rise, at least in the first instance, by seniority; but with the
understanding that I should be employed from the beginning in preparing
drafts of despatches, and be thus trained up as a successor to those who
then filled the higher departments of the office. My drafts of course
required, for some time, much revision from my immediate superiors, but
I soon became well acquainted with the business, and by my father's
instructions and the general growth of my own powers, I was in a few
years qualified to be, and practically was, the chief conductor of the
correspondence with India in one of the leading departments, that of the
Native States. This continued to be my official duty until I was
appointed Examiner, only two years before the time when the abolition of
the East India Company as a political body determined my retirement. I
do not know any one of the occupations by which a subsistence can now be
gained, more suitable than such as this to anyone who, not being in
independent circumstances, desires to devote a part of the twenty-four
hours to private intellectual pursuits. Writing for the press cannot be
recommended as a permanent resource to anyone qualified to accomplish
anything in the higher departments of literature or thought: not only on
account of the uncertainty of this means of livelihood, especially if
the writer has a conscience, and will not consent to serve any opinions
except his own; but also because the writings by which one can live are
not the writings which themselves live, and are never those in which the
writer does his best. Books destined to form future thinkers take too
much time to write, and when written come, in general, too slowly into
notice and repute, to be relied on for subsistence. Those who have to
support themselves by their pen must depend on literary drudgery, or at
best on writings addressed to the multitude; and can employ in the
pursuits of their own choice, only such time as they can spare from
those of necessity; which is generally less than the leisure allowed by
office occupations, while the effect on the mind is far more enervating
and fatiguing. For my own part I have, through life, found office duties
an actual rest from the other mental occupations which I have carried on
simultaneously with them. They were sufficiently intellectual not to be
a distasteful drudgery, without being such as to cause any strain upon
the mental powers of a person used to abstract thought, o