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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Romilly. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 11 (Memoirs of Bentham Part II and Analytical Index) [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. 11.

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

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Bentham to Romilly.

My dear Romilly,

The enemy begins to squeak. Judge from the following letter.*

“To understand it rightly, you must understand, that the ‘papers,’ there spoken of, are papers breathing fire and flame, full of scorn and menace. No small part of the spirit which animated them was extracted from a former opinion of yours, defœcated from the caput mortuum of croaking and despondency that diluted it. Should their cowardice prove true to me, (heaven knows whether it will or no,) it will raise the British Constitution in your estimation a few pegs.

“Have at ’em again—I follow up my blow: not a moment’s respite. Your fresh opinion completes their petrification: it is the head of Medusa staring upon them from Minerva’s breast. Do not hurry yourself: no immediate demand for the litera scripta: the esprit of it, like the wind of a cannon ball, lays them prostrate for the present.”

[* ] The letter from Lord Pelham to Sir C. Bunbury, above.