luck to be captain of the guard on the birth of the Prince of Wales, for which he received his brevet majority; some short time afterwards he exchanged into the line, and in due course of time became brevet lieutenant-colonel. He happened to be stationed in country quarters with his depôt, under command of a major. An election occurred, to which the magistrates considered themselves justified, for the preservation of the public peace, in requesting a troop of cavalry might be sent to augment the soldiers. At once the town became a garrison. The brevet lieutenant-colonel, for simply commanding the guard on the day on which the Prince of Wales was born, took command of his own major, although, regimentally, he was only junior captain; as, had no cavalry been sent, he would simply have commanded his own company. Surely such a syllepsis required further revision than the simple remark, we opine, of

"This we regard as an abuse, and we beg to submit to your Majesty, that in future it should be laid down as a rule of the service (subject to some exceptions in favour of existing interests, which we shall hereafter consider) that no officer should rise to the rank of colonel otherwise than by serving three years as a lieutenant-colonel, in the manner we have described." Brevets are recommended to be discontinued-a most excellent proposition-and officers in the senior ranks to be promoted as vacancies occur, or urgencies require. The number of general officers proposed is 100 officers receiving unattached pay, which, with the addition of those commanding regiments, is to make a prominent total of 234. As regards the rank of field-marshal, it is proposed that the principle of seniority should be altogether discarded, and that the Queen should be enabled to reward brilliant exploits in the field by promotion to the rank above that in which the service has been rendered. His Royal Highness Prince Albert is among the few field-marshals we now have in our army. Brevet rank may still on certain occasions be deemed necessary for brilliant exploits, as in the case of Lieutenant Nasmyth, of the Bombay Artillery and "own correspondent" to the Times (for no subaltern can, according to existing rules, ever obtain brevet rank), but in this case the commissioners suggest that all such shall be converted into regimental rank at the earliest subsequent period.

A most excellent suggestion is that, that in future all brigadiers in India shall be major-generals, leaving thereby all regimental officers to perform their own proper duties; in which case, one lieutenant-colonel will prove sufficient for all regiments on the Indian establishment where before the senior lieutenant-colonel-no security that the command was placed in the ablest hands-used to be on the staff, and perchance never saw his corps for a period of years.

Staff situations, both at home and abroad, are not to be held longer than five years, except under peculiar cases, when the re-appointment is to be specially noted. By this plan, it is believed the duties will be better performed, as a fresh mind would be brought to the consideration of the subjects proper to be treated on. In short, in our vernacular, "A new broom always sweeps clean."

Field-officers emulous for the title, by application, can retain their names in the "Army List" in italics, wear the uniform at levees and balls, and place major or colonel on their visiting cards. Since, however, the enrolment of the yeomanry or militia, we opine this boon is not so

much valued as it would have been five years ago. We admire more that splendid creature, Colonel Timkins, of the Cowbridge Embodied Horse, in his scarlet pants, à la my Lord Cardigan, French grey jacket and pelisse, badger-skin busky, with orange jelly-bag; or Major Maltinson, of the Brook-green Volunteers, in moustachios from Trufit's, scarlet tunic, with pea-green lappels turned back, skirts lined with the same colour, and hooked up to a gold waist-belt, a Highland bonnet, and purple trousers, than we feel sure we shall for those old fogies who vegetate on the club steps, and who will attend the levees in the simple attire of a field-officer of the line. The nobility of gallantry and honour requires no frippery to garnish its noble escutcheon beyond the medal or the ribbon; and we fearlessly contend that Talavera or Waterloo, the Sutlej or Russia, are as good datas to adduce in our genealogy, as the doubtful deeds of Cressy or Poictiers, or the Utopian victories of some Norman robber who came over with William the Bastard to besiege our island. The proportion of the Royal Artillery and Engineers, which is the next branch of service we shall consider, is about one to five, or one-sixth of the whole army. In these corps, as doubtless every one is aware, the non-purchase system is in full force, so earnestly advocated by many to be made general throughout the army. We cannot, therefore, pass over a very remarkable observation made on this point by the committee in reply perchance to such theories. "They do not enjoy, therefore, the advantages (alluding to the promotion by purchase) which this system, however anomalous in itself, has, no doubt, conferred on the army, by quickening promotion, and facilitating the retirement from the service of officers whose age, or inefficiency from ill-health or other causes, has rendered them unfit for duty."

It is, therefore, on these grounds the committee remark, that in the Ordnance oftentimes field-officers, on whom devolve active service and trust of no ordinary character, are found wantingin those essentials which ought to justify the expectation of such general efficiency. And to qualify these conclusions at which the committee arrived, they called before them Sir Alexander Dickson and Lieut.-Colonels Russell and Mitchell. The average ages of the first twenty full colonels ranged from 58 to 66 years, and the ten first lieut.-colonels from 35 to 41 years.

The remedy the committee suggest is as follows. At present the retired full-pay list of the Ordnance is limited to eight lieut.-colonels, twelve captains, and eight subalterns; but they propose that the Master-General should be authorised annually to offer retirement, on full pay, to four lieut.-colonels and four captains from the Royal Artillery, and two lieut.colonels and two captains from the Royal Engineers; and who shall, moreover, receive further brevet promotion. This is independent of the limited full-pay list quoted just above.

The benefit of merit over seniority in the Ordnance corps, equally applicable to all other branches of the army, is strikingly illustrated by the fact of the late Sir A. Dickson, during the Peninsular war, although only a captain in the king's service, being placed by the Duke of Wellington as the commander of the whole artillery. This his Grace effected by giving this distinguished officer the rank of lieut.-colonel in the Portuguese artillery, and brigading that with our own, amounting in the whole to about 8000 men and 6000 horses and mules, and equal at that

time to the ordinary command of a lieut.-general of the line. Now, had anything occurred to separate this brigade, Captain Dickson must have reverted to his proper rank-namely, a captain in his Majesty's Royal Artillery, and his country have been deprived of his able services. The committee, therefore, proposes that her Majesty may in future exercise her undoubted power of selecting officers of all ranks in the Ordnance corps for service, and should give them for that purpose such rank and promotion as their merits and the duties entrusted to them may appear to entitle them to, without regard to their seniority in the corps. It is an undoubted fact, that "in every other profession and walk in life, experience proves that men, and especially young men, cannot be induced to submit to that persevering labour which is the only road to excellence, unless by some powerful motive. In almost every other employment the great stimulus to exertion is the hope held out to men of obtaining by it advancement in the career which they have chosen; and it seems irrational to suppose that, under a strict rule of promotion by seniority, young men entering into the Artillery and Engineers at the time of life when the desire of amusement is the strongest, will invariably take the same pains to qualify themselves for the duties to which they are to be called, or should, for the sake of doing so, be as ready to forego the usual pleasures of their age, as if they knew that earlier promotion should be the reward of their distinguishing themselves by their professional knowledge

and merit."

Thus have we quoted at considerable length a piece of as sound, wholesome, moralising, and good common sense as we might seek for in vain in the many works of high pretensions that are now strewn around our library table, and such as must strike deep into the hearts of every youth, be his profession what it may. We print it in our pages in the hope that it may live longer, and be the means of doing the good, and carrying the conviction with it that it must, and which it could scarcely be expected to do if buried amongst the stores of the musty records of the Blue Books. Well would it be were those words printed in letters of gold and hung glazed and framed in the military institutions of the United Kingdom.

Let us now conclude this short review in the words of the committee themselves, who, laying the report before their Queen and Sovereign, express a hope that the army and the country may derive a lasting benefit from the changes which they recommend, believing that the ultimate tendency of these changes will be to reduce the numbers of the ineffective portion of the army, and consequently in future years reduce the cost of its maintenance, whilst the accelerated promotion of officers, whose services and capacity entitle them to such advancement, will, they trust, ensure the presence in all ranks of men to whose unimpaired energy and vigour may be entrusted the safety of the country and the honour of her Majesty's arms."

MORE EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF A LATE

DECEASED AUTHOR.

ELEVEN LIVES.

Ir is a startling fact that eleven lives of only eighty years apiece bring us back to the Norman Conquest. Thus: 1050, William I., 1130, Henry I.; 1210, John; 1290, Edward I.; 1370, Edward III.; 1450, Henry VI.; 1530, Henry VIII.; 1610, James I.; 1690, William III.; 1770, George III.; 1850, Victoria. The child of Edward III.'s reign dying in that of Henry VI. would have seen France half conquered by England and lost again, and two kings murdered. The child of Elizabeth's would have seen royalty destroyed and restored, to be again changed and modified; and the very Restoration a mere step to carrying out the principles of the Rebellion. Horace Walpole mentions, in his letters to Sir Horace Mann, having once met Mrs. Godfrey (sister of the Duke of Marlborough and mistress of James II.). An old lady died the other day who knew Dr. Johnson, and had flirted with this same Walpole; so here two generations carry us back to the Dutch landing at Torbay. Dr. Johnson himself mentions when a child being touched for the evil by Queen Anne, whom he only remembered as a stately lady in black. But extending our privilege, and taking the longest livers of our nation, how soon we mount back to the day when England was a third-rate power, steam unknown, balloons and railroads things of fable, existing only in the selfmoving vessel of Odin and the Arab's winged horse, India unconquered, and our colonies scarce bigger than the mother country. The Countess of Desmond, born in the reign of Edward IV., died in that of James I., her life extending to 143; killed at last, of all ways in the world, by a fall from a cherry-tree, following the predilection of the first woman, and taking no warning by her example. Old Parr, a Shropshire peasant, born in the same reign as this Irish countess, lived out ten kings, died not long before Charles I. took his last false step from a certain window in his own palace of Whitehall, and was buried in Westminster Abbey amongst the princes whose virtues and vices he had witnessed; the only peasant in that great assembly of dead monarchs, Henry Jenkins, born about 1503, died during the Long Parliament. When a boy, he was sent with a cart-load of arrows-perhaps among them was that which pierced the brave, foolish, luckless James-to the camp at Flodden, the thoughtless boy carelessly whistling, reckless of the widow-makers that he brought. Here's a life, my masters, Scotland checked for ever till its union, the Reformation and the Rebellion, 169 years. In Jenkins's parish lived four centenarians. What a fireside circle to talk like the nones or the fates of times long, long past! outliving generations, outliving their fathers' tombstones, outliving hopes and fears, and seeing their nation grow as a child does to manhood, from gristle to bone; what "sad stories of the death of kings," what looking down on their infant auditors of some sixty summers, or "by'r lady, some fourscore;" what changes of costume they must have known, from pointed toe to broad

toe, from slashed sleeve to tight doublet, from puffed hose to tight stocking; what fresh coins from silver penny to copper penny, from angel to sovereign; what change of masonry from gable end and Tudor oriel to thatched roof and Grecian pillar; what living chronicles, what incarnations of history, what abridgments of old almanacks and references for storms, winds, and pestilences; ill as children of the sweating sickness or the black death, and living to see the desolations of the Great Plague. It realises the antediluvian sages, who had liver complaints of 200 years' standing, and were carried off in galloping consumptions of only 150 years. Men who gave bills at eighty years instead of three months, and sent poachers of dodos' eggs to gaol for the brief term of 160 years; who often kept three whales hanging up in their larder, had cold mammoth on the sideboard, and leviathan soup on the table. A midwife of Jamaica, who lived 118 years, is calculated to have introduced 140,000 human beings into the world, and left 255 descendants.

THE PERFECT MAN; OR, MAN AND HIS CAPABILITIES.- -WEIGHT HE CAN BEAR.

A London porter habitually carries more than 600 lbs., and a French savan discovered that by careful and equal adjustment a man may be made to bear nearly 2000.

PERFECT IN FASTING.

The great Franklin lived for a fortnight on ten pounds of bread & week, and remained stout and in robust health, and in his Autobiography he mentions a lady whom he knew who lived on gruel alone. A native of Connecticut, being mad and believing meat poison, lived on vegetables alone for sixty-two days.

PERFECT IN LEAPING.

A Spartan is said to have leapt fifty-two, and a native of Crotona, fifty-five feet. The Welsh have a similar legend; and Strutt mentions a Yorkshireman who leapt, without spring-board or help, over nine horses placed side by side with a man seated on the centre one, who jumped over a garter held fourteen feet high, and ended by kicking a bladder sixteen feet from the ground.

PERFECT IN ENDURANCE OF PAIN.

Can scarcely be classified. Remember the Indian Suttee, who sees her funeral pile lit without a fear; the Scandinavian warriors, who died laughing; the Indian prisoner, who sneers at those who slay him, who tear out his nails and puncture him with knives; the French grenadier in the hospital, who, Byron relates, tore off his mutilated arm, and shouting "Vive l'Empereur !" flung it in the air; English sailors, who have smoked and joked while the shattered limbs of their comrades were being cut off, and while they were waiting for their turn. The Syrian fanatic spent thirty-seven years in a hut upon the summit of a column, fed only with bread and water, and exposed to vertical suns and nights of frost. Aug.-VOL. CI. NO. CCCCIV.

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