name, to carry this disgrace before one's equals, to be again discussed, sifted, and cavilled at! No, Upton ; this poor, shattered brain would give way under such a trial. To compass it in mere fancy is already nigh to madness! It must be by other means than these that I attain my object!"

The terrible energy with which he spoke actually frightened Upton, who fancied that his reason had already begun to show signs of decline.

"The world has decreed," resumed Glencore, "that in these conflicts all the shame shall be the husband's, but it shall not be so here!-she shall have her share, ay, and by heaven! not the smaller share either!"

"Why, what would you do?" asked Upton, eagerly.

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Deny my marriage! call her my mistress!" cried Glencore, in a voice shaken with passion and excitement.

"But your boy your son, Glen

core ?"

"He shall be a bastard! You may hold up your hands in horror, and look with all your best got-up disgust at such a scheme; but if you wish to see me swear to accomplish it, I'll do so now before you, ay, on my knees before you! When we eloped from her father's house at Castellamare we were married by a priest at Capri-of the marriage no trace exists. The more legal ceremony was performed before you, as Chargé d'Affaires at Naples of that I have the registry here; nor, except my courier Sanson, is there a living witness. If you determine to assert it, you will do so without a fragment of proof, since every document that could substantiate it is in my keeping. You shall see them for yourself. She is, therefore, in my power; and will any man dare to tell me how I should temper that power.'

"But your boy, Glencore, your boy."

"Is my boy's station in the world a prouder one by being the son of the notorious Lady Glencore, or as the offspring of a nameless mistress? What avail to him that he should have a title stained by her shame! Where is he to go? In what land is he to live, where her infamy has not reached? Is it not a thousand times better that he enter life, ignoble and unknown-to start in the world's race with what he may of strength and power than drag on an unhonoured

existence, shunned by his equals, and only welcome where it is disgrace to find companionship."

"But you surely have never contemplated all the consequences of this rash resolve. It is the extinction of an ancient title, the alienation of a great estate, when once you have declared your boy illegitimate."

"He is a beggar, I know it; the penalty he must pay is a heavy one; but think of her, Upton, think of the haughty viscountess, revelling in splendour, and even in all her shame, the flattered, welcomed guest of that rotten, corrupt society she lives in. Imagine her in all the pride of wealth and beauty, sought after, adulated, worshipped as she is, suddenly struck down by the brand of this disgrace, and left upon the world without fortune, without rank, without even a name. To be shunned like a leper by the very meanest of those it had once been an honour when she recognised them. Picture to yourself this woman, degraded to the position of all that is most vile and contemptible. She that scarcely condescended to acknowledge as her equals the best born and the highest, sunk down to the hopeless infamy of a mistress. They tell me she laughed on the day I fainted at seeing her entering the San Carlos at Naples-laughed as they carried me down the steps into the fresh air! Will she laugh now, think you? Shall I be called Le Pauvre Sire,' when she hears this? Was there ever a vengeance more terrible, more complete?"

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Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve others in the penalty of her fault. Laying aside every higher motive, you can have no more right to deny your boy's claim to his rank and fortune, than I, or any one else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished; by his birth he became the heir to your title and estates."

"He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard-who shall deny it? You may," added he, after a second's pause, " but where's your proof? Is not every probability as much against you as all documentary evidence, since none will ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, and make over my fortune to heaven knows what remote relation."

"And do you expect me to become a party to this crime?" asked Upton gravely.

"You baulked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I did think you owed me a reparation !"

"Glencore," said Upton, solemnly, "we are both of us men of the world; men who have seen life in all its varied aspects sufficiently, to know the hollowness of more than half the pretension men trade upon as principle; we have witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives amongst the highest in station; and it is not for either of us to affect any overstrained estimate of men's honour and good faith; but I say to you, in all sincerity, that not alone do I refuse you all concurrence in the act you meditate, but I hold myself open to denounce and frustrate it."

"You do!" cried Glencore, wildly, while with a bound he sat up in his bed, grasping the curtain convulsively for support.

"Be calm, Glencore, and listen to me patiently."

"You declare that you will use the confidence of this morning against me," cried Glencore, while the lines in his face became indented more deeply, and his bloodless lips quivered with

passion. "You take your part with her."

"I only ask that you would hear me." "You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds, Sir Horace Upton," said Glencore, in a voice barely above awhisper, but every accent of which was audible.

"I know it, Glencore," said Upton, calmnly. "You helped me by a loan of that sum in a moment of great difficulty. Your generosity went further, for you took, what nobody else would, my personal security."

Glencore made no reply, but throwing back the bedclothes, slowly and painfully arose, and with tottering and uncertain steps, approached a table. With a trembling hand he unlocked a drawer, and taking out a paper, opened and scanned it over.

"There's your bond sir," said he, with a hollow, cavernous voice, as he threw it into the fire, and crushed it down into the flames with the poker. "There is now nothing between us. You are free to do your worst!" And as he spoke, a few drops of dark blood trickled from his nostril, and he fell senseless upon the floor.

AN opinion appears of late to have become prevalent, that the duties appertaining to the civil service of this country are somewhat mismanaged; that they are got through in an awkward manner; that many hands are used for little work; and that that little might be less, if it were arranged with better system and less routine. The rather formidable mass of papers on which it is now proposed to make some remarks, is the upshot of the wisdom of, we presume, the best of our civil servants, as brought to bear upon the nature of the service to which they belong. Two of the number have been desired to try their hands on a new constitution for this hitherto illgoverned republic, and some two score others have been again invited to ani

madvert on the constitution so prepared. One gentleman, Mr. Arbuthnot, has contrived to obtain a hearing on the subject without invitation at all; and we must premise, that he seems to be fully as much entitled to the honour as any one of his brethren.

Such is the collection of papers on the re-organisation of the civil service; and it must be allowed that they call attention to a most important subject, and fully prove that there is room for amendment.

To the Rev. Mr. Jowett has been accorded a place of his own-the place of honour, we presume. His wisdom concludes the book; he is the one chief witness in favour of the scheme of the two reporters; it is he who proves the practicability of the proposed reform,

who calculates the minute necessities of the future system, dissipates the difficulties of arrangement, and shows himself to be ready, at a moment's warning, to pick out from the largest crowd of candidates the exact number of best men required for the service of the nation. Mr. Jowett is tutor of Baliol: that he is an excellent college tutor we do not doubt, but we do much doubt whether the training that he has had in that capacity can have taught him what are the desirable requirements in a clerk in the civil service.

It has for some years been apparent to us, that if a real Utopia could be peopled with emigrants from Great Britain, Sir Charles Trevelyan would be the only man to whom could be confided the chief magistracy of the colony. Sir Stafford Northcote, who rode worthily into fame on the cupola of the London Exhibition, is a fitting associate for so great an administrator. Eminently practical as was the Exhi bition, it had, nevertheless, a strong savour of a successful Utopia; the ordinary desagremens of worldly things were wanting; there was about it a dangerous lack of any alloy; it was terribly perfect! Money flew in, not faster, but only not faster than it could be collected; pickpockets were tabooed; crowds behaved themselves with decorum; policemen were not overbearing; and there was no link to bind the building to frail humanity. Since that time nothing but perfection will suffice for such men as Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Cole; and no scheme for the improvement of the civil service could hope for their aid, unless it were so contrived as to create a class of clerks who should be altogether angelic, if not absolutely divine. We do not deny, nay we fully acknowledge, that there is much sound sense, much promise of future improvement in this report. We do not doubt that the promise will be ultimately matured; but it does appear to us that at starting these reformers soar too high.

The report begins by an allusion to the importance of the civil service as a profession, and by a declaration that the ablest of the sons of Britain should be attracted into its ranks. It then, in a somewhat unnecessarily ungracious manner, enlarges on the defects of the men who do enter it. It is from the idle, the weak in mind, the infirm in body, the unambitious, the jolterheads,

the ne'er-do-wells, the puny, and the diseased, that the offices of Government receive their recruits. It enlarges on the difficulty of obtaining really working men for the civil service. Men go in young, and having secured their income, do not care to exert themselves. In the open professions, no song gets no supper, little work gets little pay; but in the civil service the mute guest is treated as well as the tuneful the idle drone enjoys as much honey as the busy bee. Men also endowed with a certain income are freed from those energetie struggles which open the mind and define the character, and thus they live and die like dormice. So at least say Sir Charles and Sir Stafford.

The evils of patronage are then urged. A young man is nominated from favour, and the office-chief, who should put a veto on this nomination of the youngster if he be under educated or otherwise unfit, does not like to offend the great man who gave the appointment, and, neglecting his duty, admits the incompetent nominee; or he is indifferent, and, knowing that the young man's unfitness will not affect himself, takes no trouble to inquire into the matter; or he is good-natured, and will not ruin a young man's prospects. So say the reporters. We should think that very little such indifference, very little such good-nature, very little such fear of a political great man, can fairly be laid to the charge of Sir Charles Trevelyan.

thing has been done after the clerk's appointment to turn his abilities to the best account." These unfortunate clerks labour it seems under a "conviction that their success does not depend on their own exertions, and that if they work hard it will not advance them, if they waste their time in idleness it will not keep them back." “In several departments the clerks are regarded as having no claim whatever to the staff appointments." We are told how clerks suffer, when some one who has failed in other professions, and

who has no recommendation but that of family or political interest, is appointed to a librarianship" over the heads of deserving men. Alas! alas! if such really be the true state of the case, how could Sir Charles and Sir Stafford have looked to see the ambitious and the talented entering the civil service?

In this respect, however, as in others, we think that our reformers are carried away into exaggeration; and we hope we shall be able to make good our opinion, that things are not so bad as they are made out to be.

The reporters then go on to their main object, that of recommending how best to seek for good men for the public service. It is better, they say, to train young men than to look for experienced labour. They declare that the service should be recruited from a properly selected body of candidates, and that the establishment of a fitting system of examination before appoint ment is the first necessary step towards the desired end. A short period of probation in the service should follow the examination.

Here we arrive at what is, in fact, the real reform proposed. the great change which Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northcote wish to ef fect the momentous step, to the feasibility of which Mr. Jowett bears such strong and substantial testimony. This is the blow under which the present system of patronage is to lie stricken to the death. It is this which is to rob the borough members of their means of gratifying constituents, and to open the elysium (Oh! what an elysium, according to Sir C. Trevelyan !) - the elysium of Somerset House-to the ambitious, but unfriended, youth of the country. It is this which is to give new hopes to the universities, deprive the bar of its brightest aspirants, limit the hospitals to mediocrity, and carry off even a portion of the austere virtue which now ornaments the Church. Yes; and not only that. No Burns need be a gauger; no Thom need be a weaver; no heaven-born genius need make shoes, or otherwise waste his jewelled gifts on arts mechanical, when once Sir Charles shall have carried his reform. If the shoemaker can do better than make shoes, let him come before Mr. Jowett and the examiners; and having proved his efficiency, let him cease from making shoes, and serve

the Crown. If he be good at calculations, send him forthwith to the Chancellor of the Exchequer-if Providence have thrown languages in his way, let him go to the Foreign Office-if he possess a talent for legerdemain, let him sort letters at the Post Office. If he have a gift at all, Mr. Jowett will find it out, and turn him to account; if he have no gift, Mr. Jowett will, at any rate, find out so much, and send him back to his stall, with permission, however, to come and be re-examined as often as he will, till he have reached a certain age.

The reporters recommend that a central board should be constituted for conducting the examination of candidates for the public service. Such a board, they say, should be composed of men holding independent position, and commanding general confidence. It should be presided over by a privy councillor, and should include persons experienced in the education of the upper and middle classes-Mr. Jowett we will say and persons who are familiar with public business. - to wit, Sir Charles Trevelyan. It should be made imperative upon candidates for employment in the civil service to pass an examination before this board, and obtain from it a certificate of fitness.

This examination we continue to give an outline of the measure proposed by the reporters-this examination should be a competing literary examination; that is to say - the qualifications inquired into should be those of literary attainments, and the successful candidates are not to be simply the men who have passed with credit, but those who, by comparison, are declared to be the best.

We are then told that we shall secure the "services of the most promising young men of the day, by a competing examination on a level with the highest description of education in the country." The services of these most promising young men are no doubt desirable, but we do not see how they are to be obtained by any competing examination. A competing examination in itself is no bonus in these worldly days. Men do not now stride through all the dust of an Olympic race course for a laurelwreath. The glory of having his name written in the first place of honour on Mr. Jowett's list, will not entice the most promising youth of his age into

permanent service under the Crown ; there must be other inducements than these. There is much to wonder at, much to admire, in this collection of papers which we now have under review; but there is nothing in them so admirable, nothing so wonderful, as the confidence with which Sir Charles Trevelyan looks forward to alluring the ambitious, the gifted, and the educated, into his service, by a mere proclamation of the difficulty they are to encounter on their entrance.

It is literally true, that not a word escapes Sir Charles as to the reward by which the ambitious, the gifted, and the educated, are to be brought up to these tremendous competing examinations; not a paragraph is devoted to the quid pro quo- not a syllable is breathed as to the good things which are to induce the first men of the age to undergo these terrible encounters before the face of Mr. Jowett. Now this does appear to be singular, but is it not wonderfully beautiful?

This proposal is declared to be not inconsistent with the appropriation of special talents to special departments; that is to say, the examining privy councillor, with his aids from Cambridge and elsewhere, will be able not only to select the best men, but also to adjudicate to the various successful candidates the peculiar office for which their attainments fit them. Perhaps so; but if A. B. goes in for the Foreign Office, and finds himself adjudicated to the Custom-House, what then? If C. D., having had an eye to the Treasury, and a fixed resolve to go no further from the centre of official life than the Admiralty at farthest, if he finds himself allocated to Rowland Hill in Saint Martin's le Grand? The privy councillor and the Cambridge tutor cannot force these men into the allotted places; every successful man will require a special plum to be picked from the Treasury pudding for his own eating, and, if not gratified, will hardly be induced, by the consciousness of his success, to succumb to the decision of the examiners.

The examinations are to take place periodically, and previous to each trial announcement is to be made of the number of vacancies. For the lower class of appointments, the exa minations are to be made in local

districts, and the privy councillor and the college tutor are to travel like judges of assize. Grands jours will be held in different provincial towns, and as it is feared that candidates will not come after the places, the places are to be taken to the candidates.

"The precise mode," says Sir Charles, "in which the successful candidates should be allotted to the several departments, will require some consideration, but there will be no difficulty which may not easily be overcome." We never saw a stumblingblock more plainly pointed out, or more summarily disposed of! Different solutions of the difficulty are suggested, but none, it is clear, with the assured approbation of the suggestors. The heads of the offices may choose their men; yes, but what if the men won't go when so chosen? what if the same man is chosen by various heads of offices?what if the heads prudently declare themselves incompetent to make a choice without a further examination of their own? Or else the board may recommend particular men to particular departments. But if these chosen men won't go when recommended if, as will surely be the case, they all want to frequent the West End if they eschew the Customs and Excise, and unduly hanker after the glories of Downingstreet?—in such a case, is the first-rate promising young man to be told that he must have the Excise or nothing, he having submitted to Mr. Jowett and the board with a special eye to the governance of a dozen colonies ? Or the choice may be left to the men themselves, a restriction being placed on them to prevent improper choice. But if they all choose the same? If they all prefer the plums, and reject the suet, as may not improbably be the case, 'what then? We fear the reporters have not sufficiently matured this matter, and that much further consideration must be given to it, before anything like a feasible arrangement is proposed.

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Every male inhabitant of these realms, and, for aught we see, of all other realms, is to be admissible at these examinations, provided they are of a given age, and can produce satisfactory reference as to their moral character. We may therefore say that every born male that attains the age, we believe, of seventeen, may have his chance. As to the reference to