sult, and to us the most important, was that the
new attachment led to the composition of one of the worst biographies in
the language, out of materials which might have served for a
masterpiece. Bowring was a great linguist, and an energetic man of
business. He wrote hymns, and one of them, 'In the cross of Christ I
glory,' is said to have 'universal fame.' A Benthamite capable of so
singular an eccentricity judiciously agreed to avoid discussions upon
religious topics with his master. To Bowring we also owe the
_Deontology_, which professes to represent Bentham's dictation. The
Mills repudiated this version, certainly a very poor one, of their
teacher's morality, and held that it represented less Bentham than such
an impression of Bentham as could be stamped upon a muddle-headed
disciple.[335]

The last years of his life brought Bentham into closer connection with
more remarkable men. The Radicals had despised the Whigs as trimmers and
half-hearted reformers, and James Mill expressed this feeling very
frankly in the first numbers of the _Westminster Review_. Reform,
however, was now becoming respectable, and the Whigs were gaining the
courage to take it up seriously. Foremost among the Edinburgh Reviewers
was the great Henry Brougham, whose fame was at this time almost as
great as his ambition could desire, and who considered himself to be the
natural leader of all reform. He had shown eagerness to distinguish
himself in lines fully approved by Bentham. His admirers regarded him
as a giant; and his opponents, if they saw in him a dash of the
charlatan, could not deny his amazing energy and his capacity as an
orator. The insatiable vanity which afterwards ruined his career already
made it doubtful whether he fought for the cause or the glory. But he
was at least an instrument worth having. He was a kind of half-disciple.
If in 1809 he had checked Mill's praise of Bentham, he was soon
afterwards in frequent communication with the master. In July 1812
Bentham announces that Brougham is at last to be admitted to a dinner,
for which he had been 'intriguing any time this six months,' and expects
that his proselyte will soon be the first man in the House of Commons,
and eclipse even Romilly.[336] In later years they had frequent
communications; and when in 1827 Brougham was known to be preparing an
utterance upon law reform, Bentham's hopes rose high. He offered to his
disciple 'some nice little sweet pap of my own making,'