letters-"Don't tell anybody of it, for I should never hear the last of it. I am in love with Mrs N. She is a most accomplished creature, bearing her faculties most meekly, at least to your humble servant. M. says (but it is jealousy) that she is not handsome enough for me.'

BENTHAM TO MR KOE.

"Ford Abbey, 6th July, 1815.

I see the Ministry have got the lawyers to quash the D. of C.'s [Clarence's] marriage. Oh, rare lawyers! If the public money had been got for it, it would have been good enough; nobody I would have meddled with it. This affair must, I think, make a fine sensation where you are.

"Mill and I are mourning the death of all hopes of a free government in France. The name of a man who has cut so many French throats as have been cut by Wellington, will serve as an essential cover for the most flagrant violation of any the most sacred and universally beneficial engagements. In pursuance of the proclamation of Louis, Carnot, with a multitude of et ceteras, all who could have operated most effectually in the character of checks, will lose their heads. Carnot had better have left poor Louis XVI.'s on its shoulders. Brougham will lament his friend; but, perhaps, he was not of the number of conspirators. All that has been done since Louis XVIII.'s Hegira, will be as void as the Cumberland marriage."

Admiral Tchitchagoff, in announcing his intention of going to the continent, says:

ADMIRAL TCHITCHAGOFF TO BENTHAM.

"London, 13th July, 1815. "I must confidentially tell you, that in the present state of things, when the continent is going to be open to all those who have sufficiently admired and enjoyed English liberty, with the alien act; her riches without guineas, and an immense debt; her ruinous dearness, and the abundance in getting the minimum of things for the maximum of money; those, I say, who have sufficiently tried all these luxuries and delights, may live, by way of a change, to see the countries where a shilling will do as much as six; and, after having satisfied their sublime mental desires, live a little for the satisfaction of their bodies. What I tell you is a secret, for nobody knows it here, nor thinks so, and, therefore, you must not compromise me. Now, the fact is, that in a few weeks I am going to leave this country."

JEAN BAPTISTE SAY TO BENTHAM.

(Translation.)

"Paris, 2d August, 1815.

"I have received, honoured master, your Chrestomathic Tables. I am studying them, but could not delay telling you how much I am honoured by your remembrance and your gift. You will labour to your last day for the improvement of the human race; and the human race will not know the extent of its obligations to you, till it has learned your lessons-that is, till we are gone. Our fate is to die at our labour-but our labour will not be lost.

In 1815, Bentham was much occupied in his plan for establishing a Chrestomathic school. Brougham, Place, Ricardo, W. Allen, Sir James Mackintosh, and several other persons less known had offered pecuniary and personal aid. There were to have been seven conductors, and the engagement "I have just published a little Cateon their part was to keep the school chism of Political Economy, for the better open for three years at least. The circulation of a few important truths. It money was intended to be raised in £10 is short-it is clear-it is in dialogues; shares, and Bentham was willing to have and the principal difficulties are solved given a part of his garden for the erec-in a manner accessible to all minds and tion of the school. But the project was never effected.*

* See "Chrestomathia," at the commencement of vol. viii. of the Works, consisting of a Collec

all fortunes. If little books like this were circulated in all countries, these

tion of the Papers prepared by Bentham in reference to this project.

"With the aforesaid most excellent and amiable persons I sat under a great tree in the gardens of little Holland House last Sunday, and discoursed of happy times in former days at Bowood. Dumont, I trust, will not take root in Switzerland, notwithstanding his public functions. Your infant Grecian I should like to have seen; and I wish you would use your pen to convince mankind it is not wise to consume the Bentham had suggested to Tchitchawhole period between infancy and man-goff, that he should write his own

memoirs, as connected with Russian | sion. It is fearful to think how easily politics. He answers, that the details would be too disgusting for instruction, even were it possible to find a public opinion in Russia; but that there is none. That he should have little pleasure in unveiling ignorance and arrogance,-blunders, barbarity, and weak-mulants of our old republic,—but our

ness worse than all. Moreover, that he could not bring to slavery and despotism English feelings in English phraseology: still, to please Bentham, and for Bentham, he would write his own biography; but the project was probably unexecuted, in such a state of mind the task must have been most uninviting. At this time I find him saying of Ford Abbey:

mankind may descend from an enlightened civilisation to a position where the culture of the intellect is no longer a necessity. We may hope to rise, if not so high as we were, yet higher than we Our constitution has not the sti

are.

distinction was dearly purchased by dissensions,-and we gain something if we lose much. Besides, after long agitation, men seek intellectual and physical repose. I am not popular here,-I am considered the man of opposition: not that the accusation is true, but that I insist on the need of inquiry, and inquiry displeases the ruling people. But this is a general law, influencing us here,-as it influences everybody elsewhere."

"It is the theatre of great felicity to a number of people, and that not a very inconsiderable. Not an angry word is At this period occurred George Wilever heard in it. Mrs S. (the house- son's death. Commissioner Adam thus keeper) governs like an angel. Neigh-speaks of it in a letter to Bentham, 12th bours all highly cordial, even though April, 1828:not visited. Music and dancing, though I hate dancing. Gentle and simple mix. Crowds come and dauce, and Mrs S. at the head of them."

DUMONT TO BENTHAM.

"Geneva, 23d March, 1816.

(Translation.)

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Fifty years ago, you and I dined on sheep's head, and discussed ‘Hume's Philosophy.' George Wilson was in good spirits, and tolerable health for the three first years of my sojournment in this country. At 10 o'clock in the evening of [Monday, the 10th June,] 1816, he came with me to the door of his bouse, after a most agreeable evening's conversation. He was in cheerful spirits, and a most collected state of mind, considering the malady which had attacked him when he left England. On the following morning, at breakfasttime, I received information of his death, which had been so composed that the bed-clothes were not moved. I have not been able to supply his place, as you may well conceive."

"Mad. de Staël has been reading in society the Book of Fallacies, and with great success. The division into Ins and Outs, and Eithersides, does not suit the continent, at least so thought Sismondi, and so I changed it. We are diligently labouring at the organization of our judiciary establishment. But we have all to do, and few fitting doers. You would not believe-I could not believe till I had experience of it, how these fifteen years of French vassalage and continued war have turned men away from study, and lowered the tone of the public mind. We were rapidly hastening to be nothing but a degraded provincial town. In another twenty years, and our ancient Geneva would not have been to be recognised. Only in the morning, my beloved master, Don four or five distinguished men had the French régime left. All besides was idleness, mediocrity, and military pas

On the 14th July, 1816, Bentham's friend, General Miranda, also died, at Cadiz, after having been imprisoned four years, in violation of a capitulation. His death was thus announced :

"14th July, 1816. "This day, at five minutes past one

*The day of the month is filled in from the Memoirs of Romilly, vol. iii. p. 252.

"Meantime, Sir, how far soever from correct, with reference to the person to whose name it is attached, the picture thus drawn of his character, affordswhich is much more material--a most correct conception of the character of the Society, by which it has been drawn. It shows what are your favourite plea

Francis de Miranda, resigned his spirit to the Creator; the curates and monks would not allow me to give him any funeral rites, therefore, in the same state in which he expired, with mattress, sheets, and other bed-clothes, they seized hold of him and carried him away for interment; they immediately afterwards came and took away his clothes, and every-sures, your desires, your objects, your thing belonging to him, to burn them." pursuits. It proves in your favour a number of honourable negatives. It The Mutual Improvement Society, which was established by a number of proves, and that to a certainty,-by what endowments your preference has young men, for the purpose of furthernot been determined: that among them ing the object announced in their title, by debates on subjects of popular interest, are, hereditary opulence, acquired applied to Bentham to become their opulence, factitious dignity, hereditary power, political eminence; it shows that, in your scale of worth, there is something else that stands above them all above all those exterior and accidental appendages, which are so perfectly distinct from good desert, and so far from affording a demonstration, not to say a presumption, of it.

president. He answered them thus:

"Ford Abbey, near Chard,

66

July 31, 1817. "SIR,-Your letter, dated the 23d of this month, put into my hands the next day, or the day after, found me in the hurry of a removal, or it would sooner have received from me that answer, to which the importance of it gives it so just a title.

:

"All this is very good. But the strange thing is this: in your Society, as in others, the degree in which the common objects are attainable,-this degree, and consequently the degree of prosperity, has for its measure the fulness of the common purse; which fulness, again, has for its measure the number of the members, of whose institution the common stock is formed.

"Yes since a patron you would have, the choice you have thus made of one,-I say it withont scruple,-does you real honour-the declaration made of it, is a declaration of independence. Yes;-in the choice thus made, this (if I do not misconceive you) was your main, if not your only, object; and, for "Thus far there is nothing remarkable. the accomplishment of this object, a But that which to my eyes is not only more effectual expedient could not have remarkable, but no less wonderful than been devised. Dignified, yet unassum- it cannot but be gratifying, is, how it ing, No patron,' it makes you say, 'do should have happened, that, from a name we need no patron will we have: to so obscure, any prospect of additional keep out of our chair every sort of per-prosperity',-for prosperity is what son, by the weight of whose influence we might be oppressed, we will have nothing in it but a name.' As to what concerns the person of the individual, so completely is it unknown, the sort of homage paid to the name, will of course, like that paid to a worthy of ancient times, have been the work, not of observation, but of imagination: the object to which it is paid is not an individual, but a species; a species of character, the idea of which has, in the minds in question, come, somehow or other, to attach itself to that name.

you say you look for in the choice,can have been derived.--This is indeed to me a perfect mystery. But, since such is your opinion, for if it had not been, it is not in the nature of the case that you should have given it as such,since such, then, is your opinion, it belongs not to me to controvert it. In the correctness of it you have had an unquestionable interest: by that interest,— at any rate, by the view you yourselves have taken of that interest,-you cannot but have been governed. You have given it your consideration: you have

One exception, however, there is; and this is, where the sine cure is, at the same time, sine pay; and, in the instance here in question, this exception being actually exemplified, so, therefore, it is, that, in this same instance, principle, he is happy to find, does not stand in the way of preferment.

made your inquiries: in this considera- | has thus placed him, belongs,-as far as tion, in these inquiries, months,-not to he can understand,-belongs, nearly, if say years, have been occupied. Of not altogether, to the class of sinecures. this consideration, and these inquiries, True it is, that, with one exception, a such, then, (it seems,) has been the result: sinecure is a sort of office, to the exisa result, by which (I cannot but repeat tence of which he is known to have init) I have not been a whit less surprised superable objections; objections to the than gratified. Well then, my worthy existence of the sort of office, and, confriends,-in form my solicitors, in reality sequently, to any acceptance to be given, and effect my patrons,-take to your-on his part, to any office of that sort. selves this name, of which, somehow or other, you have become enamoured. Much good may it do you: much and long may it serve you; and, how little soever it may serve you while he to whom it belongs is living,-let him confess to you his weakness, he is not altogether without the hope, that, in one way or other, it may be more or less of use to you after his death; in which case, you cannot have long to wait for it. At that period it is, that, in the imagination of posterity, all that was good in the individual swells out of all proportion: while, except in the case where depravity is itself the source of the distinction, all that was bad in him slides,-if not altogether out of memory, at any rate out of notice.

"Not that, considering who you have to deal with, the matter could have been settled thus easily, were it not that the situation, in which your good opinion

66

Accept my testimony to the honour which the Society has done itself, by the choice of such a Secretary,―a Secretary, in whose mode of giving expression to its sentiments, the utility of the Society is so well exemplified,-accept this, my unfeigned acknowledgment,-and believe me, with the truest respect and affection, Sir, yours and the Society's ever faithful friend and servant,

"JEREMY BENTHAM.

"To Mr Thomas Tucker,
Secretary to the Society
for Mutual Improvement."

CHAPTER XIX.

1817-1819. T. 69-71.

Reform Catechism.-Dumont and Law Reform in Geneva.-Burdett, and Parliamentary Reform.-The Ballot.-Bickersteth.-Anarchical Fallacies.-Ricardo.-T. W. Gilmer and Codification for the United States.-Vote of Thanks from the Householders of Westminster.-Say on French Politics.-Cambronero.-Improvement of Irish Labourers in New York.-Death of Romilly.-Major Cartwright.-Extracts from Note Book.

AN application to Bentham to be
allowed to publish an analysis of the
Reform Catechism, and his answer
thereto, follow:-
:-

66

London, August 12, 1817. "SIR,-The object of this letter is to beg your consent to my making a con

cise analysis of your invaluable work on Reform, which I do not feel quite authorized in doing without the author's concurrence. That work particularly, I regard as a revelation; and till it appeared, I always mistook the effect for the cause; and, till corrupted by it, was one of those useless beings generally