Submitting to a certain portion of ennui and contempt, this mode of life for an officer was formerly practicable--but now cannot be submitted to without utter, irremediable disgrace.

Officers are now, in general, men of education and information; want of knowledge, sense, manners, must consequently be immediately detected, ridiculed, and despised in a military man.

Of this we have not long since seen lamentable examples in the raw officers who have lately disgraced themselves in my neighbourhood in Ireland--that Major Benson and Captain Williamson.

But I will not advert to such insignificant individuals, such are rare exceptions--I leave them out of the question--I reason on general principles.

The life of an officer is not now a life of parade, of coxcombical, or of profligate idleness--but of active service, of continual hardship and danger.