36.  There is a kind of short-lived friendship that takes place among young men, from a connection in their pleasures only; a friendship too often attended with bad consequences.  This companion of your pleasures, young and unexperienced, will probably, in the heat of convivial mirth, vow a perpetual friendship, and unfold himself to you without the least reserve; but new associations, change of fortune, or change of place, may soon break this ill-timed connection, and an improper use may be made of it.

27.  Be one, if you will, in young companies, and bear your part like others in the social festivity of youth; nay, trust them with your innocent frolics, but keep your serious matters to yourself; and if you must at any time make them known, let it be to some tried friend of great experience; and that nothing may tempt him to become your rival, let that friend be in a different walk of life from yourself.

Were I to hear a man making strong protestations, and swearing to the truth of a thing, that is in itself probable, and very likely to be, I shall doubt his veracity; for when he takes such pains to make me believe it, it cannot be with a good design.

28.  There is a certain easiness or false modesty in most young people, that either makes them unwilling, or ashamed to refuse any thing that is asked of them.  There is also an unguarded openness about them, that makes them the ready prey of the artful and designing.  They are easily led away by the feigned friendships of a knave or a fool, and too rashly place a confidence in them, that terminates in their loss, and frequently in their ruin.  Beware, therefore, as I said before, of these proffered friendships; repay them with compliments, but not with confidence.  Never let your vanity make you suppose that people become your friends upon a slight acquaintance:  for good offices must be shewn on both sides to create a friendship; it will not thrive, unless its love be mutual; and it requires time to ripen it.

29.  There is still among young people another kind of friendship merely nominal, warm indeed for the time, but fortunately of no long continuance.  This friendship takes its rise from their pursuing the same course of riot and debauchery; their purses are open to each other, they tell one another all they know, they embark in the same quarrels, and stand by each other on all occasions.  I should rather call this a confederacy against good morals and good manners, and think it deserves the severest lash of the law; but they have the impudence to call it friendship.  However, it is often as suddenly dissolved as it is hastily contracted; some accident disperses them, and they presently forget each other, except it is to betray and laugh at their own egregious folly.

In short, the sum of the whole is, to make a wide difference between companions and friend; for a very agreeable companion has often proved a very dangerous friend.