Scotland, had in no long time thoroughly reformed them, and made them a model for the whole kingdom. No steps were taken to carry through their scheme. It had scarcely been completed on paper before Rowland Hill obtained, what he had long wanted, “a work of organisation.” Within no long time all the other brothers were happily engaged in occupations that suited their powers and their tastes. “When I was a young man,” said Sir Rowland Hill one day to me, “there were very few careers open. I never even dreamed of the possibility of getting into the Civil Service.” A new career, however, was at length opening for him, and the long, though broken, course of his public services was on the point of beginning. To this point I have traced his life, and here I shall bring the first part of my task to an end. His history for the next thirty years will be given in his own narrative. I shall take up my pen again at the date of his retirement, and do my best to describe the closing years of his long and honourable life. My task will be no easy one, for “The eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious.” CHAPTER IX. [In the Summer of 1833, as has been shown, Rowland Hill had gone abroad for the benefit of his health. In the Prefatory Memoir to the History of Penny Postage, he thus carries down from that date the history of his life to the year when his great occupation first took strong hold of his mind.] “I had spent some weeks in France, without, however, having gone further than Orleans (travelling was slow in those days), when an opportunity for such a change as I was revolving in my mind happened to present itself. A project was forming for the colonisation of the then unoccupied territory now called South Australia, the prime mover being the late Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, with whom I had previously some acquaintance, and who, indeed, had shown me a year before a prospectus of his enterprise, in which, however, all places for names, whether directors or officers, were then vacant. Meeting him now in France, I was invited by him to join in the scheme, being also assured that several men of high character and position had already done so. His proposal was that, in the event of his project being launched, I should be secretary in England; while another gentleman, the late Mr. Gouger, was to be secretary in the new colony. Though very unwilling to cut my holiday so short, yet fearing that if I missed this opportunity I might not soon find another equally promising, I determined on accepting the offer, and went forthwith to my work.