lf--for no one hates himself--but against
the innocent cause of your baseness; reasoning very plausibly, "But for
that fellow, I should never have been base; for had he not existed I
could not have been so, at any rate against him;" and this hatred is all
the more bitter when you reflect that you have been needlessly base.

Whilst the Tories are in power the writer's friend, of his own accord,
raves against the Tories because they do not give the writer a certain
appointment, and makes, or says he makes, desperate exertions to make
them do so; but no sooner are the Tories out, with whom he has no
influence, and the Whigs in, with whom he, or rather his party, has
influence, than he gets the place for himself, though, according to his
own expressed opinion--an opinion with which the writer does not, and
never did, concur--the writer was the only person competent to hold it.
Now had he, without saying a word to the writer, or about the writer with
respect to the employment, got the place for himself when he had an
opportunity, knowing, as he very well knew, himself to be utterly
unqualified for it, the transaction, though a piece of jobbery, would not
have merited the title of a base transaction; as the matter stands,
however, who can avoid calling the whole affair not only a piece of--come,
come, out with the word--scoundrelism on the part of the writer's friend,
but a most curious piece of uncalled-for scoundrelism? and who, with any
knowledge of fallen human nature, can wonder at the writer's friend
entertaining towards him a considerable portion of gall and malignity?

This feeling on the part of the writer's friend was wonderfully increased
by the appearance of Lavengro, many passages of which the Radical in his
foreign appointment applied to himself and family--one or two of his
children having gone over to Popery, the rest become members of Mr.
Platitude's chapel, and the minds of all being filled with ultra notions
of gentility.

The writer, hearing that his old friend had returned to England, to
apply, he believes, for an increase of salary and for a title, called
upon him, unwillingly, it is true, for he had no wish to see a person for
whom, though he bore him no ill-will, he could not avoid feeling a
considerable portion of contempt; the truth is, that his sole object in
calling was to endeavour to get back a piece of literary property which
his friend had obtained from him many years previously, and which, th