They will nurse you in a fit of sickness (congenial sufferers!)—arbitrate a law-suit for you, and embroil you deeper—procure you a loan of money;—but all the while they are only delighted with rubbing the sore place, and casting the colour of your mental or other disorders. ‘The whole need not a physician;’ and, being once placed at ease and comfort, they have no farther use for you as subjects for their singular beneficence, and you are not sorry to be quit of their tiresome interference. The old proverb, _A friend in need is a friend indeed_, is not verified in them. The class of persons here spoken of are the very reverse of _summer-friends_, who court you in prosperity, flatter your vanity, are the humble servants of your follies, never see or allude to any thing wrong, minister to your gaiety, smooth over every difficulty, and, with the slightest approach of misfortune or of any thing unpleasant, take French leave:— ‘As when, in prime of June, a burnished fly, Sprung from the meads, o’er which he sweeps along, Cheered by the breathing bloom and vital sky, Tunes up amid these airy halls his song, Soothing at first the gay reposing throng; And oft he sips their bowl, or nearly drowned, He thence recovering drives their beds among, And scares their tender sleep with trump profound; Then out again he flies to wing his mazy round.’ THOMSON’S CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. However we may despise such triflers, yet we regret them more than those well-meaning friends on whom a dull melancholy vapour hangs, that drags them and every one about them to the ground.