this novel now is chiefly noticeable to me from the fact that in
it I introduced a character under the name of Sir Gregory
Hardlines, by which I intended to lean very heavily on that much
loathed scheme of competitive examination, of which at that time
Sir Charles Trevelyan was the great apostle. Sir Gregory
Hardlines was intended for Sir Charles Trevelyan--as any one at
the time would know who had taken an interest in the Civil
Service. 'We always call him Sir Gregory,' Lady Trevelyan said to
me afterwards when I came to know her husband. I never learned to
love competitive examination; but I became, and am, very fond of
Sir Charles Trevelyan. Sir Stafford Northcote, who is now
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was then leagued with his friend Sir
Charles, and he too appears in _The Three Clerks_ under the
feebly facetious name of Sir Warwick West End. But for all that
_The Three Clerks_ was a good novel.'

Which excerpt from Trollope's _Autobiography_ serves to
throw light not only upon the novel in question, but also upon
the character of its author.

Trollope served honestly and efficiently for many a long year in
the Post Office, achieving his entrance through a farce of an
examination:--

'The story of that examination', he says, 'is given accurately in
the opening chapters of a novel written by me, called _The
Three Clerks_. If any reader of this memoir would refer to
that chapter and see how Charley Tudor was supposed to have been
admitted into the Internal Navigation Office, that reader will
learn how Anthony Trollope was actually admitted into the