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BEN BENTHAM, JEREMY. Rationale of Judicial Evidence, spe- cially applied to English practice ; from the MSS. of J. Bentham, By John S. Mill. 5 vols. 8vo. London. 18.37. This is an enlargement of Dumont's edition of Bentham, containing all of the author's vaporing and caustic criticism upon the Ei^glish sys- tem of Evidence. Bentham's ultraisms in relation to most of the sub- jects he has written upon, have had the effect to produce some essential reforms in the law, though very few, from their impracticability, have been adopted in extenso. " We could have wished the present editor had translated the work out of the obscure involuted Benthamee dialect in which it is written. A book more disgustingly affected, and so nearly unintelligible, it is not possible to produce in the English language. It is a vast and most luxuriant forest of disquisition and information; a production which has occupied a powerful, original, and active mind, with little interruption, during a long and studious life." 5 South. Rev. 381. . Fragment on Government, or a Comment on the Commentaries. 8vo. London. 1823. . On Codification and public instruction. 8vo. Lon- don. 1817. . Scotch reform, considered with reference to the plan proposed for the regulation of the Courts, &c. 8vo. London. 1808. . Constitutional Code for the use of all nations and all governments professing liberal opinions, 8vo. London. 1830. . Defence of Usury ; showing the impolicy of the present legal restraints on the terms of pecuniary bargains. 3d ed. 12mo. London. 1818. Usury has in all ages been so generally considered as opprobrious, that an attempt to justify it would seem to run counter to the views of the whole world. The author, however, has very ingeniously defended it, combatting other writers, and the impolicy of legislating upon the subject. He contends that a contract for money should be left open to the good sense of those bargaining for it, like all other contracts. Mr. Bentham was one of the first to attack the policy of the Usury Laws. His little work has often been severely criticised, and among others an able article will be found in 17 A. J. 331. Sir James Mackintosh characterizes the work as " perhaps the best 8 113