The Preface which, says Dr. Johnson, overflowed with Whiggish principles, was ordered to be burnt by the House of Commons.  This moved Steele to diffuse it by inserting it in the Spectator, which, as its author said in a letter to Burnet, conveyed about fourteen thousand copies of the condemned preface into people’s hands that would otherwise have never seen or heard of it.  Moreover, to ensure its delivery into the Queen’s hands the publication of this number is said to have been deferred till twelve oclock, her Majesty’s breakfast hour, that no time might be allowed for a decision that it should not be laid, as usual, upon her breakfast table.

Fleetwood was born in 1656; had been chaplain to King William, and in 1706 had been appointed to the Bishopric of St. Asaph without any solicitation.  He was translated to Ely in 1714, and died in 1723.]

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No. 385.  Thursday, May 22, 1712.  Budgell.

  ‘Thesea pectora juncta fide.’

  Ovid.

I intend the Paper for this Day as a loose Essay upon Friendship, in which I shall throw my Observations together without any set Form, that I may avoid repeating what has been often said on this Subject.

Friendship is a strong and habitual Inclination in two Persons to promote the Good and Happiness of one another.  Tho’ the Pleasures and Advantages of Friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral Writers, and are considered by all as great Ingredients of human Happiness, we very rarely meet with the Practice of this Virtue in the World.

Every Man is ready to give in a long Catalogue of those Virtues and good Qualities he expects to find in the Person of a Friend, but very few of us are careful to cultivate them in our selves.

Love and Esteem are the first Principles of Friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.

As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a Man whom we cannot esteem:  so, on the other, tho we are truly sensible of a Man’s Abilities, we can never raise ourselves to the Warmths of Friendship, without an affectionate Good-will towards his Person.

Friendship immediately banishes Envy under all its Disguises.  A Man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his Friends being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter Stranger to this Virtue.

There is something in Friendship so very great and noble, that in those fictitious Stories which are invented to the Honour of any particular Person, the Authors have thought it as necessary to make their Hero a Friend as a Lover.  Achilles has his Patroclus, and AEneas his Achates.  In the first of these Instances we may observe, for the Reputation of the Subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruin’d by the Hero’s Love, but was preserved by his Friendship.