DUMONT, Etienne, or Stephen, the friend, and often the Mentor, of Mirabeau, the rédacteur of the principal works of Jeremy Bentham, and one of the most remarkable men of his time, was born in the month of July 1759 at Geneva, of which his family had been citizens of good repute from the days of Calvin. Shortly after his birth his father died, leaving a widow and five children wholly unprovided for. But the good widow, though placed in such destitute circumstances, and supported by little except the courage inspired by maternal affection, found means to educate her children in a place where necessary knowledge was accessible, and poverty not disgraceful. Induced by an anticipation of future eminence, seldom more happily realized, she accordingly contrived to send Stephen to the College of Geneva, where he justified her determination and the sacrifices necessary to carry it into effect, not only by his ability and proficiency, but by the virtuous purpose to which he turned his earliest attainments; for ere long, he not only defrayed the cost of his own education, but even contributed to the support of the family, by assisting the private studies of his comrades in the capacity of répétiteur} an office somewhat resembling that of a private tutor in our academical system, and having for its object to prepare the students for examination in the public class, by “grinding” them on the contents of the preceding lecture. Having completed his academical course, he took clerical orders; and in the year 1781 he was chosen one of the pastors of the city, where his talents as a preacher soon attracted general notice, and gave promise of his becoming one of the most brilliant and persuasive of pulpit orators. But the political troubles which disturbed Geneva in 1782 suddenly turned the course of his life into a different channel.

Two parties of opposite principles, one being attached to the authority of the magistrates, and the other anxious to extend the privileges of the people, but most widely separated as to the extension or limitation of the right of suffrage, had long divided that republic; and the disputes of these parties gained lustre from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the most way ward, moody, and perverse of all the men of genius who have approached the borders of insanity, which, indeed, he appears more than once to have overpassed. The more liberal party received the name of representans, or petitioners, from a representation presented by them against the legality of the proceedings of the magistrates respecting the writings and person of that celebrated but unhappy man; whilst, on the other hand, the magistrates, who refused the prayer of the petition, and their adherents who supported them in this refusal, were thenceforward called the negatives. During twenty years a struggle had been maintained between these parties with various success, but without bloodshed, though certainly not without violence. At length, in the autumn of 1782, when the petitioners had gained the ascendency, the courts of Versailles and Turin, in concert with the canton of Berne, surrounded Geneva with an armed force, and, under pretence of some ancient guarantees, imposed anew constitution on the republic, and at the same time compelled the leaders of the representative party to fly from their country.

Dumont was not included in the proscription. But his heart had been touched with the love of liberty; he could endure chains nowhere patiently, and chains at home, where he was free by birthright, not at all. He therefore became a voluntary exile, and went to join his mother and sisters at St Petersburg, a city to which many Genevese had carried their honourable patrimony of ability and [7:8:265]knowledge. In this he was probably influenced in part by the example of his townsman Lefort, who was the first tutor, minister, and general of the Czar At St Petersburg he became pastor of the French church, an office he filled for eighteen months, during which time he obtained the consideration due to his great merit and excellent character. But his views were directed towards Great Britain, where most of the Genevese exiles had taken refuge, and where some of them were actually employed in negociating with government for permission to establish a Swiss colony in Ireland. He left St Petersburg in 1785; and soon after his arrival in London went to reside with Lord Shelburne, then a minister of state, who confided to him the education of his sons. Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, a man distinguished for his cultivation of the society of men of letters, foreign as well as native, soon discovered the great talents of Dumont, who gradually became a friend, or rather member of the family; and it was at the house of this minister that he became acquainted with some of the most illustrious men of the country, amongst whom may be mentioned Fox, Sheridan, Lord Holland, and Sir Samuel Romilly. His coĥnection with these and other distinguished individuals, founded upon friendship, similarity of opinions and literary occupations, and the pursuit of great objects of public utility, gave them full opportunities of appreciating his worth. He was generally known as a man of profound knowledge, correct judgment, irreproachable character, and brilliant wit, and esteemed for the possession of these high and invaluable qualities, which were exemplified throughout the whole course of his life.

About this time began his close connection with Sir Samuel Romilly, “a man,” says Sir James Mackintosh, “whose whole excellence will be little understood by the world, until they see the narrative traced by himself of those noble labours of self-education, by which he taught himself every sort of ability which is necessary to serve mankind, and still more of that self-discipline by which he at length formed a character yet more exalted than his genius, composed of a probably unparalleled union of tender affection with unbending principle, and producing those dispositions towards the magnanimous and heroic which were hidden from the vulgar by the solemn decorums of a formal profession, and are seldom found to be capable of breathing so long under the undisturbed surface of a well-ordered and prosperous community. The habitual or mechanical part of Romilly’s life was necessarily governed by those of his profession and country. The higher element, however, secretly and constantly blended itself with every thought and feeling; and there were moments when his moral heroism carried the majesty of virtue into the souls of the perplexed and affrighted vulgar.” The friendship which united these two remarkable men increased daily; nor did its ardour or activity cease, until death unexpectedly rent asunder the tie which bound them together, and left Dumont inconsolable for the loss of his departed friend, whom he never mentioned without tears. There was a third in the circle, who is very strikingly described by Sir James Mackintosh.

“Among the closest friends of Romilly and Dumont was George Wilson, a man little known beyond the circle of his friends and that of his contemporaries in the profession of the law, and one whom it would be difficult to make known to others, without the use of that language of vague panegyric, the abuse of which had more lowered it in his own eyes, than even in those of most men of modesty and taste. It might be said by as unaffectedly conscientious a man as himself, if such another there be, that among those who thoroughly knew him, the degree of esteem for him was always considered as exactly indicative of the degree of sagacity and purity of the man who entertained it. Yet even he was not more upright and benevolent than his two friends; though, having less vivacity than the one and less ardour than the other, he was not so liable to be allured by imagination from the rigid observance of the severe maxims of that moral prudence which is the safeguard of virtue. With a keen relish for pleasantry, and perfectly exempt from all gloom and harshness, he yet shunned the amusement of Wilkes’s conversation, solely from deference to morality. When Mirabeau visited England about 1786, Wilson did not follow the example of his friends in cultivating the society of that extraordinary man, whose ill-trained fancies were better adapted to sudden felicities than to composition, and whose conversation was animated by an irregular benevolence, neither smothered by the profligacy of his youth, nor altogether extinguished by the intrigues and corruptions of his latter years.”

In 1788 Dumont undertook a journey to Paris in company with Romilly; and it was under the auspices of the latter that he first became acquainted with Mirabeau. During a sojourn of two months in the French capital, he saw that extraordinary man almost every day; and a certain affinity of talents and pursuits led to an intimate connection between two persons diametrically opposed to each other in habits and in character. It was after his return from Paris that Dumont commenced his acquaintance with Mr Bentham; a circumstance which exercised a powerful influence over his future opinions, and, as it were, fixed his career as a writer on legislation. Filled with admiration for the genius of Bentham, and profoundly impressed with the truth of his theory, and the important consequences to which it immediately led, Dumont applied all his talents to make the writings of the great English jurist generally known, and devoted the greater part of his life in order to render available to the world at large the inexhaustible store of knowledge which the active mind of Bentham was continually increasing. We may mention here, that the following works are the result of that confraternity of genius, talents, and labour, which was thus established, viz. Treatises on Legislation, published in 1822, in 3 vols. 8vo, now (1833) in the third edition; Theory of Punishments and Rewards, 2 vols. 8vo, also in the third edition; Tactics of Legislative Assemblies, two editions, 1815 and 1822; Judicial Evidence, published in 1823, second edition 1830; and Judicial Organization and Codification, 1828, 8vo. Of course we make no mention here of the numerous editions published in foreign countries.

In the summer of 1789, that season of promise and of hope, especially to a Genevese exile, Dumont suspended his labours in England in order to proceed to Paris along with his friend Duroverai, ex-attorney-general of the republic of Geneva. The object of the journey was to obtain through Μ. Necker, who had just returned to office, and by means of the events which were then passing in France, an unrestricted restoration of Genevese liberty, by cancelling the treaty of guarantee between France and Switzerland, which prevented the republic from enacting new laws without the consent of the parties to this treaty. The proceedings and negociations to which this mission gave rise, necessarily brought Dumont into connection with most of the leading men in the Constituent Assembly, and made him an interested spectator, sometimes even a participator, indirectly, in the events of the French revolution. The same cause also led him to renew his acquaintance with Mirabeau, whom he found occupied with his duties as a deputy, and with the composition of his journal, the Courrier de Provence, in which he was assisted by Duroverai, Claviĕre, and other Genevese patriots. For a time Dumont[7:8:266] took an active and very efficient part in the conduct of this journal, supplying it with reports as well as original articles, and also furnishing Mirabeau with speeches to be delivered or rather read in the assembly. This is now completely established by his highly instructive and interesting posthumous work entitled Recollections of Mirabeau. In fact, his friend George Wilson used to relate, that one day, when they were dining together at a table d’hôte at Versailles, he saw Dumont engaged in writing the most celebrated paragraph of Mirabeau’s address to the king for the removal of the troops, which was believed to have been written by the orator himself. He also reported such of Mirabeau’s speeches as he did not write, and, with a disinterested sacrifice of his own reputation to the diffusion of what he considered as truth, embellished and strengthened them from his own stores, which were inexhaustible. But this co-operation, so valuable for Mirabeau, arid so self-devoted on the part of Dumont, was destined soon to come to an end; for, being attacked in pamphlets as one of Mirabeau’s writers, he felt hurt at the notoriety thus given to his name in connection with a man occupying Mirabeau’s peculiar position, and resolved to return to England, which he accordingly did in 179L The reputation of being a subaltern writer was, as he himself states, by no means flattering; and the credit of an influential connection with a man whose character was far from being untainted alarmed his delicacy. He saw that he had no alternative but to put an end to a copartnership of which Mirabeau was certain to reap all the advantage, whilst the odium or discredit would alone fall to the lot of Mirabeau’s associate; and he acted upon this conviction with a promptitude and decision worthy of his character.

In the eventful years which followed he continued to live chiefly at Lansdowne House, or at Bowood, where the most remarkable men of Europe as well as of Britain were frequent and welcome guests. Latterly, he began to form an intimate friendship with Lord Holland, whom he had known from childhood; and he became a member of the society of familiar friends, the habitual visitors at Holland House, who, during many years, saw a succession of celebrated guests of every country, party, religion, and of every liberal profession or station, which is likely to continue unmatched until another house be found that boasts such a master. “His mind was at that time in a most perfectly mature state, with much experience of very memorable events, and familiar intercourse with the most eminent men,” besides an abundant store of amusing and striking anecdotes. “He had entirely subdued the popular and declamatory propensities which characterize youthful genius, yet without being in the least degree withdrawn from the love of letters and the delights of society by those scientific pursuits which occupied a subsequent period.” In 1801 he travelled over various parts of Europe with Lord Henry Petty, now Marquis of Lansdowne, and brought back a fresher acquaintance with the mental occupations of the continental nations, from whom England had for years been separated by a wider and deeper channel than that formed by the hand of nature. But Dumont had then opened a new course of more serious occupations.

“In 1801 he published the Traites de Legislation ; the first fruits of his zealous labours to give order, clearness, and vivacity, to the profound and original meditations of Bentham, hitherto praised only by a very few patient readers, and but little better known, even by name, to the English than to the European public. The extraordinary merit of these writings, manuscript and printed, chiefly .attracted his mind towards them; inferior circumstances, however, contributed their part to the fervour with which lie devoted himself to them. Trained in the hasty and shallow philosophy which then reigned, metaphysical principles were a novelty, in the contemplation of which he was too agreeably employed to examine the solidity of the foundation on which they rested. Wearied with the common-places of philanthropic declamation, which passed for philosophy, he ran with eagerness into the opposite extreme of new terms, dry definitions, and simple principles. The method of Bentham is undoubtedly a powerful instrument for the discovery of truth, especially in the juridical part of moral science. It is, however, a method which may become more than mischievous, by the very circumstance of its apparent perfection.

“Supposing every other objection to that system to be answered, it will still be evident that the value of its application in every particular instance must be in proportion to the exactness and completeness with which every circumstance is enumerated that can affect the determination of the question. But the enumeration is not complete, merely because the names of all such circumstances are enumerated. It is not thus that the philosopher proceeds in those sciences where the success is uncontested. He calculates the degree of every force that acts on a body; he ascertains the proportion of every element which goes to make up a compound; and an error in either of these respects is, in truth and effect, a want of exact and complete enumeration, which may lead to the most false results. Such mistakes in the physical sciences are easily detected. In the moral sciences it is extremely easy to seem to form a complete theory by such general and vague inductions, because the means of quick and palpable detection are wanting. Wherever analysis is really exhaustive, it is the most perfect of instruments; but where it only reaches a semblance of exactness, it produces or perpetuates error in the exact proportion of its seeming approach to truth. There is no remedy against this dangerous distemper but the habit of never forgetting that, in each case, the main question always must be, ‘ How much of each enumerated cause is likely to act in the instance before me ?’ No show of accuracy, no superiority of method, can dispense with this question, or enable any man to answer it otherwise than by approximation. But with these high and arduous matters we must not deal more largely in this place. The talent with which Μ. Dumont performed his task is as generally acknowledged as the perfect disinterestedness which led him to employ so much talent in expounding the opinionsand enlivening the reasoning of others. It is due to him to say, that he always considered the system as a model, to be always consulted and approached, but never imposed without a cautious regard to circumstances. It must also be observed. that however entirely he adopted the speculations, delighted in the method, and even acquiesced in the language of Bentham, that for which he really felt a warm zeal, and consecrated the labour of his life, was the practical establishment of that grand reformation of law, which owes indeed much to the writings of Bentham, and to the discussions which they daily contribute to spread and keep up, but which, so far from being peculiar to him, is zealously supported by those who dissent from his moral theories, and was common to him, at least in that more obvious part of it which relates to criminal law, with the philosophers of the eighteenth century, who pursued the same object, though with less distinctness of view, less precision of language, and less knowledge of the abuses to be reformed. The mind of Dumont moved onward with that of the reformers of jurisprudence throughout Europe. He does not needlessly question the singularities of his venerable master; but his attachment was to the main stock of reforming principle. Those who knew him need not be reminded, that if his principles have any [7:8:267]tendency to a cold and low morality, they were in that respect altogether defeated by the nature of Dumont; a man of the utmost simplicity and frankness, of a most unusually affectionate and generous disposition. A man of so much letters and wit could not have worked into his practical nature any indifference to art and accomplishment, to real learning, or to the only eloquence which deserves the name.”

In 1814 the restoration of Geneva to independence induced Dumont to return to his native place, which he loved with that fervour which can only be felt by the citizen of a small republic. He was immediately chosen a member of the supreme council, and by conciliating opponents, moderating partizans, and gaining the confidence and respect of all, he became in time its chief leader and ornament, as he would have been in more conspicuous and powerful assemblies. At the time of his death he had completed a code of law, which, as chairman of a committee appointed for that purpose, it would have been his duty to present to the supreme council on its assembling after its vacation; but at the moment when he was thus about to engrave his name on the annals of his beloved country, and to honour her, by rendering her, as he hoped, an example to Europe, he was cut off in the full vigour of his faculties, and on the cve of their most conspicuous exertion. In the autumn of 1829 he undertook a tour of pleasure, or rather of relaxation, to the north of Italy, in company with one of his friends, M. Bellamy Aubert; and his family were impatiently expecting his. return when they received the tidings of his death. He died at Milan, in October 1829, in the seventy-first year of his age.

Dumont was wholly untainted by political or philosophical bigotry, which has corrupted so many of those who inveigh against every form of that vice. His friends at Geneva, at Paris, or in London, were very far from sharing his peculiar opinions. Surrounded by fifty-three nephews or nieces in the first or second degree, the issue or progeny of three sisters, he treated them with a patriarchal tenderness very foreign from the scorn of some Epicureans for “the charities of father, son, and brother.” In his will he leaves legacies to all; touchingly assuring them that they must not measure his kindness by his bequests. In every instance of the youngest child, he seems, with the most affectionate solicitude, to have weighed the needs and desires of each, and to have considered all their little claims as worthy of conscientious consideration. His will, which is dated in May 1826, opens with an acknowledgment worthy of him. “I begin this testamentary disposition by an act of gratitude towards God, for having blessed me with a peaceable and independent life, which has owed its chief happiness to the charm of study and the enjoyments of friendship.” Such was Dumont, a pattern of wisdom and goodness, the like of which it is seldom indeed given us to contemplate, in the ordinary course of this rude and selfish world. (Notice of Μ. Dumont by Sir James Mackintosh, Foreign Quarterly Review, No. ix.; Recollections of Mirabeau, preface; Bibliothèque Universelle, November 1829; Revχιe Encyclopédique, vol. xiv. p. 258.) (a.) Dumont, John, a well-known publicist, was born in France in the seventeenth century. He followed the profession of arms, but not obtaining promotion so rapidly as he expected, he quitted the service, and travelled through different parts of Europe. He stopped in Holland with the intention of there publishing an account of his travels. But in the interval, at the request of his bookseller, he wrote and published several pamphlets, which were eagerly sought after, by reason of the unceremonious manner in which he treated the ministry of France. This freedom having deprived him of all hope of employment in his own coun. try, he now thought of forming a permanent establishment in that where he resided; and the knowledge which he had already acquired of the relations and interests of different nations having led him to entertain the idea of opening a course of lectures on public law, he lost no time in carrying it into effect. The project succeeded far beyond his expectations; and some useful compilations which he published about the same period made him favourably known, in foreign countries. The emperor of Germany appointed him his historiographer, and some time afterwards conferred on him the title of Baron de Carlscroun. He died at Vienna in 1726, at an advanced age. Dumont wrote with facility, but his style is deficient in vigour and correctness; nevertheless, his. works are esteemed as containing a great number of documents valuable for history. The following is a list of the works published by Dumont: 1. Nouveau Voyage au Levant, Hague, 1694, reprinted under the title of Voyages en France, en Italie, en Allemagne, a Malte et en Turquie, Hague, 1699, 4 vols. 12mo; 2. Mémoires Politiques pour servir a la parfaite intelligence de l’ Histoire de la Paix de Ryswich, Hague, 1699, 4 vols. 12mo; 3. Mémoires sur la Guerre présente (1700), Hague, 1703, 12mo, reprinted under the title of Recherches modestes des Causes de la présente Guerre, en ce qui concerne les Provinces Unies, 1713, 12mo; 4. Recueil de Traités d’alliance, de paix, et de commerce entre les Rois, Princes, et Etats, depuis la paix de Munster, Amsterdam, 1710, 2 vols. 12mo; 5. Soupirs de l’Europe a la vue du projet de paix contenu dans la harangue de la reine de la Grande-Bretagne, 1712, 12mo; 6. Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, contenant un Recueil des Traités de paix, d’alliance, etc. faits en Europe, depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à présent, Amsterdam, 1626, and following years, 8 vols. fol. continued after Dumont’s death by J. Rousset; and 7. Battailles gagnées par le Prince Eugene de Savoic, Hague, 1723. To the Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens ought to be subjoined, 1. L’ Histoire des anciens Traites jusqu a Charlemagne, by Barbeyrac, 1739, in 2 vols. folio; 2. Supplement au Corps Diplomatique, avec le ceremonial des Cours de l’Europe, collected by Dumont, and arranged by Rousset, 1739, in 3 vols. fol.; 3. Histoire des Traites de Paix du dix-septieme Siècle, by St Priest, 1725, in 4 vols. folio. Dumont was also the author of Lettres Historiques contenant ce qui se passe de plus important en Europe, 12mo. This periodical, which was commenced in 1692,. and two volumes of which appeared annually, Dumont conducted till 1710, from which time it was continued by Basnage, with the aid of several collaborateurs, until 1728. The earlier volumes are much esteemed. (a.)