[Footnote 1: Dr. William Fleetwood, Bishop of St. Asaph, had published
Four Sermons.
1. On the death of Queen Mary, 1694.
2. On the death of the Duke of Gloucester, 1700.
3. On the death of King William, 1701.
4. On the Queen's Accession to the Throne, in 1702, with a Preface.
8vo. London, 1712.
The Preface which, says Dr. Johnson, overflowed with Whiggish
principles, was ordered to be burnt by the House of Commons. This moved
Steele to diffuse it by inserting it in the Spectator, which, as its
author said in a letter to Burnet, conveyed about fourteen thousand
copies of the condemned preface into people's hands that would otherwise
have never seen or heard of it. Moreover, to ensure its delivery into
the Queen's hands the publication of this number is said to have been
deferred till twelve oclock, her Majesty's breakfast hour, that no time
might be allowed for a decision that it should not be laid, as usual,
upon her breakfast table.
Fleetwood was born in 1656; had been chaplain to King William, and in
1706 had been appointed to the Bishopric of St. Asaph without any
solicitation. He was translated to Ely in 1714, and died in 1723.]
* * * * *
No. 385. Thursday, May 22, 1712. Budgell.
'Theseâ pectora juncta fide.'
Ovid.
I intend the Paper for this Day as a loose Essay upon Friendship, in
which I shall throw my Observations together without any set Form, that
I may avoid repeating what has been often said on this Subject.
Friendship is a strong and habitual Inclination in two Persons to
promote the Good and Happiness of one another. Tho' the Pleasures and
Advantages of Friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral
Writers, and are considered by all as great Ingredients of human
Happiness, we very rarely meet with the Practice of this Virtue in the
World.
Every Man is ready to give in 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 our selves.
Love and Esteem are the first Principles of Friendship, which always is
imperfect where either of these two is wanting.
As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a Man whom we cannot
esteem: so, on the other, tho 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.
Friendship immediately banishes Envy under all its Disguises. A Man who
can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his Friends being happier
than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter Stranger to this
Virtue.
There is something in Friendship so very great and noble, that in those
fictitious Stories which are invented to the Honour 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 Æneas his Achates. In
the first of these Instances we may observe, for the Reputation of the
Subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruin'd by the Hero's
Love, but was preserved by his Friendship.
The Character of Achates suggests to us an Observation we may often make
on the Intimacies of great Men, who frequently chuse 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. I do not remember that
Achates, who is represented as the first Favourite, either gives his
Advice, or strikes a Blow, thro' the whole Æneid.
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.
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 Subversion 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
one of Sylla's chief Favourites, and always near that General.
During the War between Cæsar and Pompey, he still maintained the same
Conduct. After the Death of Cæsar he sent Money to Brutus in his
Troubles, and did a thousand good Offices to Antony's Wife and Friends
when that Party seemed ruined. Lastly, even in that bloody War between
Antony and Augustus, Atticus still kept his place in both their
Friendships; insomuch that the first, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he
was absent from Rome in any part of the Empire, writ punctually to him
what he was doing, what he read, and whither he intended to go; and the
latter gave him constantly an exact Account of all his Affairs.
A Likeness of Inclinations in every Particular is so far from being
requisite to form a Benevolence in two Minds towards each other, as it
is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest
Friendships to have been contracted between Persons of different
Humours; the Mind being often pleased with those Perfections which are
new to it, and which it does not find among its own Accomplishments.
Besides that a Man in some measure supplies his own Defects, and fancies
himself at second hand possessed of those good Qualities and Endowments,
which are in the possession of him who in the Eye of the World is looked
on as his other self.
The most difficult Province in Friendship is the letting a Man see his
Faults and Errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he
may perceive our Advice is given him not so much to please ourselves as
for his own Advantage. The Reproaches therefore of a Friend should
always be strictly just, and not too frequent.
The violent Desire of pleasing in the Person reproved, may otherwise
change into a Despair of doing it, while he finds himself censur'd for
Faults he is not Conscious of. A Mind that is softened and humanized by
Friendship, cannot bear frequent Reproaches; either it must quite sink
under the Oppression, or abate considerably of the Value and Esteem it
had for him who bestows them.
The proper Business of Friendship is to inspire Life and Courage; and a
Soul thus supported, outdoes itself: whereas if it be unexpectedly
deprived of these Succours, it droops and languishes.
We are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our Duties to a
Friend, than to a Relation: since the former arise from a voluntary
Choice, the latter from a Necessity to which we could not give our own
Consent.
As it has been said on one side, that a Man ought not to break with a
faulty Friend, that he may not expose the Weakness of his Choice; it
will doubtless hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, that he
may never be upbraided for having lost so valuable a Treasure which was
once in his Possession.