In spite of Joseph Hume and its other enemies, the college lived out its half-century, and does not die out, on the pages of the _India Register_, till the death of the Company in 1858. Its monopoly was gone some time before then. An Act of 1827 provided, theoretically, for the examination and appointment of India Civil servants who had not studied at Hertford College. In 1833 provision was made for the limited competition which Malthus had recommended.[1025] In 1855 came the end. The Company was “relieved of the obligation to keep up the college;” the reign of open competition, ushered in by Macaulay’s Report (Nov. 1854), brought a new order of things; and the college was only continued till those who had joined it at the time of the change had been able to finish their course.[1026] There are numbers of old officials, like Sir William Muir, who still hold it in affectionate remembrance;[1027] but except in their memory it exists no more. The work of Malthus was less in the East India College than in his writings. But his connection with the college was perhaps the most important of the external facts of his life; and it has helped to preserve a record of scenes and incidents which reveal the character more clearly than all the adjectives of panegyrists. Otter, Empson, Miss Martineau, Sydney Smith,[1028] and Horner,[1029] may supply the panegyrics; and the eulogy of Mackintosh is remarkable: “I have known Adam Smith slightly, Ricardo well, Malthus intimately. Is it not something to say for a science that its three great masters were about the three best men I ever knew?”[1030] His epitaph in Bath Abbey, probably from the pen of Otter, is given on the following page. SACRED TO THE MEMORY of =The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus,= LONG KNOWN TO THE LETTERED WORLD BY HIS ADMIRABLE WRITINGS ON THE SOCIAL BRANCHES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, PARTICULARLY BY HIS “ESSAY ON POPULATION.” ONE OF THE BEST MEN AND TRUEST PHILOSOPHERS OF ANY AGE OR COUNTRY, RAISED BY NATIVE DIGNITY OF MIND ABOVE THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE IGNORANT AND THE NEGLECT OF THE GREAT, HE LIVED A SERENE AND HAPPY LIFE, DEVOTED TO THE PURSUIT AND COMMUNICATION OF TRUTH, SUPPORTED BY A CALM BUT FIRM CONVICTION OF THE USEFULNESS OF HIS LABOURS, CONTENT WITH THE APPROBATION OF THE WISE AND GOOD. HIS WRITINGS WILL BE A LASTING MONUMENT OF THE EXTENT AND CORRECTNESS OF HIS UNDERSTANDING. THE SPOTLESS INTEGRITY OF HIS PRINCIPLES, THE EQUITY AND CANDOUR OF HIS NATURE, HIS SWEETNESS OF TEMPER, URBANITY OF MANNERS,