Wherefore Pisistratus, being about to marry again,
				his sons being grown up to a mature age, gave them their
				deserved character of praise, together with the reason of
				his designs for a second marriage,—that he might be the
				
				 
				
				happy father of more such children. Now those who are
				truly ingenious do not only love one another the more entirely for the sake of their common parents, but they love
				their very parents for the sake of one another; always
				owning themselves bound to their parents especially for the
				mutual happiness that they enjoy in each other, and looking upon their brethren as the dearest and the most valuable treasure they could have received from their parents.
				And thus Homer elegantly expresses Telemachus bewailing the want of a brother:
				
				 Stern Jove has in some angry mood
				 Condemned our race to solitude. Odyss . XVI. 117. 
 But I like not Hesiod’s judgment so well, who is all for a
					single son’s inheriting. Not so well (I say) from Hesiod, a
					pupil of the Muses, who being endeared sisters kept always
					together, and therefore from that inseparate union ( ὁμοῦ οὐσαι ) were called Muses. To parents therefore the love of
					brothers is a plain argument of their children’s love to
					themselves. And to the children of the brothers themselves it is the best of precedents, and that which affords
					the most effectual advice that can be thought of; as again,
					they will be forward enough in following the worst of their
					parents’ humors and inheriting their animosities. But for
					one who has led his relations a contentious life, and quarrelled himself up into wrinkles and gray hairs,—for such
					a one to begin a lecture of love to his children is just like
					him
					
					 Who boldly takes the fees,
					 To cure in others what’s his own disease. Euripides, Frag. 1071. 
 In a word, his own actions weaken and confute all the
					arguments of his best counsel. Take Eteocles of Thebes
					reflecting upon his brother and flying out after this manner:
					
					 I’d mount the Heavens, I’d strive to meet the sun
					 In’s setting forth, I’d travel within him down 
 Beneath the earth, I’d balk no enterprise,
				 To gain Jove’s mighty power and tyrannize. Eurip. Phoeniss . 504 and 536. Suppose, I say, out of this rage, he had presently fallen
					into the softer strain of good advice to his children, charging them thus:
					
					 Prize gentle amity that vies
					 With none for grandeur; concord prize
					 That joins together friends and states,
					 And keeps them long confederates.
					 Equality!—whatever else deceives
					 Our trust, ’tis this our very selves outlives; 
 who is there that would not have despised him? Or what
					would you have thought of Atreus, after he had treated his
					brother at a barbarous supper, to hear him afterwards thus
					instructing his children:
					
					 Such love as doth become related friends
					 Alone, when ills betide, its succor lends? 
 It is therefore very needful to throw off those ill dispositions, as being very grievous and troublesome to their
				parents, and more destructive to children in respect of the
				ill example. Besides, it occasions many strange censures
				and much obloquy amongst men. For they will not be apt
				to imagine that so near and intimate relations as brothers,
				that have eaten of the same bread and all along participated
				of the same common maintenance, and who have conversed
				so familiarly together, should break out into contention,
				except they were conscious to themselves of a great deal
				of naughtiness. For it must be some great matter that
				violates the bonds of natural affection; whence it is that
				such breaches are so hardly healed up again. For, as
				those things which are joined together by art, being parted,
				may by the same art be compacted again, but if there be a
				fracture in a natural body, there is much difficulty in setting and uniting the broken parts; so, if friendships that
				through a long tract of time have been firmly and closely
				
				 
				
				contracted come once to be violated, no endeavors will
				bring then together any more. And brothers, when they
				have once broke natural affection, are hardly made true
				friends again; or, if there be some kind of peace made
				betwixt then, it is like to prove but superficial only, and
				such as carries a filthy festering scar along with it. Now
				all enmity between man and man which is attended with
				these perturbations of quarrelsomeness, passion, envy,
				recording of an injury, must needs be troublesome and
				vexatious; but that which is harbored against a brother,
				with whom they communicate in sacrifices and other religious rites of their parents, with whom they have the same
				common charnel-house and the same or a near habitation,
				is much more to be lamented,—especially if we reflect
				upon the horrid madness of some brothers, in being so
				prejudiced against their own flesh and blood, that his face
				and person once so welcome and familiar, his voice all
				along from his childhood as well beloved as known, should
				on a sudden become so very detestable. How loudly does
				this reproach their ill-nature and savage dispositions, that,
				whilst they behold other brethren lovingly conversing in
				the same house and dieting together at the same table,
				managing the same estate and attended by the same servants, they alone divide friends, choose contrary acquaintance, resolving to abandon every thing that their brother
				may approve of? Now it is obvious to any to understand,
				that new friends and companions may be compassed and
				new kindred may come in when the old, like decayed
				weapons and worn-out utensils, are lost and gone. But
				there is no more regaining of a lost brother, than of a hand
				that is cut off or an eye that is beaten out. The Persian
				woman therefore spake truth, when she preferred the saving her brother’s life before her very children’s, alleging
				that she was in a possibility of having more children if
				she should be deprived of those she had, but, her parents
				
				 
				
				being dead, she could hope for no more brothers after
				him. See Sophocles, Antig . 905-912. 
 You will ask me then, What shall a man do with an
				untoward brother? I answer, every kind and degree of
				friendship is subject to abuse from the persons, and in that
				respect has its taint, according to that of Sophocles:
				
				 Who into human things makes scrutinies,
				 He may on most his censures exercise. 
 For, if you examine the love of relations, the love of associates, or the more sensual passion of fond lovers, you will
					find none of them all clear, pure, and free from all faults.
					Wherefore the Spartan, when he married a little wife, said
					that of evils he had to choose the least. But brothers
					would do well to bear with one another’s familiar failings,
					rather than to adventure upon the trial of strangers. For
					as the former is blameless because it is necessary, so the
					other is blameworthy because it is voluntary. For it is not
					to be expected that a sociable guest or a wild crony should
					be bound by the same
					
					 Chains of respect, forged by no human hand, 
 as one who was nourished from the same breast and carries
					the same blood in his veins. And therefore it would become a virtuous mind to make a favorable construction of
					his brother’s miscarriages, and to bespeak him with this
					candor:
					
					 I cannot leave you thus under a cloud
					 Of infelicities, Odyss . XIII. 331. 
 whether debauched with vice or eclipsed with ignorance,
					for fear my inadvertency to some failing that naturally
					descends upon you from one of our parents should make
					me too severe against you. For, as Theophrastus said. as
					to strangers, judgment must rule affection rather than affection prescribe to judgment; but where nature denies judgment this prerogative, and will not wait for the bushel of
					
					 
					
					salt (as the proverb has it) to be eaten, but has already
					infused and begun in us the principle of love, there we
					should not be too rigid and exact in the examining of
					faults. Now what would you think of men when they can
					easily dispense with and smile at the sociable vices of their
					acquaintance, and in the mean time be so implacably incensed with the irregularities of a brother? Or when fierce
					dogs, horses, wolves, cats, apes, lions, are so much their
					favorites that they feed and delight in them, and yet cannot stomach only their brother’s passion, ignorance, or ambition? Or of others who have made away their houses
					and lands to harlots, and quarrelled with their brothers
					only about the floor or corner of the house? Nay, further,
					such a prejudice have they to them, that they justify the
					hating them from the rule of hating every ill thing, maliciously accounting them as such; and they go up and down
					cursing and reproaching their brothers for their vices, while
					they are never offended or discontented therewith in others,
					but are willing enough daily to frequent and haunt their
					company. And this may serve for the beginning of my discourse.
				I shall enter upon my instructions not as others do, with
				the distribution of the parents’ goods, but with advice rather
				to avoid envious strifes and emulation whilst the parents
				are living. Agesilaus was punished with a mulct by the
				Lacedaemonian council for sending every one of the ancient
				men an ox as a reward of his fortitude; the reason they
				gave for their distaste was, that by this means he won too
				much upon the people, and made the commonalty become
				wholly serviceable to his own private interest. Now I
				would persuade the son to show all possible honor and
				reverence to his parents, but not with that greedy design
				of engrossing all their love to himself,—of which too many
				have been guilty, working their brethren out of favor, on
				purpose to make way for their own interest,—a fault which
				
				 
				
				they are apt to palliate with specious, but unjust pretences.
				For they deprive and cheat their brethren out of the greatest and most valuable good they are capable of receiving
				from their parents, viz., their kindness and affection, whilst
				they slyly and disingenuously steal in upon them in their
				business, and surprise them in their errors, demeaning
				themselves with all imaginable observance to their parents,
				and especially with the greatest care and preciseness in
				those things wherein they see their brethren have been
				faulty or suspected to be so. But a kind brother, and one
				that truly deserves the name, will make his brother’s condition his own, freely take upon himself a share of his
				sufferings, particularly in the anger of his parents, and be
				ready to do any thing that may conduce to the restoring him
				into favor; but if he has neglected some opportunity or
				something which ought to have been done by him, to excuse it upon his nature, as being more ready and seriously
				disposed for other things. That of Agamemnon therefore
				was well spoken in the behalf of his brother:
				
				 Nor sloth, nor silly humor makes him stay;
				 I am the only cause. All his delay
				 Waits my attempts: Il . X. 122. 
 and he says that this charge was delivered him by his
					brother. Fathers willingly allow of the changing of names
					and have an inclination to believe their children when they
					make the best interpretation of their brother’s failings,—as
					when they call carelessness simple honesty, or stupidity goodness, or, if he be quarrelsome, term him a
					smart-spirited youth and one that will not endure to be
					trampled on. By this means it comes to pass, that he who
					makes his brother’s peace and ingratiates him with his
					offended father at the same time fairly advances his own
					interest, and grows deservedly the more in favor. But when the storm is once over, it is necessary to
				
				 
				
				be serious with him, to reprehend him sharply for his
				crime, discovering to him with all freedom wherein he
				has been wanting in his duty. For as such guilty brothers
				are not to be allowed in their faults, neither are they to be
				insulted with raillery. For to do the latter were to rejoice
				and find advantage in their failings, and to do the former
				were to take part in them. Therefore ought they so to
				manage their severities that they may show a solicitude
				and concernedness for their brethren and much discomposure and trouble at their follies. Now he is the fittest
				person to school his brother smartly who has been a ready
				and earnest advocate in his behalf. But suppose the
				brother wrongfully charged, it is fitting he should be obsequious to his parents in all other things whatsoever, and
				to bear with their angry humors; but a defence made before them for a brother that suffers by slander and false
				accusation is unreprovable and very good. In all such
				there is no need to fear that check in Sophocles,
				
 	 Curst son! who with thy father durst contend; Soph. Antig . 742. 
 
 for there is allowed a liberty of vindicating a traduced
					brother. And where the parents are convinced of their
					injury, in cases of this kind defeat is more pleasant to
					them than victory.