be

kind attention to your conduct, when you are least on your guard, without officious nefs or fcrupulofity,-unwearied affistance, without noise or oftentation, wherever your welfare or comfort in any shape requires it; and finally, of difclofing with fafety the deareft fecrets and inmoft fenfations of the foul? We ftill hope fuch felicity may found. Such felicity will be found by thofe that are the favourites of Heaven. To find it, you who love whatever is happieft, and moft divine, will not account any poffible pains too great. A virtuous, intelligent, and feeling Friend, will richly reward you :: and having found him, you will beware of forfeiting the inestimable prize..

A well-formed Friendship indulges not falfe delicacies; but, as it practises, so it demands, those that are real.

"Referve will wound it, and diftruft deftroy.".

A generous openness and unfufpecting confidence are among its chief attributes. and prefervatives. He who firft taught

the maxim of converfing with our Friends as if they were fome day to become our enemies, might be deemed, by himself and his difciples, wonderfully wife: but the affectionate and the noble will abhor that frigid caution, which would rob the heart of its highest enjoyment, the pouring itfelf out with fulness and freedom on those fubjects that intereft it most. The fublime fpirit of Friendship never inspired their breasts, who would regulate its movements by the fordid rules of political management. Let me be repeatedly deceived by the perfidious, and laughed at for my fimplicity by the cunning, rather than fubmit to be the flave of fufpicion, and chained up by pitiful fears and miferable jealoufies, at the very moments that Nature pants to break through the trammels of Art, and fling herself without reftraint or study into the bofom of a Friend.

Not that the laws of prudence or propriety are to be wilfully violated in this

commerce. He that has a true respect and tender affection for another will treat him well of course, and would tremble at the thought of affronting or hurting the man whom, of all others, he most wishes to please. Grofs familiarity, and offenfive manners, are not perhaps more repugnant to the character of a lover, than of a Friend. There is, in both connexions, fomething that tends to polish, and to foften; though the laft will never, like the firft, be in danger from effeminacy. In the beginning of a fervent Friendship, the common forms of life may poffibly be omitted without much hazard: but when the intercourfe is no longer new, and its firft ardour is fomewhat abated, they will often be neceffary to prevent that disgust or indifference which is produced by a blunt and unguarded behaviour; though they must never be fuffered to banish sincerity, or eafe, without which Friendship is inftantly transformed to infupportable ceremony, or polite diffimulation.

Would you preferve the attachment of a person raised above the vulgar in his views and difpofitions? It is not to be done by courtship, bribery, or expensive gifts; things which have no connexion with the fenfibilities of a good mind; but by the continuance of thofe virtuous qualities that originally engaged him, accompanied with sweet attentions, and little seasonable marks of remembrance and regard, which will show you to be occupied with the image of your Friend, independent of important occafions to call it up, and which that Friend will not eftimate by their intrinfic value, but by the amiable propenfity that is for ever prompting them.

In Friendship, as in love, the leaft trifle is of confequence, when meant for a token of affection. Where this union is happily formed, that mighty magician, The Heart, touches every link of the chain into a peculiar luftre. Those who

can only be attracted or bound by lucrative confiderations, and continual favours, are not Friends, but mere courtiers, or politicians. If you, my dear youth, are caft in a better mould, though you will be always ready to render the man of your choice the greatest service, you will never think of exacting the fmalleft in return. If he is acquainted with your fituation, you will leave him to judge what he can do for your intereft; and you will accept his affiftance with pleasure, not as the payment of a debt, but as a free-will offering, a new proof of his Friendship, and a farther incentive to yours. If he is ignorant of any difficulty or distress in your condition, which you know it is not in his power to remove, you will not always be forward, by explaining it, to give him fruitlefs inquietude. A mind truly noble will often devour its anguish in fecret, rather than inflict too much pain on another by unneceffary communication. There is infinite delicacy in