of neglect; to forego the idea of having been ill-used and contumaciously treated by an old friend.  The first thing to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as neglected.  There let him fix if he can.  To undeceive him is to deprive him of the most tickling morsel within the range of self-complacency.  No flattery can come near it.  Happy is he who suspects his friend of an injustice; but supremely blest, who thinks all his friends in a conspiracy to depress and undervalue him.  There is a pleasure (we sing not to the profane) far beyond the reach of all that the world counts joy—­a deep, enduring satisfaction in the depths, where the superficial seek it not, of discontent.  Were we to recite one half of this mystery, which we were let into by our late dissatisfaction, all the world would be in love with disrespect; we should wear a slight for a bracelet, and neglects and contumacies would be the only matter for courtship.  Unlike to that mysterious book in the Apocalypse, the study of this mystery is unpalatable only in the commencement.  The first sting of a suspicion is grievous; but wait—­out of that wound, which to flesh and blood seemed so difficult, there is balm and honey to be extracted.  Your friend passed you on such or such a day,—­having in his company one that you conceived worse than ambiguously disposed towards you,—­passed you in the street without notice.  To be sure he is something shortsighted; and it was in your power to have accosted him.  But facts and sane inferences are trifles to a true adept in the science of dissatisfaction.  He must have seen you; and S——­, who was with him, must have been the cause of the contempt.  It galls you, and well it may.  But have patience.  Go home, and make the worst of it, and you are a made man from this time.  Shut yourself up, and—­rejecting, as an enemy to your peace, every whispering suggestion that but insinuates there may be a mistake—­reflect seriously upon the many lesser instances which you had begun to perceive, in proof of your friend’s disaffection towards you.  None of them singly was much to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and you have this last affront to clench them.  Thus far the process is any thing but agreeable.  But now to your relief comes in the comparative faculty.  You conjure up all the kind feelings you have had for your friend; what you have been to him, and what you would have been to him, if he would have suffered you; how you defended him in this or that place; and his good name—­his literary reputation, and so forth, was always dearer to you than your own!  Your heart, spite of itself, yearns towards him.  You could weep tears of blood but for a restraining pride.  How say you? do you not yet begin to apprehend a comfort? some allay of sweetness in the bitter waters?  Stop not here, nor penuriously cheat yourself of your reversions.  You are on vantage ground.  Enlarge your speculations, and take in the rest of your friends,