age which bound up his chin, in order to prevent it deadening the blow of the axe. Released from its support, his lower jaw fell upon his breast; the piercing cry it extorted was heard on the opposite side of the Place de la Revolution. It was succeeded by a dead silence--the silence of the grave-broken by a dull, sullen noise. Down clanked the axe, and the head of Robespierre rolled into the basket. The crowd held their breath for some seconds, and then, as if an enormous load were rolled from their breasts, burst into a loud and unanimous cheer., The spectators shed tears of joy, and embraced each other in transport, crowding around the scaffold to behold the bloody remains of the tyrants. One man approaching said, "Yes, Robespierre, there is a God!" And thus this strange mystery of a man passed away into eternity.'

This extraordinary concoction has been requoted by the newspaper reviewers-it is the favourite recital of the pulpits-and will continue to be reproduced, sanctioned by Mr. Lewes's philosophical name. What does this imbecile approaching' man mean, who affects to reproach the dead body of the fallen Tribune with atheism? Why should this insult in the name of religion be preserved? If there was one man more than another who had eloquently defended the idea of God, it was Robespierre. It is remarkable that two men, most execrated by the pulpits for their atheism, viz.-Robespierre and Paine, were the authors of almost the only readable and original defences of the existence of God which their age produced. A significant warning to those reformers who are religious from conviction how little their profession avails them, and to those who are religious from policy how little their policy serves them-in conciliating their religious opponents. Unless this approaching' man was the most ignorant man in Paris, he must be aware that Robespierre was a believer in God to fanaticism, and this affectation of reproaching Robespierre for denying a God when he most devoutly believed in him, was but the utterance of ignorant bigotry, which took the earliest opportunity of insulting the dead-or is an invention of the pulpits, to justify an accusation of atheism which was without foundation. Whether this was said or not said, why should Mr. Lewes preserve so rude and misplaced an instance of religious ignorance? It may be answered that Mr. Lewes was bound to relate what actually took place-then why did he not, by some remark, fix the proper value of this posthumous adjuration, and not leave it in the questionable light in which it has always been received? But Mr. Lewes does not profess to give all the facts of Robespierre's life-had he, not one volume, nor twenty volumes, would have sufficed for the Biography. He professes, as the laws of biography compelled him, to select illustrative facts, and under this rule he should have omitted this.

This passage has another suspicious peculiarity. The crowd are represented as being transported with relief-when this, the most practical and sincere of all their friends, fell the victim of their enemies as well as his. When the same crowd exulted at the death of Louis-the crowd was then a mob of low, ignorant, and brutal ruffians; but when the Tribune falls, the same crowd are spoken of as though inspiration dictated their savage cheer-as though the voice of the people was once more the voice of God.

The Athenæum wonders what mission Mr. Lewes had to write the life of Robespierre. But a writer is frequently attracted to a subject by a conviction that he is in possession of some idea which will explain some difficulty or elucidate some principle; and to bring out this knowledge of his, he will undertake a work he otherwise would never have attempted. This may have been the case with Mr. Lewes, for the most instructive and original part of his book is his analysis of Rousseau, and his exposition of the errors of the metaphysical method applied to politics.

Mr. Lewes says, 'In a former work, after due recognition of the services which metaphysical speculation has afforded to the development of opinion, I have endeavoured to show the incompetence of Metaphysics to solve its own problems, and have historically exhibited the gradual decline it has undergone, till it has now almost universally fallen into discredit. But the metaphysical method still remains. It still lingers on the outskirts of the sciences; while in the sciences of man and of society it is almost the universal method. That method may be characterised in a sentence; it is the method whereby, instead of examining the thing before us to find out its properties, we studiously examine the idea of that thing as it exists in our own minds.

'In the sciences another method is pursued. A man wishing to know the structure and organic process of plants, examines plants, and not his idea of a plant: but wishing to know the nature of mind, he is not content, as in the former instance, with the observation of phenomena, and from that observation deducing the laws which regulate them, but must, forsooth, despise that as "materialism," and straightway occupy himself with the "idea.”

'In Rousseau we see this vicious method leading to vicious consequences. Instead of examining society as a natural growth-as the sum total of man's nature developed through an infinite variety of circumstances-he straightway eliminates all the phenomena before him, and reduces society to its abstract idea: arriving at a period when society was not, he there discovers certain Metaphysical Rights and Conventions; and these he proclaims to be the eternal principles of things-these he proclaims to be the great truths upon which social science must be based. As well might the botanist disregard all present phenomena, and, eliminating the various influences of air, earth, and water, arrive at the abstract idea of a flower, and tell us that is the flower!'

There is great instruction in these expositions. The Communist idealists have been far from overlooking these truths to the extent Mr. Lewes supposes; but it is true that the metaphysical method' still lingers, nay reigns, in politics; and in developing this fact and illustrating the errors thence arising among the French Revolutionists, constitute the charm and chief value of Mr. Lewes's book, and in this sense his 'Life of François Maximilien Joseph Isidore de Robespierre' is a more valuable contribution to the literature of progressive politics than to that of biography.

G. J. HOLYOAke.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF BENTHAM.

[THE following sketch of the life and character of Jeremy Bentham is taken from a Lecture delivered over his remains, in the Webber Street School of Anatomy and Medicine, on the 8th of June, 1832. By Southwood Smith, M.D.]

JEREMY BENTHAM was born at the residence of his father, adjacent to Aldgate church, in London, on the 15th of February, 1747-8, and died in Queen Square Place, Westminster, where he had resided nearly half a century, on the 6th of June, 1832, being in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He was a precocious child. At the age of three years, he read Rapin's History of England as an amusement. At the age of five, he had acquired a knowledge of musical notes, and played on the violin. At the age of seven, he read Télémaque in French. At the age of eight, he entered Westminster School, where he soon became distinguished. At the age of thirteen he was admitted a member of Queen's College, Oxford, where he at once engaged in public disputations in the Common Hall, and excited, by the acuteness of his observations, the precision of his terms, and the logical correctness of his inductions, the surprise and admiration of all who heard him. At the age of sixteen, he took his degree of A.B., and at the age of twenty that of A.M., being the youngest graduate that had at that time been known at either of the Universities. From early childhood, such was the contemplative turn of his mind, and the clearness and accuracy with which he observed whatever came under his notice, that at the age of five years he had already acquired the name of the philosopher,' being familiarly called so by the members of his family; and such, even in his youth, were the indications of that benevolence to which his manhood and his old age were consecrated, that a celebrated statesman, who at that period had conceived an affection for him, and with whom he spent most of his time during the interval of his leaving Westminster School and going to Oxford, speaks of him in a letter to his father, in these remarkable words-' His disinterestedness, and his originality of character, refresh me as much as the country air does a London physician.'

The qualities which already formed the charm of his character, and which grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength, were truth and simplicity. Truth was deeply founded in his nature as a prin

ciple-it was devotedly pursued in his life as an object-it exercised, even in early youth, an extraordinary influence over the operations of his mind and the affections of his heart-and it was the source of that moral boldness, energy, and consistency for which, from the period of manhood to the close of life, he was so distinguished. There was nothing in the entire range of physical, moral, or legislative science-nothing whatever relating to any class of subjects that could be presented to his understanding-nothing, however difficult other men thought it, or pretended to think it, or with whatever superstitious, political, or religious reverence and awe they regarded or affected to regard it-which he did not approach without fear to the very bottom of which he did not endeavour to penetrate-the mystery regarding which he did not strive to clear away-the real, the whole truth of which he did not aim to bring to light. Nor was there any consideration--no, not even apparent danger to the cause he advocated, though, by the desertion of friends and the clamour of foes, that cause might seem for a while to be put in jeopardy, that could induce him to conceal any conclusion at which he arrived, and of the correctness of which he was satisfied, or could prevent him from expressing it in the most appropriate language at his command. It was not possible to apply his principle to all the points and bearings of all the subjects included in the difficult and contested field of legislation, government, and morals-to apply it, as he applied it, acutely, searchingly, profoundly, unflinchingly-without consequences at first view startling, if not appalling to strong minds and stout hearts. They startled not, they appalled not him, mind or heart. He had confidence in his guide, he was satisfied that he might go with unfaltering step wherever it led; and with unfaltering step he did go wherever it led. Hence his singleness of purpose: hence in all his voluminous writings, in all the multiplicity of subjects which have come under his investigation as well those which he has exhausted, as those which he has merely touched-as well those which are uncomplicated by sinister interests and the prejudices which grow out of them, as those which are associated with innumerable false judgments and wrong affections: hence in regard to not one of them does a single case occur in which he has swerved from his principle, or faltered, or so much as shown the slightest indication of faltering, in the application of it.

That he might be in the less danger of falling under the influence of any wrong bias, he kept himself as much as possible from all personal contact with what is called the world. Had he engaged in the active pursuits of life-money-getting, power-acquiring pursuits-he, like other men so engaged, must have had prejudices to humour, interests to conciliate, friends to serve, enemies to subdue; and, therefore, like other men under the influence of such motives, must sometimes have missed the truth, and sometimes have concealed or modified it.

But he placed himself above all danger of this kind, by retiring from the practice of the profession for which he had been educated, and by living in a simple manner on a small income allowed him by his father: and when, by the death of his father, he at length came into the possession of a patrimony which secured him a moderate competence, from that moment he dismissed from his mind all further thought

about his private fortune, and bent the whole powers of his mind without distraction to his legislative and moral labours. Nor was he less careful to keep his benevolent affections fervent, than his understanding free from wrong bias. He surrounded himself only with persons whose sympathies were like his own, and whose sympathies he might direct to their appropriate objects in the active pursuits of life. Though he himself took no part in the actual business of legislation and government, yet, either by personal communication or confidential correspondence with them, he guided the minds of many of the most distinguished legislators and patriots, not only of his own country, but of all countries in both hemispheres. To frame weapons for the advocates of the reform of the institutions of his own country, was his daily occupation and his highest pleasure; and to him resorted, for counsel and encouragement, the most able and devoted of those advocates; while the patriots and philanthropists of Europe, as well as those of the New World, the countrymen of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, together with the legislators and patriots of South America, speak of him as a tutelary spirit, and declare the practical application of his principles to be the object and end of their labours.

While he availed himself of every means in his power of forming and cherishing a friendship with whoever in any country indicated remarkable benevolence; while Howard was his intimate friend-a friend delighted alike to find and to acknowledge in him a superior beneficent genius; while Romilly was not only the advocate of his opinions in the senate, but the affectionate and beloved disciple in private; while for the youth Lafayette, his junior contemporary, he conceived an affection which in the old age of both was beautiful for the freshness and ardour with which it continued to glow; while there was no name in any country known and dear to liberty and humanity which was not known and dear to him, and no person bearing such name that ever visited England who was not found at his social board, he would hold intercourse with none of any rank or fame whose distinction was unconnected with the promotion of human improvement, and much less whose distinction arose from the zeal and success with which they laboured to keep back improvement. That the current of his own benevolence might experience no interruption or disturbance, he uniformly avoided engaging in any personal controversy; he contended against principles and measures, not men; and for the like reason he abstained from reading the attacks made upon himself, so that the ridicule and scoffing, the invective and malignity, with which he was sometimes assailed, proved as harmless to him as to his cause. By the society he shunned, as well as by that which he sought, he endeavoured to render his social intercourse subservient to the cultivation, to the perpetual growth and activity, of his benevolent sympathies.

With such care over his intellectual faculties and his moral affections, and with the exalted direction which he gave to both, his own happiness could not but be sure. Few human beings have enjoyed a greater portion of felicity; and such was the cheerfulness which this internal happiness gave to the expression of his countenance and the turn of his conversation, that few persons ever spent an evening in his society, however