lded into a solid 'ring.' The
king, and his ministers who distributed places and pensions; the
borough-mongers who sold votes for power; the clergy who looked for
bishoprics; the monied men who aspired to rank and power, were all parts
of a league. It was easy enough to talk of law reform. Romilly had
proposed and even carried a 'reformatiuncle' or two;[433] but to achieve
a serious success required not victory in a skirmish or two, not the
exposure of some abuse too palpable to be openly defended even by an
Eldon, but a prolonged war against an organised army fortified and
entrenched in the very heart of the country.

NOTES:

[415] _Works_, iii. 267.

[416] _Ibid._ x. 569

[417] _Autobiography_, p. 116.

[418] The subject is again treated in Book v. on 'Circumstantial
Evidence.'

[419] _Works_, vi. 204.

[420] _Works_, vii. 391.

[421] _Works_, vii. 321-25. Court-martials are hardly a happy example
now.

[422] 'Truth _v._ Ashhurst' (1792), _Works_, v. 235.

[423] _Works_ ('Codification Petition'), v. 442.

[424] _Ibid._ vi. 11.

[425] _Ibid._ v. 92.

[426] _Works_, vii. 204, 331; ix. 143.

[427] _Ibid._ vii. 214.

[428] _Ibid._ v. 349.

[429] _Ibid._ v. 364.

[430] _Works_, v. 371.

[431] _Ibid._ v. 375.

[432] _Ibid._ vii. 188.

[433] _Ibid._ v. 370.

VI. RADICALISM

Thus Bentham, as his eyes were opened, became a Radical. The political
purpose became dominant, although we always see that the legal abuses
are uppermost in his mind; and that what he really seeks is a fulcrum
for the machinery which is to overthrow Lord Eldon. Some of the
pamphlets deal directly with the special instruments of corruption. The
_Elements of the Art of Packing_ shows how the crown managed to have a
permanent body of special 'jurors' at its disposal. The 'grand and
paramount use'[434] of this system was to crush the liberty of the
press. The obscure law of libel, worked by judges in the interest of the
government, enabled them to punish any rash Radical for 'hurting the
feelings' of the ruling classes, and to evade responsibility by help of
a 'covertly pensioned' and servile jury. The pamphlet, though tiresomely
minute and long-winded, contained too much pointed truth to be published
at the time. The _Official Aptitude minimised_ contains a series of
attacks upon the system of patronage and pensions by which the machinery
of government was practically worked. In the _Catechism_ of reformers,
written in 18