The academie of eloquence containing a compleat English rhetorique, exemplified with common-places and formes digested into an easie and methodical way to speak and write fluently according to the mode of the present times : together with letters both amorous and moral upon emergent occasions / by Tho. Blount, Gent.

I. A Letter to revive Freindship in the Son, by remembrance of the Fa∣thers love.

SIR,

AS worth is not confin'd to place; so not the affection of friends to presence: your excellent deserts command my respects where ever, your absence drawes these following salutes, as the testimo∣nies of my esteems and well-wishes. In your noble Father I lost a worthy friend, in you I find him again: you no less inhe∣rit his goodness, then estate; this entitles me your neighbour, that makes his loves lineall and sure; and as neither with decrease, so both to the aug∣mentation of my acknowledgements; The power of my friend is a shelter and joy, his faithfulness my security, yet I love for worth, not-profit. This name of Friendship I grant is spreadly appel∣lative, but the thing it self as rare in experience,

as lowd in vogue. Your fathers love I enjoy'd in calm times; I prove yours in the tempests of For∣tune: My confidence assures me he would not have faild the Test, my triall proves you do not; a certainty that precludes doubt, and no less obli∣ges my proportion'd gratitude. It were easie now (Sir) to say, were you under my Stars, I would be the same I find you; I would so, nay should hate my self, did I feel but an inclination to the contrary. Yet all this evinces no more, then what you please to believe; Professions and Performan∣ces are not the same; what I would be, will not surmount conjecture; your nobleness shews it self in effects irrefragable. I know nothing can make me truly miserable, but my self; and as well I know and feel in lowring times, how consolatory is the countenance of a reall friend; such your best self, to whom I shall always subsign my self

Sir,

A most humble servant, D.W.