nobler motives than the love of fame, and can preserve the facred flame of friendship from the gusts of pride, and the rubbish of interest. Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other. Benesits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be discharged, are not commonly found to increase afsection; they excite gratitude indeed, and heighten veneration, but commonly take away that easy freedom, and familiarity of intercourse, without which, though there may be fidelity, and zeal, and admiration, there cannot be friendship. Thus impersect are all earthly blessings; the great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered, like plants that bear their fruit and die. Yet this consideration ought not to restrain bounty, or repress compassion; for duty is to be preserred besore convenience, and he that loses part of the pleasures of friendship by his generosity, gains in its place the gratulation of his conscience. Numb. 65. Tuesday, Oftober 30, 1750. 'Gari it anilcs Ex refabellas. • Hor. The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail, OBIDAH, the son of Abensina, left the caravansera early in the morning, and pursued his journey through t'.e plains of lndostan. He was fresh and vigorous with reft; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire; lie walked swiftly sorward over the vallies, and saw the hills gradually rising before him. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise, he was sanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices; he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrofe, eldest daughter of the spring: all his senses were gratified, and all care was banished srom his heart. Thus he went on till the sun approached his meridian, and the increasing heat preyed upon his ll.'cngth; he then looked round about him for some more commodious path. He saw, on his light h.iiid, a grove that seemed to wave its shades as a sign of invitation; he entered it, and found the coolness and verdure irresistibly pleasant. He did not, however, forget whither lie was travelling, but found found a nirrovr way bordered with flowers, which appeared to have the lame direction with the main road, and was pleased that, by this happy experiment, he had found means to unite pleasure with businefs, -and to gain the rewards of diligence without sussering its satigues. He, therefore, still continued to walk for a time, without the least remiffion of his ardour, except that he was somerimes tempted to stop by the musick of the birds, whom the heat had assembled in the shade $ and sometimes amused himself with plucking the flowers that covered the banks on either fide, or the fruits that hung upon the branches. At last the green path began to decline from ics first tendency, and to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with fountains, and murmuring with water-salls. Here Obidah paused for a time, and began to consider whether it were longer sase to forsake the known and common track; but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence, and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new path, which he suppofed only to make a sew meanders, in compliance with the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road. Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed his pace, though he suspected that he was not gaining ground. This uneasiness of his min.i inclined him to lay hold on every new object, and give way to every sensation that might sooth or divert him. He listened to every echo, he mounted every hill for a fresh prospect, he turned aside to to every cascade, and pleased himself with tracing the course of a gentle river that rolled among the trees, and watered a large region with innumerable circumvolutions. In these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, his deviations had perplexed his memory, and he knew not towards what point to travel. He stood pensive and consused, asraid to go forward lest he should go wrong, yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus tortured with uncertainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round Ids head. He was now roused by bis danger to a quick and painsul remembrance of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek sheker in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker, and a clap of thunder broke his meditation. He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power, to tread back the ground which he had passed, and try to sind some issue where the wood might open into the plain. He prostrated himself on the ground, and commended his lise to the Lord of nature. Pie rofe with confidence and tranquillity, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand, for the beasts of the desart were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled howls of rage and sear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrors of darkness and solitude surrounded him: the winds roared in the woods, and the torrents tumbled from the hills, 'E< sitayxyxiixv Qvy.£dhXtlon tt^sj-an S3ugt Work'd into sudden rage by wintry show'rs, Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to sasety or to destruction. At length not sear but labour began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down in resignation to his sate, when he beheld through the brambles the glimmer of a taper. He advanced towards the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah sed with eagerness and gratitude. When the repast was over, "Tell me," said the hermit, "by what chance thou hast been brought u hither; I have been now twenty years an in"habitant of the wilderness, in which J never saw "a man before." Obidah then related the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation. "Son," said the hermit, "let the errors and "follies, the dangers and escape of this day, fink 6 "deep |