niufes among them employed their talents in exalting this noble affection, and it was encouraged even by the laws themfelves; what effects might one not expect to arife from the concurrence of fuch powerful causes? The feveral examples of this kind which you have pointed out, are undoubtedly highly animating and fingular; to which give me leave to add one instance no lefs remarkable, tho', I think, not fo commonly obferved.

EUDAMIDAS the Corinthian (as the story is related in Lucian's Toxaris,) tho' in low circumstances himself, was happy in the friendship of two very wealthy persons, Charixenus and Aretheus. Eudamidas, finding himself drawing near his end, made his will in the following terms: "I leave my "mother to Aretheus, to be maintained and "protected by him in her old age. I be

queath to Charixenus the care of my "daughter; defiring that he would fee "her difpofed of in marriage, and portion "her at the fame time with as ample a for"tune as his circumftances fhall admit: " and, in cafe of the death of either of -"these my two friends, I fubftitute the furvivor in his place.".

THIS

THIS will was looked upon by fome (as we may well imagine) to be extremely ridiculous: however, the legatees received information of it with very different fentiments, accepting of their respective legacies with great fatisfaction. It happened that Charixenus died a few days after his friend the teftator; the furvivorship therefore taking place in favor of Aretheus, he accordingly not only took upon himself the care of his friend's mother, but also made an equal diftribution of his eftate between this child of Eudamidas, and an only daughter of his own, folemnizing both their marriages on the fame day.

T

I Do not recollect that any of the moderns have raised their notions of friendship to these extravagant heights, excepting only a very fingular French author, who talks in a more romantic ftrain upon this fubject than even the antients themselves. Could you, Phiddipus, believe a man in earnest who should affert that the fecret one has fworn never to reveal, may without perjury be discovered to one's friend? Yet honeft Montaigne has ventured gravely to advance this extraordinary doctrine, in clear

and pofitive terms. But I never knew a fenfible man in my life, that was not an enthufiaft upon fome favorite point; as indeed there is none where it is more excufable than in the article of friendship. It is that which affords the most pleasing sunshine of our days: if therefore we fee it now and then break out with a more than reasonable warmth and luftre; who is there that will not be inclined to pardon an excefs, which can only flow from the most generous principles? Adieu.

W

LETTER XXIX.

To the fame.

HEN I mentioned grace as effential in conftituting a fine writer; I rather hoped to have found my fentiments reflected back with a clearer light by yours, than imagined you would have called upon me to explain in form, what I only threw out by accident. To confefs the truth, I know not whether, after all that can be faid to illuftrate this uncommon quality, it must not at last be resolved into the poet's nequeo,

monftrare

monftrare et fentio tantum. In cafes of this kind, where language does not supply us with proper words to exprefs the notions of one's mind, we can only convey our fentiments in figurative terms: a defect which neceffarily introduces fome obfcurity.

I WILL not, therefore, undertake to mark out with any fort of precision, that idea which I would exprefs by the word grace: and, perhaps, it can no more be clearly described than justly defined. To give you, however, a general intimation of what I mean when I apply that term to compofitions of genius, I would refemble it to that easy air, which so remarkably diftinguishes certain persons of a genteel and liberal caft. It confifts, not only in the particular beauty of fingle parts, but arises from the general fymmetry and conftruction of the whole. An author may be juft in his fentiments, lively in his figures, and clear in his expreffion; yet may have no claim to be admitted into the rank of finifhed writers. Those several members must be so agreeably united each as mutually to reflect beauty upon other: their arrangement must be fo happily disposed as not to admit of the least tranfpe

K 4

transposition without manifeft prejudice to the entire piece. The thoughts, the metaphors, the allufions, and the diction should appear easy and natural, and feem to arise like fo many fpontaneous productions, rather than as the effects of art or labor.

WHATEVER, therefore, is forced, or affected in the fentiments: whatever is pompous or pedantic in the expreffion, is the very reverse of grace. Her mien is neither that of a prude nor of a coquet; he is regular without formality, and sprightly without being fantastical. Grace, in short, is to good writing what a proper light is to a fine picture; it not only fhews all the figures in their feveral proportions and relations, but fhews them in the most advantageous man

ner.

As gentility (to refume my former illustration) appears in the minutest action, and improves the most inconfiderable gesture; fo grace is discovered in the placing even of a fingle word, or the turn of a mere expletive. Neither is this inexpreffible quality confined to one fpecies of composition only, but extends to all the various kinds ; to the humble paftoral as well as to the lofty