Another adage declares that "Compliments cost nothing but may be dearly bought," while another candidly warns, "I cannot be your friend and your flatterer too." The flatterer has ordinarily "an axe to grind," "His fetch is to flatter, to get what he can, His purpose once gotten, a fig for thee then." In the "Rambler" No. 155, Johnson sapiently remarks, "Flattery, if its operations be nearly examined, will be found to owe its acceptance, not to our ignorance, but to our knowledge of our failures, and to delight us rather as it consoles our wants than displays our possessions." Swift asserts that "'Tis an old maxim in the schools, That flattery's the food of fools, Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit." Bacon tells us, however, that "There is no such flatterer as is a man's selfe, and there is no such remedie against flatterie of a man's selfe as the libertie of a friend." It has been said that "A friend's frown is worth more than a fool's smile," but a cynical writer has affirmed, with some little truth, that "Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them," and it was long since discovered that "Whoso casteth a stone at the birds frayeth them away, and he that upbraideth his friend breaketh friendship." The duty of remonstrance is one of the most difficult that the friend can undertake, and "Save, save, O save me from the candid friend!" is the cry of Canning in "The New Morality," a cry that many have been inclined to echo. Our ancestors, with blunt directness, asserted that "Fish and guests stink in three days," while the Arabs have the picturesque proverb, "A thousand raps, but no welcome"--a pertinacious hammering at the closed door but no response from within; a fruitless endeavour to thrust an intimacy on those who do not desire it. We have seen that the friend lost is never really recovered and may become very readily an implacable enemy. Shakespeare warns us to "Trust not him that hath once broken faith," and we most of us know by experience how true are the lines of Dryden: "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong, But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." The ancient Romans had a proverb that the French have adopted in the words, "Jeter de l'huile sur le feu." We have no identical English proverb, but its meaning is clearly a reference to those evil spirits who foment a quarrel, add fuel to the fire, irritate rather than soothe, and who have no part or lot in the blessing promised to the peace-makers.