L

WILLIAM COBBETT.

ATE in the evening of the 18th of June, 1837, and during a somewhat drowsy debate, a rumour suddenly circulated amongst the members of the House of Commons, which appeared to excite considerable interest, judging from the buzz of exclamation and comment that immediately arose, partially extinguishing the oratory of the honourable gentleman on his legs, and only stilled after repeated calls to order by Mr. Speaker. Presently some dozen members from both sides of the House, amongst whom were Sir J. Graham and Mr. O'Connell, left their seats and came below the bar, where they for a few moments conversed in tones sufficiently loud to enable the occupants of the Speaker's gallery to catch a few stray sentences, such as "I didn't know he was seriously ill." "A remarkable man." "Great power of invective." "Upwards of seventy, I should say ;" and so on. The excitement, such as it was, did not long endure; the House soon calmed down to its ordinary business aspect, the members below the bar resumed their places, and the debate proceeded. After a while the door-keeper of the gallery, who had been eagerly questioned, reported that Cobbett, the member for Oldham, was dead! And this sudden termination of the stormy eventful career of a man who, by sheer force of a vigorous intellect, had been during the prime years of a long life a power in the State, elicited in the assembly against which his heaviest blows had been directed, and wherein he had at last conquered a seat, no more than the slight passing emotion just described! Vanity of vanities! all is vanity! and especially that of self-seeking, ambitious politicians! William Cobbett had compassed the great object of his life, a seat in Parliament, to feel not only that it had been too late achieved for any useful purpose within his ability to accomplish; but, spite of the suggestions of an audacious egotism, that in the noon of his

mental and bodily vigour he would have been no match, in that arena, for the Grahams, Palmerstons, Peels, he had for so long, and with such facility, annihilated once, or oftener in each week-upon paper;—a faculty largely shared, by the way, by a numerous class of writers, hardly equal, one may venture to say, in ability to William Cobbett. This singularly-gifted man has now been dead but about thirty years, and already the dust of oblivion has gathered thickly over writings which he himself, echoed by thousands of his countrymen, proclaimed to be instinct with wisdom,-immortal as truth: a ludicrous misapprehension it is now seen, and foretold, I think with sufficient clearness, in his youth-history. The reader shall judge.

William Cobbett was born near Farnham, Surrey, on the 9th of March, 1766, at a small cottage on the border of the Wey,-now or lately the "Jolly Farmers" public-house. His father was a small tenant farmer, who managed, by dint of unremitting labour and close economy, to keep the wolf from his door, and give his children such education as a cheap dame's school and his own evening teachings could supply, in the way of reading, writing, and arithmetic; studies wherein his son William would have made swifter progress than he did, but for his early fondness for out-of-door country pastimes and pursuits. Mr. Cobbett in some degree resembled his son in the antagonistic vindictive wilfulness of temperature and disposition, by which the latter was unhappily distinguished in after-life, ever prompting him to hurtle with the insolence of success in whatever guise it crossed his path, whether that of a triumphant republic, or the intellect or wealth-created aristocracy of his own country. The lad was in his tenth year only when the sometime smouldering disputes between the English States of America and the mother country burst into flame; and of course the great mass of the British people sided with the British Government. Not so Cobbett senior, who persisted that the revolt of the colonists was not only justifiable, but worthy of all admiration,-heroic; and he would never permit success to the King's troops to be drunk in his house, not even when in the flush of argumentative victory, and after a hearty draught in recompense of his own triumphant eloquence, he handed the halfemptied ale-mug to his discomfited opponent, a Scotch gardener, in service close by, who used frequently to drop in of an evening, to champion the royal cause, for the pleasure of being mercilessly floored by the sturdy advocate of the States, and of tasting the victor's home-brewed ale. William Cobbett was sometimes taken by his father to the great sheep fair at Weyhill, and upon one of these occasions it happened that just as they were seated at the farmers' dinner, a Gazette Extraordinary, containing intelligence of the capture of Long Island by the King's forces, was brought into the room and read aloud by the chairman, amidst the uproarious hurrahs of the company, with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who indignantly withdrew with his son, and one or two guests of Whig politics, to another room, where the health of General Washington, and success to the American arms, was drunk with rival enthusiasm. It thus happened that in young Cobbett's home-world, the cause of the colonists was in the ascendant, and the boy's pugnacious

antagonism led him, by natural sequence, not so much to sympathize with the discomfited Scotchman and the royalist side, as to silently oppose himself to the always victorious debater-and exercise his mind by unspoken argumentation, that would, he flattered himself, have thoroughly turned the tables against his father, had he dared to give them utterance. Early developed too, under other aspects, was the sorely sensitive self-esteem to which his mature life chiefly owed its strength and weakness-its passing triumphs and ultimate defeat. He greatly delighted in fox-hunting, that is, he was always, if possible, present at the meet of the hounds, watched eagerly for Reynard's breaking cover, and, as much as a swift runner might, participated, at favourable opportunities, in the hunt. One day that he was thus amusing himself, a gentleman accused him of having misled the huntsman by false information, and cut him brutally over the head and shoulders with his riding-whip. The boy neither cried nor asked for mercy, but it was ill-hunting in that neighbourhood for a long time afterwards. Young Cobbett would walk or run miles to traverse the scent with a red herring, fastened beneath his trousers and trailing on the ground; and the fierce joy he felt at seeing the pack thrown out, to the bitter annoyance of the enthusiastic fox-hunter who had causelessly assaulted him, gave warmth and graphic force to his recital of the circumstance fifty years after its occurrence. William Cobbett's indignation was, however, rarely kindled against the country gentry,-meaning thereby ancient country gentry. True, they were far above him in the social scale, but then, unlike many of the objects of his immitigable rancour,— "crucifying Jews,"-"unbaptized, buttonless Quakers," rag rooks" (bankers), and "cotton lords," they had not, starting from about the same point as himself, passed him in the race of life.

Fond as William Cobbett was of the country, its sports and occupa tions, his impatient, mounting spirit, as he grew in years, fretted to escape from the obscure drudgery of a farm-labourer; and a visit he paid to a relative near Portsmouth, when in his sixteenth year, increased his desire to mingle with the busy, enterprising world, to a passion. The sea, and especially the fleet at Spithead,-the visible embodiment and illustration of the glorious naval traditions with which the very air of England, in its most secluded inland spots, is vocal,-greatly excited his imagination; and he forthwith took boat for the "Pegasus" man-ofwar, and earnestly requested Captain Berkley, her commander, to enter his name in the ship's books. Captain Berkley considerately counselled the raw country lad to reflect well upon the irrevocable step he wished to take, assuring him, at the same time, with a look and emphasis which made the applicant's smooth cheeks burn with blushes, that "he had better be tied to a girl he did not like than to Miss Roper,"-a cant name at that time for the sea service. William Cobbett stammered out that it was not about a girl he had left, or was desirous of leaving home; but the Captain was not to be moved, and an application to Port Admiral Evans meeting with the like ill-success, the rustic candidate for naval glory, perforce, returned to the plough. Not, however, for long. He had promised to escort three girls to Guildford fair, and had been for some time awaiting them at a turn of the turnpike-road, dressed in

his Sunday clothes, and with all the money he possessed in the world, about a pound in silver in his pocket, when the London stage came up, was swiftly passing; the lad, yielding to the sudden temptation, hailed the coachman, there was a vacant place outside, and in another minute William Cobbett was on his way to the metropolis. Travelling was slow and costly in those days, and when he alighted, late next morning, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill, all the coin remaining to him was one solitary half-crown! He had, fortunately, interested a fellowpassenger-a hop-merchant of Southwark,-who having, by dint of much questioning, ascertained the destitute and unhoused condition of the lad, earnestly persuaded him to return home, and offered to defray the necessary charges of his doing so. William Cobbett would not return, come what might, to be mocked at as he would be for a discontented, faint-hearted fool, unfit alike for the world he pined for, and that from which he had pretended boldly to break loose from! Unable to subdue the lad's obstinacy, the pitying hop-merchant took him to his own home, and, ere many days had passed, procured him a situation as copying clerk to an attorney of the name of Edmonds. "A miserable exchange," soon began mentally to murmur the headstrong truant. "A miserable exchange-this dingy dog-hole, where one must often light candles in mid-day, and that ugly, ferocious old laundress, for green fields, leafy, chirruping woods, and the young rosy lasses I was to have beau'd to the fair, when I ran off in chase of this accursed fortune. But go back I won't; I'll die first." He did not swerve in determination, and eight weary months were passed at that painful drudgery,-the more so to him that he did not write a free hand, and from his lack of skill in spelling had to copy letter by letter. He was at last enabled to escape from one species of thraldom to a worse. Taking his usual Sunday walk in St. James's Park, he was attracted by a large placard, calling the attention of young men of enterprise and mettle to the fortunate chance just then offered them of acquiring honour, glory, and a settled position in life, by enlisting in the distinguished corps of Royal Marines at Chatham. Young Cobbett's sea predilections instantly revived in his mind, and that Sunday night was the last he slept at the dingy chambers of the law-scrivener.

The next day he slipped quietly off to Chatham, met with a sympathizing serjeant, to whom he imparted his desire to enlist in the Royal Marines, took the king's shilling, and found he had enlisted in the 54th Regiment of Foot; a captain whereof, observing, as he was pleased to say, that the young recruit was a smart fellow for his age, warmly congratulated him upon his escape from the clutches of those amphibious Marines to the distinguished ranks of the 54th, wherein, if he was desirous of glory, he would be sure of enough to satisfy the ambition of half a dozen reasonable young men. There was no help for it; William Cobbett entered upon his soldier-duties with alacrity, and, thanks to the slight education he had received, he was soon advanced to the rank of corporal. The regiment remained about a twelvemonth at Chatham, whence it embarked for Nova Scotia, and after no great delay was permanently barracked in New Brunswick. From the day of his enlistment, at which time he was little more than seventeen, William

Cobbett devoted every hour he could spare to the perfect acquirement of those branches of educational learning, which he deemed essential or important-namely, writing, reading, orthography, grammar, and the French language. His progress was rapid, and though he could never converse with ease or fluency in the French tongue, he thoroughly suc ceeded in acquiring a bookish mastery of that language. He was very temperate in his habits, rose rapidly to the rank of serjeant-major, and was so good an economist, that in five years he had saved one hundred and fifty guineas,-of which more anon,-the produce chiefly of clerkwork performed for the quarter-master and pay-sergeants. It was in New Brunswick that he met with the future Mrs. Cobbett, the young and pretty daughter of a sergeant-major of Artillery, quartered at no great distance from the 54th. A reserved, but no doubt quite intelligible wooing ensued, till a sight of the maiden very early one bitterly cold winter morning, surprised the enraptured lover into an immediate and open avowal of his affection. He had risen earlier than usual, and although the snow lay deep upon the ground, set off upon some errand connected with his military duties, by a path which led past the Artillery barracks. The outer door of the sergeant-major's quarters was open, and by the light which streamed forth upon the cold, dark night, William Cobbett descried the damsel of his thoughts in the act of scrubbing out a washing tub! "That's the girl for me!" exclaimed the delighted young man, and the betrothment of the pair was from that hour an acknowledged fact; but not, it was at the same time clearly understood, to be followed by marriage till the aspiring bridegroom-elect was no longer subject "to the hectoring voice of command," but free to push his way through the world by the energy of an intellect which its possessor already believed to be equal, if not superior, to that of any other man of woman born. Had his mental horizon been extended by ever so slight an acquaintance with the classic writings of his own or of other countries, bringing within his range of vision a few only of the intellectual giants of the past, that fatal vanity might perhaps have been rebuked, and subdued to a more correct and modest appreciation of himself; but those were studies for which through life he ever manifested an absurd contempt. The power of expressing himself in vigorous, idiomatic English was with him the be-all and the end-all of essential educational accomplishment, notwithstanding that he condescended to teach himself French, it being, as we all know, one of the amusing insanities of his ripe age, that a nation which did not speak English could hardly be expected to make a great figure in the world, and was after all entitled to very slight respect. The English sailor who could not, for the life of him, comprehend how the service could be carried on in a ship where they called a foremast a “mât de devant," was, in that particular, scarcely a caricature of William Cobbett.

The contracted couple were soon afterwards separated. The artillery was ordered home, and it was probable the 54th regiment would remain some years longer in British America. William Cobbett had parted with his promised wife, and though the last person in the world to indulge in mawkish sentimentality, he was disturbed and annoyed by the thought that, upon arriving in England, she would be