XVI 
George Bent ham, F.R.S. 
by Arnott, of Arlary, in Kinross-shire, who was subsequently 
Professor of Botany in Glasgow. With the latter he arranged 
to make an extended botanical excursion in the Pyrenees, 
which was carried out in 1824, and which resulted in his 
first botanical work, ‘ Catalogue des Plantes Indigenes des 
Pyrenees et du Bas Languedoc, avec des notes et observations ’ 
(Paris, 1826). Another result of his Pyrenean exploration was 
. the publication in the London Magazine for 1827 of two 
articles entitled ‘ Sketches of Manners in the South of France,’ 
wherein, amongst much curious philological and other matter 
relating to the Roussillonais, Catalonians, and Languedociens, 
an account is given of a visit to the Lilliputian Republic of 
Andorra, its physical features, people, government, agriculture, 
and productions. These sketches are masterpieces of their 
kind. 
In 1826 the Restinalieres estate had to be abandoned, 
owing to provincial jealousy, which threw every obstacle in 
the way of improvements, and the Bentham family returned 
to England for good. Here a new, and as it proved, a very 
uncongenial career was opened to George. His uncle Jeremy, 
gratified by the translation of Chrestomathia, invited his 
nephew to be his aid in arranging his MSS. for the press, 
accompanying it with the assurance that he would provide for 
him at his death. This invitation was accepted, but not the 
offered provision, for he desired to follow an independent profes- 
sion, and the result of many interviews was that he determined 
to enter Lincoln’s Inn as a student of Law, whilst giving 
some morning hours to his uncle’s work, dining with him 
twice a week, and writing for him after dinner, from 8 to 1 1 p.m. 
In one capacity or another he acted as his uncle’s secretary 
until 1832, when the death of the latter, in many of whose 
ideas he did not participate, released him from his irksome 
labour, without however fulfilling his just expectations of 
reward ; for, owing to the many fruitless speculations of the 
great jurist, the sums squandered by his executors on the 
posthumous publications of his works, and some irregularities 
in his will, Bentham benefited chiefly by coming into pos- 
