Moral and Polilical Phifosophy^ Book I, chap. V

115. Indications concernimj lord Eldon, Sect. 11 ; Bowring, vol. V, p. 349. — Le père de Bentham ne semble pas avoir été un méchant homme; mais de nature vulgaire, résolu à obtenir de ses deux fils, l'un et l'autre remarquablement intelligents, qu'ils se fassent une position et gagnent de l'argent, il se rend insupportable à eux : ils sont (leurs lettres en témoignent) en conspiration p<irmanentc contre lui. — Ia\ teri'eur de Bentham

(Pp. 37-38) NOTES. 297

«»st amusante, lorsque lord Shelburne manifeste rin'entîon d'in\iler son père au château de Bowood. Mss. Brit. Mus. 33, 639, f. 213 (à son frère, le 25 août 1781). « The answcr was : « Your Lordship is very good, but he is full as well wherc lie is )>.Was not this obliging? \Vhal a pretty scène would hâve been exhibited had 1 sufferM my Lord to send for them ? what a mixture of hccloring and pufûng, and seLf-complacency and cringing and self-ostentation and forced civility ».

116. Mss. Brit. Mus. 3^,537, ff. 2^2-3, li oct. 1772: — In the mean time, excuse thc liberty 1 take in supposing that >vith regard to some parts that abstruseness may possibly appcar greater to you in common wilh others of your former profession, than to men at large, as, besides having a ncw language to acquire, you havo the old one to unlearn. As to myself, if I had waited till I had been immersed in the depths of prac> tice, I am satisfied I should neverhad hadability,even if 1 had had inclination, to engage in the design... Forgive me, Sir, if 1 déclare simply, and once for ail, that till this great business is disposed of, 1 feel myself unable of any other. — The Will is hère out of the question. Whalever may be the case with others, I find it impossible with me to bring the powers of invention to a mechanical obédience to the good pleasure of that faculty. — The sensé of necessiJy which may sel them at work in some, strikes me motionless. 1 am in this respect liko David : I can <t give no melody in my heaviness ». In the track I am in, I march up with alacrity and hopc : in any other I should crawl on witii despondency and reluetance. — If lam not likely to succeed in a pursuit in whioh I am engaged with affection and with strong presentiments of success : much less am I where buth are wanting : I mean situated as I am àt présent — any tolcrable nmount of success in such an undertaking as mine, you are sensible, must need work a considérable révolution ».