420 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



distinction should be made*/' and that those out- 

 ward signs or titles, which might be the reward of 

 our scientific benefactors, should not be too common. 

 Let them, therefore, be of such a description that 

 they will be inaccessible to the army, the navy, 

 the bar, the church, and the medical profession, 

 unless individuals belonging to these professions, 

 also possess scientific attainments. Under such 

 restrictions, there is no fear of scientific honours 

 being too common, if those only who deserve them 

 are so distinguished. But once admit all these 

 various professions, and the honour becomes nominal, 

 and it will no longer be an object of ambition to the 

 man of real knowledge. That some discrimination 

 of this sort should be made, is abundantly evident. 

 The truth is, that these professions already mono- 



* The government would have done well, perhaps, if they 

 had followed up this principle of preserving " distinctions " in 

 the lavish profusion of honours stated to have heen conferred of 

 late years. " Since the peace of 1816, no fewer than 97 

 Knights Grand Crosses, 164 Knights Commanders, and a whole 

 regiment of Companions of the Order of the Bath, have ap- 

 pointed : these are all military and naval men ; and though 

 the order does admit the civil servants and benefactors of the 

 state, yet only 15 of this class have been appointed, and not 

 one of these knights are men of either science or literature. 

 In the long list of knight bachelors, we meet with a singular 

 assemblage of characters. Judges, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, 

 physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, painters, architects, book- 

 sellers, and quack doctors, and all the operatives of the political 

 machine are marshalled in ludicrous juxta-position. A few 

 honoured names, indeed, grace the multifarious list," but not 

 more than two scientific characters are to be found. Quarterly 

 Review, p. 332. 



