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Caution in forming, and Conftancy in preserving, Friendships recommended.

PROVERBS Xxvii. 10.

Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, for fake not.

THERE is not a more pleafing topic of declamation, or a topic which hath more frequently employed the pens of philofophers and moralifts, than friendship. We often read of its mighty power to enliven and cheer the heart of man, to heighten his pleasures and alleviate his forrows, and to make his days, whether they be fair or foul, pafs fmoothly and pleasantly along.

How far the actual experience of mankind agrees with the pictures which have S 3

been

been drawn by poets and philofophers in their closets, it may perhaps be difficult to determine. There are doubtlefs focial, benevolent, and tender feelings, in the human heart; there is, doubtless, in nature fuch a thing as friendship: and, poffibly, those who are poffeffed of an uncommon share of natural fenfibility, cultivated and ftrengthened by a liberal and refined education, and who have had the happiness to form connexions with perfons whofe fentiments and tastes are fimilar to their own, may fee reafon to think that the union of hearts which fubfifts between intimate friends is productive of pleafures little inferior to any thing which the poet's pen can describe, or his fancy conceive. Poffibly, with fuch perfons, friendship is so dear and facred a name, that, at the bare mention of · it," their hearts burn within them."

But when young perfons enter into life with too exalted notions of friendship and benevolence, and too high expectations

from

from mankind, (which their own warm and generous difpofitions, and the usual ftrain of the books they read, concur to give them) it frequently happens, that, after a few disappointments, they find themselves obliged to lower their opinion of human life, and begin to think that they have hitherto only amused themselves with romantic dreams, and that pure, difinterested, immutable friendship, is little better than an agreeable fiction, the creature of a gay and youthful fancy and it is well if the mortification and pain which attend this discovery do not four their tempers, make them diffatisfied with the world, and indispose them for enjoying even the real pleasures of focial life.

It is not, however, folely to be ascribed to the imperfection of human nature, or to the flattering ideas which we are apt at first to entertain concerning the world, that we meet with fuch frequent difappointments, and fo feldom enjoy, in any S 4 degree

One

degree of perfection, the pleasures of friendship. There are other causes that concur to produce this effect which lie much more within our own power, and to which, for the fake of our own peace, we should pay particular attention. of the principal of these is, that we are not fufficiently fenfible of the value of an old and approved friend, and are too apt, on flight grounds, to reject and forfake him, and to receive others into our hearts before we can have had fufficient proof that they are worthy of fuch confidence.

What is prefent with us, and we call our own, we are too apt to defpife and undervalue. What is at a diftance, and not yet at our command, we ufually prize at too high a rate. Poffeffion diminishes, expectation and defire magnify, the worth of every object which comes under our notice. Thus it is with regard to friendship. The friends we have already gained, whose fidelity we have tried, and whofe affection we have experienced, we

are

are too apt to disregard and treat with indifference, at the very time when we ought to receive them to our bofoms with the most cordial affection-when their fincerity has been fufficiently tried, and fully approved. When the charm of novelty is over, it requires no common share of good sense, and steadiness of temper, to preserve that uniform and inviolable attachment, without which friendship is but a name. The first ardours of affection are generally too violent to continue; and it is often seen that they gradually fubfide into indifference, and are even changed into contempt and hatred. These disagreeable revolutions in friendships frequently happen amongst young perfons, between whom we rarely find that calm and steady attachment which is founded in judgment and established by experience. Various reasons may be affigned to account for this fact.

There is in moft young perfons a certain reftleffness and unfteadiness of temper,

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