large being published to the world, and dedicated to the Parliament by him who both for his life and for his death deserves, that what advice he left be not laid by without perusal.

And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy, and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements. What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence, to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute? When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please; only that he may try the matter by dint of argument, for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike herself. What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross, what great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of. His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day, or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect

1

1 Ghost of a linen decency. The formality of the white surplice as a substitute for that decency of worship which lies in essentials. When congregations trouble themselves over surplice and black gown, they are still haunted by the ghost of linen decency.

by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood, and hay, and stubble forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think well of every light separation, or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and precious stones: it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the Angels' Ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be? this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace. In the meanwhile if any one would write, and bring his helpful hand to the slowmoving Reformation which we labour under, if Truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking license to do so worthy a deed? and not consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not ought more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose first appearance to our eyes bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard, but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief cause why sects and schisms do so much abound, and true knowledge is kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger which is in it. For when God shakes a Kingdom with strong and healthful commotions to a general reforming, 'tis not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing; but yet more true it is, that God then raises to His own work men of rare abilities, and more than common industry not only to look back and revise what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further and go on, some new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth. For such is the order of God's enlightening His church, to dispense and deal out by degrees His beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place these His chosen shall be first heard to speak; for He sees not as man sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set places, and assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the old Convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonised, is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII. himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead, to swell their number. And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter throughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own? seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who not contented with stale receipts are able to manage, and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the Priests, nor among the Pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them, no less than woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.

There have been not a few since the beginning of this Parliament, both of the Presbytery and others who by their unlicensed books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day: I hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is, if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church by this let1 of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade, and execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors themselves: whom the change of their condition hath puffed up, more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise.

And as for regulating the Press, let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better than yourselves have done in that Order published next before this, "that no book be Printed, unless the Printer's and the Author's name, or at least the Printer's be registered." Those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy, that man's prevention can

For this authentic Spanish policy of licensing books, if I have said aught, will prove the most unlicensed book itself within a short while; and was the immediate image of a Star Chamber decree to that purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer. Whereby ye may guess what kind of state prudence, what love of the people, what care of Religion or good manners there was at the contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pretended to bind books to their good behaviour. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well constituted before, if we may believe those men whose profession gives them cause to inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolisers in the trade of bookselling; who under pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid, brought divers glosing colours to the House, which were

indeed but colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours, men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them in procuring by petition this Order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier scape abroad, as the event shows. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not: This I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what Magistrate may not be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of Printing be reduced into the power of a few; but to redress willingly and speedily what hath been erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a sumptuous bribe, is a virtue (honoured Lords and Commons) answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.2

John Milton

Men widely divided in opinion when they lived, join now in aid to the lifting of our hearts above all that is low-thoughted in party feud. Jeremy Taylor, loyal to monarchy, loyal to Lambeth and "the Palace Metropolitan," was, like Milton, loyal also to God, by labouring through life after the highest truth he could attain. If Truth was found in diverse shapes, "yet," as we have just heard Milton saying, "yet it is not impossible that she may have more shapes than one." Jeremy Taylor, four or five years younger than Milton, was, as to the truth of the hour, in a camp opposite to his, but as to the truth that abides, his fellow combatant.4 In 1657 Jeremy Taylor had left his retirement by the Towey, where he had lived, aided by the friendship of Lord Carbery, at Golden Grove, with Grongar Hill, afterwards to become a pleasant name in English literature, on the other side of the stream. He was in London in that year, having charge, perhaps, of a small congregation of churchmen, who, under the Commonwealth, were firm in fidelity to the episcopal forms and ancient usages of the Church. The Long Parliament required every parish to maintain a minister; the jurisdiction of

2 There are two excellent reprints of Milton's "Areopagitica." One is in the series of "English Reprints," by Mr. Edward Arber, being, indeed, the book with the publication of which, at the price of sixpence, that excellent diffuser of good literature began his indefatigable labours. It gives the original text, in the original spelling, preceded by full reprints of the Orders of Star Chamber and of Parliament concerning Printing, which occasioned Milton's defence of free speech. This edition, like Mr. Arber's other publications, can be obtained only by post from the Editor, Edward Arber, F.S.A., Southgate, London, N. The other edition gives also the original text and spelling, and is amply provided with notes by its Editor, J. W. Hales, M.A., Professor of English Literature at King's College London. This is all that can be desired as an aid to the study of Milton's greatest prose work. It is included (price three shillings) in the Clarendon Press Series of English Classics, published by Macmillan and Co.

the official Triers was confined to benefices, and thus there arose here and there lectureships in London which, by local influence of friends to monarchy and the episcopal system, could be entrusted to men like Jeremy Taylor or John Pearson, whose lectures on the Creed given at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, were published as his "Exposition of the Creed" in 1659. Jeremy Taylor had in London John Evelyn for a friend, who gave, in this time of adverse fortune, some substantial help, and it was to Evelyn that Taylor wrote on the 9th of June, 1657, "Your kind letter hath so abundantly re

years old. I preserve in this treatise the old variations of type, spelling, &c.

A DISCOURSE OF THE NATURE AND OFFICES OF
FRIENDSHIP.

In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Excellent
Mrs. Katherine Phillips.
Madam,

The wise Bensirach advised that we should not consult with a woman concerning her of whom she is jealous, neither with a Coward in matters of War, nor with a Merchant concerning exchange; 3 and some other instances he gives of interested persons, to whom he would not have us hearken in

warded and crowned my innocent endeavours in my description of Friendship, that I perceive there is a friendship beyond what I have fancied, and a real material worthiness beyond the heights of the most perfect ideas; and I know now where to make my book perfect, and by an Appendix to outdo the first Essay; for when anything shall be observed to be wanting in my Character, I can tell them where to seek the substance, more beauteous than the picture, and by sending the readers of my book to be spectators of your life and worthiness, they shall see what I would fain have taught them, by what you really are." Jeremy Taylor's "Discourse of Friendship" was addressed to Mrs. Katherine Phillips, a lady who lived with her husband in Wales, wrote innocent verse as Orinda, chiefly with friendship for her theme, and who was in 1657, when the Discourse was written and first published, only twenty-four

1 The portrait of Taylor as Mercurius Christianus was prefixed to the "Treatise of Friendship" in 1657.

any matter of Counsel. For where ever the interest is secular or vicious, there the biass is not on the side of truth or reason, because these are seldom served by profit and low regards. But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship is like consulting with a spiritual person in Religion; they who understand the secrets of Religion, or the interior beauties of friendship are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries concerning the respective subjects; because reason and experience are on the side of interest; and that which in friendship is most pleasing and most useful, is also most reasonable and most true; and a friends fairest interest is the best measure of the conducting friendships: and therefore you who are so eminent in friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries, and you could have trusted your own reason,

* Some verse of hers is in the volume of this Library containing "Shorter English Poems," page 340.

3 Jesus the Son of Sirach in his book called "Ecclesiasticus," chap. xxxvii., verse 11. It goes on, "nor with a buyer, of selling; nor with an envious man, of thankfulness; nor with an unmerciful man, touching kindness; nor with the slothful, for any work; nor with an hireling for a year, of finishing work; nor with an idle servant, of much business: hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel."

because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things, but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire.

But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excuse, I will rather give you such an account which you can easily reprove, then by declining your commands, seem more safe in my prudence, then open and communicative in my friendship to you.

You first inquire how far a Dear and a perfect friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity?

To this I answer; That the word [Friendship] in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not so much as named in the New Testament; and our Religion takes no notice of it. You think it strange; but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it. There is mention of [Friendship with the world, and it is said to be enmity with God; but the word is no where else named, or to any other purpose in all the New Testament. It speaks of Friends often; but by Friends are meant our acquaintance, or our Kindred, the relatives of our family or our fortune, or our sect; something of society, or something of kindness there is in it; a tenderness of appellation and civility, a relation made by gifts, or by duty, by services and subjection; and I think, I have reason to be confident, that the word friend (speaking of humane entercourse) is no otherways used in the Gospels or Epistles, or Acts of the Apostles: and the reason of it is, the word friend is of a large signification; and means all relations and societies, and whatsoever is not enemy; but by friendships, I suppose you mean, the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds, of which brave men and women are capable. But then I must tell you that Christianity hath new christened it, and calls this Charity. The Christian knows no enemy he hath; that is, though persons may be injurious to him, and unworthy in themselves, yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive, which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies, that is, to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend, it shall not be a relative term and signifie something on each hand, a relative and a correlative; and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for, to treat kindly and justly, liberally and obligingly. Christian Charity is Friendship to all the world; and when Friendships were the noblest things in the world, Charity was little, like the Sun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the centre of a Burning-Glass; but Christian charity is Friendship, expanded like the face of the Sun when it mounts above the Eastern hills: and I was strangely pleas'd when I saw something of this in CICERO; for I have been so pushed at by herds and flocks of People that follow any body that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, that I am grown afraid of any Truth that seems chargeable with singularity: but therefore I say, glad I was when I saw Lælius in Cicero discourse thus: Amicitia ex infinita societate generis humani quam conciliavit ipsa natura, ita contracta res est, et adducta in angustum; ut omnis charitas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur. Nature hath made friendships, and societies, relations and endearments; and by something or other we relate to all the World; there is enough in every man that is willing, to make him become our friend; but when men contract friendships, they inclose the Commons;

1 Lælius: De Amicitia. Friendship amidst the infinite society of the human race which Nature has joined in fellowship, is a thing so contracted and drawn within strait bounds, that all love might be fastened up either between two or among a few.

and what Nature intended should be every mans, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers and the strand of seas, and the air, common to all the World; but Tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love have made them proper and peculiar. But when Christianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to increase her priviledges, and to make her aptness to become religion, then it was declared that our friendships were to be as universal as our conversation; that is, actual to all with whom we converse, and potentially extended unto those with whom we did not. For he who was to treat his enemies with forgiveness and prayers, and love and beneficence was indeed to have no enemies, and to have all friends.

So that to your question, how far a Dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity? The answer is ready and easie. It is warranted to extend to all Mankind; and the more we love, the better we are, and the greater our friendships are, the dearer we are to God; let them be as Dear, and let them be as perfect, and let them be as many as you can; there is no danger in it; only where the restraint begins, there begins our imperfection; it is not ill that you entertain brave friendships and worthy societies: it were well if you could love, and if you could benefit all Mankind; for I conceive that is the summe of all friendship.

I confess this is not to be expected of us in this world; but as all our graces here are but imperfect, that is, at the best they are but tendencies to glory, so our friendships are imperfect too, and but beginnings of a celestial friendship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved. But then so we must here in our proportion; and indeed that is it that can make the difference; we must be friends to all: That is, apt to do good, loving them really, and doing to them all the benefits which we can, and which they are capable of. The Friendship is equal to all the World, and of it self hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and Religion are the bands of friendships; excellency and usefulness are its great indearments: society and neighbourhood, that is, the possibilities and the circumstances of converse are the determinations and actualities of it. Now when men either are unnatural, or irreligious, they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor useful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, they cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath any thing of the good, contrary to those evils, so he can have and must have his share of friendship. For thus the Sun is the eye of the World; and he is indifferent to the Negro, or the cold Russian, to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand near the Tropicks, the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills; but the fluxures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the North or South respectively change the emanations of his beams; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below, but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can; and some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattel, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of Catarrhes and Consumptions, apoplexies and dead palsies; but some have splendid fires, and aromatick spices, rich wines, and well digested fruits, great wit and great courage; because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the Courtiers of the Sun, and wait upon him in his Chambers of the East; just so is it in friend

2 Ind fferent, not different. In himself he makes no distinction of persons.

ships: some are worthy, and me are necessary: some dwell hard by and are fitted for converse: Nature joyns some to us, and Religion combines is with others; society and accidents, parity of fortrine, and pial lispositions to actuate our friendships: which of themsei's and in their prime disposition are prepared for all Mankind according as any one can receive them. We see this best exemplified by two instances and expressions of friendship and charity: riz., Ans and Prayers; Every one that needs relief is equally the object of our charity: but though to all mankind in equal needs we ought to be alike in charity; yet we signifie this severally and by lumits, and distinct measures: the poor man that is near me, he whom I meet, he whom I love, he whom I fancy, he who did me benetit, he who relates to my family, he rather then another, because my expressions being finite and narrow, and cannot extend to all in equal significations, must be appropriate to those whose circumstances best fit me: and yet even to all I give my alms; to all the World that needs them; I pray for all mankind, I am grieved at every sad story I hear; I am troubled when I hear of a pretty Bride murdered in her bride-chamber by an ambitious and enrag'd Rival; I shed a tear when I am told that a brave King was misunderstood, then slandered, then imprisoned, and then put to death by evil men: and I can never read the story of the Parisian Massacre, or the Sicilian Vespers, but my blood curdles, and I am disorder'd by two or three affections. A good man is a friend to all the World; and he is not truly charitable that does not wish well, and do good to all mankind in what he can; but though we must pray for all men, yet we say special Litanies for brave Kings and holy Prelates, and the wise Guides of souls; for our Brethren and Relations, our Wives and Children.

The effect of this consideration is, that the Universal friendship of which I speak, must be limited, because we are so: in those things where we stand next to immensity and infinity, as in good wishes and prayers, and a readiness to benefit all mankind, in these our friendships must not be limited; but in other things which pass under our hand and eye, our voices and our material exchanges; our hands can reach no further but to our arms end, and our voices can but sound till the next air be quiet, and therefore they can have entercourse but within the sphere of their own activity; our noods and our conversations are served by a few, and they cannot reach to all; where they can, they must; but where it is impossible, it cannot be necessary. It must therefore follow, that our friendships to mankind may admit variety as does our conversation; and as by nature we are made sociable to all, so we are friendly; but as all cannot actually be of our society, so neither can all be admitted to a special, actual friendship; Of some entercourses all men are capable, but not of all; Men can pray for one another, and abstain from doing mjuries to all the world, and be desirous to do all mankind good, and love all men; Now this friendship we must pay to all because we can, but if we can do no more to all, we must alow our readiness to do more good to all by actually doing mote good to all them to whom we can.

To some we can, and therefore there are nearer friendships fosome then to others, according as there are natural or civil nearnersos relations and societies; and as I cannot express my friendships to all in equal measures and significations, Doat in, as I cannot do benefits to all alike: so neither am I thod to love all alike: for although there is much reason to love overy man; yet there are more reasons to love some Than others, and if I must love because there is reason I

Then, than. In the "Areopagitica" Milton invariably wrote then Er than. The words have the same origin,

should; then I must love more, where there is more reason ; and where there's a special affection and a great readiness to do good and to delight in certain persons towards each other, there is that special charity and indearment which Philosophy calls friendship; but our Religion calls love or charity. Now if the inquiry be concerning this special friendship. 1. How it can be appropriate, that is, who to be chosen to it; 2. how far it may extend; that is, with what expressions signified; 3. how conducted? The answers will depend upon such considerations which will be neither useless nor unpleasant.

1. There may be a special friendship contracted for any special excellency whatsoever; because friendships are nothing but love and society mixt together; that is, a conversing with them whom we love; now for whatsoever we can love any one, for that we can be his friend; and since every excellency is a degree of amability, every such worthiness is a just and proper motive of friendship, or loving conversation. But yet in these things there is an order and proportion. Therefore

2. A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to be retain'd; and indeed never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen.

Τῶν δ ̓ ἄλλων ἀρετὴ ποιεῦ φίλον ὀστὶς ἄρίστος 2
Μήποτε τὸν κακὸν ἄνδρα φίλον ποιεῖσθαι ἑταῖρον. 3
Where vertue dwells there friendships make,
But evil neighbourhoods forsake.

But although vertue alone is the worthiest cause of amability, and can weigh down any one consideration; and therefore to a man that is vertuous every man ought to be a friend; yet I do not mean the severe, and philosophical excellencies of some morose persons who are indeed wise unto themselves, and exemplar to others: by vertue here I do not mean justice and temperance, charity and devotion; for these I am to love the man, but friendship is something more then that: Friendship is the nearest love and the nearest society of which the persons are capable: Now justice is a good entercourse for Merchants, as all men are that buy and sell; and temperance makes a Man good company, and helps to make a wise man; but a perfect friendship requires something else, these must be in him that is chosen to be my friend; but for these I do not make him my privado; that is, my special and peculiar friend: but if he be a good man, then he is properly fitted to be my correlative in the noblest combination.

And for this we have the best warrant in the world: For a just man scarcely will a man die; the Syriac interpreter reads it, ὑπὲρ ἀδίκου for an unjust man scarcely will a man die; that is, a wicked man is at no hand fit to receive the express sion of the greatest friendship; but all the Greek copies that ever I saw, or read of, read it as we do; for a righteous man or a just man, that is, justice and righteousness is not the nearest indearment of friendship; but for a good man some will even dare to die: that is for a man that is sweetly disposed, ready to do acts of goodness and to oblige others, to do things useful and profitable, for a loving man, a beneficent, bountiful man, one who delights in doing good to his friend, such a man may have the highest friendship; he may have a friend that will die for him. And this is the meaning of Lælius: Vertue may be despised, so may Learning and Nobility: at una est amicitia in rebus humanis de cujus utilitate

consentiunt: only friendship is that thing, which because all know to be useful and profitable, no man can despise; that is χρηστότης, or ἀγαθότης, goodness or beneficence makes friendships. For if he be a good man he will love where he is beloved, and that's the first tie of friendship. ̓Αλλήλους ἐφίλησαν ἵσῳ ζυγῷ.