OUR BEST FRIEND.

"Prata et arva et pecudum greges diliguntur iste modo, quod fructus ex eis capiuntur."-CICERO.

"Teque tuas numeres inter amicitias."-MARTIAL.

We are not at this present writing in the middle of a third bottle of port, and winding up the festivities of the evening with the maudlin teardrop of inebriety in our eye, and a flood of meaningless sensibilerie on our lip; the immediate precursors of delirium and apoplectic stupor. It is now one o'clock P.M., we have not yet dined, and are therefore as sober as a judge-before dinner. This we trust is good security to our readers for their exemption from a twaddling discourse in behalf of that non est inventus-friendship. The Romans were wont to say nemo saltat sobrius, nisi fortè insanit; and had they lived to be pelted with essays, sermons, and sentimental comedy, as we have been in our generations, they would surely have added that no one talks of friendship who is not either fuddled or a fool. As Macbeth sensibly observed of ghosts, "there is no such thing." Even in the themes of fourth-form boys, Pylades and Orestes are at a discount; Damon and Pythias are voted Rococco, and Nisus and Euryalus not even a ben trovato. Since the days of the realists were numbered, friendship has been erased from the catalogue of entities; and if the word has not followed its example, it is only because such banal abstractions, like bank-notes and bills of exchange, are useful adjuncts to the currency of society, and pass in conversation at a conventional value, though every one knows that they are intrinsically-a rag.

But though there is no such thing in rerum naturâ as friendship, there are (let the logicians settle the matter as they best can) friends in plenty; and every man in existence may boast of possessing them, save those unfortunates who, having nothing to give or to lend, or to make believe to do either with, whether in possession or in expectancy, are precisely the parties whom police-officers do not deem respectable, and whose words are not taken even in a dispute about a night-brawl or a lost pocket-handkerchief.

Yes; not only are there friends on this side of the world of dreams, but what is more, they are of such various conditions, that the word requires to be qualified by an epithet, or specified by a definition, in order to give it its precise value in all cases where the condition of the parties or the context of discourse does not make the matter plain. Much depends, for instance, on the place where the word is used. Upon 'Change, every one understands a friend to mean the man with whom you do business, and who would put you into the Gazette without compunction, if behindhand with your engagements. In the circles of gallantry, a friend is the third side of an equilateral triangle, the inapprehensive or complacent husband of the lady of your flirtation.

In the House of Commons, your "Right Hon. friend" is the man whose throat you would willingly cut, because he has cut your party, and endangered your political existence; and when the matter is put with the interrogatory addition of "if he will allow me to call him so," there is much probability of an approaching opportunity for giving effect to the virtuous desire.

In all these cases, with a single change in the venue, the perspicuity vanishes; and the clumsiest mistakes might occur in the use of the term, if definition did not step in to clear up the mystery. Suppose, for instance, it were stated in a society of quakers, that A and B had quarrelled, and that after hard words exchanged, the parties had mutually referred each other to his friend; would not the natural inference be, that the quarrel was already half made up? How would the men of peace be astonished to learn that "my friend" is a functionary charged to enter into a negotiation with somebody else's "friend" to settle preliminaries between the principals for shooting each other through the thorax.

We have therefore numerous cases in which the substantive never does duty without its attendant epithet: a friend in the city, is thus used to express a dealer in post-obits; a friend at court implies your benefactor for a consideration; a goodnatured friend is a teller of unpleasant truths; and a fair friend-but everybody knows what a fair friend is, and we may spare our explanation.

Not only then, we reiterate, are there such things as friends, as our facetious colleague Mr. Hood has set forth, but there are friends and friends; and there is nothing that contributes more to success in life and to social happiness, than such a clear understanding of the matter as insures a proper choice. Your professed moralists have much mistaken the point, and vented a deal of twaddle that had been much better spared. Thus Horace has denounced the backbiter as one utterly unworthy of the title of friend, adding the warning, "hunc tu, Romane, caveto!" With all due deference to such classical authority, we beg to remark, that scandal-mongers are the pleasantest members of modern society, and dine out oftener than any other three contributors to social pleasure. As to speaking ill of a friend, of whom should one speak ill, if not of the man with whose weaknesses and infirmities one must be the best informed? And as to speaking ill of a friend behind his back, would they have us do it to his very face?-a practice that would at once be exceedingly rude, and moreover, liable to unpleasant consequences. To speak ill of a stranger, is but to re-echo the reports of common fame, which is a common liar; it is to shoot arrows in the dark; besides taking an unwarrantable liberty into the bargain. With whom should a man make free, if not with his friend? But that which, above all, demonstrates the absurdity of Horace's idea, is the fact that to withhold friendship on account of a little lâchesse in the management of the tongue, would be to turn misanthrope. All the world are given to the vice, more or less; and the punctilious fool wno would cut a backbiter, stands no small chance of being left high and dry, without a friend, in his most pressing necessities.

Still more comprehensive is the absurdity which denounces all but the virtuous as unfit for the discharge of friendly functions and affairs; and affirms that "what is friendship among the good, is only a conspiracy among the wicked."

It is rather odd that so acute an arguer as Voltaire should have given circulation to this mistake of the old Greek:* but it is, nevertheless, true. "Cethegus," he says "étoit le complice de Catilina, et Mécène

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le courtisan d'Octave; mais Ciceron étoit l'ami d'Atticus." All this, we beg leave to consider, is a mere gratis dictum. Sallust tells us nothing expressly against Cethegus's friendship; and what more can a friend do for a friend than die in his cause? As for the heir-general of the Tuscan kings, as Augustus lived and died "a prosperous gentleman," his friend was never tired, and may plead the English maxim of jurisprudence against the calumny. Lastly, with respect to Cicero and others, we know not that much may be said of the goodness of either of them. Cicero was a vain coxcomb; and Atticus was too well spoken of, and too intimate with all parties in his troublesome times, not to have belonged, in some degree, to that particular branch of the good-the good for nothing: but at all events, his friendship for Cicero is chiefly remarkable in his having paid postage for the great orator's interminable correspondence. Putting, however, examples on one side, your good man is, of all persons in the world, the very worst to make a friend of. If a true friend is to be best known in doubtful circumstances, it is precisely in doubtful circumstances that the good are fastidious, and hang back. There is nothing which they will not then prefer to their friend-the truth, the right, the honest, any trifle almost except their purse; and the really good are just the very people most likely to have nothing in that to render it worthy of your acceptance. To tell the truth, is a duty demandable from every man by all: to do right, and to act with common honesty, may be forced on the most unworthy by course of law. These are no especial parts of a friend. Your friend is the man who oversteps the modest bounds of duty, and who, to do you some service, will do a good deal of wrong, no matter to whom. A friend, so far from speaking truth against you, would lie through a deal board, to serve your smallest occasion: most people, at least, expect as much from those whom they please to call their

friends.

A slight inspection will show that the erroneous notions we have signalised have sprung out of the abstract mode of treating the subject so prevalent among moralists; for if we confine ourselves to observed realities it will not fail to be perceived that as there is a great difference in friends, according to the sense in which the word is pplied, so there can be no common attribute or quality applicable to all. In choosing a friend, everything depends upon the occasion; and he who, having found a man serviceable on one incident, jumps to the conclusion that the same individual will therefore be good in all, will get himself in so many scrapes, that it would have been better for him to have gone out of the world without ever knowing what a friend was. When involved in a "very pretty quarrel as it stands," no wise militant would trust himself in the hands of a mere man of virtue. The proper friend on such an occasion is either a regular fire-eater himself, who will bully you handsomely out of your scrape, or so strong a partizan of your only peace-maker, "if," that he will encounter any odium in your behalf, rather than suffer you "to come to the scratch." Either way of "handling" will answer, provided it be well applied: the dignus vindice nodus, is an accurate knowledge of the circumstances, which render the one or the other preferable in each particular case. member always that there is a great advantage for the challenged in being the first to know who his adversary's friend is, which should not be thrown away by naming a second whose peculiarities will not dove

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tail happily with those of the man he is called on to bamboozle. When the seconds perfectly understand each other, or are otherwise well matched, there is nothing that may not be hoped from such happy auspices.

In the choice of a city friend, circumstance rules the matter too closely to admit of much selection. It is good, however, to know that the friend who lends on the most reasonable terms (the man who abstractedly deserves the preference) is not exactly the man at all times most ready to give credit; and yet this is the person to whom preference is most often conceded. The wise borrower is aware of the difference, and chooses his friend for the quality which best suits with his present circumstances.

With respect to gambling friends, the main point for consideration is unquestionably the power of paying readily when they lose; after that, we would not advise a child of our own to select for a friend of this class, the man who always turns up honours.

The choice of a fair friend is a matter of much greater nicety, and depends on more things than we care to discuss. This much, however, may be said, salva pudicitiâ, that as in these matters the public is more to be consulted than your own inclinations-the lady should be well assorted to the species of carriage you affect. For a four-inhand, "by Bet Bouncer" is "the gal for the Derby," the bird of paradise will only look to advantage in a curricle. Considering, also, that the main object of such liaisons is to be ruined in the shortest time, it is as well to take your assistant from the coulisses of the French opera. The most prudent of all, however, is to remember that short follies are best; and therefore to select some one as totally divested as possible of any one amiable or seducing quality; if such ties are to become habitual, they must end by becoming as hateful as matrimony itself.

With respect to that mixture of congeniality and convenience which in the language of the world passes under the denomination of friend, though in reality it indicates no more than an acquaintance of some standing, there is no need of much expatiation. When the cause of union ceases, the effect ceases with it. If fortune raises a man above his associates, there is no necessity for continuing the acquaintances, and if he gets a fall in life, he need not trouble himself on the point, but leave that care, not" (in the words of the old comedy tag) "to Providence above," but to the parties themselves, who will be the first to back out, levar l'incommodo, by a peripatetic retreat. On friendships of this sort there is the less necessity for our comment, inasmuch as everybody is the best judge for himself what he wants in his friend. What use, for example, is there to tell the least informed to look to a man's cook before he takes the master as an Amphytrion; what need is there to recommend sycophancy in an humble friend, facility and a happy oblivion of notes of hand or promises against time, in the person destined for a lending friend, or to advise good temper as the one thing needful in the man who is selected to receive all your tediousThese considerations are the A, B, C, of life, and they suggest themselves, like Falstaff's respect for royalty, "in instinct."

ness.

In the choice of a friend at court there is somewhat greater difficulty, for it is by no means so easy to discover among courtiers whether a man be or be not disposed to stand your friend; nor are appearances

to be trusted as to his power of serving a friend, albeit so inclined. As to the first, let no one confide in civil speeches, and as to the second, beware of large boastings. In the former there is a cardinal rule never to be lost sight of, which is, to choose your friend from among those who expect a quid pro quo, whose sensibility for past favours is sharpened by a strong probability that they will require the like services again. In the latter, make it a point to deal as much as possible with principals; for though a great man's gentleman, or his mistress's maid, may do wonders, it is quite as likely that they "pocket the simony" and take no pains in the matter. Pythagoras, and other great philosophers, have declared that equality is a sure base for friendships, Ty piliav ioornra tirar but the greatest man becomes your equal, that is your friend, when you can make it his interest to do the thing you desire. In these days, therefore, we should translate Horace's Hoc erat in votis, not with Swift,

I've often wished that I had clear

For life, three hundred pounds a year,"

but, "your votes will surely get you clear," &c. &c.

One of the greatest mistakes that can be made (and it is a mistake of almost daily occurrence) is to fix on some one as your friend at court, because he has himself received benefits in that quarter. This indeed is not one mistake but two: for while it overlooks the obvious fact that what a man has received for himself must necessarily exhaust his credit, it presupposes also that what he will ask for himself, he is equally willing to ask for others. It would be difficult to say which is the greatest absurdity. In such cases, we are four," or we are nine," is a letter of recommendation worth more than the good word of the premier himself.

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But to come to our more immediate subject: among this infinite species of the genus friend, there is one whom, on a long experience of the world, we hold to be beyond all comparison the best, whether for the purpose of utility or agreeability, and that is a man's own self. The reasons for preference are multifarious. Ovid has told us that it is a property of friends to fall off on the approach of adversity. "Donec eris felix," he says, you may have friends by dozens, but when the heavens grow cloudy you are left alone.

It is under these circumstances, if ever, that the wretch bestirs himself effectually in his own behalf; and self then proves not only the last but the best friend which a man can have. Herein consists the folly of suicide, as it deprives its victim of the only friend whom fortune (or rather misfortune) has left him.

Again, if it be true that the surest test of a friend, is the asking him for money, the superiority of self is here pre-eminently conspicuous. Lend a friend money, it is said, and you lose both; your best friend, therefore, takes good care not to risk so doubly hazardous an insurance, of one thing he at least is sure, in refusing,-the money is safe. The friend, per contra, may not resent the refusal, or he may; but if he once gets hold of the cash, evasit-erupit. If then your friend

“Though absolute equality may not be indispensable to friendship, its continuance must ever be precarious where there is great disparity, for there can be no real bond of amity between a patron and his retainer," THE MONEYED MAN. Hence the necessity for the quid pro quo in all such alliances.