The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits

The Spirit of the Age -
Contemporary Portraits

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of the Age, by William
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Title: The Spirit of the Age Contemporary Portraits
Author: William Hazlitt
Release Date: February 12, 2004 [EBook #11068]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE
SPIRIT OF THE AGE:
OR
CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS.

"To know another well were to know one's self."

CONTENTS.

JEREMY BENTHAM
WILLIAM GODWIN
MR. COLERIDGE
REV. MR. IRVING
THE LATE MR. HORNE TOOKE
SIR WALTER SCOTT
LORD BYRON
MR. CAMPBELL--MR. CRABBE
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH
MR. WORDSWORTH
MR. MALTHUS
MR. GIFFORD
MR. JEFFREY
MR. BROUGHAM--SIR F. BURDETT
LORD ELDON--MR. WILBERFORCE
MR. SOUTHEY
MR. T. MOORE--MR. LEIGH HUNT
ELIA--GEOFFREY CRAYON

THE
SPIRIT OF THE AGE.

* * * * *

JEREMY BENTHAM.

Mr. Bentham is one of those persons who verify the old adage, that "A
prophet has no honour, except out of his own country." His reputation
lies at the circumference; and the lights of his understanding are
reflected, with increasing lustre, on the other side of the globe. His
name is little known in England, better in Europe, best of all in the
plains of Chili and the mines of Mexico. He has offered constitutions
for the New World, and legislated for future times. The people of
Westminster, where he lives, hardly know of such a person; but the
Siberian savage has received cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and
may say to him with Caliban--"I know thee, and thy dog and thy bush!"

The tawny Indian may hold out the hand of fellowship to him across
the GREAT PACIFIC. We believe that the Empress Catherine
corresponded with him; and we know that the Emperor Alexander
called upon him, and presented him with his miniature in a gold
snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal honour, returned. Mr.
Hobhouse is a greater man at the hustings, Lord Rolle at Plymouth
Dock; but Mr. Bentham would carry it hollow, on the score of
popularity, at Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author's influence is
purely intellectual. He has devoted his life to the pursuit of abstract and
general truths, and to those studies--
"That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole"--
and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or party politics.
He once, indeed, stuck up a hand-bill to say that he (Jeremy Bentham)
being of sound mind, was of opinion that Sir Samuel Romilly was the
most proper person to represent Westminster; but this was the whim of
the moment. Otherwise, his reasonings, if true at all, are true
everywhere alike: his speculations concern humanity at large, and are
not confined to the hundred or the bills of mortality. It is in moral as in
physical magnitude. The little is seen best near: the great appears in its
proper dimensions, only from a more commanding point of view, and
gains strength with time, and elevation from distance!
Mr. Bentham is very much among philosophers what La Fontaine was
among poets:--in general habits and in all but his professional pursuits,
he is a mere child. He has lived for the last forty years in a house in
Westminster, overlooking the Park, like an anchoret in his cell,
reducing law to a system, and the mind of man to a machine. He
scarcely ever goes out, and sees very little company. The favoured few,
who have the privilege of the _entrée_, are always admitted one by one.
He does not like to have witnesses to his conversation. He talks a great
deal, and listens to nothing but facts. When any one calls upon him, he
invites them to take a turn round his garden with him (Mr. Bentham is
an economist of his time, and sets apart this portion of it to air and
exercise)--and there you may see the lively old man, his mind still
buoyant with thought and with the prospect of futurity, in eager
conversation with some Opposition Member, some expatriated Patriot,
or Transatlantic Adventurer, urging the extinction of Close Boroughs,
or planning a code of laws for some "lone island in the watery waste,"

his walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it in
shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and his
manner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY--or pausing,
perhaps, for want of breath and