But let us return to the living Bentham. The stoop, you see, is not so much on account of his great age as from a long habit of bending over his abominable manuscript,—the worst you ever saw, perhaps, not excepting Rufus Choate's or Napoleon Bonaparte's,—day after day, and year after year, while adding his marginal annotations in "Benthamee" to what has been corrected over and over again, and rewritten more than once by the secretary.
He wears a plain, single-breasted coat, of the Quaker type, with a narrow, straight collar, and a waistcoat of thin, striped calico, all open to the weather, and trousers,—not small-clothes, nor breeches, never being able to look at himself in breeches without laughing, he says; thick woollen stockings rolled up over his knees, and shoes with ties instead of buckles,—in short, the every-day costume of our Revolutionary fathers, barring the breeches, the shoe-buckles, and the ruffles, which he never could endure.
In the warmest weather he wears thick leather gloves, and in the coldest a straw hat, bound and edged with the brightest green ribbon, and carries a stout stick of buckthorn, which he has named Dapple, after the ass of Sancho Panza, for whom he professes the greatest admiration.
While thus equipped, and while you are in conversation with him perhaps, or answering one of his hurried questions, he starts off ahead in a slow trot, up one alley and down another, or to and fro in the large garden of Queen-Square Place,—the largest but one of all that open into the Green Park; and this trot he will continue for a whole hour sometimes, without losing his breath or evincing any signs of weariness,—occasionally shouting at the top of his lungs, to show that his wind is untouched, till the whole neighborhood rings with the echo, and the blank walls of the Knightsbridge Barracks "answer from their misty shroud."
On the whole, therefore, that extravagant story told by Captain Parry has a pretty good foundation, though he never saw with his own eyes what he describes with so much drollery, but took the whole upon trust; for Mr. Bentham was in the habit of going after his annuity every year, trotting all the way down and back through Fleet Street, with his white hair flying loose, and followed by one or both of his two secretaries. He was the last survivor—the very last—of the beneficiaries, and seemed to take a pleasure in astonishing the managers once a year with his "wind and bottom." Parry represents him as being taken for a lunatic running away from his keepers.
Having now the man himself before you, let me give you some idea of his habits and characteristics, his temper,—and I never saw him out of temper in my life, though he had enough to try him almost every day in his household arrangements,—his kindness of heart, his drollery, and his wonderful powers of endurance, while working out the great problem of his life.
At the time I knew him, he used to sleep in a bag, and sometimes with most of his clothes on. This he did for economy. "It took less of sheeting," he said. Then, too, there was not so much likelihood of his getting the clothes off, should he get restless or fidgety. He was read to sleep every night by one of his secretaries, who told me that he often amused himself with reading the same paragraph or the same page over and over again, without turning a leaf, the philosopher declaring that he had never lost a word of the whole, and that he not only understood, but remembered, the drift of the author. In this way my "Brother Jonathan," then just published by Blackwood in three large volumes, was read to him every night for weeks, and greatly to his satisfaction, as I then understood; though it seems by what Dr. Bowring—I beg his pardon, Sir John Bowring—says on the subject, that the "white-haired sage" was wide enough awake, on the whole, to form a pretty fair estimate of its unnaturalness and extravagance: being himself a great admirer of Richardson's ten-volume stories, like "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe," and always looking upon them as the standard for novel-writers.
Mr. Bentham was very "regular" in his habits, very,—and timed most of his doings, whether asleep or awake, by a watch lying on the table. But then he always breakfasted between twelve and three, or a little later on special occasions, and always dined at half past six, or thereabouts, taking two cups of strong coffee in bed every morning, though he never allowed himself but one, and died in the belief that he had never broken the pledge.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, he maintained that there is no getting along in this world—or the other—without "regularity," or what he called "system." And that "system" he carried into all the business of life, as well as into legislation and government; going back, after years of uninterrupted labor and the severest analysis, to invent a panopticon, a self-sustaining penitentiary, or rather to apply that invention of his brother, General Sir Samuel Bentham, to the bettering of our prison-houses and to the restoration of the lost,—or perhaps a ballot-box, that nothing might be wanted, when that "system" he valued himself so much upon should be adopted throughout the world, as the outlines already are.
Scores of anecdotes are crowding upon my recollection, as I call to mind his affectionate manner, his habitual good temper, and his amiable, almost childish, kindness of heart. While yet a boy, for example,—and this he told me himself, with a singular mixture of self-complacency and self-depreciation, as if more than half ashamed of his weakness,—while yet a boy, he was on a visit, where two different persons undertook to help him to the goodies, among which was a magnificent gooseberry-pie, one of his favorite dishes to the last. He ate until he could eat no more. A third person offered him another piece; but, notwithstanding his capacity, being "full up to here," he was obliged to refuse. He couldn't swallow another mouthful, and the idea of ingratitude was so strong with him that he fell a-crying. I have no doubt of his entire truthfulness; but I could not help thinking of the poor boy at his grandfather's table on Christmas-day, who began at last to take things rather seriously. "What's the matter, Georgie? what are you crying for?" said the grandfather. "I can't eat another mouthful, grandpa," said Georgie, still blubbering. "Never mind, my boy, never mind, fill your pockets." "They're all full now, grandpa."