(To be continued.)
[*] Polesia is a name given to the palatinate of Breste in Lithuania; Breste, Briescia, or Bressici, is situated upon the banks of the river Bog. T.
[†] There are several towns of this name in Russia. This seems to have been Novogorod Welicki, or Great Novogorod, the capital of a duchy of the same name. T.
[‡] Czernicove, or Czernikou, is a considerable town, and is the capital of the duchy of the same name. It is situate on the river Desna, 75 miles north-east of Kiow. T.
[§] Pultoway, Pultowa, or Pultava, is a fortified town in the Ukraine, famous for a battle fought in its neighbourhood between Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter the Great of Russia. It is 100 miles south-west of Bielgorod from which Lovzinski pretended to have come on purpose to purchase merchandize, &c. T.
FRIENDSHIP.
There are few subjects which have been more written upon, and less understood, than that of Friendship. To follow the dictates of some, this virtue, instead of being the assuager of pain, becomes the source of every inconvenience. Such speculatists, by expecting too much from friendship, dissolve the connexion; and, by drawing the bands too closely, at length break them. Almost all our romance and novel-writers are of this kind; they persuade us to friendships, which we find impossible to sustain to the last; so that this sweetener of life, under proper regulations, is, by their means, rendered inaccessible or uneasy.
Friendship is like a debt of honour: the moment it is talked of, it loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation. From hence we find, that those who regularly undertake to cultivate friendship, find ingratitude generally repays their endeavours. That circle of beings, which dependence gathers round us, is almost ever unfriendly; they secretly wish the term of their connexions more nearly equal; and, where they even have the most virtue, are prepared to reserve all their affections for their patron, only in the hour of his decline. Increasing the obligations which are laid upon such minds, only increases their burthen; they feel themselves unable to repay the immensity of their debt, and their bankrupt hearts are taught a latent resentment at the hand that is stretched out with offers of service and relief.
Plautinus was a man who thought that every good was bought from riches; and as he was possessed of great wealth, and had a mind naturally formed for virtue, he resolved to gather a circle of the best men round him. Among the number of his dependents was Musidorus, with a mind just as fond of virtue, yet not less proud than his patron. His circumstances, however, were such as forced him to stoop to the good offices of his superior, and he saw himself daily among a number of others loaded with benefits and protections of friendship. These, in the usual course of the world, he thought it prudent to accept; but, while he gave his esteem, he could not give his heart. A want of affection breaks out in the most trifling instances, and Plautinus had skill enough so observe the minutest actions of the man he wished to make his friend. In these he ever found his aim disappointed; for Musidorus claimed an exchange of hearts, which Plautinus, solicited by a variety of claims, could never think of bestowing.