The Spirit of the Age Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social and legislative reformer. He was a major proponent of Utilitarianism, based on the idea of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", which he was the first to systematise, introducing it as the "principle of utility". Hazlitt's link with Bentham was unusual, as Bentham was his landlord and lived close by. Bentham would sometimes take his exercise in his garden, which was visible from Hazlitt's window. The two were not personally acquainted, yet what Hazlitt observed enabled him to interweave personal observations into his account of the older man. Bentham was
George Bentham English botanists. His uncle pushed him to study law at Lincoln's Inn. He was Call to the bar and in 1832 held his first and only legal brief. However, his interest in botany never flagged and he became secretary of the Horticultural Society of London from 1829 to 1840. In 1832, he inherited the property of his uncle, Jeremy Bentham. Having inherited his father's estate the previous year, he was now sufficiently well off to do whatever he wanted, which was botany, jurisprudence and logic. Bentham married Sarah Jones (1798–1881), daughter of Sir Harford Jones Brydges, on 11 April 1833;