Discourse of Friendship

The only written work by Mary Beale known to be extant is her 'Discourse of Friendship', which survives in two seventeenth-century manuscript copies, now included in British Library Harley MS 6828 and Folger MS V.a.220.

British Library Harley MS 6828 is a composite manuscript, in which Beale's 'Discourse' is included as fols 510r-523v. The pages of the 'Discourse' have been detached from their original binding and separately mounted. The manuscript begins with a dedicatory letter (fol. 510r), addressed to Elizabeth Tillotson. Following the letter, each page of the discourse is numbered: i.e. fols 510v-523r are numbered 1-25. Fol. 523v, which is unnumbered, again addresses the 'Discourse' to the writer's 'Honoured Friend' Mrs Elizabeth Tillotson.

Beale's 'Discourse' begins with high claims for the status and origins of friendship, the opening sentence declaring: 'Friendship is the nearest Union which distinct Souls are capable of (and is as rare to be found in sincerity, as it is excellent in its quality) though next to the glorifying our Creator, man seems to be made for nothing more' (fol. 510v). Beale justifies this last claim with reference to the biblical Eve, who, she says, was given by God to Adam 'for a friend, as well as for a wife'. She also argues that, until the Fall, Eve was 'always of equal dignity and honour' with Adam, and that although Eve's sin has brought a curse on her female posterity, 'a small number [of women] by Friendship's interposition, have restored the marriage bond to its first institution' (fol. 510v).

According to Beale, just as kingdoms and commonwealths become barbarous without the administration of laws and statutes, so friendship must be governed by rules; otherwise it 'soon degenerates into vice and becomes most destructive to the good of mankind, which it was designed chiefly to sustain' (fol. 511r). The most important condition for a good friendship, however, is that it should be established between suitable partners. Therefore Beale recommends that anyone intending friendship should first analyse his or her own character, as well as that of the possible friend. A modest self-respect is to be encouraged, since 'did I not love myself first I could scarce be capable of loving my friend' (fol. 513v). Friendship is less likely to be successful when the two friends are very alike than when their differences of character complement each other. However, while friendship is possible between two people who are of different situations in the world, 'it is necessary that their minds bear a like proportion to each other. For if this be wanting it will be impossible to maintain that freedom in converse, without which this relation would be insignificant, and incapable of exercising its most noble acts'(fol. 514v). While true friends should eschew flattery and dissimulation, friendship should be a reciprocal relationship of striving on one side and forbearance on the other. Friends should be able to provide each other with counsel and faithful advice, encouragement and reproof. Among the other benefits of friendship, according to Beale, is its ability to stimulate generous emulation (which she distinguishes carefully from envy). True friendship, she insists, is founded on and encourages the cultivation of virtue. Furthermore, since 'Friendship is the most genuine light to discover virtue by', it 'makes us like the Deity' (fols 522v, 523r). Beale concludes her treatise, as she began it, by linking earthly friendship with spiritual welfare: 'Love virtue for it self, and endeavour the propagating it in others; is the principal support of this life, and the happiness of the next' (fol. 523r)