A fretful temper will divide
The closest knot that may be tied,
By ceaseless sharp corrosion;
A temper passionate and fierce
May suddenly your joys disperse
At one immense explosion.

In vain the talkative unite
In hopes of permanent delight;
The secret just committed,
Forgetting its important weight,
They drop through mere desire to prate,
And by themselves outwitted.

How bright soe'er the prospect seems, All thoughts of friendship are but dreams,

If Envy chance to creep in;
An envious man, if you succeed,
May prove a dangerous foe indeed,

But not a friend worth keeping.

As Envy pines at good possessed,
So Jealousy looks forth distressed
On good that seems approaching,
And if success his steps attend,
Discerns a rival in a friend,

And hates him for encroaching.
Hence authors of illustrious name,
Unless belied by common fame,

Are sadly prone to quarrel,
To deem the wit a friend displays
A tax upon their own just praise,
And pluck each other's laurel.
A man renowned for repartee
Will seldom scruple to make free
With Friendship's finest feeling;

To prove at last my main intent
Needs no expense of argument,
No cutting and contriving—
Seeking a real friend, we seem
To adopt the chymists' golden dream,
With still less hope of thriving.

Sometimes the fault is all our own,
Some blemish in due time made known
By trespass or omission :
Sometimes occasion brings to light
Our friend's defect, long hid from sight,
And even from suspicion.

Then judge yourself, and prove your man As circumspectly as you can,

And, having made election, Beware no negligence of yours, Such as a friend but ill endures, Enfeeble his affection.

That secrets are a sacred trust,

That friends should be sincere and just,
That constancy befits them,
Are observations on the case
That savour much of commonplace,
And all the world admits them.

But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone, An architect requires alone

To finish a fine buildingThe palace were but half complete, If he could possibly forget

The carving and the gilding.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,

Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed,
To pardon or to bear it.

As similarity of mind,

Or something not to be defined, First fixes our attention;

1782.

So manners decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Must save it from declension.

66

Some act upon this prudent plan, Say little, and hear all you can ;' Safe policy, but hateful.

So barren sands imbibe the shower, But render neither fruit nor flower,

Unpleasant and ungrateful.

The man I trust, if shy to me,
Shall find me as reserved as he,
No subterfuge or pleading
Shall win my confidence again;
I will by no means entertain
A spy on my proceeding.

These samples-for alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste
Of evils yet unmentioned-
May prove the task a task indeed,
In which 'tis much if we succeed,
However well-intentioned.

Pursue the search, and you will find
Good sense and knowledge of mankind
To be at least expedient,
And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.

The noblest Friendship ever shown
The Saviour's history makes known,
Though some have turned and turned
it;

And, whether being crazed or blind,
Or seeking with a biassed mind,

Have not, it seems, discerned 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!

MY DEAR FRIEND,

If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time
I feel a wish by cheerful rhyme
To soothe my friend, and, had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
It were but folly to suppress)
His pleasure or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeservèd praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,
I seem no brighter in my wits
For all the radiance he emits,
Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,
To accelerate a creeping pen!
Oh for a ready succedaneum
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,

Et morbo jam caliginoso!
'Tis here; this oval box, well filled
With best tobacco finely milled,

June 22, 1782.

Beats all Anticyra's pretences

To disengage the encumbered senses.
Oh Nymph of transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy
name,

Whether reposing on the side
Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,
Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,

'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverised, it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touched with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains,
And no unseasonable rains,

And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;
And thou, secure from all alarms
Of thundering drums and glittering

arms,

Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.

May Newton with renewed delights
Perform thy odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.