offer in
1788; but in 1790 he suddenly took it into his head that Lansdowne had
promised him a seat in parliament; and immediately set forth his claims
in a vast argumentative letter of sixty-one pages.[239] Lansdowne
replied conclusively that he had not made the supposed promise, and had
had every reason to suppose that Bentham preferred retirement to
politics. Bentham accepted the statement frankly, though a short
coolness apparently followed. The claim, in fact, only represented one
of those passing moods to which Bentham was always giving way at odd
moments.

Bentham's intimacy at Bowood led to more important results. In 1788 he
met Romilly and Dumont at Lord Lansdowne's table.[240] He had already
met Romilly in 1784 through Wilson, but after this the intimacy became
close. Romilly had fallen in love with the _Fragment_, and in later
life he became Bentham's adviser in practical matters, and the chief if
not the sole expounder of Bentham's theories in parliament.[241] The
alliance with Dumont was of even greater importance. Dumont, born at
Geneva in 1759, had become a Protestant minister; he was afterwards
tutor to Shelburne's son, and in 1788 visited Paris with Romilly and
made acquaintance with Mirabeau. Romilly showed Dumont some of Bentham's
papers written in French. Dumont offered to rewrite and to superintend
their publication. He afterwards received other papers from Bentham
himself, with whom he became personally acquainted after his return from
Paris.[242] Dumont became Bentham's most devoted disciple, and laboured
unweariedly upon the translation and condensation of his master's
treatise. One result is odd enough. Dumont, it is said, provided
materials for some of Mirabeau's 'most splendid' speeches; and some of
these materials came from Bentham.[243] One would like to see how
Bentham's prose was transmuted into an oratory by Mirabeau. In any case,
Dumont's services to Bentham were invaluable. It is painful to add that
according to Bowring the two became so much alienated in the end, that
in 1827 Bentham refused to see Dumont, and declared that his chief
interpreter did 'not understand a word of his meaning.' Bowring
attributes this separation to a remark made by Dumont about the
shabbiness of Bentham's dinners as compared with those at Lansdowne
House--a comparison which he calls 'offensive, uncalled-for, and
groundless.'[244] Bentham apparently argued that a man who did not like
his dinners could not a