Friendship, in each successive stage of life, As we approach him, varies to the view; In youth he wears the face of Love himself, Of Love without his arrows and his wings. Soon afterwards with Bacchus and with Pan Thou findest him; or hearest him resign, To some dog-pastor, by the quiet fire, With much good will and jocular adieu, His age-worn mule, or broken-hearted steed. Fly not, as thou wert wont, to his embrace; Lest, after one long yawning gaze, he swear Thou art the best good fellow in the world, But he had quite forgotten thee, by Jove! Or laughter wag his newly bearded chin At recollection of his childish hours. But wouldst thou see, young man, his latest form, When e'en this laughter, e'en this memory fails, Look at yon fig-tree statue! golden once, As all would deem it, rottenness falls out At every little hole the worms have made; And if thou triest to lift it up again It breaks upon thee! Leave it! touch it not! Its very lightness would encumber thee. Come—thou has seen it: 'tis enough; be gone! The admirable writer who composed these verses in some melancholy mood, is said to be himself one of the most constant and affectionate of friends. It may indeed safely be affirmed, that generous minds when they have once known each other, never can be alienated as long as both retain the characteristics which brought them into union. No distance of place, or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth. There are even some broken attachments in friendship as well as in love which nothing can destroy, and it sometimes happens that we are not conscious of their strength till after the disruption. There are a few persons known to me in years long past, but with whom I lived in no particular intimacy then, and have held no correspondence since, whom I could not now meet without an emotion of pleasure deep enough to partake of pain, and who, I doubt not, entertain for me feelings of the same kind and degree; whose eyes sparkle when they hear, and glisten sometimes when they speak of me; and who think of me as I do of them, with an affection that increases as we advance in years. This is because our moral and intellectual sympathies have strengthened; and because, though far asunder, we know that we are travelling the same road toward our resting place in heaven. “There is such a pleasure as this,” says Cowper, “which would want explanation to some folks, being perhaps a mystery to those whose hearts are a mere muscle, and serve only for the purposes of an even circulation.” CHAPTER LXXXVI. PETER HOPKINS. REASONS FOR SUPPOSING THAT HE WAS AS GOOD A PRACTITIONER AS ANY IN ENGLAND; THOUGH NOT THE BEST. THE FITTEST MASTER FOR DANIEL DOVE. HIS SKILL IN ASTROLOGY.