That he worked early and with
wonderful ability in at least one very deep line, appears from the
fact that while he was still only a lad, Jeremy Bentham intrusted to
him the preparation for the press, and the supplementary annotation,
of his "Rationale of Judicial Evidence." That work, for which he was
highly commended by its author, published in 1827, contains the first
publicly acknowledged literary work of John Stuart Mill.
While he was producing that result of laborious study in a special and
intricate subject, his education in all sorts of other ways was
continued. In evidence of the versatility of his pursuits, the veteran
author of a short and ungenerous memoir that was published in "The
Times" of May the 10th contributes one interesting note. "It is within
our personal knowledge," he says, "that he was an extraordinary youth
when, in 1824, he took the lead at the London Debating Club in one of
the most remarkable collections of 'spirits of the age' that ever
congregated for intellectual gladiatorship, he being by two or three
years the junior of the clique. The rivalry was rather in knowledge
and reasoning than in eloquence, mere declamation was discouraged; and
subjects of paramount importance were conscientiously thought out.
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