hope had I of being admitted into the
"Field of the Cloth of Gold," or of being allowed to break a lance in
the tournament which was always open there?--and that I continued
writing as an Englishman long after it was known by Blackwood himself,
and by Wilson, that I was not only an American, but a Yankee, and a
Yankee to the backbone, and that the signature I had adopted--"Carter
Holmes"--was not so much a _nom de plume_ as a _nom de guerre_, till I
had got possession of the enemy's battery, and turned the guns upon his
camp.

In personal appearance, in features, and in the habitual expression of
countenance, Mr. Bentham bore an astonishing resemblance to our Dr.
Franklin. He was, to be sure, of a somewhat heavier build, though
shorter by two or three inches, I should say, judging by the bronze
full-length you have in Boston. The prevailing expression was much alike
in both; but there was not so much of constitutional benignity in the
looks of Bentham, nor was he ever so grave and thoughtful as Franklin is
generally represented in his portraitures; but he was fuller of
shrewdness and playfulness,--of downright drollery, indeed,--of boyish
fun,--and, above all, of a warm-hearted, unquestioning sympathy for
everything alive, man or beast, that he called "virtuous," like the
"virtuous deer" and the "affectionate swan": and all this you could see
plainly in the man's countenance, whether at play or in repose.

So great, indeed, was the outward resemblance between these two
extraordinary men,--so much alike in appearance were they, though so
utterly unlike in reality,--that, after Mr. Bentham had passed the age
of threescore-and-five, a bust of Dr. Franklin, by a celebrated French
artist, was bought by Ricardo, at the suggestion of La Fayette, I
believe, and sent to Mr. James Mill for a likeness of Bentham.

"Do you know," said the philosopher to me one day, while talking upon
this very subject, "that Ricardo was my grand-disciple?"

"Your grand-disciple? How so?"

"Why, you see, Mill was my disciple, and Ricardo was his; _ergo_,
Ricardo was my grand-disciple: hey?"

But perhaps you would like to see for yourself the "white-haired Sage of
Queen-Square Place," as Dr. Bowring, now Sir John Bowring, used to call
him,--the "Philosopher,"--the "Hermit,"--the "High Priest of Reform," as
others, like Mr. Canning, the Premier, Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir Francis
Burdett, the two Mills, father and son, Dr. Southwood Smith, the
Aus