WILLIAM C0BBET7'. 103 



brought to a close by an attack of disease of the throat, 

 from which he never recovered. He died 17th June 1835. 

 His writings, which deal with rural life, have been commended 

 as having been widely and practically useful. Besides his 

 political writings, including twenty volumes of Parliamentary 

 Debates^ etc., Cobbett wrote his Cottage Economy, English 

 Grammar^ History of the Protestant Reformation, and Rural 

 Rides, etc. His language, as will be seen from the extracts 

 we have given, is uniformly forcible and vigorous, and, as 

 he himself says, 'his popularity' was owing to his 'giving 

 truth in clear language.' 



The announcement of the death of Cobbett's eldest daughter 

 appeared in the Times of October 26, 1877. She was born 

 in Philadelphia in 1795, where her father was residing. She 

 died at Brompton Crescent, London, in her eighty-second 

 year. In 1810-12, while her father was imprisoned in New- 

 gate for libel, she kept him company, acting as his amanuensis 

 and the custodian of his papers, and writing at his dictation 

 leading articles for his weekly publication. Some of Cobbett's 

 most stirring articles are said to have been sent to press in 

 the handwriting of Miss Cobbett 



Another member of Cobbett's family was M.P. for Old- 

 ham ; and his eldest son, the eccentric William Cobbett, died 

 suddenly on January 12, 1878, in one of the central halls 

 of the Houses of Parliament, whither he had come to furtht;r 

 a measure of litigation. 



