posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham,
Burlington, or Bolingbroke.

Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made from his Letters, an
opinion too favourable cannot easily be formed; they exhibit a
perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence, and
particular fondness. There is nothing but liberality, gratitude,
constancy, and tenderness. It has been so long said as to be
commonly believed, that the true characters of men may be found in
their letters, and that he who writes to his friend lays his heart
open before him. But the truth is that such were the simple
friendships of the Golden Age, and are now the friendships only of
children. Very few can boast of hearts which they dare lay open to
themselves, and of which, by whatever accident exposed, they do not
shun a distinct and continued view; and, certainly, who we hide from
ourselves we do not show to our friend. There is, indeed, no
transaction which offers strange temptations to fallacy and
sophistication than epistolary intercourse. In the eagerness of
conversation the first emotions of the mind often burst out before
they are considered; in the tumult of business, interest and passion
have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and
deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of
solitude, and surely no man sits down to depreciate by design his
own character.

Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man
so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose
kindness he desires to gain or keep? Even in writing to the world
there is less constraint; the author is not confronted with his
reader, and takes his chance of approbation among the different