would not go begging, if it were not for the occasional attraction of "eating a child." Agreeably with this hypothesis, when you have breakfasted with a man, he is "your friend;" when you have dined with him, he is your "dear friend;" and a week's sojourn beneath his roof, renders him your "dearest and most intimate friend." Cutting a man, therefore, is a mere lucus à non lucendo, inasmuch as it may be presumed that nobody cuts his friend, as long as he can cut his friend's mutton. "Swallowing an affront," and "digesting an injury," explain themselves. When the subject was otherwise understood, old friendships were deemed preferable to new: but now, on a changé tout ça, and the newest friends are always the most esteemed. The reason is obvious; a new friend will never presume to offer you a pot-luck dinner; and it is a rule "Si par fois on vous prie A diner sans façon et sans cérémonie, Refusez promptement ce dangereux honneur, Souvenez vous toujours dans le cours de la vie The first and most urgent interest of a new friend is to impress upon you a high idea of his wealth, luxury, and refinement; to introduce you to his service of plate, to furnish you with a catalogue of his rich wines, to bring you acquainted with his French cook, and to give you proof of his credit with Gunter. For this purpose you are sure of a splendid festival. A new friend, likewise, has never laughed at your most hackneyed joke, and you, on the other hand, have not listened to his most threadbare story. With you conversing, he forgets all times, all seasons, and their change ;" and it is hard indeed if you cannot empty a third bottle of claret together, before you are utterly wearied of each other, and wish one another fairly at the Devil. Another most important advantage of a new friendship, which cannot be sufficiently appreciated, is, that your friend can neither ask you to lend money, nor to go bail for him; or if he be so indiscreet, you can with the less ceremony refuse him. The most approved ethical writers agree, it is true, that no length of acquaintance, no intimacy of affection, warrant such applications; but, as men will be impertinent, no one will deny that it is easier to refuse a new than an old friend. I have expatiated the more freely upon this theory of friendship, because it is the most prevalent, and seems to rest upon the greatest number of observed facts. But there is another sect, which has its followers, and those not a few, whose opinions are somewhat different. Among these persons the term friendship is applied to that union of the sexes, in which the parties agree to put, the one honour, and the other fortune, into a common purse, and live together without troubling the clergy, as long as money or inclination lasts. A "fair friend" is a necessary part of the paraphernalia of the man who wishes to run through a good estate; and the ardour which the lady exhibits in extravagance and caprice is the just measure of the extent of her friendship. When a woman of this description speaks of " her friend," you may be sure she speaks of the man in the world she hates and despises the most thoroughly; and she rarely does speak of him, but when on the very point of playing him a trick. For this reason, your knowing fellows prefer other men's friends to their own, which at first sight must appear very unnatural. Another sense in which the word "friend" is used, which, is still more extraordinary, is, when a man says, " my friend shall wait on you in the course of the day to settle time and place." In this case your friend is a man who uses his best endeavours to give you the satisfaction of either committing a crime or being the victim of one, and who takes with deliberate sang-froid the requisite measures for having you shot through the head. "Nous devons convenir aussi A la louange de nos frères Que pour nous égorger ainsi Ils donnent les raisons bien claires. Et du moins il est constaté Qu'ils nous feront mourir par principe." Another friendship, and one of the warmest which is known in these degenerate times, is that which subsists between an electioneering candidate and his friends." This is indeed an attachment à tout éprouvé. All that this disinterested gentleman looks for, is the good word of his constituents, and to obtain this, what will he not sacrifice? Money is no object: he will give more to get one knave to speak for him, than Damon would have offered to save Pythias and all his kindred from perdition. No ill-treatment cools him, no inconstancy fatigues him, no inequality of condition repels him: and, what scarcely ever happens in other ties, his friendship will last unabated and unwearied for full seven years. "My very dear friend” is an admitted salutation to a money-lender, emphasis being laid upon very in due proportion to the extortionate premium and usurious interest. This phrase is the more legitimate, as such friendship must cost one of the parties dear, according as old Postobit does, or does not, get paid the money on which he speculates. I say nothing of great friends, little friends, d-d good-natured friends, Quaker friends, or the friends of humanity, whose practice is to study generals till they quite overlook particulars. Still less shall I mention epistolary "affectionate friends," and "most faithful and obedient friends;" these cases being too well known to require much illustration. But, before I take my leave, I must mention a property of friendships in general, which seems more particularly to apply to those of our own times. It is this Friendship, like Burgundy, does not bear travelling. But what is most extraordinary, an attachment, which in the country will subsist at the distance of twelve miles, will perish in London, if removed to the distance of half a mile. Friendship in Brighton does not imply friendship in town; and you may shake a man's hand upon 'Change, without exchanging salutations with him in Pall Mall. There are men whom you may know at Moulsey, at a dogfight, or an Hell, whom you could not possibly acknowledge elsewhere, simply because every one knows them too well. On the other hand, vicinity is a great bond of friendship. The living, as the Irish say, "hard by convanient" will preserve the most languid connexions; while, as a great lady once observed, "no friendship can possibly cross to the north of Oxford-road." Such are a few of the facts which a close observation of the phenomena of friendship has enabled me to pick up. They are not sufficient for building an entire new theory; but they will not be the less acceptable, because they leave the zealous inquirer ample room for ulterior investigation. Who knows? there is no saying but that, with time and patience, some one will discover sufficient traces for establishing the reality of friendship; or, having found a true friend, may exhibit him in Bond-street at a shilling per head, without being called upon, like the proprietor of the Mermaid, to cut up his specimen for the gratification of idle curiosity, and to afford satisfaction to impertinent sceptics and testy carpers-Dixi. M. THE PROPHECY OF CONSTANTINE. Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee. HABAKKUK, Ch. ii. v. 8. AN Empire, mightiest of the mighty, crushed- Where, like a huge transplanted oak, she stood, Blasted and branchless in her new-found home, With scarce one withered leaf to shield her eaglet brood!— Such was the scene, and such the moral too, On which the sickening sun looked down, that day Her life-blood trickling fast, in the slant ray But doomed to echo back love's melody no more. Heard dismal as the artillery's thunders cease, There javelins hiss, and crash the crumbling walls, From many a buried wretch as the breached bastion falls. That swell the chorus of Heaven's harmonies! Of the last Greeks are parched and choked in death; And not one heart is heard to throb beneath The mangled warrior-heaps, where sits the exulting Turk. He knows no triumph o'er the splendid past On which he tramples with unconscious tread, Byzantium, Rome, Greece-Virtue, Fame, and Power- Reft of a thousand trophies in an hour,- The sun sinks fast; and, as his parting beam Flings far its golden blaze o'er tower and tide, From his uprising hour till night's repose, Upon no lovelier scene of Nature shone, Than that o'er which his sinking glance he throws:The Thracian shores, Bithynia's wooded sides, Vineyards and valleys rich,'and gushing rills That mix their waters with the gentle tides, To bathe the shelving rocks, whence rise the redolent hills. But hark! loud music sends a stunning crash The war-horse neighs-shouts vibrate through the airThe straitened Bosphorus resounds with splash Of thousand oars, which urge the gallies there On to the shattered breach. The moslem bands, And heavenward raised are clasped and blood-stained hands, "He comes, he comes, the conqueror of the world! Let the broad banners of the Faith unfurled Wave o'er his sacred head! Rejoice, rejoice!" Such the enthusiast sounds which rose aloft, From fierce fanatics, echoing back the strains, For centuries of their triumphs poured too oft Towards Heaven's insulted vault from Earth's ensanguined plains,Since bold Tangrolipix from Persia's lord Forced victory in the desert, and sent down His crimsoned laurel-wreath and conquering sword Othman, and Bajazet, and Amurath- Whose lustre before Mahomet's but shone, As morning lights on Heaven's effulgent path Mark his audacious front and fiery glance- To feast his eyes upon his prostrate prey For oft the startled courser swerves aside, Scared by the outstretched corpse that chokes the way, Wrenched by the brazen ram's redoubled blows, An Empire's death and doom are on the Moslem's tracks. Tell not the rest, Religion:-ear, nor eye May brook such horrors-wrap the curtain round! As monarch and as man he scorned to swerve And proved how, throneless, sovereigns can be great: His name redeeming-for on Freedom's grave Its latest remnant lost, but spurned the name of slave. Faltering and faint a spectral figure rears His gashed and livid head and joins the while His trembling hands in gest which marks the Christian's prayers. "O thou, in radiance floating, o'er the brink My heart and brain are filled with Heaven and thee- Bright, but not buruing, passeth as the breath Which bears the spirit aloft, and cools the fires of death! |