expected to see more exalted objects in their brightness, as those may who look as it were from the bottom of a well. Active and intelligent men therefore, will, by the common ordinances of nature, become discontented and gather some rust upon the edge of their serviceable quality, if, whilst they find themselves going with large steps down the vale of years, they do not fancy themselves to be at the same time making proportionate approximations to some summit of fortune which they shall have proposed to themselves to attain. Once in ten years is full seldom for an active man to find himself progressive.

The claims to promotion are twofold: - 1st. Merit; 2d. Length of service. And the difficulties to be considered are those which arise when these claims clash; that is, when the most meritorious officer is not he who has served the longest. I do not speak here of the copyists or mechanical class of clerks, but of those

who, by whatever name they may be called, are or should be, in effect, a species of in-door statesmen. And having regard to the large public interests and the deep individual concernments with which they deal, it may be stated broadly as a general rule, that merit, or in other words industrious ability, should be the one essential consideration to be regarded in their promotion. But the question then arises - Will the judge of merit be always incorruptible and infallible? and if not, how are injustice, favouritism, and abusive promotion to be guarded against? The answer, as I conceive, is, that there can be no perfect protection against these evils; that the principle (like most other principles) resolves itself into a matter of degree; and that the protection will be adequate in the main, if the rule of preferment by merit, as against seniority, be applied only where there is a marked distinction of merit. For there are divers securities, each of which may be more or less leant upon, and

the aggregate of which will afford in the main all but a certain reliance, where the distinction of merit is marked. If motives of favouritism be at work, the most able and useful officer will at all events have a fair chance of being the favourite. But if he labour under some defect, (as unsightliness, ill manners, &c.) which, without impairing his public utility, tends to throw him out of favour, he will nevertheless have that hold upon the self-interest of his principal which he wants upon his good-will. Further, of this intellectual order of men there will hardly ever be ten brought together, of whom one will not have a generally acknowledged superiority to the rest. Even the vanities of men make them just as umpires; and he who cannot pretend to postpone nine others to himself, will not consent to postpone himself to any but the best of the nine. It will be found, then, that a man's reputation amongst his fellows in an office will seldom fail to be according to his deserts,

and that where the superiority is marked, the award of common repute will be both just and decisive; and being so, it will rarely happen that the patron will be induced by any motive of favoritism to brave the reproach of disregarding it. In short, it is in the nature of industrious ability, acting through various methods and upon various motives, to vindicate its own claims under any system in which those claims are recognised; and the system which shall conform to this natural tendency, and be so framed as to legitimate the rising of what is buoyant, will be found to work the best.

There is, however, a certain moderating hand to be applied even in the preferment of merit. Except in urgent and peculiar cases, in cases of extreme necessity on the part of the service, or extraordinary endowments and character also -on that of the individual, preferment should

proceed, as Lord Bacon teaches, "per gradus,

non per saltus.” * For besides the ordinary evils attendant upon sudden elevations, it should be observed that the hope, and not the fact, of advancement, is the spur to industry; and that by a large dispensation of reward at once, which cannot be followed by like rewards in future, the patron sinks his capital and forestalls that revenue of reward which should furnish him with resources of inducement through successive years. Gratitude is a sentiment which respects the future; and the secret of keeping it alive in the hearts of public servants and preserving their alacrity unimpaired, is

* The remarks of Lord Bacon upon this topic are in the explication of the 18th Parabola in the book "de Negotiis," which is the 8th book of the "de Augmentis." In that explication Machiavel is referred to (by a mistake of memory as I conceive) for a precept which is not, I think, to be found in his works, but which is fully set forth in the 15th and 21st of the "Hypomneses Politica” of Guicciardini.