At eleven he was employed in clipping the boxedgings in the gardens of Farnham Castle, and, hearing from one of the gardeners of the glories of Kew, he started for that place with 1s. 1?d. in his pocket, 3d. of which sum he spent in buying “Swift’s Tale of a Tub.” The book produced a “birth of intellect” in the little rustic13. He carried it with him wherever he went, and at twenty-four lost it in a box which fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, a “loss which gave me greater pain than I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds.” He returned home, and continued to work for his father till 1782, attending fairs and hearing Washington’s health proposed by his father at farmers’ ordinaries. In that year he went on a visit to Portsmouth, saw the sea for the first time, and was with difficulty hindered from taking service at once on board a man-of-war. He returned home “spoilt for a farmer,” and next year started for London. He served in a solicitor’s office in Gray’s Inn for eight months (where he worked hard at grammar), then enlisted14 in the 54th regiment15, and after a few weeks’ drill at Chatham embarked16 for Nova Scotia, where the corps17 were serving. Here his temperate[170] habits, strict performance of duty, and masterly ability and intelligence, raised him in little more than a year to the post of sergeant-major over the heads of fifty comrades his seniors in service. His few spare hours were spent in hard study, especially in acquiring a thorough mastery of grammar. He had bought Lowth’s Grammar, which he wrote out two or three times, got it by heart, and imposed on himself the task of saying it over to himself every time he was posted sentinel. When he had thoroughly18 mastered it, and could write with ease and correctness, he turned to logic19, rhetoric20, geometry, French, to Vauban’s fortification, and books on military exercise and evolutions. In this way, by the year 1791, when the 54th was recalled, he had become the most trusted man in the regiment. The colonel used him as a sort of second adjutant; all the paymaster’s accounts were prepared by him; he coached the officers, and used to make out cards with the words of command for many of them, who, on parade, as he scornfully writes, “were commanding me to move my hands and feet in words I had taught them, and were in everything except mere21 authority my inferiors, and ought to have been commanded by me.” Notwithstanding the masterfulness already showing itself, Cobbett was a strictly22 obedient soldier, and left the army with the offer of a commission, and the highest character for ability and zeal23.
No sooner, however, was his discharge accomplished,[171] than he set himself to work to expose and bring to justice several of the officers of his regiment, who had systematically24 mulcted the soldiers in their companies of their wretched pay. His thorough knowledge of the regimental accounts made him a formidable accuser; and, after looking into the matter, the then Judge-Advocate-General agreed to prosecute25, and a court-martial was summoned at Woolwich for the purpose in 1792. But Cobbett did not appear. He found that it would be necessary to call his clerks, still serving in the regiment, and the consequences to them in those days were likely to be so serious, that he preferred to abandon his attempt. Accordingly, he did not appear, and the fact was bitterly used against him in later days by his political opponents. The whole story is worth reading, and is very fairly given by Mr. Smith. He had now made a happy marriage with the girl to whom he had entrusted26 all his savings27 years before, and started with her to Paris; but, hearing on the way of the king’s dethronement, and the Bastile riots, he turned aside and embarked for America.
He arrived in Philadelphia in October 1792, enthusiastic for the land of liberty, and an ardent28 student of Paine’s works, and set to work to gain his living by teaching English to the French emigrants29 there, and by such literary work as he could get. In both he was very successful, but soon found himself in fierce antagonism31 with the American press, and, after publishing[172] several pamphlets, “A Kick for a Bite,” “A Bone to Gnaw32 for the Democrats,” &c., established his first famous periodical, “Peter Porcupine,” which soon gained him the reputation in England as well as America of a staunch and able loyalist, and severe critic of Republican institutions. The only serious mistake in his American career was his attack on Dr. Priestly, then also an emigrant30 in Philadelphia. The States had become an undesirable33 place of residence for him before 1798, when an intimation reached him through the British Embassy that the English Government were sensible of the obligations they owed him, and were prepared to advance his interests. These overtures34 he steadily35 refused; but, finding a Royalist’s life was becoming too hot, and having been beaten in a libel suit, which nearly ruined him (though his expenses were nominally36 defrayed by the subscriptions37 of his American admirers), he closed the brilliant career of “Peter Porcupine’s Gazette,” and returned to England, having at last, to use his own phrase, “got the better of all diffidence in my own capacity.”
He reached home in 1800, and found himself at once courted and famous. He was entertained by Ministers of State and publishers, but after looking round him in his own sturdy fashion, and finding the condition of the political and literary world by no means to his mind, while that of the great body of the people was becoming worse every day, he resisted all temptations[173] and started on the career which he followed faithfully till his death. In 1802 appeared the first number of “Cobbett’s Political Register,” which (with the break of two months in 1817, when he fled from the new Gagging Act to America) continued to appear weekly till June 1835, and remains38 a wonderful witness to the strength and the weaknesses of the Sussex ploughboy. During those long years, and all the fierce controversies39 which marked them, he was grandly faithful, according to his lights, to the cause of the poor:—“I for my part should not be at all surprised,” he wrote in 1806, “if some one were to propose selling the poor, or mortgaging them to the fund-holders. Ah! you may wince40; you may cry Jacobin or leveller as long as you please. I wish to see the poor men of England what the poor men of England were when I was born; and from endeavoring to accomplish this wish nothing but the want of means shall make me desist.” And loyally he maintained the fight against sinecures41, place-hunting, and corruption42 of all kinds until his death, full of years, the member for Oldham, and the popular leader of the widest influence among the Liberal party of the first Reform period. For the incidents of the long struggle—how the government press turned savagely43 on the man whom they had hailed on his return from America as one “whom no corruption can seduce44 nor any personal danger intimidate45 from the performance of his duty;” how Attorney-Generals watched him and prosecuted46; how[174] he insisted on conducting his own causes, and so spent two years in jail, and was mulcted again and again in heavy damages; how he fought through it all, and tended his farm and fruit-trees, and wrote his “Rural Rides” and “Cottage Economy,” and was a tender and loving man in his own home, and retained the warm regard of such men as Wyndham and Lord Radnor, while he was the best hated and abused man in England—we must refer all (and we hope there are many) who care to know about them to the second volume of Edward Smith’s life of Cobbett.
There are few lives that we know of better worth careful study in these times. We have no space here to do more than quote the best estimate of the man’s work which has ever come from one of those classes who for thirty-five years looked on him as their most dangerous enemy:—
“I know him well, on every side
Walled round with wilful47 prejudice;
A self-taught peasant rough in speech,
Self-taught, and confident to teach,
In blame not overwise.
What matter, if an honest thought
Sometimes a homely48 phrase require?
Let those who fear the bracing49 air
Look for a milder sky elsewhere,
[175]Or stay beside the fire.
There are worse things in this bad world
Than bitter speech and bearing free—
I hail thee, genuine English born—
Not yet the lineage is outworn
That owns a man like thee.”
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1
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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7
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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8
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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9
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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knaves
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| n.恶棍，无赖( knave的名词复数 )；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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afflict
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| vt.使身体或精神受痛苦，折磨 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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21
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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29
emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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31
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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gnaw
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| v.不断地啃、咬；使苦恼，折磨 | |
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undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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overtures
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| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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subscriptions
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| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
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38
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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39
controversies
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| 争论 | |
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40
wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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41
sinecures
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| n.工作清闲但报酬优厚的职位，挂名的好差事( sinecure的名词复数 ) | |
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42
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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43
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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44
seduce
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| vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱 | |
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45
intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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46
prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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47
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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48
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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49
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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