no restraint on the editors of his manuscripts, and they did not hesitate to use this liberty. 'The materials,' writes Sir John
Bowring in the preface to the second volume of 'Deontology,' out of which this volume has been put together, are, for the most part, disjointed fragments, written on small scraps of paper on the spur of the moment, at times removed from one another, and delivered into my hands without an arrangement of any sort.' The rhapsodical inaccurate style of the work and the loose character of the reasoning are grounds for doubting whether the 'Deontology' always correctly states Bentham's meaning.
In 1807 Bentham was led to study the subject of Scotch reform by a bill for amending the constitution of the Scotch court of session, which Lord Eldon had laid on the table of the House of Lords. In his letters whioh are addressed to Lord Grenville he criticised the shortcomings of the project, and he also developed his own views as to the legal procedure, setting out for the first time clearly the advantages of what he termed the natural system of justice as against the artificial 'fee-getting system.' His conception of a proper system of procedure was one under which suitors should be brought without delay into the presence of a judge free to dispose of the matters in difference without a jury. In 1809 he completed a criticism on the working of the English libel law, which was always the object of his aversion, and which more than once stood in the way of the free publication of his opinions. Its injustice had recently been made manifest in a series of prosecutions for libelling the Duke of York. The book, which was entitled 'On the Art of Packing Special Juries,' contained many bitter reflections on the judges,' and Romilly, who had read it in manuscript, warned him that Sir Vicary Gibbs, the attorney-general, would be sure to prosecute the author and the publisher. Bentham took his friend's advice, and did not publish the pamphlet. Through printed, it was not openly sold for many years.
In 1808 Bentham seems to have seriously comtemplated going for the sake of his health to Mexico. On the table-land of that country he thought that he would escape an English winter, and find the climate which best suited him. Taking up this project with his usual ardour, he wrote at great length about it to Lord Holland, his cousin Mulford, and Francis Horner. With characteristic thoroughness he investigated the death-rate of the country, and considered what were to be the contents of his library, and whether it should comprise 'Comyns's Digest' and 'Bacon's Abridgment,' He did not go to Mexico, but he moved in 1814 from London to Ford Abbey, near Chard — a beautiful stately mansion, built in the reign of Stephen, and once occupied by Prideaux, attorney-general of the Commonwealth, Romilly, who in 1817 visited Bentham there, describes his friend as living en grand seigneur. 'We found him,' Romilly adds, 'passing his time, as he has always been passing it since I have known him, which is now more than thirty years, closely applying himself for six or eight hours a day in writing upon laws and legislation, and in composing his civil and criminal codes, and spending the remaining hours of every day in reading or taking exercise by way of fitting himself for his labours, or, to use his own strangely invented phraseology, taking his ante-jentacular and post-prandial walks to prepare himself for his task of codification.' Much more than codification occupied him at Ford Abbey. There he wrote his 'Chrestomathia,' a collection of papers in which the principles of the Bell and Lancastrian systems of education are applied to the higher branches of learning. Bentham hoped much from these systems. He put a piece of his garden at the disposal of Mr. Francis Place and other promoters of a school for this object, and he generously assisted it with his purse and by his pen. Perhaps the most novel featureof the 'Chrestomathia' was the prominence which it gave to science in education, and the novel daring with which the claims of Greek and Latin to the supreme place then assigned to them were attacked. At Ford Abbey, Bentham also wrote 'The Church of England and its Catechism,' which was not published till 1817, and 'Not Paul but Christ.' Doubts have, indeed, been expressed whether Bentham wrote the latter, and in a copy of the work belonging to Mr. Richard Garnett is a note by Mr. Francis Place claiming it as his production. But the style can leave little room for doubt that if Place assisted Bentham, as is not improbable, the work was inspired, and in the main written, by the latter. It is the object of 'Not Paul but Christ,' which, by its dialectical acuteness and its method, reminds one of 'Horæ Paulinæ,' to prove that St, Paul had distorted the primitive Christianity of Christ. In a copy of the 'Church of England Catechism' in the British Museum is preserved a correspondence with respect to its publication. Bentham's friends particularly Romilly, strongly dissuaded him from publishing it. Romilly sent for him, and said: 'Bentham, I am as sure as I am of my existence that if you publish this you will be
