logizes in these few simple words, "The price of a true friend is above rubies." The blessing can hardly be doubled to man: he is not to expect in the course of the longest life, more than one such gift; for it is as rare as it is estimable; it is a donation direct from heaven; a comforter in affliction; a brightener of joy; a cheering partner in the labour of virtue; a sweet companion to enter with into the gates of paradise. A sermon might be written from every text in this section. They are so pregnant with excellent instructions, purity of sentiment, and sublimity of love, that I curtail my own remarks, to exhort the young reader, to read them again and again; to write them on the frontlets of his eyes; and engrave them on his heart. Such was the friendship of which we have some few and beautiful examples. The Scriptures hold out 10 us the affection of David and Jonathan, which passed the love of women: Grecian history presents Harmodius and Arislogiten: in modern annals, we have that of the gallant Sidney himself with the brave Fulke Lord Brooke; and if we would see the figure of friend

ship in its full beauty, as it lived in their hearts, let us turn to its picture, which he has so divinely delineated in the story of Pyrocles and Musidorus! It may well be called the mirror of nobleness, the glass of friendship, and the mould of love.

SUSPICION.

1.

SEE whether a cage can please a bird; or whether a dog grow not fiercer with tying! What doth jealousy, but stir up the mind to think what it is, from which it is restrained? For they are treasures, or things of great delight, which men use to hide for the aptness they have to each man's fancy: and the thoughts once awakened to that, the harder sure it is, to keep the mind (which being the chief part, by this means is defiled,) from thinking and desiring.

Remark.

Most worthless persons have an internal warning of defects which they do not acknowledge to themselves, although a thousand misgivings hint it to them every day. Self-conceit having blunted their perceptions, they cannot see distinctly those images, which continually floating through their brains, would shew them what they are, had they modesty enough to profit by the lesson. The only

idea that such a man (if he be married,) is sure he understands is, that he doubts; and the choice lies with himself, whether the object of that doubt shall be his own merit, or his wife's virtue. He has inward glimmerings, of grounds of dislike and probable avoidance; and with that rapidity of vicious calculation, which runs swiftest in the weakest heads, he presently closes the natural effect upon the cause; and not believing that principle can retain what there is. temptation to relinquish, he sets spies over his wife; determining to withhold by force the body, which might be

too ready to follow the wanderings of the mind. By this conduct, he sounds an alarm to the muster of his own errors: the eager eyes of her whom his fears have insulted, seeking reasons for such severity, discovers, in the now giant-faults of her husband, the motives of his jealousy and her supposed dereliction; and what is more fatal still, often a plausible excuse for turning the phantoms of suspicion into hideous realities. Where there is any good disposition, confidence begets faithfulness; but distrust, if it do not produce treachery, never fails to destroy every inclination to evince fidelity. Most people disdain to clear themselves from the accusations of mere suspicion.

2.

Those that be good, will be satisfied as long as they see no evil.

3.

Open suspecting of others, comes of secretly condemning ourselves.

Remark.

This short observation comprises a frightful epitome of what a man incurs by forsaking a virtuous course of life. Wicked as he is, and obstinate in wickedness, he cannot hide the heinousness of his enormities from himself; nor help imagining that all who surround him possess as many evil inclinations as he himself, to do harm to others whenever interest points that way. In the bad, he sees nothing but treacherous rivals; and in the good, severe judges and inflexible avengers. How evidently is it written before men's eyes, nay, does not Wisdom cry it in the streets, that "the paths of virtue lead to honour and security; those of vice, to disgrace and punishment?" Why will not men be wise, and lay this lesson to their hearts? Its effects will enter there in spite of themselves; and when men act as if they believed it not, conscience is still witness on the side of truth: implacable in her testimony, "she still condemns the wretch and still renews the charge ;" and though he