CHAPTER XXI. 



COBBETT AND MILL. 



Some biographies are in themselves fragments of general 

 history. Such, we think, will be a short account of the 

 words and actions of Cobbett and Mill, extending as they do 

 over that period of the nineteenth century with which we are 

 now dealing, and representing a view of our subject entirely 

 opposite to that which the writings of Young and Caird have 

 afforded. 



No two characters could have been less alike than those we 

 are now about to discuss. No two men exercised a more baneful 

 influence on the position of the landed proprietor than Cobbett, 

 the son of a Hampshire peasant, and Mill, the descendant of a 

 Scotch shoemaker. Lastly, no two individuals could have set 

 about their self-appointed tasks under more diverse circum- 

 stances than the lads, one of whom at the age of fourteen was 

 a skilful ploughboy, and the other an accomplished scholar.^ 



Cobbett's characteristics were principally inherited. He 

 possessed many of the virtues, most of the failings, but none 

 of the vices of his class. Like his former comrades in the ranks 

 he was dogged, fierce, coarse, and faithful. Throughout his 

 existence in America he never forgot that he was a native of 

 Old England, and when he returned home he did not allow 

 the fact that he had been born a peasant to remain long con- 

 cealed. He was proud of the little thatched cottage of his boy- 

 hood, with its two windows shaded respectively with a damson 

 tree and a clump of filberts. He never wearied of recalling 



' Cobbett was born in 17G2, and died in 1835. Mill was born in 1806, 

 and died in 1S73. 



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