SECTION IV.

Sir James on Bentham.

SIR JAMES has made the most perfect exhibition of himself, in the article on Mr. Bentham.

He begins, as most due, with a panegyric on himself. He has had the courage to speak honestly of former philosophers. He is willing to put his courage and honesty to the severest test, in speaking of Mr. Bentham. And he appeals to “the very few who are at once enlightened, and unbiassed," whether "his firmness and equity have stood this trial."

The reader may ask, naturally enough, what call there was for this loud profession of virtue on the present occasion? As Sir James was not going to praise, but to help in disparaging, an unpopular writer, he had nothing to fear. His

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courage,” and “firmness,” at all events, whatever was the case with his "honesty," had no severe trial to undergo, in taking the very course which led most directly to his end.

“ Per

Sir James's mode of expressing himself gives us here, as elsewhere, something to do. haps," he says, (Sir James is seldom sure,) "the utter hopelessness of any expedient for satisfying

his (Bentham's) followers, or softening his opponents-" Who called upon Sir James for any such "expedient?" His business was to appreciate accurately the merits, and demerits of the writer, without consulting the pleasure, either of those who liked, or of those who disliked him. “ The utter hopelessness of any such expedient may," he says, "perhaps enable a writer to look steadily and solely at what he believes to be the dictates of truth and justice." If Sir James needed helps, to enable him to regard exclusively what "he believed to be the dictates of truth and justice," in representing the characters of other writers, he was very unfit for the task he had undertaken. What species of man is it, who can speak other than what " he believes to be the dictates of truth! and justice?” Sir James says, it was the utter hopelessness of pleasing any body, at least any of those who took a part, one way or other, regarding Bentham, which elevated him to that height of virtue. Could he have pleased any body by an "expedient"-truth and justice, he seems to think, might have fared indifferently.

In the short discourses, which Sir James gives us on a list of names, one after another, (the sort of things which make articles in a magazine, and which he calls, when hung together like beads on a string, the history of philosophy), the first part is generally something in the way of biography. This rule he observes in the article on Bentham.

When any one takes on him to state matters of fact, material to the reputation of individuals, even those of former times, much more those who are alive, (Mr. Bentham was alive when the notable dissertation appeared), he is bound to the utmost vigilance, in ascertaining the truth, even to minuteness, of every thing which he states. The accusation against Sir James, on this score, is very serious.

The degree of ignorance which he displays respecting the habits of Mr. Bentham, considering the opportunities of knowledge which he had, is amazing. His statements, confidently given, are, with hardly any exception, such departures from the truth as deserve the name of misrepresentations; and, as they are on the unfavourable side, of unfounded imputations. This does not entitle us to impute wilful, and malignant mendacity to Sir James. But it proves him to have been a man who, in speaking of others, to serve a purpose, little minded whether he was speaking correctly or incorrectly.

He begins his talk about Mr. Bentham, with some unknown persons whom he calls his disciples. He frames a picture in his imagination, as remote from the truth as can well be imagined, at the same time very unfavourable to the parties concerned in it, and vouches for this to the public, as a statement of matters of fact.

What motive Sir James had for such a pro

ceeding as this, is a question which will not fail to be asked by those who are coming upon the stage; and to which the recollection of the principal divisions of political opinion, and pretension, in this country, a few years previous to the time when Sir James began to pen the Dissertation, supplies the answer.

"The disciples of Mr. Bentham derive their opinions not so much from the cold perusal of his writings, as from familiar converse with a master, from whose lips," &c.

This is mere fiction. It may be safely affirmed, that no man ever derived his opinions from the lips of Mr. Bentham. It is well known, to all who are acquainted with the habits of that great man, that conversation with him was relaxation purely. It was when he had his pen in his hand, that his mind was ever raised to the tone of disquisition; and he hated at any other time to be called upon for the labour of thinking. Except in the way of allusion, or the mention of some casual circumstance, the doctrines he taught were rarely, if ever, the subject of conversation in his pre

sence.

It is also a matter of fact, that till within a very few years of the death of Mr. Bentham, the men, of any pretension to letters, who shared his intimacy, and saw enough of him to have the opportunity of learning much from his lips, were, in number, two.

These men were familiar with the

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writings of Mr. Bentham; one of them, at least, before he was acquainted with his person. And they were neither of them men, who took any body for a master, though they were drawn to Mr. Bentham by the sympathy of common opinions, and by the respect due to a man who had done more than any body else to illustrate and recommend doctrines, which they deemed of first-rate importance to the happiness of mankind.

This is the whole foundation, in matter of fact, which Sir James had for making the statement to the world, with unhesitating assurance (none of the "perhapses" here, without which, on other occasions, he hardly ventures to affirm, that two and two make four), that Mr. Bentham's habit, and practice was, to hold forth in a conventicle of fools, or knaves, or both, such as elsewhere was not to be found on the face of the earth.

During a few years previously to Mr. Bentham's death, when his reputation throughout Europe made the pleasure of seeing him generally sought, he was led by degrees to open his doors to a greater number of visitors; the larger proportion of them, however, strangers, mostly indeed foreigners, who saw him a few times, and then closed their intercourse. Such men, as he consented to see, he received at dinner, and only one at a time. For it was one of his rules, seldom infringed, that his working hours in the morning were not to be interrupted for any body; and