Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/25

Rh and no wonder, since Tully's maxim is certainly true, that friendship can subsist non nisi inter bonos. At that age of life, when there is balm in the blood, and that confidence in the mind, which the innocency of our own heart inspires, and the experience of other men's destroys, I was apt to confound my acquaintance and my friends together. I never doubted but that I had a numerous cohort of the latter. I expected, if ever I fell into misfortune, to have as many, and as remarkable instances of friendship to produce, as the Scythian, in one of Lucian's Dialogues, draws from his nation. Into these misfortunes I have fallen. Thus far my propitious stars have not disappointed my expectations. The rest have almost entirely failed me. The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance; and the separation made, I discover, on one side, a handful of friends; but on the other, a legion of enemies, at least of strangers. Happily this fiery trial has had an effect on me, which makes me some amends. I have found less resources in other people, and more in myself, than I expected. I make good, at this hour the motto which I took nine years ago, when I was weak enough to list again under the conduct of a man, of whom nature meant to make a spy, or, at most, a captain of miners; and whom fortune, in one of her whimsical moods, made a general.

I enjoy, at this hour, with very tolerable health, great tranquillity of mind. You will, I am sure, hear this with satisfaction; and sure it is, that I tell it you without the least affectation. I live, my friend, in