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I do not remember to have met with any Saying that has pleased me more than that of a Friend’s being the Medicine of Life, to express the Efficacy of Friendship in healing the Pains and Anguish which naturally cleave to our Existence in this World; and am Wonderfully pleased with the Turn in the last Sentence, That a virtuous Man shall as a Blessing meet with a Friend who is as virtuous as himself. There is another Saying in the same Author, which would have been very much admired in an Heathen Writer;

Forsake not an old Friend, for the new is not comparable to him: A new Friend is as new Wine; When it is old thou shalt drink it with Pleasure.[4]

With what Strength of Allusion and Force of Thought, has he described the Breaches and Violations of Friendship?

Whoso casteth a Stone at the Birds frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth his Friend, breaketh Friendship. Tho’ thou drawest a Sword at a Friend yet despair not, for there may be a returning to Favour: If thou hast opened thy Mouth against thy Friend fear not, for there may be a Reconciliation; except for Upbraiding, or Pride, or disclosing of Secrets, or a treacherous Wound; for, for these things every Friend will depart.[5]

We may observe in this and several other Precepts in this Author, those little familiar Instances and Illustrations, which are so much admired in the moral Writings of Horace and Epictetus. There are very beautiful Instances of this Nature in the following Passages, which are likewise written upon the same Subject:

Whoso discovereth Secrets, loseth his Credit, and shall never find a Friend to his Mind. Love thy Friend, and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewrayest his Secrets, follow no more after him: For as a Man hath destroyed his Enemy, so hast thou lost the Love of thy Friend; as one that letteth a Bird go out of his Hand, so hast thou let thy Friend go, and shalt not get him again: Follow after him no mere, for he is too far off; he is as a Roe escaped out of the Snare. As for a Wound it may be bound up, and after reviling there may be Reconciliation; but he that bewrayeth Secrets, is without Hope.[6]

Among the several Qualifications of a good Friend, this wise Man has very justly singled out Constancy and Faithfulness as the principal: To these, others have added Virtue, Knowledge, Discretion, Equality in Age and Fortune, and as Cicero calls it, Morum Comitas, a Pleasantness of Temper. [7] If I were to give my Opinion upon such an exhausted Subject, I should join to these other Qualifications a certain AEquability or Evenness of Behaviour. A Man often contracts a Friendship with one whom perhaps he does not find out till after a Year’s Conversation; when on a sudden some latent ill Humour breaks out upon him, which he never discovered or suspected at his first entering into an Intimacy with him. There are several Persons who in some certain Periods of their Lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty Picture of one of this Species in the following Epigram:
Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem,
Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.

In all thy Humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant Fellow;
Hast so much Wit, and Mirth, and Spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

It is very unlucky for a Man to be entangled in a Friendship with one, who by these Changes and Vicissitudes of Humour is sometimes amiable and sometimes odious: And as most Men are at some Times in an admirable Frame and Disposition of Mind, it should be one of the greatest Tasks of Wisdom to keep our selves well when we are so, and never to go out of that which is the agreeable Part of our Character.

C.

[Footnote 1: Ecclesiasticus vii. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 2: Eccles. vi. 7, and following verses.]

[Footnote 3: Eccles. vi. 15-18.]

[Footnote 4: Eccles. ix. 10.]

[Footnote 5: Eccles. ix, 20-22.]

[Footnote 6: Eccles. xxvii. 16, etc.]

[Footnote 7: Cicero ‘de Amicitia’, and in the ‘De Officiis’ he says (Bk. II.),

‘difficile dicta est, quantopere conciliet animos hominum comitas, affabilitasque sermonia.’]