The works of Jeremy Bentham T. 10

Chapter I. Infancy And Boyhood.— 1748-59

Birth. Connexions and Ancestry: Jacobitism : Father and Mother. — Localities. — Reminiscences of

Infancy: Browning Hill. — Musical Taste. — Physical Weakness. — Instruction in French. — Passion for Reading: Fiction: History: Telemaclius. — Early Companions.— Observation of Nature. — Susceptibility of Temperament. — Sir Thomas Sewell and Bentham, senior. — Recollections of Early Incidents. — Humanity to Animals. — Visits to Barking. — Anecdotes. — Liability to Horrible Impressions. — Influence of Early Reading. — Family Reminiscences. — Early Tastes : Flowers. — Death of his Mother.

Jeremy Bentham was born in Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, on the 4th-15th February, 1747-8.*

His great-grandfather, Brian Bentham, was a prosperous pawnbroker in the city of London, and a relation of that Sir Jeremy Snow who was one of the bankers cheated by Charles II. when he closed the Exchequer. In those days the profession of a pawnbroker was far more elevated than now. Brian Bentham had connexion with the founder of the Aldgate Charity, Sir John Cass, and with many other distinguished people.t He died possessed of some thousands of pounds. His son, Jeremy Bentham’s grandfather, was a Jacobite lawyer ; “ neither better nor worse,” as his distinguished descendant used to say of him, “ than the average rate of attorneys.”

* See the extract from bis father’s journal, infra , p. 5. I found in his own handwriting, on one of his school-books, “E Libris Jeremiae Bentham, Junioris : 6° Die Januarii, Anno Domini 1753, annoque TEtatis suae Quinto, hoc scriptum fuit.”

T Bentham’s father directed, by his will, that a gilt silver cnp should be given to Sir John Cass’s . Charity, and the history of his achievements recorded on the cup.

Vol. X.

His name was Jeremiah, and he had a partner, one Mr Avis, whose brother shocked the prejudices of the times by marrying a rich Jewess. The Avises were people of no small importance in the city. In their family was a literary lady, an unmarried maiden — Miss Barbara A vis — who was even a Latin scholar. One of the most awful events of Jeremy Bentham’s life, was his introduction to the erudite Miss Barbara. He was then not seven years old, and his father compelled him to learn by rote one of Horace’s satires, that he might repeat it when the lady arrived to pay the family a visit. Such visits were talked of long before they came, and long after they were over : they were events in the family history. This learned lady seems to have been less terrible than the trembling timid boy anticipated ; and he got through his “ Q,ui fit Mecsenas” with due honour.

Bentham’s father, whose name was also Jeremiah, was born on the 2d of December, 1712, in the parish of St Botolphs, Aldgate.

B

BENTHAM’S RELATIONS — JACOBITISM. [_1 748-59.

Ilia grandfather, who, though no Papist, was a great devotee of the Stuarts, had the habit of hoarding and hiding largo quantities of money in various parts of the house. Considerable sums, concealed from the knowledge of his family, were found, at his death and at subsequent periods, in foreign and domestic gold coin ; and when Jeremy was a boy of about ten years old, twenty or thirty guineas fell out of a place which he had been using as a receptacle for his toys. Strong aversion to the reigning family — doubts of the stability of the funds — apprehensions of danger — and the desire of having some immediate tangible resources — induced many Jacobites to do what Jeremiah Bentham did. It was said that Pope or his father came into possession of a hidden treasure of £20,000 in gold, which was kept in a closet, and drawn upon according to need • — the interest being sacrificed. But, withal, the old lawyer managed to invest in land a large amount of money, the result of his savings, and added to the fortune his father had bequeathed.

Of late years, some light has been thrown upon the extent of Jacobitism which pervaded the higher classes, where it was deeply rooted and widely spread ; and among the people of the metropolis, at least, it was far more prevalent a century ago than is generally supposed. Bentham has assured me, not only that multitudes of the citizens of London were friendly to the Stuarts, but that even in the corporation there were aldermen waiting to bring about the restoration of the exiled family, whenever a fit occasion could be found. In the year 1745, the addresses of the Pretender had a wide circulation ; and many papers, showing the zeal and interest which his forefathers felt in the success of the Stuarts, fell into Bentham’s hands. Bentham s grandfather had struggled hard for the clerkship of the Cordwainers’ Company. He attributed his failure to his political sincerity — to his devotion to the legitimate race.

“ My grandfather on my father’s side,” writes Bentham, “ being a Jacobite, my father, comme de raison , was bred up in the same principles. My father subsequently, without much cost in conveyancing, transferred his adherence from the Stuarts to the Guelphs. A circumstance that gave no small facility to it was a matrimonial alliance that had been contracted by a relation of my mother’s with a valet de chambre of George the Second’s. Ribbons — in material silk, in colour purest white, in dimensions narrow— closed in those days the occasional solution of continuity in the shirt collar of his Most Sacred Majesty. Its term accomplished — nor in such a situation was much time expended in the accomplishment— one of these royal trappings passed from the hand of my fair cousin to the neck of the author of these pages. Ribbon, of itself sufficed — ribbon, without garter or even star — to turn the little head. Kings upon kings, ever since my fourth yearwas accomplished, I had been reading of, in an odd volume of Rapin’s History. Crowns upon crowns I had beholden upon their heads. Imagine, who can, how I strutted, thus adorned and glorified ! ”

Some of the Bentham family made their way under the auspices of the dominant authorities. The chief clerk of the Navy Board was the first cousin of Bentham’s father. He lived a life of jollity on Tower Hill — was a member of the Beef-Steak Club — a warm-hearted man, who was disposed to show all sorts of kindness to his young kinsman. Bentham thus spoke of him : — “ I longed for a more intimate acquaintance with him; but a coldness existed between him and my father ; and, I am bound to say, my father was not the injured party. Now and then I did obtain the privilege of visiting him. My visits were mostly confined to those nights of beatitude on which the annual fireworks were displayed on Tower Hill, and which I looked at, in a state of ecstasy, from his windows.”

Bentham often talked pleasantly and playfully of what he called his Patronymics. “ A son of a first cousin of my father was Captain Cook’s purser when he went his first voyage to the Sandwich Islands. I wanted him to talk to me of his travels ; but I never got one fact out of him except this, that on one occasion, at the Sandwich Islands, they were

MATERNAL RELATIONS.

greatly disturbed by the terrible noise with which the king made love to one of his lieges. Another second cousin was a banker at Sheerness ; and another was a gentleman farmer.”*

Of his female ancestors — of the relations on his mothers side, and of his mother especially, Bentham always spoke with the most affectionate tenderness. His grandmother, on his father’s side, was named Tabor, t believed to be the same family as the Doctor Tabor who was made a Knight of the Bath in the time of Charles II. in consequence of his successful treatment of various royal and noble persons, by the use of the medicine then called Jesuits’ (but now Peruvian) bark. One member of his grandmother’s family, Mr Ray, a relation of the botanist, had educated Bentham’s father, and was an object to him of so much respect and affection, that he sought him, on the death of his first wife, (whom he fondly loved,) hoping to find from him solace in his affliction. This Mr Ray had several brothers : one, a traveller, though he died when Bentham was only six years old, was to him an object of extreme interest and admiration. “ Well do I remember,” said Bentham, in his old age, “ his good-natured, playful humour — his kindness during his visits to my grandmother — his letters which were sent by his father to

* It is a curious fact, that the arms of Bentham are the same as those of the Counts of Bentheim (in Westphalia.) “ I visited Bentheim,” said Bentham, “ on my -way home from Hanover. The count was out at elbows, and the county was mortgaged. I had a project upon it in the days of Panopticon prosperity ; but George the Third got the better of me, and obtained the count’s mortgage.”

Bentham used to discuss with Mr William Bentham, who had pursued antiquarian studies, the subject of their common ancestry, and they used to trace the origin of their family. “ We found out the forefathers of my great-grandfather, the pawnbroker, three or four hundred years ago, and ascertained there had been a Bishop Bentham in the family.”

There are some Benthams settled in the United States, but whether or not kinspeople of his race I am unable to state. He had letters from some of them, stating that their ancestor was a chaplain to Charles the Second, and that they descended immediately from James Bentham of Dorsetshire, whose son, James Fitch Bentham, left Poole for the United States in 1760. I do not know whether Bentham ever ascertained, or endeavoured to ascertain, if they were of the same pedigree.

mine. Deep was the affliction which I felt at his death ; and, when the news came, there was nobody to keep up my spirits but my grandmother. When ho was gone, his letters made him present. They interested me so much, that I should know his signature now, after three-fourths of a century, though it was a sad scrawl. I recollect his writing about the Polygars ; so the scene of his adventures must have been Southern India, somewhat near Travancore. Ho used to sing me songs whose music even now vibrates in my ears. Among them was ‘ My Highland Laddie :’

‘ May heaven still guard, and love reward,

My Highland Laddie ! ’ ”

The maiden name of Bentham’s mother was Alicia Grove. Her father was the younger son of a younger son ; and, though belonging to a family of some consequence, his condition was not higher than that of a shopkeeper at Andover. His early life was one of marked vicissitudes. His later years were progressively prosperous. On his death the business was disposed of, and the family withdrew to Browning Hill, near Reading; a spot, the recollection of which was to Bentham, throughout the whole of his existence, like a thought of paradise. One great-uncle had been a publisher — (a brother of Bentham’s grandmother) — his name was Woodward. He brought out Tindal’s “ Christianity as Old as the Creation.” He

•f* She was the daughter of Randolph Croxall vicar of Salisbury. From a blank leaf in a copy of Dugdale’s Monasticon I extract what follows : —

“ The author of this book was my neighbour and very good friend, by whose means I was settled at Tolleshunt Knight, in Essex, and afterwards I left that living aud removed to Tollesbury. Mr Dugdale was knighted by King Charles II., and made Quarter-King-at-Arms, decidedly for his great industry and abilities. I, Randolph Croxall, was born at Slmstock, in Warwickshire, where the chiefest in the town, except Mr Dugdale’s posterity, are of my name, and are my near relations.

. . . . God gave me by my wife four children,

that lived to be men and women.” The eldest he speaks of was Samuel, born 165.5. (He was probably the father of Dr Samuel Croxall, who was Archdeacon of Salop, and wrote “The Fair Circassian,” “ The Vision,” “ Scripture Politics, ’ &c.) “ My daughter, Dorothy,” the MS. goes on

to record, “ was bom the 16th of February, 1658, and is married to Mr John Tabor, tutor of South Hanningfield, nigh to Chelmsford, in Essex, whero she liveth virtuously aud comfortably.”

\ BENTHAM AND

used to talk to Bentham of books and booksellers — of 44 Honest Torn Payne, whoso shop was then contiguous, to. the Mewsgate, and was a sort of gatheringplace for the lettered aristocracy of the times. Woodward retired from business — was crippled and rich. Such part of his stock as was unsold and unsaleable, formed a largo portion of the library at Browning Hill, and served for young Bent hams intellectual pabulum.

Three sisters — Bentham’s grandmother Grove, a widow Mulford, an unmarried great-aunt Deborah, and, occasionally, Bentliam's mother — habitually lived at Browning Hill. They were all kind to, as they were all fond of, the studious boy. “ But my aunt Deborah was too prone to talk of the people of quality whom she knew ; for she knew the Ridleys and Colbornes, and divers other great families. I cared nothing about such topics. I wished she would talk of Vortigern and the Anglo-Saxons ; but I wished in vain.” Bentham made, throughout his life, open war upon the maxim, De mortuis nil nisi bonum; and as he frequently spoke of his father in terms of disapprobation, he was in the habit of justifying the course he pursued, by something like the following reasoning: — 44 Whyshould a Latin or an English* proverb screen the character of our ancestors from investigation ? The suppression of truth may be as baneful as the utterance of untruth. By one as well as by the other, and often equally by either, may wrong obtain a triumph, or right be visited by defeat. In the abstract and intrinsic nature of the dogma, there is mendacity : in its application inevitable mischief. Take the case of flattery bestowed upon dead tyrants. What does it serve but to encourage a continuance or a repetition of tyrannical acts ? The other day a journalist, who wrote in terms of deserved reprobation on the character of a deceased monarch, was severely punished. Had he uttered any quantity of laudatory lying, reward would probably have been his lot a small portion of criminatory truth sub-

* “ Tis an. ill bird that harries its own nest.”

HIS RELATIONS. [1748-59.

jected him to heavy inflictions. And thus is veracity polluted and persecuted!” “ While my father lived, from my birth to his death, I never gave him any ground to complain of me. Often and often have I heard from him spontaneous and heartfelt assurances of the contrary. My conduct may indeed have sometimes been a cause of regret and dissatisfaction to him ; but on what ground ? My 4 weakness and imprudence’ in keeping wrapt up in a napkin the talents which it had pleased God to confer on me — in rendering useless, as he averred, my powers of raising myself to the pinnacle of prosperity. The seals wrere mine, would I but muster up confidence and resolution enough to seize them. He was continually telling me that everything was to be done by 4 pushing but all his arguments failed to prevail on me to assume the requisite energy.

4 Pushing,’ would he repeat — 4 pushing’ was the one thing needful ; but 4 pushing’ wms not congenial to my character.

. . . How often, down to the last hours of our intercourse, when we were sitting on contiguous chairs, has my father taken up my hand and kissed it !”

Bentham’s father had, like his illustrious son, a phraseology of his own. If a person neglected to visit him, he would call the absence 44 self-sequestration.” If a client left him, he shook his head and said — 44 Ah ! he has taken himself into his own hands.” He had two ways of accounting for all conduct which was opposed to his standard of propriety. If the party were of such rank as that, without presumption, he might sit in judgment, he called the deed he disapproved of 44 infatuation,” but when he was afraid to attribute anything like blame, he ahvays said it was a 44 mystery.” And these two words — 44 infatuation” and “mystery” — were thetalismans with which he explained whatever was otherwise unexplainable, and dealt out a sort of oracular decision to his hearers.

He adopted for the family motto — • Tam bene quam benigne; and, when Bentham was very young, he was called on to translate the phrase, the application of which his father considered a most lucky hit, for it was meant to con-

FATHER AND MOTHER.

vey a recondite meaning — Tam bene, read backwards, was to designate Bentham. The lad neither valued the wit nor preserved the motto, though he once observed to me — “ My father’s reasons were as good as those which justify nine-tenths of the mottoes in use.”

Bentham's father had, in truth, not the slightest comprehension of the delicacy and diffidence of his son’s nature. He whose maturer and later life flowed in one stream of continued happiness — the most gay and joyous of men — had the recollection of his boyhood associated with many thoughts of a paiuful and gloomy character. But his observation was acute, and his memory wonderfully accurate, even of the minutest events. “ I was filled with marvel,” he said, “ when I found the power I had over the ground in the church-yard near my father’s house in Aldgate. I used to walk into the church-yard, particularly when there were burials, and I remember, that as I looked I found that the surface of the ground changed — it was sometimes uniform, sometimes in waves, — which I could vary at will by altering the position of my eye.”

Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, in which Bentham was born, is a cul-de-sac close to the church, and his father’s house was the last on the left-hand side. It is still existing, pretty much in the same outward condition as it exhibited a hundred years ago ; though, in these modern days, a substantial city attorney would rarely dream of dwelling in such a street, or such a neighbourhood ; both having become occupied by people less and less opulent, as the more wealthy and higher stationed gradually withdrew. He had the name of Jeremy given to him, because Jeremiah, as his hither said, was a family name ; and there was an advantage in cmp&tiling a syllable, and in showing a preference towards the names of the New Testament over those of the old. Accident brought his father and his mother together at a place of entertainment on or near Epping Forest, called Buckholt Acres. His father fell desperately in love, returned home, and vowed that, if any, the woman he had seen should be his wife. It was a terrible shock to the ambitious purposes of his family, which had already decided that a certain young lady, with a jointure of £10,000, should be united to him. Bentham used to relate, with great glee, how his grandmother made him her confidant, and poured out into his young bosom the expression of her vexation that his father had made so great a mistake. But if ever an amiable woman existed, the mother of Bentham was one.

Bentham’s father kept a journal of expenses, written in a strange jargon of had French, Latin, and English. Under the date of 1744, September 30, is the following entry : — “Pro licentia nuptiale, 19s. 6d. Dat. clerico, 2s. 6d.=£l :2s.; and, in the year 1747-8, February 4, appears — “ Fils ne, apres nomme Jeremy ; a quatre heures et demi, mon fils se uait.” On the 15th June, I find — “J. B. jun. — Paid Mr J. Mulford, for a coral, 14s.” Several letters are before me written by Mrs Bentham, which exhibit many of those gentle and beautiful traits of feminine character which I have often heard Bentham attribute to his mother. In one, dated Andover, August 6, 1749, addressed to her husband, she mentions that she had left the stage-coach during her journey, and, on coming back, she found her place, which was with the face towards the horses, occupied by a lady, and says — “ I was chagrined by this unlucky accident, knowing I could not sit backwards without inconvenience; therefore, addressing myself to the lady, I hoped it would suit her to sit on the other side; but she assured me it would not. I was obliged to take the middle place: but this did not put me out of temper. She was afterwards extremely obliging, and offered me a bed at her brother’s house.”

I do not know wdiether this incident was recollected by Bentham, but I remember to have heard him say that a stage-coach was a place where the virtues of prudence and benevolence have often occasion eminently toexhibit themselves, and where lessons of wisdom are sometimes admirably taught. In the same letter, she speaks of her anxiety about “ her sweet boy,” (Bentham,) and of “ an uneasy dream” she had had re-

BENTHAM*S MOTHER. [1748-59.

specting him. In another letter, of the following week, she writes of the longing expectation” with ■which she had waited for her husband’s letter, of the joy of hearing from a beloved absent one;” and implores a frequent repetition of such “ absent interviews.” She says, “ I try to divest myself of all uneasy cares, and think of nothing at home but the joys I left behind— my sweet little boy, and his still dearer papa; though there are little anxious fears about death and fever, and too great a hurry and perhaps vexations in business, which may perhaps overpower the spirits, and I not present to bear my part, and 6oothe those cares ; which, I flatter myself, would be in my power, were it only from my desire of doing it. Shall you see the dear little creature again? I dreamed he had been like to have been choked with a plum-stone. Surely nurse will not trust him with damsons. God preserve him from all evil accidents ! ” It would appear from this letter that Mr Bentham had some aspirations after a knighthood ; for she says — “ I am vastly angry with the title of ladyship. I have taken so great a disgust to it that I hope you will not get yourself knighted in haste, for I don’t believe I shall ever be reconciled to it. It has robbed me, I fear, of some sweet epithets, and exchanged what I value above all the world for an * humble servant. ’ However, it shall not deprive me of a title I value above all others that could over be conferred on me : even that of your faithful and affectionate wife,

At the time of Bentham’s birth, his father’s mother was an inmate of the family ; living, however, principally at Barking, where they occupied a house, which was her jointure, and in which the whole family ordinarily passed, as a wee vly holiday, a portion of Saturday and Monday, and the whole of Sunday. Lentham’s father said to him, when he vas "very young, that, by the blessing ol heaven on his exertions in making a combination between his wife and his mother, he was enabled to keep a country-house and a carriage. The paternal grandmother was proud and scornful;

the maternal one humble and gentle. The pride of grandmother Bentham was built on an independence of one hundred pounds a year ; and the humility of grandmother Grove was outpoured into the bosom of young Jeremy ; to whom, without any asperity, but with a good-humoured pleasantry, she sometimes expressed her wonderment that the rival for the boy’s affections should “ hold her haughty head so high.” But from the country-house and the carriage, that rival could well look down on those who had neither ; and, besides, in early life she had passed some time in the company of ladies of quality, with the daughters of the Earl of Fermanagh, in Ireland, whose dwelling was not far from that of her reverend father. That earl, or a preceding one, figures in the Memoirs of Count Grammont ; and Bentham’s grandmother had partaken of the accomplishments, such as they were, which formed part of the education of high-born dames ; and had learned to play successfully (so she told her grandson) on the bass viol. Whatever she had learned, however, was all forgotten before Bentham could derive any benefit from it, as he found she could not even teach him the musical notes. Plain in her youth, she had grown graceful and dignified in age ; and Bentham, who was early sensible of her weaknesses, found her far from unpleasing to him. When the leaves fell, she migrated from Barking to London; and when the leaves appeared again, she appeared in the country with them.

I have heard Bentham mention, more than once, his remembrance of a circumstance that occurred before he was able to walk alone, and which made, he has often told me, the strongest impression on his memory. He had been remarking how much suffering the acuteness of his sensibilities had on many occasions caused him, and that his earliest recollection was the pain of sympathy. “ It was at my father’s country-house at Barking,” he said: “ the place and persons present are even now vividly impressed on my memory. My grandfather was then the constant occupant of the house ; and my father and mother, with

SUSCEPTIBILITY— PRECOCITY.

I occasional company, came down every Saturday, and returned to town the following Monday. There had been some unusual feasting in the house, and I had been supplied by my nurse, no doubt, to satiety. Soon after, my grandfather came, and I ate something that he offered me. Thereupon came my mother, smiling — she came with her natural claims upon my affections — but it was out of my power to accept her intended kindness ; and I burst into tears, seeing the chagrin and disappointment which it cost her. I was then not two years old.” And the fact of his age he established by a comparison of dates, persons, and places, sufficient to authenticate his statement.

Of the precocity of his powers, I have gathered up many remarkable examples. He knew his letters before he was able to speak. His father was accustomed to mention, and, as he said, “ to brag,” of his early feats, and he reminded him a thousand times of his infantine literary powers. “ He was always talking to me and to others of my powers,” said Bentham ; but the stimulants applied did not act in the direction which parental pride was constantly pointing out.

Another instance of precocious mental activity I will give in Bentham’s words : — •“ What I am about to tell you, I have often heard from my grandfather: it occurred before I was breeched, and I was breeched at three years and a quarter old : — One day, after dinner, I was taken to walk with my father and mother, and some of their acquaintance. They were talking, as usual, about matters — I cannot say above my comprehension — but rather distant from, or on one side of my comprehension — matters of complete indifference to me —about Mr Thompson, Mr Jackson, Miss Smith, and old Mr Clark. Not being interested, I soon got wearied and annoyed, so that, unperceived, I escaped from the company, took to my heels, and scampered home. The house was tolerably far off, though in view ; and I reached it a considerable time before the arrival of the pedestrians. When they came in they found me seated at table — o reading desk upon the table, and a huge folio on that reading desk — a lighted candle on each side, (for it had become dark,) and myself absorbed in my studies. The book was Rapin’ s History of England. I have it still. The tale was often told in my presence, of the boy in petticoats, who had come in and rung the bell, and given orders to the footman to mount the desk upon the table, and place the folio upon the desk, and to provide candles without delay. All this was repeated again and again, and I received the impressions from others. But what I did not receive from others, was, the knowledge of the satisfaction with which I read the folio historian. The day remembered by others was not the first in which I had been delighted. There is nothing sentimental in Rapin, but the facts simply narrated were most interesting to me ; those facts I read over and over again ; and they excited my sympathies strongly, particularly those which occurred in the Saxon period — Redwald and Edwy; and Rosamond’s story above all.” In the year 1751, Bentham being then in his fourth year, there is in his father’s book of accounts, an entry for “Ward’s Grammar, Is. 6d.; Fani Colloquendi Formulae, 6d. ; and Nomenclator Classicus Trilinguis, 8d., being 2s. 8d. for Jeremy, junior,” showing at what an early age his classical studies began ; and in the year 1 7 53, a nicely written scrap of Latin is preserved among his father’s memoranda, with this notice: — “ Mem. The line pasted hereon was written by my son, Jeremy Bentham, the 4th of December, 1 7 53, at the age of five years nine months and nineteen days and a few days after is the following entry: — “ Paid Mr Robert Hartley for double allepine for Jerry’s coat and breeches, to his pink waistcoat, £0 12 3.”