ingenious flattery, both endeavour to impofe upon mankind by aping the manners of friendship; and very often do they fucceed in deluding an incautious and credulous world. But, (as it has been truly obferved by a very good judge of human nature) the nearer any thing approaches to what is good, that is not really fo, the more directly does it become its oppofite.

When we ferioufly reflect on all the evils of life, all thofe calamities and diftreffes, which even the happieft amongst us muft fometimes fuffer, and which the poor and defpifed do conftantly endure; how neceffary doth friendship feem to the very prefervation of our being!"Sorrow," fays the great Bacon, " lofes itfelf " in many channels; and joy, like a ray of the

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fun, reflects with more ardor and quickness "when it rebounds upon us from the breast of "a friend." There is indeed in every man a bias towards friendfhip implanted by nature; in all our pleafures, and in all our afflictions, we are ever feeking for a partner; even those who pretend to fhun, or hate mankind, are still in fearch of a friend: how much foever from grief and disappointment they may have con tracted an abhorrence of the fpecies in general, they are often very intimately connected with, and clofely attached to fome favourite individual." Take away friendship," fays the Roman philofopher, "and you take away all the

joy, all the fatisfaction of life." And indeed, in fpite of reafon, of reflection, nay of religion itself, when the tender ties of amity are broken and diffolved, when we have no friend left to

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comfort and fupport us, when we once begin to look upon ourselves as helpless individuals, without a partner in our joys or forrows, the world must become a cheerlefs defart. When all the finer and more valuable ore is drawn off, and only the drofs remains, it may then (it must indeed) be our duty to fuffer being, but it can no longer be our happiness to enjoy it.

On the other hand, there is in virtuous friendship, that fympathy of joy and grief, which doth (as it were) multiply our existence, shakes off the folitude of our nature, and gives us to enjoy a double being. It is this which foftens and humanizes the foul, ftrengthens the judgment, refines the imagination, and creates an habitual benevolence to our fellow-creatures.

He who is infenfible of friendship, who centres all his pleasures in the gratification of felf-love, can be regarded but as a limb cut off from the body of fociety; a dead branch, that produces neither fhade nor fruit; fit only to be hewed down, and cast into the fire: whereas, he who is a good and fincere friend, will never be a bad man; cannot be a bad Chriftian. The unfeeling callous heart, that is incapable of private truft or confidence, little merits public efteem or veneration: the lover of himself can never be the lover of his country or his kind; because it is abfurd to fuppofe, that he who has not the difpofition to care for one man, fhould have the inclination to promote the happiness of thousands.

The virtues, then, requifite to the formation of a true friend, will enable a man to perform

all the duties of life. And as only thofe who feek the Lord can themfelves be friends; fo neither can any but they merit or acquire them: friendship is a bleffing which only his fervants. can deferve, and He only can beftow. Whofo feareth the Lord, fays the wife man, he fhall direct his friendship aright. Every bleffing of life, and this more peculiarly, is given to us by God. He who formed the paffions of the foul, must direct and influence them; and he alone, who made hearts, can unite them.

It was he, and he only, who knit the bonds of that facred tie, that noble friendship recorded in holy writ, between two of his most faithful fervants. David feared the Lord, and therefore did he find his beloved Jonathan: and never did man perhaps fo well deserve, or fo truly enjoy, this invaluable bleffing. If we confider the diftrefsful circumftances of this illuftrious unfortunate, perfecuted as he was by tyranny and oppreffion, and the kind relief fo often adminiftered to him by the partner of his foul, we muft fay, that friendship was to him the medicine of life. Saul's inveteracy was a poifon which only this precious antidote could ever have removed. Though David was the enemy of his father, tho' he had been by prophecies declared the fucceffor, and thus ftood between him and the throne; yet we fee the fon's duty, the fubject's obedience, and even the royal hero's ambition, yielded to the irrefiftible charms of friendship and affection. Jonathan forgot the rival in the friend, and generoufly ftruggled to promote David's inte

reft,

The holy

reft, even in oppofition to his own. pfalmift well knew the value of fuch a treasure, he would not change fuch a friend for any good, nor fo faithful a brother for the gold of Ophir. Hearts fo united, nothing but death could feparate. How much while living he efteemed him, how much when dead he regretted him, his own eloquence alone can defcribe.

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O Jonathan! I am diftreffed for thee, my ther Jonathan; very delightful haft thou been to me; thy love to me was wonderful, paffing the love of women! The whole beautiful and pathetic elegy, as we find it in holy writ, is perhaps more capable of infpiring worthy fentiments of this refined paffion, than any thing which ancient or modern eloquence can produce, How feldom do fuch pairs meet in these our days! but few of us have the virtue to merit fuch friends, and therefore it is that fo few of us enjoy them.

He must have lived but a very short time, or have paffed it with very little reflection, who has not observed that the present age is diftinguished by a remarkable decay of private friendship: we do not meet with those noble inftances of mutual confidence, and difinterefted attachment, which characterised former times. Both in our virtues and our vices we differ from those who went before us. We are perhaps more fober, and more cautious, certainly more charitable, but I believe we are not fo honest, so friendly, fo open and fincere as our ancestors: what we gain on one fide, we lose

on the other; it will become us, therefore, to look into the account, and fee whether in the end we are bettered by the exchange: if we give up the pleasures of private friendfhip, for nothing but public parade and amusement; if we barter our honour and integrity for polite. nefs and good-breeding, and exchange the heart-felt happiness of domestic endearments, for the external, cafual enjoyments of fashionable follies, we fhall have little reafon to defpife our predeceffors, or boaft our fancied fuperiority over them.

Amongst innumerable evil confequences arifing from that frivolous manner of spending time, which we have of late years infenfibly contracted, it is not perhaps the least, that it is the greatest enemy to that virtuous friendship we are now confidering. The variety, and fo frequent repetition of public meetings, muft naturally be deftructive of all private connections: in large and populous affemblies there is always a mutual commerce of deception and diffimulation carried on, which infenfibly corrupts the mind, and teaches the tongue a language foreign to the heart.

Hence it arifes, that what we generally term friendships, are but the bands of folly; knit together by the flender ties of intereft, or the filken cords of pleasure, which are easily broken and difunited. Whilft on the other hand, the few, the very few, which are bound by the golden chain of virtue, and impreffed with the feal of truth, are firm, conftant, and indiffoluble.

We cannot therefore be too careful (and especially in the early part of our lives) with regard