The Three Sorts Of Friends

Though friendships differ endless _in degree_, The _sorts_, methinks, may be reduced to three. _Ac_quaintance many, and _Con_quaintance few; But for _In_quaintance I know only two-- The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

MY DEAR GILLMAN--The ground and _matériel_ of this division of one's friends into _ac_, _con_ and _in_quaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealy (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, 'No, she is an _in_quaintance!' 'Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend and _in_quaintance,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Undated. First published in _Fraser's Magazine_ for Jan. 1835, Art. _Coleridgeiana_, p. 54. First collected 1893.

61

If fair by Nature She honours the fair Boon with fair adorning, And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding, Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces? If taught by both she betters both and honours Fair gifts with fair adorning, know you not There is a beauty that resides within;-- A fine and delicate spirit of womanhood Of inward birth?--

Now first published from an MS.

62