ive that Noodle was not so
silly as he seemed.

One other ally of Bentham deserves notice. O'Connell had in 1828, in
speaking of legal abuses, called himself 'an humble disciple of the
immortal Bentham.'[343] Bentham wrote to acknowledge the compliment. He
invited O'Connell to become an inmate of his hermitage at Queen's Square
Place, and O'Connell responded warmly to the letters of his 'revered
master.' Bentham's aversion to Catholicism was as strong as his
objection to Catholic disqualifications, and he took some trouble to
smooth down the difficulties which threatened an alliance between ardent
believers and thoroughgoing sceptics. O'Connell had attacked some who
were politically upon his side. 'Dan, dear child,' says Bentham, 'whom
in imagination I am at this moment pressing to my fond bosom, put off,
if it be possible, your intolerance.'[344] Their friendship, however,
did not suffer from this discord, and their correspondence is in the
same tone till the end. In one of Bentham's letters he speaks of a
contemporary correspondence with another great man, whom he does not
appear to have met personally. He was writing long letters, entreating
the duke of Wellington to eclipse Cromwell by successfully attacking the
lawyers. The duke wrote 'immediate answers in his own hand,' and took
good-humouredly a remonstrance from Bentham upon the duel with Lord
Winchilsea in 1829.[345] Bentham was ready to the end to seek allies in
any quarter. When Lord Sidmouth took office in 1812, Bentham had an
interview with him, and had some hopes of being employed to prepare a
penal code.[346] Although experience had convinced him of the futility
of expectations from the Sidmouths and Eldons, he was always on the look
out for sympathy; and the venerable old man was naturally treated with
respect by people who had little enough of real interest in his
doctrines.

During the last ten years of his life, Bentham was cheered by symptoms
of the triumph of his creed. The approach of the millennium seemed to be
indicated by the gathering of the various forces which carried Roman
Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill. Bentham still received
testimonies of his fame abroad. In 1825 he visited Paris to consult some
physicians. He was received with the respect which the French can always
pay to intellectual eminence.[347] All the lawyers in a court of justice
rose to receive him, and he was placed at the president's right hand. On
the revolution