the burning of Moscow and the peace of 1814 the young family translated from a Russian paper, for a London magazine, a series of articles on the war. Young George, an enthusiastic boy glorying in the downfall of Napoleon, was presented by his father to the Czar on his visit to Portsmouth dockyard. The Benthams now commenced their prolonged residence in France (1814-27), and Bentham's journals while in Paris are full of interest. Young as he was, he appeared in the brilliant company which his parents received, and enjoyed the society ot Walter Savage Landor, Talleyrand, and Humboldt, the latter warmly aiding him in studying physical geography, on the data of which the youth had already begun to write. In 1816 a very extensive caravan tour of France by the family proved the occasion of Bentham^s first botanical study. At Angouléme he accidentally picked up a copy of De Candolle's 'Flore Française,' then just published, which his mother, a plant lover and a friend of Alton of Kew, had bought. He was struck with its analytical tables, which exactly suited the ideas he had learned from his uncle Jeremy, and which he himself was applying to geography. Going at once into the back yard of the house, and gathering the first plant he saw, he spent a morning over it, and succeeded in assigning it to its right species, a difficult task for a beginner, as the plant happened to be 'Salvia pratensis.' Bentham thereafter took to making out the name and systematic position of every plant he met with.
At Montauban, near Toulouse, the family remained some months, and Bentham was entered as a student of the faculty of theology at Montauban, studying mathematics, Hebrew, and philology, as well as music (of which he was passionately fond), drawing, and botany. Dancing was his most absorbing recreation. De Candolle's 'Theory of Botany ' and other works opened his mind to scientific botany, and he studied exotic plants to a considerable extent. About 1820 shooting and stuffing birds became favourite pursuits of his. At the same period John Stuart Mill joined the Benthams for seven or eight months, and Bentham for a time became once more absorbed in philosophy: Insects were the next study, and insect life was systematicallv tabulated.
Bentham next appears as manager of his father's estate of 2,000 acres near Montpellier, his elder brother having died in 1816. By his method, application, and knowledge of French country life, the young man rapidly improved the estate, but continued to study logic, translating into French his uncle's chapters on nomenclature and clasaification from the 'Chrestomathia,' and amplifying considerably the portions relating to the arts and sciences. This waa publisbed in Paris in 1828, and established his position in France as an acute analyser, clear expositor, and cautious reasoner. His holidays were spent in botanical excursions to the Pyrenees and the Cevennes, and in 1825 an extended journey with Dr. Arnott (afterwards professor of botany at Glasgow) led to Bentham's first botanical work, 'Catalogue des Plantes indigènes des Pyrénées et de Bas-Languedoc, avec aes notes et observations,' Paris, 1826. In this work special stress was laid on the verification of original type-specimens described by authors, then too much neglected. He deprecated the extreme multiplication of badly defined species, and protested against the loose way of naming and describing plants then current. Moreover he noted the variability and intricacy of the characters assigned to species, and insisted on the impropriety of giving separate names to accidental or minor variations.
Induced by his uncle's proposals for joint work, by the attractions of English society, and by the difficulties thrown in the way of improving the French estate by provincial jeslousies, Bentham finally left France in 1826. His uncle persuaded him to give much time to aiding him, but he also studied at Lincoln's Inn. The arrangement lasted till the uncle's death in 1832, but the nephew, from various causes, received much less than he should have done under his uncle's will. Labour with and for his uncle proved irksome and uncongenial ; incessant toil was also demanded of him in connection with his father's voluminous writings on the navy and dockyards. His law studies were sacrificed, and partly on this account, as well as through nervousness, his practice was a failure. Nevertheless, in 1827, he produced 'Outlines of a New System of Logic,' largely in the form of a criticism of Whately's 'Logic' In this remarkable book the doctrine of the quantification of the predicate was for the first time clearly set forth ; but unfortunately the publishers became bankrupt, and the stock went for waste paper when only sixty copies had been sold. It was not till 1850 (Athenæeum 21 Dec.) that the fact of its containing the above discovery was recognised. Sir William Hamilton's claims to it having been supposed indubitable ; but Professor Stanley Jevons, following Herbert Spencer (Contemporary Review, May 1873), gives a decided verdict in favour of Bentham's originality, and terms it the most fruitful discovery in abstract logical science
