its service, dims the bright eye, and stiffens the elastic form into the attitudes of monumental alabaster, commanding the surrender of beauty, of health, and of love itself, to its supremacy ?-What but gratitude for unreal favours; what but fidelity to imagined patrons; what but the self-same sentiment, which under rational modifications, and finding its objects among the children of humanity, would have constituted the most perfect idea we can form, of the excellence of woman's friendship.

2. Other grounds which justify the partiality of a particular friendship, are, congeniality of sentiment, and concurrence of circumstances to the reciprocation of services in the pursuit of good and laudable objects.

There can be no friendship and no real friendliness (because there can be no confidence) between persons pursuing an object of an equivocal or guilty character. Each must doubt the degree of sincerity with which it is pursued by the other, and must fear the relaxation of that steadiness of pursuit, of which a good object is only worthy, and good men only are capable. So that friendship, naturally supposes a high degree of virtue between the persons who are united in it. And as one mind can no more concentrate in itself all the different, and sometimes, incompatible excellences which may be called for, in the prosecution of great and good objects; any more than one man's body can possess the strength of two; it seems as evidently the design of Nature, that we should borrow the assistance of another man's discretion, as of his physical strength: and that minds should need and render help to each other, as necessarily, as that there should be a concurrence of muscular labour, in the raising of an edifice. And here is a most natural, grateful, and obvious ground for the partiality of a particular friendship; with this advantage to it, that it does not suppose the necessity of a perfect equality of circumstaces, or exact consentaneity of mind, between the attached parties.

It is doubtful whether any mind ever united in itself a high degree of energy, with an equal degree of precision of action: or whether any commanding excellence of intellect, can be possessed by any one, but at the expence of a mortgage on his share of some other faculties, whose room and place of developement, that excellence has forestalled. A prodigious memory often bankrupts the mind of its allowance of judgment.

'Tis said of Pascal, that he never forgot any thing which he had once read, or heard. I don't believe it. But Pascal could never see the beauty of a landscape. Sir Isaac Newton, clearly understood the laws of gravitation, and of planetary motion-but he left his laundress to choose his religion for him.

This necessity of services of one mind to another, of giving and of receiving advice, (which none but those who are more closely acquainted with our infirmities, than the many can be, or than it would be prudent for us to let them be, have a right to

give,) is the seal of Nature's allowance, on the bond of a personal friendship. It is a justifiable ground of it; and makes the partiality of a preference to the person rendering us such services, no entrenchment on the portion or share in our affections, to which any other might be equally entitled; but to be his due and property indefeasible, by that everlasting law of righteousness which would have no service unrepaid, and no benefit unbalanced by its equivalent return of benefit. Such are the grounds which justify the partiality of a particular friendship.

II. The principles on which our particular friendships are to be maintained, is the next consideration. These principles, as naturally as the corollary of a geometrical problem, will be found, by the mind's following on the definition which we have established of the nature of friendship, to its obvious consequences. As friendship can only be founded in reason, and raised in virtue; so it can only be maintained on reasonable and virtuous principles: and will not, therefore, be subject to those alternations and that absolute dependence on the same continuing atmosphere of circumstances which characterizes those foolish fondnesses, which having had no reason for their commencement, will not wait for a reason, for their conclusion.

The first principle on which a particular friendship once established, is to be maintained, is, the continuation of the mutual respect in which it originated; a respect at all times and under all circumstances, to be exhibited; and that, the more heedfully, in proportion as the confidence reposed allows an unbending and unguardedness, upon which the approach of a diminished degree of respect, would be an ungenerous advantage.

A friend is but another and more awful self: and should never be received, but with the honours paid to him by us, which we should feel it our duty to claim for him, from others. Even his own dispensation of those courtesies, will not acquit us from the observance of them. Trifling as they may seem in themselves, their effect on the issues of our friendships, and on the happiness which depends on those friendships, makes them more than worthy of the animadversion of the moralist.

Honour all men, is the dictate of humanity and justice; but above all men, HONOUR THY FRIEND, is the prescription of gratitude and of reason.

A rational and virtuous friendship, (and surely I may hope that no attachment but that of reason and virtue, will be thought worthy of the name of friendship) will bear; and will require, that we should tell our friend of his faults. It is the privilege to which a friend only, is entitled. It is the kindest and most faithful office which friendship consecrates. It is the great end and utility of having a friend. The discharge of this office, necessarily supposes, that our friend's satisfaction is less with us, though his respect is never greater, than when he discharges that, the

even

mmediate and appropriate duty of the relation in which he' stands to us. It is not a cloudy day, nor a passing storm, that can lessen or alter the genial climate of a generous friendship. We are not always satisfied with ourselves; and it would be too much to expect from those who are nearest and dearest to us, an uniformity of acquiescence, which we could not ensure if his heart were in our hand, and we had the power of moulding him to our ovan liking. Nay, rather, the honouring us, or expressing towards us an equal degree of affection, whether we be wrong or right, and travelling with us per all adventure through the vagaries of our passion; rather than giving us the salutary pain of a check, a reproof, and even a rebuke, would betray the character of a parasite and a flatterer, as distinguished from that of a friend. The rule of what is fit and right in friendship, is, never to expect too much from your friend: nor to forget that real services, and substantial kindnesses are not the less valuable, when the pure gold is somewhat the dimmer for the wearing. Expect not too much. And there shall ever be enough in a good man's reasonable partiality towards us, to fill our cup of of life with everlasting sweetness, to answer all the ends and intentions of a generous friendship, to assist our reason, and to reward our virtue.

Men and Brethren, thus have ye within the limits of your time of attention, the moral view of friendship. The grounds which justify it, and the principles on which it is to be maintained. If I have succeeded in the object of this Discourse, ye have learned both how to be, and how to have a friend. With such monition as may save you from those fatal shipwrecks of your mind's happiness, and from those cruel chagrins and heartbreakings, which are always hazarded, and often incurred, when the precious treasure is embarked in crazy vessels.

Ye have learned, I hope, for an everlasting remembrance, the important maxim, that no friendship can exist among vicious men, for any ends. Nor even among good and virtuous men, for any ends but those of goodness and virtue. The discipline of a just and rational partiality for an individual, or for the immediate circle in which it is our happiness to move, is just and fit; only, as creating first, and strengthening round its central nucleus in the heart, that noble sentiment which Nature has formed, like her rivers, to increase and deepen as they flow:

"The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads:

Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace,
His country next, and next all human race."

The loss therefore of a particular friend, though it be a trial of our virtue, will never be a trial for which our virtue will not be equal. He who was a companion only, may cease to be a companion; he who was a partner may dissolve the partnership; but he who was a friend, in death or separation will still have

left us the stock of friendship. And "Why shouldst thou weep for one," says our great and good philosopher Confucius," when thou hast so many still remaining?" The virtues and excellences which have called forth our admiration or affianced our gratitude to one, or to a few only of the human race, may be found in others—in many. The capacity of them, is in all mankind. For after all, man is by Nature good, by Nature's rich endowing topfull of excellent dispositions, and amiable affections. 'Tis but to recal him to the dictates of his nature, to reclaim him from the influence of principles opposed to those dictates, and you shall pluck commiseration, tenderness, and love, "from brassy bosoms and rough hearts of steel; from stubborn Turks, and Tartars never trained to offices of gentle courtesy."

Nature hath never cast into our mould of form, a creature " around whose bosom she hath not a chord entwined," to vibrate to the touches of sweetest harmony. So "on iron pennons borne, the blood-stained vulture cleaves the storm, yet is the plumage nearest to his heart, soft as the cygnet's down." To deal with the heart only, so as to attune that exquisite string, and by the passing over and knowing no more the causes which have induced unnatural divisions into religious sects, and parties, and the perpetual animosities and eternal feuds which those divisions occasion; to render man again, what Nature intended him to be, the friend of man; and to establish the general prevalence of sincerity and truth, affection, confidence, and virtue among men; these, Sirs, are the specific, the only objects of this Society of Universal Benevolence. We entreat you, Sirs, to become members of our institution, and to concur with us in the prosecution of these objects, only as they shall seem to you, what they seem to us-the best and noblest in the world.

DELENDA EST CARTHAGO.

ON THE PREVALENCE OF METAPHOR IN THE EASTERN LANGUAGES,

And its influence on the first religious system of which we have any knowledge.

MR. CARLILE-In treating on the subject which I have made the theme of the present letter, I mean not to go into any elaborate dissertation, or abstruse reasoning, because I cannot have immediate and easy reference to such authenticated historical records, as would tend by their authority to corroborate any positions I might be pleased to lay down. I purpose, therefore, to confine myself to a few general remarks, which shall appear so plain and obvious, as that I shall not run any risk of exposing myself to criticism for the want of sufficient grounds on which to build my observations.

We have no authentic data whereon to found an assumption that any civilized nation existed before the Egyptians, the geographical position of whose country is such as to warrant a reasonable supposition, that they were the first of all the nations of the globe who could have arrived at such a state of maturity, as required some social compact to bind them together. The powerful influence of a tropical sun, would naturally have the effect of bringing those who were immediately under it, to a more early state of physical perfection, than in the more temperate climates of Europe; and finding the country which was watered by the overflowings of the Nile astonishingly fertile, and holding out great inducements for a settlement for the purposes of agriculture, it would of course be pitched upon as a convenient place of residence for those who had so far improved upon the uncultivated habits and occupations of savages, as to find the necessity of incorporating themselves for the protection of their property, and the acquisition of many advantages which the social state could alone ensure to them.

Consequent upon the formation of a social compact, was the imperious necessity of forming a common language, whereby the individuals who composed the society could be brought to understand each other; and this was a work attended with many difficulties.

Because, the inventors had nothing to aid them in the formation, but an observation of the natures and properties of the objects, animate and inanimate, by which they were surrounded, and these even they were unable properly to define, being obliged, in personal communication, perhaps, to describe them by certain gestures, and the articulation of particular sounds;* and at other times, in written communication, by a kind of tracing or drawing, which, in a manner more or less accurate, represented that of which they endeavoured to convey an idea.† Thus a multitude of their expressions became so many miniature pictures of their habits and actions, and those of the other created beings around them, necessarily complitate, in consequence of their inability to affix a particular definition to each, unaccompanied by any reference to the object to which they might wish to allude.

Nor was this all-gestures and sounds, though oft-times very expressive, and even eloquent, were, at best, but a very imperfect medium of communication, a fact which would soon force itself upon the observation even of the most unobservant, inasmuch as it

* Hence it is perhaps that the inhabitants of Eastern nations have for the most part more of gesture and impassioned enunciation in their conversation.

+ And hence also the idea which we have of composing engines, to be solved only by a certain application and connection of natural objects, and that amusing notion of designing certain material beings and substances, which it is left to the ingenious to unravel and translate into language.