vigilance of caution, or the honeft arts of prudent integrity, ready to accufe without malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be ufeful to the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of good purposes and uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender intimacies. He cannot properly be chofen for a friend, whose kindness is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of flander; he cannot be a useful counfellor, who will hear no opinion but his own; he will not much invite confidence whofe principal maxim is to fufpect; nor can the candour and franknefs of that man be much esteemed, who fpreads his arms to humankind, and makes every man, without diftinction, a denizen of his bofom. That friendship may be at once fond and lafting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the fame kind; not only the fame end must be proposed, but the fame means muft be approved by both. We are often, by fuperficial accomplishments and accidental endearments, induced to love thofe whom we cannot efteem: we are fometimes, by great abilities, and inconteftible evidences of virtue, compelled to esteem those whom we cannot love. But friendship, compounded of efteem and love, derives from one its tenderness, and its permanence from the other; and therefore requires not only that its candidates fhould gain the judgment, but that they should attract the affections; that they fhould not only be firm in the day of diftrefs, but gay in the hour of jollity; not only useful in exigencies, but pleafing in familiar life; their prefence fhould give cheerfulnefs as well as courage, and difpel alike the gloom of fear and of melancholy. Το To this mutual complacency is generally requifite an uniformity of opinions, at least of those active and confpicuous principles which discriminate parties in government and fects in religion, and which every day operate more or lefs on the common business of life. For though great tenderness has, perhaps, been fometimes known to continue between men eminent in contrary factions; yet fuch friends are to be fhewn rather as prodigies than examples, and it is no more proper to regulate our conduct by fuch inftances, than to leap a precipice, because fome have fallen from it and ef caped with life. It cannot but be extremely difficult to preferve private kindness in the midst of publick oppofition, in which will neceffarily be involved a thousand incidents, extending their influence to conversation and privacy. Men engaged, by moral or religious motives, in contrary parties, will generally look with different eyes upon every man, and decide almost every question upon different principles. When fuch occafions of difpute happen, to comply is to betray our caufe, and to maintain friendship by ceafing to deserve it; to be filent, is to lose the happiness and dignity of independence, to live in perpetual constraint, and to defert, if not to betray: and who fhall determine which of two friends fhall yield, where neither believes himself mistaken, and both confefs the importance of the question? What then remains but contradiction and debate? and from those what can be expected, but acrimony and vehemence, the infolence of triumph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a wearinefs of contest, and an extinction of benevolence? Exchange of endear endearments and intercourfe of civility may continue, indeed, as boughs may for a while be ver◄ dant, when the root is wounded; but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening and contracting. That man will not be long agreeable, whom we see only in times of seriousness and severity; and therefore to maintain the foftness and ferenity of benevolence, it is neceffary that friends partake each others pleasures as well as cares, and be led to the fame diverfions by fimilitude of taste. This is, however, not to be confidered as equally indispensable with conformity of principles, because any man may honeftly, according to the precepts of Horace, refign the gratifications of taste to the humour of another, and friendship may well deserve the facrifice of pleasure, though not of confcience. It was once confeffed to me by a painter, that no profeffor of his art ever loved another. This declaration is fo far juftified by the knowledge of life, as to damp the hopes of warm and constant friendship, between men whom their studies have made competitors, and whom every favourer and every cenfurer are hourly inciting against each other. The utmost expectation that experience can warrant, is, that they fhould forbear open hoftilities and fecret machinations, and when the whole fraternity is attacked, be able to unite against a common foe. Some however, though few, may perhaps be found, in whom emulation has not been able to overpower generofity, who are diftinguished from lower beings by nobler motives than the love of fame, and can preferve the facred flame flame of friendship from the gufts of pride and the rubbish of interest. Friendship is feldom lasting but between equals, or where the fuperiority on one fide is reduced by fome equivalent advantage on the other. Benefits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be difcharged, are not commonly found to increafe affection; they excite gratitude indeed, and heighten veneration, but commonly take away that eafy freedom, and familiarity of intercourfe, without which, though there may be fidelity, and zeal, and admiration, there cannot be friendship. Thus imperfect are all earthly bleffings; the great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the firft act of uncommon kindnefs it is endangered, like plants that bear their fruit and die. Yet this confideration ought not to reftrain bounty or reprefs compaffion; for duty is to be preferred before convenience, and he that lofes part of the pleasures of friendship by his generofity, gains in its place the gratulation of his confcience. NUMB. 65. TUESDAY, October 30, 1750. Garrit aniles Ex re fabellas. The cheerful fage, when folemn dictates fail, HOR. OBIDAH, the fon of Abenfina, left the cara vanfera early in the morning, and purfued his journey through the plains of Indoftan. He was fresh and vigorous with reft; he was animated with hope; he was incited by defire; he walked swiftly fwiftly forward over the vallies, and faw the hills gradually rifing before him. As he paffed along, his ears were delighted with the morning fong of the bird of paradife, he was fanned by the laft flutters of the finking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of fpices; he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and fometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring: all his fenfes were gratified, and all care was banished from his heart. Thus he went on till the fun approached his meridian, and the increafing heat preyed upon his ftrength; he then looked round about him for some more commodious path. He faw, on his right hand, a grove that feemed to wave its fhades as a fign of invitation; he entered it, and found the coolness and verdure irrefiftibly pleasant. He did not, however, forget whither he was traveling, but found a narrow way bordered with flowers, which appeared to have the fame direction, with the main road, and was pleafed that, by this happy experiment, he had found means to unite pleasure with bufinefs, and to gain the rewards of diligence without fuffering its fatigues. He, therefore, ftill continued to walk for a time, without the leaft remiffion of his ardour, except that he was fometimes tempted to ftop by the mufick of the birds, whom the heat had affembled in the fhade; and fometimes amufed himself with plucking the flowers that covered the banks on either fide, or the fruits that hung upon the branches. At laft the green path began to decline from its first tendency, and to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with fountains, and mur |