Leslie Stephen

The English Utilitarians, Volume II Leslie Stephen

Book ExcerptReview, as I have said, had taken a condescending notice of Bentham in 1804. Mill tried to introduce a better tone into an article upon Bexon's Code de la Législation pénale, which he was permitted to publish in the number for October 1809. Knowing Jeffrey's 'dislike of praise, ' he tried to be on his guard, and to insinuate his master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm. Jeffrey, however, sadly mangled the review, struck out every mention but one of Bentham, and there substituted words of his own for Mill's. Even as it was, Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.[7] Mill continued to write for a time, partly, no doubt, with a view to Jeffrey's cheques. Almost his last article (in January 1813) was devoted to the Lancasterian controversy, in which Mill, as we shall directly see, was in alliance with the Whigs. But the Edinburgh Reviewers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial company for a determined Radical. They would give hi