Our former correspondence was forthwith renewed, with the most
hearty expressions of mutual good-will, and as we had met so
unexpectedly, we agreed to dine together that very day at the
tavern. My friend Quin, being luckily unengaged, obliged us with
his company; and, truly, this the most happy day I have passed
these twenty years. You and I, Lewis, having been always
together, never tasted friendship in this high gout, contracted
from long absence. I cannot express the half of what I felt at
this casual meeting of three or four companions, who had been so
long separated, and so roughly treated by the storms of life. It
was a renovation of youth; a kind of resuscitation of the dead,
that realized those interesting dreams, in which we sometimes
retrieve our ancient friends from the grave. Perhaps my enjoyment
was not the less pleasing for being mixed with a strain of
melancholy, produced by the remembrance of past scenes, that
conjured up the ideas of some endearing connexions, which the
hand of Death has actually dissolved.

The spirits and good humour of the company seemed to triumph over
the wreck of their constitutions. They had even philosophy enough
to joke upon their own calamities; such is the power of
friendship, the sovereign cordial of life -- I afterwards found,
however, that they were not without their moments, and even hours
of disquiet. Each of them apart, in succeeding conferences,
expatiated upon his own particular grievances; and they were all
malcontents at bottom -- Over and above their personal disasters,
they thought themselves unfortunate in the lottery of life.
Balderick complained, that all the recompence he had received for
his long and hard service, was the half-pay of a rear-admiral.