includes every thing; but it includes every thing alike. It is rather
like an inventory, than a valuation of different arguments. Every
possible suggestion finds a place, so that the mind is distracted as
much as enlightened by this perplexing accuracy. The exceptions seem
as important as the rule. By attending to the minute, we overlook the
great; and in summing up an account, it will not do merely to insist on
the number of items without considering their amount. Our author's
page presents a very nicely dove-tailed mosaic pavement of legal
common-places. We slip and slide over its even surface without being
arrested any where. Or his view of the human mind resembles a map,
rather than a picture: the outline, the disposition is correct, but it
wants colouring and relief. There is a technicality of manner, which
renders his writings of more value to the professional inquirer than
to the general reader. Again, his style is unpopular, not to say
unintelligible. He writes a language of his own, that _darkens
knowledge_. His works have been translated into French--they ought to
be translated into English. People wonder that Mr. Bentham has not been
prosecuted for the boldness and severity of some of his invectives. He
might wrap up high treason in one of his inextricable periods, and
it would never find its way into Westminster-Hall. He is a kind of
Manuscript author--he writes a cypher-hand, which the vulgar have no key
to. The construction of his sentences is a curious framework with pegs
and hooks to hang his thoughts upon, for his own use and guidance,
but almost out of the reach of every body else. It is a barbarous
philosophical jargon, with all the repetitions, parentheses,
formalities, uncouth nomenclature and verbiage of law-Latin; and what
makes it worse, it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal of
acuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad to pick out if you
could. In short, Mr. Bentham writes as if he was allowed but a single
sentence to express his whole view of a subject in, and as if, should he