But if truth be in ancient song,

Or story we believe;

If the inspired and greater throng

Have scorned to deceive;

There have been hearts whose friendship gave
Them thoughts at once both soft and grave.

Among that consecrated crew

Some more seraphic shade
Lend me a favourable clew,

Now mists my eyes invade.

Why, having fill'd the world with fame,
Left you so little of your flame?

Why is't so difficult to see

Two bodies and one mind?

And why are those who else agree

So difficultly kind?
Hath nature such fantastic art,
That she can vary every heart?

Why are the bands of friendship tied
With so remiss a knot,
That by the most it is defied,

And by the most forgot?
Why do we step with so light sense
From friendship to indifference?

[But thus Orinda died:

Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
DRYDEN, Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew.-C.]

ful specimen of female character. She translated two of the tragedies of Corneille, and left a volume of letters to Sir Charles Cotterell, which were published a considerable time after her death. Jeremy Taylor addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of Friendship," and Cowley, as also Flatman, his imitator, honoured her memory with poetical tributes.

If friendship sympathy impart,
Why this ill-shuffled game,

That heart can never meet with heart,
Or flame encounter flame?
What does this cruelty create?

Is't the intrigue of love or fate?

Had friendship ne'er been known to men, (The ghost at last confest)

The world had then a stranger been
To all that heaven possest.
But could it all be here acquired,
Not heaven itself would be desired.

A FRIEND.

LOVE, nature's plot, this great creation's soul,
The being and the harmony of things,
Doth still preserve and propagate the whole,
From whence man's happiness and safety
springs:

The earliest, whitest, blessed'st times did draw
From her alone their universal law.

Friendship 's an abstract of this noble flame,

"Tis love refined and purged from all its dross, The next to angel's love, if not the same, As strong in passion is, though not so gross: It antedates a glad eternity,

And is an heaven in epitome.....

Essential honour must be in a friend,

Not such as every breath fans to and fro; But born within, is its own judge and end,

And dares not sin though sure that none should know.

Where friendship 's spoke, honesty 's understood; For none can be a friend that is not good. . ... Thick waters show no images of things;

Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be Clearer than crystal or the mountain springs, And free from clouds, design or flattery. For vulgar souls no part of friendship share; Poets and friends are born to what they are.

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