BENSON BENTHAM 533 held pastoral charges first at Abingdon, Berk- shire, next at Southwark, and finally as col- league of Dr. Lardner in the congregation of Crutched Friars. Among his works are : " A Treatise on Prayer " (1781), " Comments on some of the Epistles," " History of the first Planting of Christianity" (1735), "Reasona- bleness of the Christian Religion," " History of the Life of Christ," and " An Account of the Burning of Servetns, and of the concern of Calvin in it." In his early ministerial career he was Calvinistic in theology ; later he became an Arian, and endeavored to suppress some of his former publications. BENSON, Joseph, an English clergyman, born at Melmerby, Cumberland, Jan. 25, 1748, died Feb. 16, 1821. He was educated for the es- tablished church, but at the age of 16 was con- verted under the influence of the Methodists, and soon after joined their denomination. Such was his proficiency in the ancient lan- guages that at the age of 18 Wesley appointed him classical master at Kingswood school. At the same time he was a student at St. Ed- mund's Hall, Oxford. In 1769 he was called to the head mastership of Lady Huntingdon's theological school at Trevecca, but was soon dismissed because he could not agree with the Calvinistic views of the founder. His appli- cation to enter orders in the established church having been rejected, he was admitted in 1771 into the Methodist conference, and for many years occupied the most important sta- tions of the church. After the death of Wes- ley he was chosen president of the conference. While in this office his congregations some- times numbered 20,000. For many years he was editor of the "Weslyan Magazine," the chief organ of the Methodist church in Eng- land, conducting it to the time of his death. His chief writings are: "A Defence of the Methodists" (1793), "A Further Defence of ' the Methodists " (1794), " Vindication of the Methodists" (1800), "Apology for the Method- ists " (1801), " Sermons on Various Occasions " (2 vols.), "Life of John Fletcher," and "A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures " (5 vols. 4to.). See Macdonald's "Life of Benson," and Trefry's " Memoirs of Rev. Joseph Ben- son." BENT, a S. E. county of Colorado, bordering on Kansas ; area, about 2,000 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 592. The Arkansas river forms the greater part of its S. boundary, and one of its branches, the Big Sandy, crosses the E. end. BENTQ1M, Jeremy, an English juridical phi- losopher, born in London, Feb. 15, 1748, died in Queen-square place, Westminster, his resi- dence for 40 years previously, June 6, 1832. His great-grandfather, a prosperous London pawnbroker of the time of Charles II., had ac- quired some landed property, which remained in the family. His grandfather was a London attorney; his father, who followed the same profession, was a shrewd man of business, and added considerably to his patrimony, princi- pally by fortunate purchases of land and leases. These London Benthams were probably an off- shoot from an ancient Yorkshire family of the same name, which boasted a bishop among its members ; but Jeremy did not trouble himself much to trace his genealogy beyond the pawn- broker. His mother, Alicia Grove, was the daughter of a retired Andover shopkeeper. Jeremy Bentham, the eldest and for nine years the only child of this marriage, was for the first 16 years of his life exceedingly puny, small, and feeble. At the same time he exhib- ited a remarkable precocity, which greatly stimulated the pride as well as affection of his father. He had a decided taste for music, and at five years of age acquired a knowledge of musical notes and learned to play the violin. At four or earlier, having previously learned to write, he was initiated into Latin grammar, and in his seventh year entered Westminster school. Meanwhile he was taught French by a private master at home, and at seven read Telemaque, a book which strongly impressed him. Learning to dance was a much more se- rious undertaking ; he was so weak in the legs as to make it laborious and painful. Young as he was, he acquired distinction at Westminster as a fabricator of Latin and Greek verses, the great end and aim of the instruction given there. When 12 years old he was entered as a commoner at Queen's college, Oxford, where he spent the next three years. The young Bentham had not been happy at school. He had suffered from the tyranny of the elder boys, though he escaped the discipline of cor- poral punishment, and was but once forced into a boxing match. Neither was he happy at Ox- ford. _ Though regarded by others and taught from infancy to regard himself as a prodigy, he was yet exceedingly diffident, and to the high- est degree sensitive of any slight or neglect peculiarities which, as weU as his high estimate of himself, clung to him through life. His tutor was morose, the college dull, while his sensitive pride suffered much from the mingled penurious- ness and meddlesomeness of his father, who kept him on very short allowance, and who, in spite of all his affection for his son, of whose ultimate distinction he had formed the highest hopes, failed entirely to comprehend the boy's delicacy and diffidence, and never gained either his con- fidence or his love. His mother had died two years before he entered the university, leaving him an only brother, afterward Sir Samuel Ben- tham. Several years after his father married for a second wife the widow of a clergyman, already the mother of two boys, of whom the eldest, Charles Abbott, was afterward speaker of the house of commons, and finally raised to the peerage as Lord Colchester. There were no children by this second marriage, yet it was a source of great vexation to Bentham, to whom his stepmother was far from being agreea- ble. Though very uncomfortable at Oxford, Bentham went through the exercises of the college with credit and even, with some dis-
