ANDREW KENNEDY HUTCHINSON BOYD

(1825-)

NDREW KENNEDY HUTCHINSON BOYD, whose essays have been collected recently in thirteen volumes, was born in Ayr

shire, Scotland, in November, 1825, and educated at the University of Glasgow. By profession he is a clergyman, and his essays have an undercurrent of earnest purpose; but he does not make them sermons, and he does make them interesting to readers of all classes by his use of anecdote. His essays show the marked difference between the intellect which has full control of the imaginative faculty and those which have become subjective and critical. Among his best-known works are "The Recreations of a Country Parson," "The Commonplace Philosopher in Town and Country," and "Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths." The essay, "Getting On in the World," one of the best examples of its class, is remarkable for its wealth of illustrative incident.

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GETTING ON IN THE WORLD

TIs interesting to look at the various arts and devices by which men have Got On. Judicious puffing is a great thing. But

it must be very judicious. Some people irritate one by their constant stories as to their own great doings. I have known people who had really done considerable things, yet who did not get the credit they deserved, just because they were given to vaporing of what they had done. It is much better to have friends and relatives to puff you, to record what a splendid fellow you are, and what wonderful events have befallen you. Even here, if you become known as one of a set who puff each other, your laudations will do harm instead of good. It is a grand thing to have relations and friends who have the power to actually confer material success. You have known men at the bar, to whom some powerful relative gave a tremendous lift at starting in their profession. Of course this would in some cases only make their failure more apparent, unless they were really

There is a cry

equal to the work to which they were set. against nepotism. It will not be shared in by the Nepotes. It must be a fine thing to be one of them. Unhappily, they must always be a very small minority; and thus the cry against them will be the voice of a great majority. I cannot but observe that the names of men who hold canonries at cathedrals, and other valuable preferments in the church, are frequently the same as the name of the bishop of the diocese. I do not complain of that. It is the plain intention of Providence that the children should suffer for their fathers' sins, and gain by their fathers' rise. It is utterly impossible to start all human beings for the race of life on equal terms. It is utterly impossible to bring all men up to a rope stretched across the course, and make all start fair. If a man be a drunken blackguard, or a heartless fool, his children must suffer for it, must start at a disadvantage. No human power can prevent that. And on the other hand, if a man be industrious and able, and rise to great eminence, his children gain by all this. Robert Stephenson had a splendid start, because old George, his father, got on so nobly. Lord Stanley entered political life at an immense advantage, because he was Lord Derby's son. And if any reader of this page had some valuable office to give away, and had a son, brother, or nephew who deserved it as well as anybody else, and who he could easily think deserved it a great deal better than anybody else, I have little doubt that the reader would give that valuable office to the son, brother, or nephew. I have known, indeed, magnanimous men who acted otherwise; who in exercising abundant patronage suffered no nepotism. It was It was a positive disadvantage to be related to these men; they would not give their relatives ordinary justice. The fact of your being connected with them made it tolerably sure that you would never get anything they had to give. All honor to such men! Yet they surpass average humanity so far, that I do not severely blame those who act on lower motives. I do not find much fault with a certain bishop who taught me theology in my youth, because I see that he has made his son a canon in his cathedral. I notice, without indignation, that the individual who holds the easy and lucrative office of associate in certain courts of law bears the same name with the chief-justice. You have heard how Lord Ellenborough was once out riding on horseback, when word was brought him of the death of a man who held a sinecure office

with a revenue of some thousands a year. Lord Ellenborough had the right of appointment to that office. He instantly resolved to appoint his son. But the thought struck him that he might die before reaching home; he might fall from his horse, or the like. And so the eminent judge took from his pocket a piece of paper and a pencil, and then and there wrote upon his saddle a formal appointment of his son to that wealthy place. And as it was a place which notoriously was to be given, not to a man who should deserve it, but merely to a man who might be lucky enough to get it, I do not know that Lord Ellenborough deserved to be greatly blamed. In any case, his son, as he quarterly pocketed the large payment for doing nothing, would doubtless hold the blame of mankind as of very little account.

But whether you Get On by having friends who cry you up, or by having friends who can materially advance you, of course it is your luck to have such friends. We all know that it is "the accident of an accident" that makes a man succeed to a peerage or an estate. And though trumpeting be a great fact and power, still your luck comes in to say whether the trumpet shall in your case be successful. One man, by judicious puffing, gets a great name; another, equally deserving, and apparently in exactly the same circumstances, fails to get it. No doubt the dog who gets an ill name, even if he deserves the ill name, deserves it no more than various other sad dogs who pass scot free. Over all events, all means and ends in this world, there rules God's inscrutable sovereignty. And to our view, that direction appears quite arbitrary. "One shall be taken, and the other left." "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated." "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" A sarcastic London periodical lately declared that the way to attain eminence in a certain walk of life was to combine mediocrity of talent with family affliction." And it is possible that instances might be indicated in which that combination led to very considerable position. But there are many more cases in which the two things co-existed in a very high degree without leading to any advancement whatsoever. It is all luck again.

A way in which small men sometimes Get On is by finding ways to be helpful to bigger men Those bigger men have occasional opportunities of helping those who have been helpful to them. If you yourself, or some near relation of yours, yield

effectual support to a candidate at a keenly contested county election, you may possibly be repaid by influence in your favor brought to bear upon the government of the day. From a bishopric down to a beadleship I have known such means serve valuable ends. It is a great thing to have any link, however humble, and however remote, that connects you with a secretary of state, or any member of the administration. Political tergiversation is a great thing. Judicious ratting, at a critical period, will generally secure some one considerable reward. In a conservative institution to stand almost alone in professing very liberal opinions, or in a liberal institution to stand almost alone in professing conservative opinions, will probably cause you to Get On. The leaders of parties are likely to reward those who among the faithless are faithful to them, and who hold by them under difficulties. Still, luck comes in here. While some will attain great rewards by professing opinions very inconsistent with their position, others by doing the same things merely bring themselves into universal ridicule and contempt. It is a powerful thing to have abundant impudence, to be quite ready to ask for whatever you want. Worthier men wait till their merits are found out: you don't. You may possibly get what you ask, and then you may snap your fingers in the face of the worthier man. By a skillful dodge A got something which ought to have come. to B. Still A can drive in dignity past B, covering him with mud from his chariot wheels. There was a man in the last century who was made a bishop by George III. for having published a poem on the death of George II. That poem declared that George II. was removed by Providence to heaven because he was too good for this world. You know what kind of man George II. was; you know whether even Bishop Porteus could possibly have thought he was speaking the truth in publishing that most despicable piece of toadyism. Yet Bishop Porteus was really a good man, and died in the odor of sanctity. He was merely a little yielding. Honesty would have stood in the way of his Getting On; and so honesty had to make way for the time. Many people know that a certain bishop was to have been made Archbishop of Canterbury, but that he threw away his chance by an act of injudicious honesty. On one occasion he opposed the court, under very strong conscientious convictions of duty. If he had just sat still, and refrained from bearing testimony to what he held for truth, he would have Got On much further than he

ever did. I am very sure the good man never regretted that he had acted honestly.

It is worth remembering, as further proof how little you can count on any means certainly conducing to the end of Getting On, that the most opposite courses of conduct have led men to great success. To be the toady of a great man is a familiar art of self-advancement; there once was a person who by doing extremely dirty work for a notorious peer, attained a considerable place in the government of this country. But it is a question of luck after all. Sometimes it has been the making of a man to insult a duke, or to bully a chief-justice. It made him a popular favorite; it enlisted general sympathy on his side; it gained him credit for nerve and courage. But public feeling, and the feeling of the dispensers of patronage in all walks of life, oscillates so much that at different times the most contradictory qualities may commend a man for preferment. You may have known a man who was much favored by those in power, though he was an extremely outspoken, injudicious, and almost reckless person. It is only at rare intervals that such a man finds favor; a grave, steady, and reliable man, who will never say or do anything outrageous, is for the most part preferred. And now and then you may find a highly cultivated congregation, wearied by having had for its minister for many years a remarkably correct and judicious, though tiresome preacher, making choice for his successor of a brilliant and startling orator, very deficient in taste and sense. A man's luck in all these cases will appear, if it bring him into notice just at the time when his special characteristics are held in most estimation. If for some specific purpose you desire to have a horse which has only three legs, it is plain that if two horses present themselves for your choice, one with three legs and the other with four, you will select and prefer the animal with three. It will be the best so far as concerns you. And its good luck will appear in this, that it has come to your notice just when your liking happened to be a somewhat peculiar one. In like manner you may find people say, In filling up this place at the present time we don't want a clever man, or a well-informed man, or an accomplished and presentable man; we want a meek man, a humble man, a man who will take snubbing freely, a rough man, a man like ourselves. And I have known many cases in which, of several competitors, one was selected just for the possession of qualities which testi