There are few subjects which have been more written upon, and less
understood, than that of Friendship. To follow the dictates of some,
this virtue, instead of being the assuager of pain, becomes the source
of every inconvenience. Such speculatists, by expecting too much from
friendship, dissolve the connexion; and, by drawing the bands too
closely, at length break them. Almost all our romance and novel-writers
are of this kind; they persuade us to friendships, which we find
impossible to sustain to the last; so that this sweetener of life, under
proper regulations, is, by their means, rendered inaccessible or uneasy.
Friendship is like a debt of honour: the moment it is talked of, it
loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation.
From hence we find, that those who regularly undertake to cultivate
friendship, find ingratitude generally repays their endeavours. That
circle of beings, which dependence gathers round us, is almost ever
unfriendly; they secretly wish the term of their connexions more nearly
equal; and, where they even have the most virtue, are prepared to
reserve all their affections for their patron, only in the hour of his
decline. Increasing the obligations which are laid upon such minds, only
increases their burthen; they feel themselves unable to repay the
immensity of their debt, and their bankrupt hearts are taught a latent
resentment at the hand that is stretched out with offers of service and
relief.
Plautinus was a man who thought that every good was bought from riches;
and as he was possessed of great wealth, and had a mind naturally formed
for virtue, he resolved to gather a circle of the best men round him.
Among the number of his dependents was Musidorus, with a mind just as
fond of virtue, yet not less proud than his patron. His circumstances,
however, were such as forced him to stoop to the good offices of his
superior, and he saw himself daily among a number of others loaded with
benefits and protections of friendship. These, in the usual course of
the world, he thought it prudent to accept; but, while he gave his
esteem, he could not give his heart. A want of affection breaks out in
the most trifling instances, and Plautinus had skill enough so observe
the minutest actions of the man he wished to make his friend. In these
he ever found his aim disappointed; for Musidorus claimed an exchange of
hearts, which Plautinus, solicited by a variety of claims, could never
think of bestowing.
It may be easily supposed, that the reserve of our poor proud man, was
soon construed into ingratitude; and such, indeed, in the common
acceptation of the world it was. Wherever Musidorus appeared, he was
remarked as the ungrateful man; he had accepted favours, it was said,
and had still the insolence to pretend to independence. The event,
however, justified his conduct. Plautinus, by misplaced liberality, at
length became poor; and it was then that Musidorus first thought of
making a friend of him. He flew to the man of fallen fortune with an
offer of all he had; wrought under his direction with assiduity; and by
uniting their talents, both were at length placed in that state of life
from which one of them had formerly fallen.
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