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LETTER XXVII.

TO SAPPHO*.

March 10, 1731.

WHILE yet no am'rous youths around

bow,

Nor flatt'ring verse conveys the faithless vow;
To graver notes will Sappho's soul attend,
And ere she hears the lover, here the friend?

LET maids less bless'd employ their

meaner arts

To reign proud tyrants o'er unnumber'd hearts;

May Sappho learn (for nobler triumphs
born)

Those little conquests of her sex to scorn.
To form thy bosom to each gen'rous deed;
To plant thy mind with every useful feed;
Be these thy arts: nor spare the grateful toil,
Where nature's hand has bless'd the happy

foil.

So shall thou know, with pleasing skill, to
blend

The lovely mistress and instructive friend:
So shalt thou know, when unrelenting time
Shall spoil those charms yet op'ning to their

To ease the loss of beauty's tranfient flow'r, While reason keeps whatrapturegave before. And oh! while wit, fair dawning, spreads

its ray,

Serenely rising to a glorious day,
To hail the growing lustre oft be mine,
Thou early fav'rite of the sacred Nine!

AND shall the Muse with blameless boast pretend,

In youth's gay bloom that Sappho call'd me friend:

That urg'd by me she shun'd the dang'rous

way,

Where heedless maids in endless error stray;
That scorning soon her sex's idler art,
Fair praise inspir'd and virtue warm'd her

heart;

That fond to reach the distant paths of fame, I taught her infant genius where to aim? Thus when the feather'd choir first tempt

the-sky,

And, all unskill'd, their feeble pinions try, Th' experienc'd fire prescribes the advent'

rous height,

Guides the young wing, and pleas'd attends the flight.

LETLETTER XXVIII.

To PHIDIPPUS.

VES, Phidippus, I entirely agree with

you; the antients most certainly had much loftier notions of Friendship, than seem to be generally entertained at present. But may they not justly be confidered on this subject, as downright enthusiasts? Whilst indeed they talk of friendship as a virtue, or place it in a rank little inferior, I can admire the generous warmth of their sentiments: but when they go so far as to make it a ferious question, whether justice herself ought not in some particular cases to yield to this their supreme affection of the heart; there, I confess, they leave me far behind.

If we had not a treatise extant upon the subject, we should scarce believe this fact upon the credit of those authors who have delivered it down to us: but Cicero himself has ventured to take the affirmative side of this debate in his celebrated dialogue inscribed Lælius. He followed, it seems, in this notion the sentiments of the Grecian Theo

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Theophraftus, who publicly maintained the same astonishing theory..

It must be confessed, however, these admirers of the false sublime in friendship talk upon this subject with so much caution, and in such general terms, that one is inclined to think they themselves a little suspected the validity of those very principles they would inculcate. We find, at least, a remarkable instance to that purpose, in a circumstance related of Chilo, one of those famous sages who are diftinguished by the pompous title of the wife men of Greece.

THAT celebrated philosopher, being upon his death-bed, addressed himself, we are informed, to his friends who stood round him, to the following effect: "I cannot, thro "the course of a long life, look back with " uneasiness upon any fingle instance of my " conduct, unless, perhaps, on that which " I am going to mention; wherein, I con"fess, I am still doubtful whether I acted " as I ought, or not. I was once appoint" ed judge in conjunction with two others, " when my particular friend was arraign"ed before us: Were the laws to have

"taken their free course, he must inevi"tably

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"tably have been condemned to die. Af" ter much debate therefore with myself, " I resolved upon this expedient: I gave "my own vote according to my con"science, but at the same time employed " all my eloquence to prevail with my af"sociates to absolve the criminal. Now I " cannot but reflect upon this act with con"cern, as fearing there was something of "perfidy, in perfuading others to go coun" ter to what I myself esteemed right."

It does not, certainly, require any great depth of casuistry to pronounce upon a case of this nature. And yet, had Tully, that great master of reason, been Chilo's confeffor upon this occasion, it is very plain he would have given him absolution; to the just scandal of the most ignorant curate that ever lulled a country village.

WHAT I have here observed, will fuggest, if I mistake not, a very clear answer to the question you propose; "Whence it "should happen, that we meet with in"stances of friendship among the Greeks " and Romans, far superior to any thing of "the same kind which modern times have "produced?" For while the greatest geK 2 niufes