17 SEPTEMBER 1864, Page 23

Theory of Legislation. By Jeremy Bentham, translated from the French

of Stephen Dumont. By R. Hildroth. ( rrubnor and Co.)—By those who cannot read M. Dumont's treatise in the original this trans- anion is to be welcomed, but it loses immensely by the process, for Dumont's style was just as good as Bentham's was bad. Mr. Hildreth's. version is rather passively than actively meritorious. He constantly uses words which are French not English, nor has his style in the least the idiomatic savour of our native tongue. It is certainly a curious freak of fate which has ordained that one of the boldest thinkers of our country should only become intelligible to an Englishman who speaks no language beside his own, after being used as raw material by a French litterrateur and then translated back again into English.