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thriving look of the one, and the quivering lip, the restless eye, and animated acuteness of the other. His eye is quick and lively, but it glances not from object to object, but from thought to thought. He is evidently a man occupied with some train of fine and inward association. He regards the people about him no more than the flies of a summer. He meditates the coming age. He hears and sees only what suits his purpose, some. "foregone conclusion; and looks out for facts and passing occurrences, only to put them into his logical machinery, and grind them into the dust and powder of some subtle theory, as the miller looks out for grist to his mill!. Add to this physiognomical sketch, the minor points of costume, the open shirt-collar, the singlebreasted coat, the old-fashioned half boots and ribbed stockings; and you will find in Mr. Bentham's general appearance, a singular mixture of boyish simplicity, and of the venerableness of age. In a word, our celebrated jurist presents a striking illustration of the difference between the philosophical and the regal look: that is, between the merely abstracted and the merely personal. There is a lack-a-daisical bonhommie about his whole aspect, none of the fierceness of pride or power; an unconscious neglect of his own person, instead of a stately assumption of superiority; a good-humoured, placid intelligence, not a lynx-eyed watchfulness, as if it wished to make others its prey, or was afraid they might turn and rend him; he is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe, not lording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, or

ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted pageant, a stupid idol set up on its pedestal of pride, for men to fall down and worship with idiot fear and wonder, at the thing themselves have made, and which, without that fear and wonder, would itself be nothing!

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Mr. Bentham's method of reasoning, though comprehensive and exact, labours under the defect of most systems-it is too topical. It includes every thing, but it includes every thing alike. It is rather like an inventory than a valuation of different arguments. Every possible suggestion finds a place, so that the mind is distracted as much as enlightened by this perplexing accuracy. The exceptions seem as important as the rule. By attending to the minute, we overlook the great; and in summing up an account, it will not do merely to insist on the number of items, without considering their amount. author's page presents a very nicely dove-tailed mosaic pavement of legal common-places. We slip and slide over its even surface without being arrested any where. Or his view of the human mind resembles a map, rather than a picture: the outline, the disposition is correct, but it wants colouring and relief. There is a technicality of manner, which renders his writings of more value to the professional inquirer than to the general reader. Again, his style is unpopular, not to say unintelligible. He writes a language of his own, that darkens knowledge. His works have been translated into French-they ought to be translated into English. People wonder that Mr. Ben

tham has not been prosecuted for the boldness and severity of some of his invectives. He might wrap up high treason in one of his inextricable periods, and it would never find its way into Westminster Hall. He is a kind of manuscript author- he writes a cypher-hand, which the vulgar do not pry into. The construction of his sentences is a curious framework, with pegs and hooks, to hang his thoughts upon, for his own use and guidance, but quite out of the reach of any body else. It is a barbarous philosophical jargon with all the repetitions, parentheses, formalities, uncouth nomenclature and verbiage of law-Latin; and what makes it worse, it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal of acuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad to pick out if you could. In short, Mr. Bentham writes as if he had but a single sentence to express his whole view of a subject in, and as if, should he omit a single objection, circumstance, or step of the argument, it would be lost to the world for ever, like an estate, by a single flaw in the title-deeds. This is overrating the importance of our own discoveries, and mistaking the nature and object of language altogether. Mr. Bentham has acquired this disability-it is not natural to him. His admirable little work On Usury, published forty years ago, is clear, easy, and spirited. Mr. Bentham has shut himself up since then "in nook monastic," conversing only with followers of his own, or with "men of Ind," and has endeavoured to overlay his natural humour, sense, spirit, and style, with the dust and cobwebs of an obscure solitude. The best.

of it is, he thinks his present mode of expressing himself perfect, and that, whatever may be objected to his law or logic, no one can find the least fault with the purity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his style..

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Mr. Bentham, in private life, is an amiable and exemplary character. He is a little romantic or so; and has dissipated part of a handsome fortune in practical speculations. He lends an ear to plausible projectors, and if he cannot prove them to be wrong in their premises or their conclusions, thinks himself bound in reason to stake his money on the venture. Strict logicians are licensed visionaries. Mr. Bentham is halfbrother to the late Mr. Speaker Abbott-Proh pudor! He was educated at Eton, and still takes our novices to task about a passage in Homer, or a metre in Virgil. He was afterwards at the University, and he has described the scruples of an ingenious youthful mind about subscribing the articles, in a passage in his Church of Englandism, which smacks of truth and honour both, and does one good to read it in an age, when "to be honest (or not to laugh at the very idea of honesty) is to be one man picked out of ten thousand !" Mr. Bentham relieves his mind sometimes, after the fatigue of study, by playing on a noble organ, and has a relish for Hogarth's prints. He turns wooden utensils in a lathe, for exercise, and fancies he can turn men in the same manner. He has no great fondness for poetry, and can hardly extract a moral out of Shakspeare. His house is warmed and lighted with steam. He is one of those who prefer the

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artificial to the natural in most things, and think the mind of man omnipotent. He has a great contempt for out-of-door prospects, for green fields and trees, and is for referring every thing to utility. There is a little narrowness in this, for if all the sources of satisfaction were taken away, what is to become of utility itself? It is indeed the great fault of this able and extraordinary man, that he has concentrated his faculties and feelings too entirely on one subject and pursuit, and has not "looked enough abroad into universality."

New London Magazine.

SHADE OF NAPOLEON.

Hɛ, at whose bidding countless treasures rolled,
At whose high mandate empires were controlled;
He, by whose rapid glance and fatal breath
Embattled millions crowded on to death;
On whose least nod the fate of nations hung;
Whom orators have praised, and poets sung;
At whose command the arch triumphal shone,
The brazen column and the gilded dome;
Who o'er the mountains hung in air his road,
Who looked, who spoke, and was believed a god.
Where is he now? on what new field of war
Drives the victorious Emperor King his car?
Exiled his throne-a captive to his foe—
E'en Death denies the wretch a glorious blow:
On shores remote-the stone without a name,
Marks the last refuge of this child of fame!

Chronicle,

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