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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Joseph Jekyll to Bentham. - 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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Joseph Jekyll to Bentham.

Dear Bentham,

My Cæstus and Arms on the Western Circuit are laid aside, as I was appointed, in June last, a Master in Chancery. This will account for the disappointment I must bear in not accepting your kind and hospitable invitation to Ford Abbey, where I should have felt sincere pleasure in taking so old and so valuable a friend by the hand.

“This summer, I too am to play the part of the London Hermit, as it is the lot of the newly-appointed Master to reside in town during his first long vacation. To so inveterate a metropolitan as myself this is no grievance; but I have two Westminster boys who ‘babble of green fields,’ and desire a suburban villa for their holidays. Miss V— and Miss F— have aided my inquiry, but it has hitherto been fruitless, and I adopt other resources among friends resident in the vicinity of London.

“With the aforesaid most excellent and amiable persons I sat under a great tree in the gardens of little Holland House last Sunday, and discoursed of happy times in former days at Bowood.

“Dumont, I trust, will not take root in Switzerland, notwithstanding his public functions. Your infant Grecian I should like to have seen; and I wish you would use your pen to convince mankind it is not wise to consume the whole period between infancy and manhood, at a public school, in acquiring two dead languages and nothing else.

“Good Father Abbot, give me your benison; and if a Master in Chancery should be desirous at any time of taking sanctuary in the west, I rest well assured Ford Abbey would grant it.—Believe me, dear Bentham, most truly yours.