BEN 



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BEN 



general happiness was an obligation paramount to and in- 

 clusive of every other. Having thus got the instruction I 

 stood in need of, I sat down to make my profit of it. I hid 

 adieu to the original contract; and I left it to those to 

 amuse themselves with this rattle who could think they 

 needed it.' (Fragment on Government, note p. 47, et seq.) 

 Bentham's prospects of success at the bar were extremely 

 good, his father's practice and influence as a solicitor being 

 considerable, and his own draughts of bills in equity being 

 distinguished for their superior execution. In one of his 

 pamphlets (Indications respecting Lord Eldon) he thus 

 relates the circumstances which led to his retirement from 

 the practice of his profession : 



' By the command of a father I entered into the profes- 

 sion, and, in the year 1772, or thereabouts, was called to the 

 bar. Not long after, having drawn a bill in equity, I had 

 to defend it against exceptions before a Master in Chancery. 

 " We shall have to attend on such a day," said the solicitor 

 to me, naming a day a week or so distant, " warrants for 

 our attendance will be taken out for two intervening days ; 

 but it is not customary to attend before the third." What 

 I learnt afterward was that though no attendance more 

 than one was ever bestowed, three were on every occasion 

 regularly charged for ; for each of the two falsely pretended 

 attendances, the client being by the solicitor charged with a 

 fee for himself, as also with a fee of 6s. 8d. paid by him to 

 the master : the consequence was that, for every attend- 

 ance, the master, instead of 6*. Sd., received I/.; and that, 

 even if inclined, no solicitor durst omit taking out the three 

 warrants instead of one, for fear of the not-to-be-hazarded 

 displeasure of that subordinate judge and his superiors. 

 True it is. the solicitor is not under any obligation thus to 

 charge his client for work not done. He is, however, sure 

 of indemnity in doing so: it is accordingly done of course. 



These things, and others of the same complexion, 



in such immense abundance, determined me to quit the 

 profession ; and, as soon as I could obtain my father's per- 

 mission, I did so : I found it more to my taste to endeavour, 

 as I have been doing ever since, to put an end to them, 

 than to pro6t by them.' 



In 1776 appeared his first publication, entitled A Frag- 

 ment on Government, from which an extract has already 

 been given. This work, being anonymous, was ascribed to 

 some of the most distinguished men of the day. Dr. Johnson 

 attributed it to Mr. Dunning. In 1 780 his introduction to 

 the Principles of Morals and Legislation was first printed ; 

 but it was not published till 1 789. 



He visited Paris in 1785, for the third time, and thence 

 proceeded to Italy. From Leghorn he sailed for Smyrna, in 

 a vessel, with the master of which he had formed an en- 

 gagement before leaving England. After a stay of about 

 three weeks at Smyrna he embarked on board a Turkish 

 vessel for Constantinople, where he remained five or six 

 weeks. From Constantinople Mr. Bentham made his way 

 across Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and through a part 

 of Poland, to Crichoff in White Russia. At that place he 

 stayed at his brother's, afterwards Sir Samuel Bentham, at 

 that time lieutenant-colonel commandant of a battalion in 

 the emperor's service, till November, 1787, when his brother, 

 who was on an excursion to Cherson, being unexpectedly 

 detained for the defence of the country against the appre- 

 hended invasion of the Capitan Pacha, he returned to Eng- 

 land through Poland, Germany, and the United Provinces, 

 arriving at Harwich in February, 1788. 



In 1791 was published his Panopticon, or the Inspection 

 House, a valuable work on prison-discipline, part of which 

 consists of a series of letters, written in 1787, from Crichoff 

 in White Russia, where also he wrote his letters on the 

 usury laws. 



In 1792 Mr. Bentham presented to Mr. Pitt a proposal 

 formed on hist Panopticon plan of management. It was 

 embraced with enthusiasm by Mr. Pitt ; Lord Dundas, 

 home secretary ; Mr. Rose, secretary of the treasury ; and 

 Mr., afterwards Sir Charles Long, now Lord Farnborough. 

 Notwithstanding that enthusiasm, by a cause then un- 

 known, it was made to linger till the close of the session of 

 1794, when an act passed enabling the treasury to enter 

 into a contract for the purpose. When Mr. Abbot's finance 

 committee was sitting, Mr. Pitt and his colleagues took the 

 opportunity of employing its authority in support of Mr. 

 Bentham's plan, against the opposing, and, to every body 

 out of the cabinet, secret influence. Years were spent in 

 a struggle between the ministry and that influence, and 



spent in vain ; for after land, now occupied by the present 

 Penitentiaiy, had been paid for at the price of 12,000^., 

 for the half of which sum the incomparably more appro- 

 priate land at Battersea Rise might have been had, 

 when it had been put into the possession of Mr. Bentham, 

 the whole was stopped for the want of the signature of 

 George III. to a certain treasury document, for the issue of 

 1000/., as compensation for the surrender of some leases to 

 enable him to enter into actual possession. Mr. Bentham's 

 plan for 1000 prisoners would have cost the public between 

 20.000/. and 30,000;. : the existing plan for 600 has already 

 cost at least ten times that sum ; and yet the ' Quarterly 

 Review,' not very long ago, expended some of its wit upon 

 Mr. Benthara, as the author of the Millbank Penitentiary. 

 Dear and good is better than cheap and bad ; but here it 

 was cheap and good against dear and bad. 



The history of such a life as Bentham's is the history of 

 his opinions and his writings, which gave him a higher 

 celebrity abroad than he enjoyed at home. Certain ex- 

 cellent treatises of his were admirably edited in French 

 by his friend and the friend (a remarkable concurrence) 

 of Mirabeau and Romilly, M. Dumont. From these Ben- 

 tham became well known on the Continent ; indeed bet- 

 ter known than in his native country, and more highly 

 esteemed, as appears from the following incident that oc- 

 curred during a visit he paid to France in 1 825 for the be- 

 nefit of his health. Happening on one occasion to visit one 

 of the supreme courts he was recognised on his entrance. 

 The whole body of the advocates rose and paid him the 

 highest marks of respect, and the court invited him to the 

 seat of honour. 



From about the year 1817 Mr. Bentham was a bencher 

 of Lincoln's Inn. He died in Queen Square Place, West- 

 minster, where he had resided nearly half a century, on the 

 6th of June, 1832, being in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 

 Up to extreme old age he retained, with much of the intel- 

 lectual power of the prime of manhood, the simplicity and 

 the freshness of early youth ; and even in the last moments 

 of his existence the serenity and cheerfulness of his mind 

 did not desert him. 



' He was capable,' says his friend Dr. Southwood Smith, 

 to whom he bequeathed his body for the purposes of anato- 

 mical science, in the lecture delivered over his remains, ' of 

 great severity and continuity of mental labour. For up- 

 wards of half a century he devoted seldom less than eight, 

 often ten, and occasionally twelve hours of every day to in- 

 tense study. This was the more remarkable, as his phy- 

 sical constitution was by no means strong. His health, 

 during the periods of childhood, youth, and adolescence, was 

 infirm ; it was not until the age of manhood that it acquired 

 some degree of vigour: but that vigour increased with ad- 

 vancing age, so that during the space of sixty years he 

 never laboured under any serious malady, and rarely suf- 

 fered even from slight indisposition ; and at the age of 

 eighty-four he looked no older, and constitutionally was not 

 older, than most men are at sixty. Thus adding another 

 illustrious name to the splendid catalogue which establishes 

 the fact, that severe and constant mental labour is not in- 

 compatible with health and longevity, but conducive to both, 

 provided tho mind be unanxious and the habits temperate. 



' He was a great economist of time. He knew the value 

 of minutes. The disposal of his hours, both of labour and of 

 repose, was a matter of systematic arrangement ; and the 

 arrangement was determined on the principle, that it is a 

 calamity to lose the smallest portion of time. He did not 

 deem it sufficient to provide against the loss of a day or an 

 hour : he took effectual means to prevent the occurrence of 

 any such calamity to him ; but he did more : he was careful 

 to provide against the loss even of a single minute ; and 

 there is on record no example of a human being who lived 

 more habitually under the practical consciousness that his 

 days are numbered, and that " the night cometh, in which 

 no man can work.'' ' (Dr. S. Smith's Lecture, pp. 56-7.) 



' That he might be in the less danger of falling under 

 the influence of any wrong bias,' we still quote Dr. South- 

 wood Smith's Lecture, ' he kept himself as much as possible 

 from all personal contact with what is called the world. 

 Had he engaged in the active pursuits of life, money- 

 getting, power-acquiring pursuits, he, like all other men 

 so engaged, must have had prejudices to humour, interests 

 to conciliate, friends to serve, enemies to subdue ; and there- 

 fore, like other men under the influence of such motives, 

 must sometimes have missed the truth, and sometimes have 



