BUT there is still another danger,

from which conftant and innocent

amusement may help to preferve us; I mean the deftructive vortex of a Gaming-table, where every foft and feminine grace is fwallowed up by Avarice; where our internal peace muft neceffarily be deftroyed by the anxious folicitude of hope and fear, which can only terminate in the most painful of all feelings to an ingenuous mind, the confcioufnefs of having voluntarily erred.

As the world is at prefent,conftituted, it is almost im poffible

for any perfon who mixes with it to avoid play; and cards, as a mere amusement, may fometimes be deemed an innocent one. Converfation is not to be met with in large and mixed companies; and a card-table, confidered as an univerfal leveller, may have its ufe, by placing the weak and timid on a par with the moft lively and overbearing. But in order to render play what it fhould be, an amufement merely, a line must be drawn by the circumftances of each indi

vidual,

vidual, with regard to the expence: for

"What's in the Captain but a choleric word,

Is in the Soldier downright blafphemy.".

There can be, be, therefore, but one general rule devifed, which is, never to play for more than you

can afford to lofe, without breaking in upon the neceffary claims of your family, your drefs, or your charities. I fhall only add, that thofe who engage at play on any other terms than what I have men

tioned, will foon discover that they have

F 3

have exchanged their down for

thorns; and will, perhaps, too late remember the juft picture which Mr. POPE has drawn of thofe unhappy female beings who pass, not spend, a life of idlenefs and diffipation.

Mark how the world its veterans rewards, "A youth of frolic, an old age of cards; "Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,

FRIENDSHIP.

HE Antients ranked Friendship

THE

in the fecond clafs of human

virtues; and many are the inftances recorded in hiftory, where its energy has produced effects almost divine. Confidered in its perfect ftrength. and beauty, it certainly is the moft fublime, because the leaft felfifh, affection of the foul.

HONOUR is its very effence ; courage, frankness, and generofity, its unalienable properties. Such is the idea delivered down to us of this

F 4