481i] | 
of our universities, and heard of a young 
man of great promise in literature. Ah, 
said I, he will soon be promoted I sup- 
pose; he may calculate on being soon at 
the head of a college, and perhaps arrive 
early in life at the highest scholastic 
honours. You never were so deceived, 
Teplied an old M. A., he is already hated 
by several of the members of Golgotha; 
and, if he be not very circumspect in his 
conduct, they will contrive some means 
of dishonouring, instead of ‘honouring, 
him. In short, he is the last man in the 
university to get on here, and he must 
be content with the slowest gradation of 
our honours, or exert his talents in some 
other sphere of action, 
On another occasion I knew a learned 
Parson, who desired to become a mem- 
ber of a learned society, in London, (re- 
lative to whose pursuits he had written 
so much, and too well not to be viewed 
with jealousy by some of the members,) 
and, overa bottle of wine, he proposed to 
a fox-hunting squire, one of his parishi- 
oners, that they should both offer them- 
selves as candidates, on the ground that 
one post-chaise would carry them to its 
meetings. The squire consented, though 
he scarcely knew the object of the so- 
ciety; but, as the rector told him, there 
was a good dinner annually, and some 
pleasant quarterly meetings, he con- 
sented ; and accordingly their names were 
posted with others for the next ballot. 
The society was, like many others, founded 
on a principle of exclusion, und three 
black balls in ten disqualified; a mis- 
taken principle, as a majority scarcely 
ought not to disqualify, and, of the two 
plans, I should prefer three in ten to elect, 
rather than to disqualify, if I wished a 
society to be: great, perpetual, and use- 
ful. As nobody, therefore, knew the 
Squire, no one thought of opposing him; 
but two rival authors gloried in the op- 
portunity of mortifying the lector, and 
made a party to oppose him, In conse- 
quence, on the day of election, twelve 
Black balls were found of thirty-six who 
voted in the ballot for the erudite Rector, 
‘and not one for the Squire, who found 
himself dubbed an F * S, and his worthy 
neighbour rejected! The Squire, of 
course, had sense enough to despise a 
society possessed of a constitution which 
led it to make so ridiculous « decision ; 
and, refusing to pay the fees, has ever 
since quizzed the Rector about it, and 
told the story of his transcemdant and 
syperior qualifications for an F*S to 
qgme hundreds besides myself. 
in Close Corporations, Committees, Ke. 
205° 
The history of the Royal Academy is 
a history of feuds and follies, occasioned 
by the same false principle of its con- 
stitution; and the famous Whig Club has 
sunk into contempt and utter insigni- 
ficance, from the operation of the same 
cause. 
The Bank of England, the India Come 
pany, and some other great bodies, are 
under the pernicious dominion of house- 
lists; hence, are very imbecile, and lose 
much of their “energy and respecta~ 
bility. ' 
Even in the truly popular elections, in 
the wards of the city of London, the 
existing members of the common-council 
have the temerity to join their interests 
in opposing any new candidate; and 
they modestly distribute, at the place of 
election, printed lists, to be filled up by 
the electors, in which they take care to 
omit the names of any new candidates, 
Of the wretched close bodies, called 
country corporations, no figure of speech 
sinks low enough to express the conse- 
quences of this false principle of their 
constitution; and, forthe honour of the 
law and the government, for their own 
glory, and the good of the people, their 
elections ought to be rendered open and 
popular; and, for the sake of their in- 
dependence and good order, should be 
made by ballot, and decided by a ma- 
jority. 
Next to a parliainentary reform, and 
perhaps prior to it, this change in the 
constitution. of corporations and pub- 
lic bodies, ought to be effected by an 
intelligent people. The evil is, im some 
degree, the foundation of all others in 
the social arrangements of the United 
Kingdom; and all other necessary re- 
forms would be a consequence of re- 
invigorating these organs of law and 
power, at present so many foci of core 
ruption and bigotry. 
March 6, 1811. Common SeEnsr. 
ee 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
- HE probability that a life of any 
given age will continue in being 
to the end of any given term, being a 
fraction whose denominator is the num. 
ber of persons living at the given age in 
any table of observations; and whose 
numerator is the number of persons living 
at an age older by the given term, than 
the given age; and in the case of joint 
lives, it being the product of the pro-" 
babilities that each of the single lives 
shall continue in being to the end of the 
given 
