THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. . JEREMY BENTHAM. MR. BENTHAM is one of those persons who verify the old adage, that "A prophet has most honour out of his own country." His reputation lies at the circumference; and the lights of his understanding are reflected, with increasing lustre, on the other side of the globe. His name is little known in England, better in Europe, best of all in the plains of Chili and the mines of Mexico. He has offered constitutions for the New World, and legislated for future times. The people of Westminster, where he lives, hardly dream of such a person; but the Siberian savage has received cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and may say to him with Caliban-"I know thee, and thy dog and thy bush!" The tawny Indian may hold out the hand of fellowship to him across the GREAT PACIFIC. We believe that the Empress Catherine corresponded with him; and we know that the Emperor Alexander called upon him, and presented him with his miniature in a gold snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal honour, returned. Mr. Hobhouse is a greater man at the hustings, Lord Rolle at Plymouth Dock; but Mr. Bentham would carry it hollow, on the score of popularity, at Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author's influence is purely intellectual. He has devoted his life to the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and studies “That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole"— and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or pr politics. He once, indeed, stuck up a hand-bill to say that a (Jeremy Bentham) being of sound mind, was of opine the Samuel Romilly was the most proper person to represent minster; but this was the whim of the moment Otherwa reasonings, if true at all, are true everywhere alike ha specia tions concern humanity at large, and are not confined to the dred or the bills of mortality. It is in moral as in pårs: magnitude. The little is seen best near: the great appears a proper dimensions, only from a more commanding point of view and gains strength with time, and elevation from distance ' Mr. Bentham is very much among philosophers what La F# taine was among poets.-in general habits and in ali è at a fessional pursuits, he is a mere child. He has lived he forty years in a house in Westminster, overlooking the Para an anchoret in his cell, reducing law to a systern, and the of man to a machine. He scarcely ever goes out, and see little company. The favoured few, who have the privi entree, are always admitted one by one. He does not... witnesses to his conversation. He talks a great deal and to nothing but facts. When agy one calls upon him, he them to take a turn round his garden with hum (Mr_b»r21m an economist of his time, and sets apart this portion of it to exercise)—and there you may see the lively on man still buoyant with thought and with the prospect of " enger conversation with some Opposition Member, s ated Patriot, or Transatlantic Adventurer, urging the of Close Boroughs, or planning a code of laws for some in the watery waste," his walk almost amounting to a ton zue keeping pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents nej of his person, his dress, and his manner, intent orly on theme of UTILITY—or pausing, perhaps, for want of brai with lack lustre cye to point out to the stranger a store in at the end of his garden (over arched by two beautiful cott |