72 WILLIAM COBBETT. 



the rooter-up of prejudice. When the man, whose pen has been as 

 a sword, which we believed to be wielded against ourselves, is 

 gone from amongst us, curiosity, if no nobler feeling, will lead us to 

 examine the nature of the weapons which we have heard of, but 

 never seen, the effect of which we may have felt, but have never 

 ascertained their temper. Such will be the consequences of the 

 death of William Cobbett upon some of his productions. 



Neither has Cobbett as yet been fairly estimated by literary 

 critics; they have not fully understood his intellectual qualities. 

 Like the productions of a rich and uncultivated soil, they have 

 sprung up with the beauty and vigour of the wild-flower, but so 

 mingled with weeds, that a polished and schooled mind turned away 

 to things of its own mode of culture. There still remains, therefore, 

 for their examination a wide field, untouched by fair criticism ; and 

 it is a field abounding in beauties, which only require to be known, 

 to be admired. 



John Webster, the dramatist, said finely, that 



" The chiefest action of a man of great spirit 

 Is never to be out of action. We should think, 

 The soul was never put into the body, 

 Which has so many rare and curious pieces 

 Of mathematical motion, to stand still. 

 Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds, 

 In the trenches for the soldier : in the wakeful study 

 For the scholar * * * * of all of which 

 Arise and spring up honour." 



This was one of Cobbett's characteristics : he was never idle ; the 

 effect of which was a freshness of bodily and mental powers, un- 

 known to most men. Year after year, to the latest moment of his 

 life, his faculties were in untiring activity; and the products were 

 full of vitality to the last. His mind retained its vigour and elas- 

 ticity, and threw off its impulses with all the freedom of early life, 

 till a few hours before his death; there was no flagging, no signs of 

 waste, no appearance that the " cruise of oil" was running low : the 

 stream of intellect flowed freely, betraying neither by ebb nor pause 

 that its source was weakened. 



W r ith the exception of Montaigne, the prince of egotists and the 



