root is in heaven. No panegyricks can reach the worth of those divine engagements, fince they admit not of any mediocrity, but derive their value only from their excess. I have been always flow and cautious in contracting amities, but where I have once pitched my affection, I love without reserve or rule. I never entertain, without fufpicion, the warm profeffions of love, which fome men are apt to make at first fight: fuch mushroom friendships have no deep root, and therefore most commonly wither as foon as they are formed: yet, I do not deny but there are some marks and fignatures, which fouls ordained for love and friendship can read in each other at a glance, by which that noble paffion is excited, that afterwards difplays itself in more apparent characters. This is the filent language of Platonick love, wherein the eye supplies the office of the tongue; it is the rhetorick of amorous fpirits, wherein they make their court without a word. There are some lafting friendships, which owe their birth to such an interview; but their growth and fastness proceed from other circumstances, being cherished by frequent converfation, repeated good offices, and an inviolate fidelity; which are the only proper and substantial aliment of love. It is impoffible to fix a friendship, wherever we place a tranfient inclination; because of the infupportable neceffities which divide particular men from each other's commerce, or knowledge, after they have begun to love. In the orb of this life, men are like the planets, which now and then caft friendly afpects on each other, en paffant; but following the motion of the greater sphere of providence, they are again feparated, their influences dif folve, folve, and new amours commence: but I would have my friendship resemble the fixed stars and conftellations, which, in the eternal revolution, never part company or interests. On the other hand, there is no one that can pretend to such a univerfalized fpirit, to be without antipathies. I efteem hatred to be as neceffary and allowable a paffion as love, provided it be exercised on its proper objects; fince, as the one faftens us to thofe things which procure our happiness, so the other fnatches us from what would be the cause of our misery. 1098. The advantages of a private life, above those of a publick, are certainly very great, if the bleffings of innocence, fecurity, meditation, good air, health, and found fleeps, without the rages of wine and lust, and the contagion of idle examples, can make them fo; for every thing, there, is natural and gracious. There is the diverfion of all healthful exercises for the body, the entertainment of the place, and of the rivers, without any base interest to corrupt either the virtue or the peace of our lives. He that is a flave in the town, is a kind of a petty prince in the country; he loves his neighbours without pride, and lives in charity with the whole world; all that he fees is his own, as to the delight of it, without envying the property; his doors are not troubled with either duns or fools; and he has the fages of all times in his cabinet for his companions. He lives to himself, as well as to the world, without brawls or quarrels of any fort whatsoever; he fees no bloody murders; he hears no blafphemous execrations; he lives free from the plagues of jealoufy and envy: and this is the life, in fine, that the the greatest, and the wifeft men in the world have, or would have made, choice of, if cares and business had not hindered them from fo great a bleffing. 1099. Every thing in this life is accidental, even our birth, that brings us into it: death is the only thing we can be fure of, and yet we behave ourselves just as if all the reft were certain, and death alone accidental. 1100. True friends are commonly reckoned in pairs; Thefeus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orefles and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, &c. the number two is the adequate and compleat meafure of friendship. I do not affèrt that we ought to confine ourselves, only to one, but among the reft there ought to be one eminently fo, chofe upon long and mature deliberation, and confirmed by a long and fettled converse. That which procures love and friendship in the world, is a fweet and obliging temper of mind, a lively readiness in doing good offices, together with a conftant habit of vir tue; than which qualifications nothing is more rarely found in nature; and therefore, to love and be beloved much, can have no place in a multitude; but the most eager affection, if divided among numerous objects, like a river divided into many channels, muft needs flow, at length, very weak and languid. Upon this fcore, thofe animals love their young moft, which generate but one; and Homer defcribing a beloved child, calls it the only begotten, and born in old age, at fuch a time when the parents neither have, nor hope for, another. 1101. He that has wife and children, has given hoftages to fortune; for they are impediments to great en terprizes, either of virtue or mifchief. The perpetuity by generation is common to beafts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men: and certainly a man fhall find the nobleft works and foundations have always proceeded from childless men, who have fought to exprefs the images of their minds, where thofe of their bodies have failed, and both in affection and means have married and endowed the publick: fo that the care of pofterity is the most in them that have none. 1102. When our hatred is too fierce, it fubjects us to the perfons we hate. 1103. Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out: for as to the first wrong, it does but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong puts the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in paffing it over he is fuperior, for it is only a prince's part to pardon. 1104. To confider purely the repose of this life, it would be well if religion had more or lefs influence upon mankind: It compels, and does not fubject enough, like some politicks, that take away the sweetness of liberty, without bringing the advantages of subjection. 1105. There never was a hypocrite yet fo disguised, but he had fome mark or other yet to be known by. 1106. When I think of the heart of a gentleman, I imagine it firm and intrepid, void of all inordinate paffions, and full of tenderness, compaffion and benevolence. When I view the fine gentleman, with regard to his manners, methinks I fee him modeft, without bashfulness; frank, frank and affable, without impertinence; obliging and complaifant, without fervility; chearful and in good humour, without noife: these amiable qualities are not eafily obtained, neither are there many men that have a genius to excel this way. A finished gentleman is perhaps the most uncommon of all the great characters in life: befides the natural endowments with which this diftinguished man is to be born, he muft run through a long series of education, before he makes his appearance, and fhines in the world; he must be principled in religion, instructed in all the moral virtues, and led through the whole course of the polite arts and sciences; he should be no ftranger to either courts or camps; he must travel, to open his mind, and enlarge his views, to learn the policies and interests of foreign states, as well as to fashion and polish himself, and to get clear of thofe natural prejudices, of which every country has its fhare. To these more effential improvements, he must not forget to add the fashionable ornaments, fuch as are the languages, and the bodily exercises most in vogue; neither would I have him think even drefs itself beneath his notice. 1107. Nothing can be more fickle than the judgment of men, as to the religion of others; they treat as impious perfons, those who forfake the world for God's fake; and those as weak and decayed in their understanding, that facrifice fortune to religion. 1108. He that is transported out of his nature, and out of his element, let the change be what it will, is a loser by the bargain. A plain, and a homely home, with competency and content, is beyond all the palaces under the |