He was a keen observer of life who remarked that the rapid changes to which most of human friendships and enmities are liable, could be no matter of surprise to one who took note of the motives from which they generally originate. Poor and unsubstantial enough these doubtless are, in many a case. There have been friendships that owed their growth solely to showers of flattery, and bitter enmities have spontaneously sprung up in the soil of envy. It was said of Goldsmith, that he could never hear a brother poet, or, indeed, any citizen of the world of letters, praised, without entertaining a temporary aversion to that individual, and a similar effect was always produced by the smallest sign of increasing literary consequence. A report that M---- had been taken particular notice of by such a nobleman of those patronizing times, or that his works had been admired in some segment of the fashionable circle, was sufficient to make the author of the "Deserted Village" find all manner of faults with him and his, till time, or his habitual good nature, wiped the circumstance out of Goldsmith's remembrance. This reminds one of Madame de Montespan, a belle of that order which reigned most triumphantly at the court of Louis XIV., who never could forgive her rival, even when disgraced and dead, because she had once got a ride in the royal carriage. It is curious that the learned and the fair, far as their general pursuits, and visibilities, too, are known to be apart, should, according to common report, approximate so nearly in their motives to enmity or friendship. George Colman used to say, that, if one had any interest in getting up a quarrel between either two fine ladies or two literary men, he had nothing to do but to praise the one energetically to the other, and the higher his enthusiasm rose, the fiercer would be the war. It was asserted of both the elder and younger Scaliger, that they never applauded any scholar with all their might, but one who was manifestly inferior to themselves; and of Madame de Maintenon, that she never honored any one with her special friendship who was not, in some considerable point, beneath her. There is still a large class of characters, in all whose attachments a something to despise seems the indispensable ingredient. The perpetual triumph of being always "king of the company" has a binding attraction for such minds. It confers a kind of dictatorship to have the advantage of one's friends. Nothing else can explain the amount of patronage and befriending generally lavished on the most worthless members of families or societies; and the half-grudge, half-surveillance, which, under the covert of mere mouth-honor, often surrounds great or successful abilities.