Seeking a real friend we seem,
T'adopt the chemist's golden dream
With still less hope of thriving.

23.

Then judge before you chuse your man,
As circumspectly as you can,

And, having made election,

See, that no disrespect of yours,
Such, as a friend but ill endures,
Enfeeble his affection.

24.

It is not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone,

VARIATIONS.

Sometimes the fault is all your own,

Some blemish in due time made known
By trespass or omission:

Sometimes occasion brings to light

Our friend's defect, long hid fromsight,
And even from suspicion.

XXIII.1. Then judge yourself, and prove your man.
4. Beware, no negligence of yours

That secrets are a facred trust,
That friends should be sincere and just,

That constancy befits them,

Are observations on the case,

That savor much of common-place,

And all the world admits them.

XXIV.1. But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone,

To

May prove the task, a task indeed,

In which 'tis much if we succeed,
However well intention'd.

30.

Pursue the theme, and you shall find
A disciplin'd and furnish'd mind
To be at least expedient ;

And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast

A principal ingredient.

31.

True Friendship has in short a grace
More than terrestrial in its face,

That proves it Heaven-descended.

VARIATIONS.

XXIX. Pursue the search, and you will find
Good sense, and knowledge of mankind.
The noblest friendship ever shown
The Saviour's history makes known,
Tho' some have turn'd and turn'd it,

And (whether being craz'd, or blind,
Or seeking with a bias'd mind)

Have not (it seems) discern'd it.
O Friendship, if my soul forego
Thy dear delights, while here below,
To mortify and grieve me,
May I myself at last appear,
Unworthy, base, and insincere,

Or may my friend deceive me!

Man's

Man's love of woman not so pure,
Nor when sincerest, so secure,
To last till life is ended.

This sprightly little Poem contains the essence of all that has been said on this interesting subject, by the best writers of different countries. It is pleasing to reflect, that a man, who entertained such refined ideas of friendship, and expressed them so happily, was singularly fortunate in this very important article of human life. Indeed he was fortunate in this respect to such a degree, that Providence seems to have supplied him most unexpectedly, at different periods of his troubled existence, with exactly such friends, as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. The truth of this remark is exemplified in the seasonable assistance, that his tender spirits derived from the kindness of Mrs. Unwin, at Huntingdon; of Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh, at Olney, and of his young kinsman, in Norfolk, who will soon attract the notice, and obtain the esteem of my Reader, as the affectionate superintendant of Cowper's declining days. To the honor of human nature, and of the present times, it will appear, that a sequestered Poet, pre-eminent in genius and calamity, was beloved and assisted by his friends of both sexes, with a purity of zeal, and an inexhaustible ardor of affection, more resembling the friendship of the heroic ages, than the precarious attachments of the modern wrold.

The