an the
world.

22. Every man is ready to give a long catalogue of those virtues and
good qualities he expects to find in the person of a friend, but very
few 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.

23. 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.

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

25. There is something in friendship so very great and noble, that in
those fictitious stories which are invented to the honor 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
_AEneas_ his _Achates_.

26. 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.

27. The 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.

28. I do not remember that _Achates_, who is represented as the first
favourite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow through the whole
_AEneid_.

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.

29. _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 subvention 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