2 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



southdowns folded in the valley for the night, 

 that he would show the greatest enthusiasm. 



Everywhere he looked for prosperity in our 

 fertile land, and if he did not find it he asked 

 the reason why. He not only asked the 

 reason why, but also supplied the answers to 

 his own questions. And he was not content 

 with one answer. In terse, vigorous English 

 prose, which has become a classic in our 

 literature, he would drive his blows home, and 

 he was not afraid to repeat them again and 

 again. 



Invariably well mounted, being a good 

 judge of horseflesh, riding his forty miles a 

 day, he was our typical John Bull in Revolt. 

 Brought up on a farm, he knew what good 

 tillage was, and if the farmer was not putting 

 his hand to the plough as he should, he said 

 so in trenchant language. If it was the fault 

 of Westminster that things were bad in the 

 country, he said so in still more vigorous prose, 

 for members of Parliament and parsons always 

 received the stoutest cudgelling from this 

 literary rustic who became known through- 

 out the Anglo - Saxon speaking world as 

 William Cobbett. 



In an emasculated age, when the law of 



