53(5 BENTHAM a circular building so constructed as that from the centre all the inmates could be overlooked. The younger Bentham had attempted to realize it with a view to the oversight of his Russian workmen. The elder brother seized upon it, in connection with his study of penal legislation, as applicable to prison discipline. He gave to this building the name of panopticon, and while still in Russia wrote a series of letters in expla- nation of its construction and its uses. These letters, after his return, were printed at Dublin by the Irish parliament, the adoption of his prison discipline scheme having been proposed there. In 1791 they were brought out at Lon- don, with additions, under the title of "Pan- opticon, or the Inspection House." In 1792 Bentham's father died, leaving him the family mansion in Queen's-square place, Westminster, where he chiefly resided for the rest of his life, and a freehold and leasehold property of be- tween 500 and 600 a year. He left about an equal amount to the younger brother, who by this time had returned from Russia, and had zealously entered with his elder brother into the perfecting of the panopticon, with a view to applying it to prison discipline. Being now possessed of means, Bentham, in conjunc- tion with his brother, submitted plans to Mr. Pitt for taking charge of 1,000 convicts, in a building to be erected for that purpose at the expense of the government, but upon certain conditions, and at a certain rate of pay for each convict to be under the entire control of the Benthams for their joint lives. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dnndas, Mr. Rose, and others, entered with much enthusiasm into the idea, and in 1794 an act of parliament authorized the contract. The Benthams obtained an advance from the treas- ury, and spent several thousand pounds of bor- rowed money on the strength of this arrange- ment, involving themselves thereby in great embarrassments, but from some mysterious "cause could not get any further advances, nor a signature of the contract. The ministers, however, continued favorable, and made use of a parliamentary committee in 1797 to urge the completion of the contract, when at length the hitherto mysterious delay was explained, and the affair again brought to a standstill, by the refusal of the king to sign a treasury warrant for a sum of money needed to perfect the title to the land on which the building was to be erected, and for which considerable expenditures had already been made. George III. had taken an antip- athy to Bentham, partly, as Bentham believed, from having looked into his treatise on the or- ganization of the French judiciary, and partly because he had discovered him to be the author of two newspaper articles signed " Anti-Machi- avel," and published in 1787, attacking the policy of a war with Russia, which the king had much at heart. Thirteen years more were spent in vain solicitations, till finally, in 1811, an act of parliament annulled the contract, and provided for the erection of a prison on a different plan, and at much greater expense to the public. In order to get a conveyance of the land, the imperfect title of which stood in Bentham's name, this act provided for an award on the question of damages, under which the Benthams three years after received the sum of 32,000. It may well be supposed that Bentham's experience in this matter could not but embitter him against the existing manage- ment of public concerns. Meanwhile Dnmont, having returned to England, had obtained from Bentham all his manuscripts, and had applied himself with zeal to the task of extracting from them and his printed works a vivid and popular statement, in French, of Bentham's system and ideas. This labor of love Dumont performed with remarkable success; and the first fruits of it, published at Paris in 1802, during the peace of Amiens, under the title of Traites de legislation civile et penale a pub- lication in which Talleyrand took a great inter- est, offering himself, if necessary, to bear the whole expense speedily made Bentham known and famous throughout the continent of Europe as the philosopher of jurisprudence. In Eng- land, too, he acquired some new disciples and cooperators. Brougham joined Romilly in ac- knowledging his genius, and accepting many of his ideas. In 1808 he formed the acquaintance of James Mill, who, next to Dumont, did most to diffuse his doctrines. Mill lived for several years, a large part of the time, in Bentham's house, who still labored away some six or eight hours daily on his codes, stopping, how- ever, as occasion offered, to launch forth vehe- ment attacks on the English system of juris- prudence. Such were his " Scotch Reform compared with English Non-Reform," pub- lished in 1808, and his " Elements of the Art of Packing as applied to Special Juries," print- ed in 1808, but which he was dissuaded by Romilly from publishing, lest it might expose him to a prosecution for libel. Some difficulty was even met with in finding a publisher for the "Rationale of Judicial Evidence," edited by Mill from Bentham's manuscripts, lest that, too, especially the part of it assailing the whole technical method of English judicial procedure, might be regarded as a libel on the administra- tion of justice. This work, indeed, did not appear till 1827, when it was published in 5 vols. 8vo. Confirmed, meanwhile, by his grow- ing reputation, in his always strong interior faith in himself, Bentham became anxious to bring out, not as a mere draft, but as an actual body of law, his ideal code, on which he had been laboring all his life, but which yet existed only in his brain and in an immense mass of fragmentary manuscripts. He had hoped, on the strength of promises from Miranda, to be- come the legislator of Venezuela, to which country he had even thoughts of removing. But Miranda's project failed. In 1811 Dumont having in that year brought out a new French work, edited from his manuscripts, Theorie des peines et des recompenses he addressed an elaborate letter to President Madison, offering,
