do not think there is a Life in Diogenes Laertius—and that is saying much which makes philosophy, in the person of one of her most renowned votaries, so despicable and repulsive.

The style in which the author tells his story is full of a quaint pedantic affectation of simplicity. He is as confiding and communicative as "downright Shippen or as old Montaigne." He talks to his reader as if he were writing an epistle to one of Jeremy's private secretaries, and as if the world had nothing to think of but the "High Priest of Legislation and the Lord Bacon of the age." The excessive importance which he attaches to every thing connected with the Reformer and his dogmas redounds, of course, upon his humble self. But he does not trust to distant inference for his share in the honours of the school. His self-conceit is fully commensurate with his admiration of his betters, and he takes care to garnish his panegyric upon his master with an abundance of garrulous egotism. Nobody understands Bentham but Mr. John Neal-"the readers (and the writers) of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, Westminster and North-American Reviews will now have, what they never had before-an opportunity of knowing the truth and the whole truth, about the character and opinions, the philosophy and the faith of a man," &c. His object, as he announces it in his preface, is twofold. By the first part of his work, "which is nothing more than a familiar biographical sketch," his readers are to be "brought acquainted with the man Jeremy Bentham, and by the last, which may be regarded as an abridgment of his whole system of philosophy, with the philanthropist, the lawgiver and the statesman." We hope he knows more about "the man Jeremy," than he seems to understand of his translator's language. At page 271, we observe the following naïve confession of ignorance, accompanied by what appears to us, a very sufficient exemplification of it:-" Thus every act of cruelty pro'duced by a passion, the principle of which is in every heart ' and from which every body may suffer, may cause an alarm 'which will continue until the punishment of the offender has removed the danger from the side of injustice.

* *." Upon which we have the following note:"The meaning of this I have not been able to make out, with 'any sort of satisfaction to myself. It reads thus in the origi'nal, 'fera éprouver une alarme qui continuera jusqu'à ce que 'la punition du coupable ait transporté le danger du côté de l'in'justice, de l'inimitié cruelle." Whatever we may think of the style, the meaning of this passage is clear enough from the context. Jeremy, or rather Dumont, is speaking of the terror which the unrestrained indulgence of certain passions would inspire.

This alarm, he says, will continue until the punishment of one who has sinned through the influence of such passions, has inspired him, and those like him, with fear, in their turn-until "injustice and malignant hatred "are made, by the law, to feel some of the terror they occasion; literally, "until the punishment of the guilty has transferred the danger to the side of injustice," &c. It is strange that any one should set up for an interpreter of French who does not know the effect of the du in the phrase, du côté de, and it is lamentable to reflect, that we, the uninitiated, have no other means of understanding the inestimable Benthamee, but the translation of a translation by such a druggerman as Mr. John Neal.

The drift of this attempt upon the Life of Jeremy Bentham is thus explained by the biographer himself:

"Such a portrait is now to be attempted for the lovers of such biography. It will be for them to say whether a magnificent picture, which, by resembling every body, would be a portrait of nobody, is worthier of admiration It may be wanting in dignity--I hope it may— but of this the reader may be sure: whatever it wants in dignity shall be made up in truth; and in such truth too as will soon be sought after with deep solicitude, not only here, and in the country of our philosopher, but throughout the whole earth.

"After a few preliminary observations, I shall take up a body of memoranda, now lying before me, which were made every night, and before I slept, after we had passed the evening together, and transferred them, with as little change as possible, directly to these pages. They, therefore, who wish to be acquainted with the lawgiver and the philosopher, and with him only, need not throw away one single hour upon this part of the book, which is intended for such, and for such only as care to be acquainted with the man, but proceed forthwith to the second part, where Bentham and Dumont are occupied with the great business of morals and legislation." pp. 14, 15.

We shall follow the author in the course he has marked outfirst, saying a few words about the character of Jeremy Bentham, and then discussing, with all possible brevity, his pretensions to the admiration which is challenged for him by his biographer.

This great luminary of the age was born, it seems, in the year 1747-8. He was the son of an attorney who was, according to Jeremy himself, "a weak man," and to whose mechanical predilection for his own profession, we owe the light which his son has been able to shed upon the philosophy of jurisprudence. To be sure, misfortune-which has ever been the best nurse of genius-had its share in this result; for the man who was destined to reform the whole body of the law, does not seem to have been fitted to excel in the most important part of

it, viz. the application of its principles to practice. "On a par'ticular occasion, (said he to Mr. Neal,) I gave a legal opinion 'which turned out not to be law, because the law had been alter'ed without my knowledge or consent. I refused to give an 'opinion after this." p. 61. Whereupon, his biographer remarks, with great simplicity, that "he could not help imagin'ing as he went through the history of this early error, how 'much of his subsequent views of the law, the lawyers, and the 'judges of England, might be owing to this very incident.* ** Most of Mr. Bentham's peculiar views, 'peculiar habits and peculiar figures; I believe I might say all, may be traced in the same way to incidents connected with his 'youth-his hatred of English law and of English lawyers, of 'Blackstone, of Mansfield and of Eldon-to his fortunate [qu.] 'failure in his profession. Other facts of the same nature will appear in the further development of his character." p. 61. His first work was an expression of his very natural, if not very reasonable grudge against these odious objects. He made, it seeins, while yet a very young man (he was in his 28th year) masterly attack" on Blackstone's Commentaries. Lord Mansfield, if we are to believe Mr. Neal, or rather Bentham himself, used to speak of this diatribe in the highest terms, though on Blackstone's being asked if he intended to reply to it, his answer was no, not if it were better written." His dislike for the author of the Commentaries discovered itself at a very early period. He related to his biographer the following story, "to be repeated in Yankee-land."

66

a

"April 4. Mr. B. relates a story of Blackstone, to be repeated in BlackYankee-land. 'As early as sixteen,' said he, 'I began to query stone, my Gamaliel, while I was sitting at his feet. He was a stiff, pompous, proud quiz-Mansfield couldn't bear him. I told you, I believe, that he, M., had the whole of the Fragment read to him, and liked it mightily. When Blackstone was Vinerian professor at Queen's College, Oxford, he sent to Dr. Brown, provost of the College, to know what distinction should be awarded to him, or how he should be ranked. Tell him, said Brown, who was a shrewd fellow, tell him he may walk before my beadle,-the beadle that preceded him with a mace, when he walked out. Mr. Eden (the writer on penal law,) afterwards Lord Ackland, and Blackstone did something together once, which Bentham approved. Out of this grew something of Mr. Bentham's, about which Blackstone wrote him, complimenting him rather highly." pp. 113, 114.

In 1788, he published his "Views of the Hard-Labour Bill, with observations relative to Penal Jurisprudence in general," and nine years after his celebrated "Defence of Usury." In 1789 appeared the original quarto edition of MORALS and LEGISLATION, "the ground work of the author's whole fame with

Dr. Parr and others of like amplitude and strength of mind." Mr. Neal pronounces it, oracularly, "the novum organum of Morals and Legislation," and he makes the celebrated scholar just mentioned say of it, that since Lord Bacon's great work, there had been nothing in the history of the human mind to compare with it. It is this same treatise, be it remembered, in its most improved form, or rather its quintessence, that constitutes the second part of the volume before us.

After this publication, he favored the world with an immense catalogue of lucubrations of greater or less importance-the Panopticon or Inspection-house-or new plan for the construction of penitentiary-houses, prisons, work-houses, lazarettos, hospitals and schools. "These are," it seems, "the celebrated letters on the subject of Prisons and Prison-Discipline, to which Europe and America are chiefly indebted for the improvement, made during the last half century in the structure of prisons and treatment of prisoners, and all this without any acknowledgement in favor of the author"-a charge we regret to add, which lies against "our Prison-Discipline-Society of Boston, among the rest." This excellent scheme, however, like many of equal promise in the island of Laputa, was, for some reason or other, never put into practice. Then came A Draft of a Code for the Organization of the Judicial Establishment of France, 1790-An Essay on Political Tactics, afterwards embodied in a long work, in two volumes, by M. Dumont-Chrestomathia-Plan of Parliamentary ReformPapers relative to Codification and Public Instruction-Church of Englandism-The Book of Fallacies-Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion, published by Richard Carlisle, in 1822-an able book saith Mr. Neal, of which the object was to prove that all religions are equally unworthy of regard. In this connexion, our biographer holds the following emphatical language:

"From what I know of Mr. Bentham, I have no doubt of his being an atheist. I have been told so, by those who know him; a good many of his more youthful followers are so-if they themselves may be credited; and though we had never had any conversation together that satisfied me, still, as I have said before, I have no doubt of his being an atheist. And I mention this here, that I may not be charged with blindness to what I look upon as not only the greatest, but as the only great error of that man's faith. Not that he believes there is no God-I do not say so: but he is not thoroughly satisfied, I believe, that there is a God. If he would inquire, and it is not even yet too late, he would perceive what he must delight in hoping, even if it were not proved, the existence of One who is emphatically the Father of such men as he is. Peradventure, it is not so much atheism after all, as it is a mistake

with him. He mistakes the uncertainty of one fact, or rather a want of mathematical certainty in one fact, for the certainty of another fact: the want of such kind of mathematical proof as he is habituated to, that there is a God, for conclusive demonstration that there is not. I know well the nature of his mind; and I do not scruple to say that I believe this. Not being satisfied as other men are, and not being at leisure in his old age, and just on the shadowy and shifting threshold of another world, to investigate the subject in his own way; and being imbued with the pestiferous, and most unreasonable doubts of a Frenchman, who was a believer in Voltaire, and the first teacher of Mr. Bentham; and withal having translated Le Taureau Blanc of Voltaire, without acknowledging it, nor does he know to this day, probably, that he was ever suspected of it; and having produced the work on Natural Religion, above-mentioned, which was edited by one atheist, and published by another, (the infamous Richard Carlisle,) it cannot be expected of him that he should now inquire very diligently or wisely, nor that his disciples, whatever he might do or say now, would be satisfied. We may be sorry for such things, but if they are otherwise good men, our sorrow will lead us rather to pity than to rage or hatred for them. As well might we rebuke those who are troubled with fever, as them that require to be convinced by touch, or taste, or ciphering, of the existence of a Deity. Why may not men be suffered to believe what they please, or what they can rather, about God and a future state, and all the mysteries of theology, as about any other subject of dispute or inquiry. We do not quarrel with men now about their belief touching wizards, or the motion of the planets, or the origin of the blacks. Why should we, about their belief respecting their Father above? What I say, I believe. I am no atheist-If I were, I should avow it in the face of heaven and earth, and abide the consequences." pp. 33, 34.

Besides many other works, of which we have not space enough to repeat the names, some MSS. of Bentham passed through the hands of a clever Frenchman, Dumont, who, (as Mr. Neal affirms upon the authority of Mr. Gallatin,) used to write the very speeches that Mirabeau delivered! We strongly suspect there is some mistake about this part of the story. But be that as it may, it is admitted that the best, if not the only means of understanding many of the great Reformer's speculations, is to read them in a foreign language. It is difficult to conceive by what species of divination M. Dumont is able to decypher the strange gibberish of his author. According to Mr. Neal's acoount of the Benthamee, no mysagogue ever earned his wages more fairly. The progress which the Philosopher has been gradually making in this corruption of style, is rather a singular phenomenon in itself, but it is not more strange than his biographer's notion that it is to be explained by the tenderness of Mr. Bentham's conscience.