s, 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, what we
hide from ourselves we do not show to our friends. There is, indeed, no
transaction which offers stronger 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 dispositions of mankind; but a
letter is addressed to a single mind, of which the prejudices and
partialities are known; and must, therefore, please, if not by favouring
them, by forbearing to oppose them.

To charge those favourable representations which men give of their own
minds with the guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would show more severity
than knowledge. The writer commonly believes himself. Almost every man's
thoughts, while they are general, are right; and most hearts are pure
while temptation is away. It is easy to awaken generous sentiments in
privacy; to despise death when there is no danger; to glow with
benevolence when there is nothing to be given. While such ideas are
formed, they are felt; and self-love does not suspect the gleam of
virtue to be the meteor of fancy.

If the letters of Pope are considered merely as compositions, they seem
to be premeditated and artificial. It is one thing to write, because
there is something which the mind wishes to discharge; and another to
solicit the imagination, because ceremony or vanity requires something
to be written. Pope confesses his early letters to be vitiated with
"affectation and ambition:" to know whether he disentangled Him