlimited parti

ality we owe only to truth and goodness, and to God, the fountain of them. He that followed Tiberius Gracchus in his seditions, upon the score of friendship, and alleged in his excuse, that if his friend had required it of him, he should as readily have put fire to the Capitol!' was much more abominable for his disloyalty to his country, and horrible impiety against God, than commendable for his constant fidelity to his friend. And that soldier who is said to have told Cæsar (in his first expedition against Rome,) that in obedience to his commands he would not refuse to sheath his sword in the breast of his brother, or in the throat of his aged father, or in the heart of his mother, was, for his unnatural barbarity, rather to be abhorred, than to be esteemed for his loyal affection to his general. And in like manner, he that to please the humour of his friend, can be either injurious, or treacherous, or notably discourteous, to any man else, is very blameable, and renders himself odious to all others. Lælius, who incomparably well both understood and practised the rules of friendship, is, by Cicero, reported to have made

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this the first and chief law thereof. That we neither require of our friends the performance of base and wicked things; nor being requested of them, perform such ourselves." No virtue can be sustained at the expense of another virtue; and what we believe to be a virtue, even while it tempts us to do evil in its service, is nothing better than a desperate passion cloked under a privileged appearance: it is not affection, but dotage; it is not zeal, but fanaticism: not virtue, but vice!

15.

Friendship doth never bar the mind of its partner, from free satisfaction in all good.

16.

Where the desire is such as may be obtained, and the party well-deserving, it must be a great excuse, that may well colour a de

nial. But when the motion carries with it a direct impractibility, then must the only answer be comfort without help, and sorrow to both parties; to the one, not obtaining; to the other, not being able to grant.