most of the friendships professed in the world; and this makes them so lasting as they are. Whoever can accompany another in his diversions, and be like him in his taste of pleasures, will be more loved and better thought of by him than a man of much more merit, and from whom he has received many more real kindnesses, will be.
"But I now proceed to the contrast of this good-natured man, whose reputation was quite contrary; for whoever mentioned him was sure to hear he was the worst-natured, most morose creature living; and yet this man did all the benevolent actions that were in his power; but he had so much tenderness in him that he was continually hurt, and consequently out of humour. His love of mankind was the cause that he appeared to hate them; for often, when his heart was torn to pieces and ready to burst at either ill usage from his friends or some particular misfortune which had befallen them, and which he was incapable of removing, he cared so little what came of the world that he could hear a pitiful story without any emotion, and perhaps showed a carelessness at it which made the relater go away with a fixed opinion of his brutality and ill-nature.
"But there is nothing so false as the characters which are given to most people; and I am afraid this is not owing so much to men's ignorance as to their malignity; for whenever one man is envious of another, he endeavours to take from him what he
plays at quoils well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boot very smooth like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bait with telling discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties he hath, that's how a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admires him; for the prince himself is such another, the weight of an hair will turn the scale between their Avoirdupois."
