to promote the good and happiness of one another. Though the pleasures and advantages of friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral writers, and are considered by all as great ingredients of human happiness, we very rarely meet with the practice of this virtue in the worid.

Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue of those virtues and good qualities he expects to find in the person of a friend, but Tery kv of us are careful to cultivate them in ourselves.

Love and esteem are the first principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.

As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a man whom we cannot esteem; so, on the other, though we are truly sensible of a man's abilities, we can never raise ourselves to the warmths of friendship, without an affectionate good will towards his person.

Friendship immediately banishes envy under all its disguises. A man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his friends being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to this virtue.

There is something in friendship so very great and noble, that in those fictitious stories which are invented to the honour of any particular person, the authors have thought it as necessary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and .Eneas his Achates. In the first of these instances we may observe, for the reputation of the subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruined by the hero's love, but was preserved by his friendship.

This character of Achates suggests to us an observation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who frequently choose their companions rather for the qualities of the heart than those of the head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inoffensive, complying temper, to those endowments which make a much greater figure among mankind. I do not remember that Achates, who is represented as the first favourite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow, through the whole Mneii.

A friendship which makes the least noise, is very often most useful: for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.

Atticus, one of the best men of ancient Rome, was a very remarkable instance of what I am here speaking. This extraordinary person, amidst the civil wars of his country, when he saw the designs of all parties equally tended to the subversion of liberty, by constantly preserving the esteem and affection of both the competitors, found means to serve his friends on either side; and, while he sent money to young Marius, whose father was declared an enemy of the commonwealth, he was himself one of Sylla's chief favourites, and always near that general

During the war between Caesar and Pompey, he still maintained the same conduct. After the death of Cresar, he sent money to Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand good offices to Antony's wife and friends when that party seemed ruined. Lastly, even in that bloody war between Anthony and Augustus, Aniens still kept his place in both their friendships; insomuch that the first, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he was absent from Rome in any part of the empire, writ punctually to him what he was doing, what be read, and whither he intended to go ; and the latter gave him constantly an exact account of all his affairs.

A likeness of inclinations in every particular is so far from being requisite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest friendships to have been contracted between persons of different humours; the mind being often pleased with those perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among its own accomplishments. Besides that a man in some measure supplies his own defects, and fancies himself at second-band pos sessed of those good qualities and endowments, which are in the possession of bim who in the eye of the world is looked on as bis other self.

The most difficult province in friendship is, the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches, therefore, of a friend should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.

The violent desire of pleasing in the person reproved, may otherwise change into a despair of doing it, while he finds himself censured for faults he is not conscious of. A mind that is softened and humanized by friendship cannot bear frequent reproaches; either it must quite sink under the oppression, or abate considerably of the value and esteem it had for him who bestows them.

The proper business of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a soul thus supported, outdoes itself; whereas, if it be unexpectedly deprived of these succours, it droops and languishes.

We are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our duties to a friend than to a relation; since the former arise from a voluntary choice, the latter from a necessity to which we could not give our own consent.

As it has been said on one side, that a man ought not to break with a faulty friend, that he may not expose the weakness of his choice; it will doubtless hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, that he may never be upbraided for having lost so valuable a treasure which was once in bis possession.*

BUDOELL. X.

• See No. 68.

No. 386. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1712.

Cum tristibus severe, com remissis jucunde, cum aenibui graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere. Tull.

The piece of Latin on the head of this paper is part of a character extremely vicious; but I have set down no more than may fall in with the rules of justice and honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who, he said, " lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleasantly;" he added, " with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lasciviously." The two last instances of liis complaisance I forbear to consider, having it in my thoughts at present only to speak of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of design and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner, cannot be agreeable, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming prostitution imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain no other end but an unjust praise from the undiscerning, is of all endeavours the most despicable. A man must be sincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others: for this reason it is a most calamitous circumstance, that many people who want to be alone, or should be «o, will come into conversation. It is certain that all men, who are the least given to reflection, are seized with an inclination that way, when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company; but indeed they had better go borne and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon others to recover their good humour. In all this the case of communicating to a friend a sad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, stands excepted; but what is here meant is, that a man should always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or not pretend to be of the party. It is certainly a very happy temper to be able to lire with all kinds of dispositions, because it argues a mind that lies open to receive what is pleasing to others, and not obstinately bent on any particularity of his own.

This it is which makes me pleased with the character of my good acquaintance, Acasto. You meet him at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one sect of men; but Acasto has natural good sense, good nature, and discretion, so that every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acasto contributes nothing to tho entertainment, he never was at a place •here he was not welcome a second time. Without these subordinate good qualities of Acasto, a man of wit and learning would be painful to the generality of mankind, instead of being pleasing. Witty men are apt to imagine they are agreeable as such, and by that means grow the worst companions imaginable; they deride the absent or rally the present in a wrong manner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a man till he is uneasy in his seat, or ungracefully distinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him.

I was going to say, the true art of being agreeable in company (but there can be no such thing as art in it) is to appear well pleased with those you are engaged with, and rather to seem well entertained, than to bring entertainment to others. A man thus disposed is not indeed what we ordinarily call a good companion, but essentially is such, and in all the parts of his conversation has something friendly in his behaviour, which conciliates men's minds more than the highest sallies of wit or starts of humour can possibly do. The feebleness of age in a man of this turn, has something which should be treated with respect even in a man no otherwise venerable. The forwardness of youth, when it proceeds from alacrity, and not insolence, has also its allowances. The companion who is formed for such by nature, gives to every character of life its due regards, and is ready to account for their imperfections, and receive their accomplishments as if they were his own. It must appear that you receive law from, and not give it to your company, to make you agreeable.

I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of Antony, says, that in eo facetia erant, qua nulla arte tradi possunt: ' He had a witty mirth, which could be acquired by no art.' This quality must be of the kind of which I am now speaking; for all sorts of behaviour which depend upon observation and knowledge of life, is to be acquired; but that which no one can describe, and is apparently the act of nature, must be every where prevalent, because every thing it meets is a fit occasion to exert it; for he who follows nature, can never be improper or unseasonable.

How unaccountable then must their behaviour be, who, without any manner of consideration of what the company they have just now entered are upon, give themselves the air of a messenger, and make as distinct relations of the occurrences they last met with, as if they had been dispatched from those they talk to, to be punctually exact in a report of those circumstances. It is unpardonable to those who are met to enjoy one another, that a fresli man shall pop in, and give us only the last part of his own life, and put a stop to ours during the history. If such a man comes from 'Change, whether you will or not, you must hear how the stocks go; and, though you are ever so intently employed on a graver subject, a young fellow of the other end of the town will take his place, and tell you, Mrs. Such-a-oneis charmingly handsome, because he just now saw her. But I think I need not dwell on this subject, since I have acknowledged there can be no rules made for excelling this way; and precepts of this kind fare like rules for writing poetry, which, it is said, may have prevented ill poets, but never made good ones.

STEELE. T.

No. 387. SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1712

Quid pure trajiqnillet Hob. I, »p. xvm. 102.

What calms the breast, and makes the mind serene.

Is my last Saturday's paper* I spoke of cheerfulness as it is a moral habit of the mind, and accordingly mentioned such moral motives as are apt to cherish and keep alive this happy temper in the soul of man: I shall now consider cheerfulness in its natural state, and reflect on those motives to it, which are indifferent either as to virtue or vice.

Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the best promoter of health. Repinings, and secret murmurs of heart, give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not to mention those violent ferments which they stir up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions which they raise in the animal spirits. I scarce remember, in mine own observation, to have met with any old men, or with such, who (to use our English phrase) wear well, that had not at least a certain indolence in their numour, if not a more than ordinary gaiety and cheerfulness of heart. The truth of it is, health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other; with this difference that we seldom meet with a great degree of health which is not attended with a certain cheerfulness, but very often see cheerfulness, where there is no great degree of health.

Cheerfulness bears the same friendly regard to the mind as to the body. It banishes all anxious care and discontent, soothes and composes the passions, and keeps the soul in a perpetual calm. But having already touched on this last consideration, I shall here take notice, that the world in which we are placed, is filled with innumerable objects that are proper to raise and keep alive this happy temper of mind.

If we consider the world in its subserviency to man, one would think it was made for our use; but if we consider it in its natural beauty and harmony, one would be apt to conclude it was made for our pleasure. The sun, which is as the great soul of the universe, and produces all the necessaries of life, has a particular influence in cheering the mind of man, and making the heart glad.

* No. 381. See also No. 393.