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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Benthem to Brissot. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Benthem to Brissot.

“You have no time for writing letters, my good friend—have you half a minute for reading them? The prayer of this humble petition is, that you would have the goodness to transport yourself to the committee-rooms—you know of what committee—and deposit upon the bureau thereof what is above, to the end that, if by God’s grace your decree of I don’t know how many months ago, for the printing of my long-ago-forgotten paper about the Panopticon, should by miracle get executed, the above supplement may be added to it, and the above corrections made in it. Should the printing be too far advanced for the MS. to be corrected, let the corrections be printed at the end. God prosper you, together with the state, of which you are one of the pillars! You are a pretty set of people! You will neither do anything yourselves, nor let anybody do anything for you. What a pretty account you will have to render to your constituents at the end of your two years, of your Civil Code, your Code of Procedure, &c. You will tear off this English diatribe, unless you have a mind to see it printed as a second supplement.”

Bentham’s father died at Bath, on the evening of Wednesday, March 28, 1792. He was buried in the cathedral there, and a marble slab recorde his name. He had been Clerk to the Scriveners’ Company. His property was equitably and nearly equally divided between his sons.

Bentham, besides the estate of Queen Square Place, in Westminster, came into a freehold and leasehold property of from £500 to £600 a-year; a considerable part of which, consisting of farms in Essex, had descended from his grandfather.

CHAPTER XI.

1792-1795. Æt. 44—47.

Correspondance with Lord Lansdowne.—Made a Citizen of France.—Correspondence with Roland, Chauvelin, Delessert, &c.—Opinion of Speaker Abbott.—Notices of Contemporaries: Dr Lawrence, Bryant, Beckford, Baron Regenfeld, Bishop Barnard, Salisbury, Wickham, Young.—Death of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.—Correspondence with Dumont, Sir G. Staunton, Law, Romilly, Anderson, Dundas.—The State of Europe.—Financial Projects.—William Pitt.

At this period I find Lord Lansdowne writing to Bentham with great satisfaction, on the subject of a purchase he had lately made in Hampshire:—

“You that have wings to fly, and do not fly, to the greatest scene which can come within the human comprehension, deserve everything which you describe, and everything which can befall you. I never knew a sensible physician, who did not acknowledge, that change of air, scene, and exercise, was a certain remedy for every disorder of body and mind which was curable; but such a scene as this, must not only even at present, but for evermore, by furnishing the mind with such food for reflection, as must lift him one hundred feet above all other men. We, whose wings are clipped by a variety of relations in life, must content ourselves with such occupation as a cottage which I have just bought, between Christ Church and Lymington.

“I will certainly lay the books on the Table, as you recommend; but you must be conversable, as the persons I have to please are not easily imposed upon, and insist upon the truth. I write in great haste, but I am in great hopes of persuading you to secure a superiority under which I may be the first to feel.”

And again—

“Our new acquisition in Hampshire has so completely captivated us, that we have nothing left to wish. Sea air, as pure as can be imported from America—for it completely looks down the Channel; thirty feet of gravel—the smoothest of all sands for miles—a mine of antediluvian shells to philosophize upon; Christ Church, &c. &c. This cottage is, therefore, quite at your service—but what is there here to keep pace with all we hear?—a pavilion; wines innumerable; a table so plentiful, and yet so refined; such selection of company; the resistance of ladies overcome; and the great point of a precedent granted.

“It would seem as if the ancient volupté of France was banished by the Republicans, and took up its seat at the side of the Bird-cage Walk, St James’s Park. Allow old friends to congratulate you upon this new road for happiness; and be so good to tell your brother, whenever he wants to rest his appetites from such profusion, I hope that he knows where he will be extremely welcome.—Adieu.”