1

"The household motions, light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty,"

the modern Early Closing gentlemen ponder it!-were to the latter, his "Observations on Dr. Priestley's Emifrom five in the morning until nine at night, without leav-gration," beside attacking them perpetually in his ing the premises, save on Sundays. This was more than " Monthly Censor," and afterwards in his Porcupine Cobbett could endure. Irresistible craving after knowledge Gazette." With the same assiduous and headlong fury, had arisen within him, which under such a round of horse- he also ridiculed and anathematized the natural customs, Sch a labour he could not satiate. He, therefore, exchanged the prejudices, and evens the Government itself. law for the army, and enlisted in a foot regiment, then in defiance of the country's feelings could not be tolerated, Nova Scotia. The depôt was at Chatham, and there and after several unsuccessful attempts, Cobbett was conCobbett remained for a year; and there also he laid the victed of libel, and fined so heavily as to render his return basis of his future greatness, in despite of Fate and For- to England a necessity. In June, 1800, he arrived here, tune. His pay was sixpence per diem; but from that and instantly commenced afresh his literary efforts. scanty sum, he saved sufficient to procure a grammar, Hating democracy and liberalism as the very incarnation which he wrote out twice at full length, and committed, of tyranny, he established a paper called "The Porcupine," word for word, to memory. After that, he subscribed to and defended, in its columns, the ultra Tory principles, a circulating library, and devoured all manner of literature against France without and Radicalism within. No means from its shelves. The world has few examples of such were deemed by him too base to be employed, if they prodigious industry, as was his at that period. He rose advanced the cause he believed in; he never separated at four and studied till parade time; and yet, in the midst men from principles, but endeavoured to extinguish the of these studies, observed his military duties so satisfac-principles by abusing and ridiculing their supporters. torily, as to be made a corporal in a few months. In 1785 The "Porcupine" was soon read by men of every grade he went out to New Brunswick, to his regiment. There in life, and while many detested its tendency, and more he continued his studies and his zealous discharge of duty; blamed its violence, egotism, and disregard for truth, all and contrived, as well, to save in four or five years, one acknowledged and appreciated the genius that ever shone hundred and fifty pounds. There also he became ac- amid that noise and violence. The historian Müller said, quainted with his future wife. She was the daughter of that Cobbett's articles were second in fire and eloquence to a sergeant-major in another regiment. Cobbett had the Philippics alone. He had not been many months in admired England, before, by his sheer force of mind and indomitable industry, he and his paper were regarded as not the least among the notabilities. His eyes then became opened, and he began to perceive that what was the tyrant in America was the slave in England; and he began, hating tyranny in all its shapes, to lean towards the persecuted Radical faction. A slight put upon him at this time by Pitt, annihilated what Toryism remained; and changing the title of his paper to "The Weekly Register," he flung himself, with his usual impetus, into the arms of the extremest Radicals. The paper under its new title was continued until Cobbett's death, and in its columns the man Cobbett unmistakably paints himself. Its broad principles never again changed, except, perhaps, to become deeper and deeper in their democratic tone. But in its private principles and friendships, there was no consistency whatever. One week a man was a patriot, and the next a coward, peculator, and tyrant. Friends and enemies to the cause he advocated, were alike knocked on the head by the merciless flail he wielded, whenever they had the misfortune to offend him personally. His passions were his sole law; and he would, at any time, have retarded the great cause he laboured for, rather than not have exacted vengeance for any slight he laboured under. Thus, while he became daily more looked up to by the people, as their most able champion, he amassed for himself more, and intenser, enemies than any man of his time. The talent of his writings manifestly improved with his change of principles, because Ministerial jobbing, State corruption and abuses, formed, when attacked, a far more propitious field for his irony and trenchant satire, than when they were the subjects of his eulogies and apologies. There never has been, before or since, a writer possessing the same power of fastening on an abuse and doggedly hunting it down, till there was not a corner for it to hide in. His unscrupulousness aided him in this; for whenever an abstract argument failed, he never hesitated to take advantage of any private scandal that he considered might advance it. Nevertheless, his productions were so evidently the efforts of a masterly, original man, as to force their circulation, even among men who held opinions exactly opposed to his. If to this we add, that as he grew older, the querulousness of age distorted his incongruities, and augmented his violence more and more; and that, as his circumstances became entangled, he not unfrequently assumed a tone of puffery in his paper, we shall have a correct history of Cobbett's political efforts to the end of his career. We must also, in justice, add, that to the last he maintained the reputation

at first sight; he kept his eye upon her, until seeing her very early one cold winter's morning, busily engaged in household work, decided him; and when her father's regiment returned to England, Cobbett placed in her hands the whole of his savings, to preserve her from any inconvenience. In 1791 he himself arrived at Portsmouth, and immediately obtained his discharge; having been promoted to a serjeant-major, and never once, during all his service, reprimanded. He found his intended a servant of all-work in London, at five pounds a year wages; but in the face of all the allurements of a great city, she had husbanded his money, and returned it untouched. Such a woman was perfection to the thrifty Cobbett, and he married her almost immediately. Shortly after, having rashly made a charge against the officers of his late regiment, which he could not substantiate, he was compelled to retire to France. There he remained six months, during which period he grappled with the language in his own leviathanic manner, and mastered it sufficiently to write a grammar and compile a dictionary of that tongue. He then sailed to Philadelphia, where his wife joined him, and where he first settled down to enjoy the calm of a domestic life, which appears to have been one of stern frugality, ceaseless study, and sensible married love. His politics at this time were those of a Tory, so fierce and so rabid, that they resembled, when he was excited, the extravagancies of a monomaniac. Those who remember Cobbett as the fierce opponant of Toryism, will deem this an incredible anomaly. True, however, it is; and on examination, not so anomalous as would seem at first sight. Intrinsically, it was a love of justice and a hate of oppression, that made him so. He had come from a land where blood was being shed in horrible profusion by democrats; and he had come to a land, where thoughts and words were alike fettered, by a despotism of democracy as autocratic as that of a Russian Czar. Against all Philadelphia-against all America, well-nigh, Cobbett, therefore, defended England and Conservatism with all the force of his pen, by pamphlet, paper, book, or fugitive lampoon. Satire, humour, invective, scurrility-every species of composition, from the lowest Billingsgate personality to masculine diction and nervous rhetoric, he employed unremittingly. Thomas Paine and Dr. Priestly were the twain upon whom his wrath was the most unsparingly and incessantly outpoured. To the former, he addressed his "Letter to the Infamous Thomas Paine;"

he had so ably, so laboriously won, of being the most fearless, original, and vigorous natural genius, that has ever mingled in the confused vortex of our politics.

are, however, noteable. If they be less strong than the others, they are also less violent and coarse; if they contain less of his genius, they contain, also, less of his vulgarity. They are, indeed, taken with his political labour, a mighty testimony to the power of human industry, a monument of a life of incessant work. Too numerous here, even to catalogue, the most celebrated are,-"The History of the Reformation," "The English Grammar," " Cottage Economy," "Paper against Gold," and the "Legacy to Parsons."

His

In private life, Cobbett was unexceptionable. domestic life was that of a genuine man,-loving to his ' wife and children, at the same time reserving to himself the rule and governance of his own househould, generous to all around him, but insisting ever upon the strictest economy, and the simplest food. He left a widow and seven children. In person, he was corpulent and very tall; remarkably for neatness of apparel and personal cleanliness; with silver hair, and a healthy florid face. The life we have just narrated has a weighty two-fold moral. It tells the son of toil, deep-sunken in chaos of lowly life and perpetual labour, that to him, if he will it, is victory possible; that if he have it in him, he may enter into a hand-to-hand struggle with his untoward lot, and by steady thrift and dauntless determination, trample the encumbrances underfoot, and rise triumphant over them. It tells him, moreover, with emphatic warning, how the victory may be nullified, its usefulness retarded, and its very existence rendered almost questionable, if the Knowledge and Power, so nobly won, are ignobly suffered to blunder violently on, unguided by the dictates of Imperial Reason-unrestrained by the prompting of deep seated principle. J. S. S.

THE NEW CROCKERY-SHOP.

BY SILVERPEN.

The chief features of his active life are soon told. Shortly after his adoption of Radical principles, he was tried for a libel on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and two of his officials; condemned to pay £1,000, to be imprisoned two years, and to give security for his good behaviour for seven. While in prison, Mr. Plunkett, Solicitor General for Ireland, brought a civil action against him, for a libel contained in the same article for which Cobbett was then suffering his heavy punishment; Mr. Plunkett obtained £500 damages. On July 1st, 1809, Cobbett was again tried for seditious writings, having commented severely on the flogging of some recruits in Cambridgeshire. He received a repetition of his first punishment; (we may here state that the articles for which he had been fined £2,500, imprisoned four years, and bound to good behaviour for fourteen, were not severer than now appear regularly in our most respectable papers, not nearly so severe as the majority called forth by the late flogging at Hounslow). In retaliation, Cobbett reduced his paper to two-pence, and redoubled his vigour and acerbity. In 1817, the "Six Acts" were passed, whereby the Habeas Corpus was suspended, and all meetings without the permission of a magistrate prohibited. This compelled Cobbett to fly, as he was well aware he could not escape the lynx-eyed vigilance of the Government, with such laws to aid them. He, therefore, departed for America, and from thence he poured into his native country a torrent of energetic writings. In 1819, the obnoxious Acts were repealed, and Cobbett immediately returned. In a fit of foolish bravado, he exhumed the remains of Paine, whom thirty years before he had accounted below the level of humanity, and brought them to England as the bones of a great and noble champion of Truth and Liberty. FAMOUS as it is for the varied character of its districts, Reform party celebrated his return to England by dinners London possesses not one more singular, yet at the same and meetings of welcome at nearly all the towns he time less known, than the great region which intersects passed through. In 1820, he contested an election at the various city docks. Opposed both in respect to Coventry, but was unsuccessful. In 1826, he essayed aspect and inhabitants to the neighbouring districts of once more, at Preston, where he had a tolerable chance Spitalfields and Stepney Green, a sort of rude, and, what of success; but, unfortunately, he conducted his canvass I may call, grotesque plenty is visible everywhere; and in his lowest and most brutal manner, was hissed into whilst in each shadow of its lusty draymen, its docksilence on the hustings for his coarseness, and lost his elec- cleaners, its shipwrights, its caulkers, its porters, three tion by his violence and disregard of decency and moral ill-paid Bethnal Green or Spitalfield's weavers might walk dignity. After that he became deeply embarrassed, and abreast; the mental distinction is equally remarkable. at length went through the Gazette. In 1831, the last The weaver is a speculator, a thinker, a politician-wisely Government attempt to silence him was made on a or not according to his education; but here, supreme incharge of sedition. But Cobbett and public opinion difference and ignorance prevail, in regard to all matters were now too strong, and a jury could not be found to not immediately relating to the common events going on convict him. In 1833, he was returned to the first around, or to the rude plenty which fair wages allow. reformed Parliament by the borough of Oldham. All Still, amidst this dense ignorance and intellectual apathy, eyes were now upon him in expectation and in wonder. startling signs exist, that such rudeness and apathy are His probable senatorial career was regarded by all parties merely conditional, and that removal from the degradawith anxiety. But he disappointed his own, and gratified tion of pauperism would soon exhibit the first elements of the opposite party, by his indifferent Parliamentary far higher and nobler things. The first narrow street which success. Not having the command of his temper, he failed slopes to a dock-yard, or the river, proves this. Glance in debate; the forms and etiquette of the House curbed down into the caulkers' and shipwrights' little kitchens, that freedom of thought and language wherein his great often feet beneath the pavement which you tread, and the strength lay; he lost his influence by introducing extra-sight will rarely fail you of a gigantic shell, rubbed bright till! vagant motions, such as impeachment of ministers, for which only two or three members could be got to vote; and, added to all this, the late hours were not congenial to a man, who during a long life, had been accustomed to retire at nine and rise at four. Notwithstanding, he attended regularly, and spoke frequently, until, without any previous illness, death suddenly ended his adventurous career, on the 18th of June, 1835, at the age of seventythree.

The

Thus finished the life of this remarkable man. The above sketch has been almost entirely confined to his political efforts, because by them he achieved his celebrity, and in them have we his genius the brightest, and his faults the most conspicuous. His purely literary works

its inner convolutes shine like a waxed cloth, standing conspicuously on the spare table, or the chest of drawers; or else over the fire-place, its original moulding now, perhaps, supplied by a piece of yellow paper, is nailed some old ship's cabin looking-glass; or on the clock, or cupboard-top, some quaint dilapidated figure-head, uncouthly retouched with shining paint. In addition to these, there are usually strange-shaped pipes of foreign make, dried sea-weed, miniature men-of-war, calabashes, and other domestic utensils of savage life, often hanging on old rusty clamps and nails, which have rivetted the mighty timbers of stout ships, and kept them firm, and tight, and wedged together, through a hundred storms and tempests of the pathless seas.

The class of draymen and porters usually lodge in the upper portions of these houses, and there betray the existence of the element I refer to in another sort of fashion. Instead of the shell, the glass, or the figurehead, is usually to be found a shining tea-tray, radiant with a gay parrot, a set of spare tea-things flaming in yellow and red, jugs bright with most romantic shepherds and shepherdesses, or, perhaps, a print coloured in all the luxuriance of gamboge and vermillion; or, like the Irish of St. Giles or Saffron Hill, this class of the population are as passionately fond of what is called "crockery," as the Bethnal Green weaver of his pansy or piccotee.

The shops, like the dwellings, are peculiar, and drive a thriving trade in the two great staples, clothing and food; for they not merely supply a vast stationary population, in the receipt of the best average of wages in the metropolis, but also the emigrant and export ships which fill the docks.

traordinarily large black teapot, a huge loaf, and a
great lump of the very best Dorset butter in a yellow
basin. Having a thriving trade, and being good-tem-
pered, easy-minded, and very kind-hearted, though a
slattern in all excepting her business, Mrs. Gussett was
generous to her apprentices and sempstresses, and always
wished and persuaded them to make this one daily meal
they took with her such a hearty one, that many a poor
little stitcher economised, and making dinner a fiction,
took this as the combined meal of the day. Nor of
this, if even she thought of it, did Mrs. Gussett com-
plain; but let them have tea and toast, and bread and
butter, without limit; and encouraged them to laugh,
and to joke, and be quite at home over it.
deed, tea was such an important meal with herself, too,
that though she invariably dined well, it rarely passed
over without one of the apprentices being dispatched to
the neighbouring cook, or confectioner, or fishmonger's
shop for some little nicety or another-such as a few
slices of tongue or ham, a sixpenny sponge-cake, or a
plate of shrimps or periwinkles, which she never eat, God
bless her, without a little feint (worthy of the purest
angel's heart) that there was too much, and so dividing
the dainty amongst the most delicately appetised of her
young apprentices, tempted the poor pale-faced sickly
souls to eat!

In

the teapot, and went from thence to the steaming kettle, swung above the large and mostly cheerful fire, though always dirty and uncomfortable hearth. On this evening Mrs. Gussett was most unfortunate. An apprentice coming to make some toast at the fire, pushed her so, that the steam from the kettle coming directly against her hand, the good staymaker dropped the teapot, which fell in twenty pieces on the hearth.

In a little narrow close street, which I shall specify no further, than that it lies contiguous to one of the largest docks, there were, about four years ago, two dwellings, nearly opposite on either side the street. One of these might be called private, for it had no shop-front, though in its capacious, old-fashioned sash-window, women's stays were hung up on a line, stretched at the rear of a very bushy and flourishing geranium; whilst reared Though she thus allowed all to help themselves in this against the pot in which this grew, was a framed and sort of homely and abundant way, she never consigned glazed little sign, important with the following intelli- the important office of making and pouring out the tea gence: "Ann Gussett; Stay-maker-Stays Wholesale, to any less sacred hand than her own. Thus, even and for Exportation." This fact of Mrs. Gussett's trade if she had never risen from her seat the whole day, yet was further confirmed by glimpses passers-by often had, invariably as the clock struck five, she got up, took the particularly when the thick tallow-candles were lighted at black teapot, went to her cupboard, put her usual evening-time, and the blind yet undrawn, of some five-measure of tea-always one small china bowl-full, into and-twenty or thirty girls and women busy in all the operations of the trade, from the apprentices boring holes and fastening in bones, to the more recondite mysteries of the journeywomen in "cutting-out" and "fixing." The house on the other side the street, a few yards further down, was occupied as an old crockery-shop, its two large dirty windows being filled with dusty cups and jugs, plates and basins, of the very coarsest kind and ugliest shapes; whilst on the street-pavement beneath "Oh dear! dear!" she exclaimed, as she looked round the windows were rows of common red ware, which at with a blank face upon her astonished needlewomen; night-time were lighted up for the scrutiny of purchasers," five and twenty years I've made tea out of that teapot, by pieces of candle stuck in two old dusty lanterns. and yet to be broken at last! I declare I would have Mostly through the day, and always at night, either an rather lost the best order I ever had, than that this old man or woman tramped up and down the pavement should have happened;" and half crying, for she had no beside this public display of their goods. These were the grave sorrows, she came back to her easy chair, and owners of the shop; and two more in keeping with its covered her face with her apron. dirt and ugliness could not well be imagined. As rarely any distinction was made between their sex, when addressed, they were universally called " Moses throughout the neighbourhood, though "Moses " was only the Christian name of the old man. Report gave out that this old couple were immensely rich, though the fact of their daily life sadly belied this; for when not at the shop-door, or within, serving customers, they led a wretched, miserly existence, in a little dark three-cornered room behind the shop, without other company than piles of plates and dishes ranged round the walls on deep shelves, an old blind croaking blackbird in a dilapidated cage, and a little parish apprentice, named Sue, whose miserable, half-fed little body, trembled under the heavy shop-shutters morning and night, and through the day beneath the dusty ware she was called upon to hold up and show to customers.

It was a most winterly evening; so sloppy and wet, from intermingled rain and sleet, as to make the scene behind the geranium plant and pendent stays pleasant to behold; for it being the tea-hour, five o'clock, and that meal constituting part-payment of each sempstress's weekly wages, a slip-shod apprentice girl or two had cleared the littered table, and now placed on it a heterogeneous assortment of tea-things, exclusive of an ex

There, don't take on, ma'am," said her forewoman, tucking up her untidy hair, and putting her foot into her slipshod shoe, as she came towards her mistress, "we shall get another. There are plenty over at Moses; and rather than see you vexed, we'll subscribe round, and buy one; that we will." The girls, even to the last come apprentice said, "yes," for they loved their mistress.

"It isn't that, girls," sobbed Mr. Gussett; "but it was so seasoned; it made the tea always draw so well; and as a Staffordshire man, who came about with mugs and hare-skins, once said, 'its shape was so uncommon,' as it was; for a skipper's wife I knew brought it her very self from Delf in Holland. No, no! there'll never be another teapot again like that, I know." Hearing this, the girls suggested that one should be borrowed from the neighbours.

"Ann Gusset never borrows," spoke the staymaker with a very stubborn and characteristic sort of pride. "No, buy rather than borrow if it is only a penny's worth, so we must buy one, for you must have your tea girls; to put you all out of sorts for the night 'll never do," and saying this she looked up and dropped her apron. The forewoman and several of the apprentices offered to run over to Moses.

"No girls, no;" spoke Mrs. Gussett, determinately,

"it'll be bad enough to put up with the best of such black ugly things as they've got, for its too wet to go further to night, without having ten pence or a shilling of one's honest money put on above the reg'lar price, to add to their heaps and heaps in the bank. No, if we are to have a teapot of the sort, I must buy it; so get my old black bonnet, clogs, and shawl."

Thus equipped, Mrs. Gussett soon crossed over the street to Moses' shop, and such few neighbours as were at their doors and windows, marvelled at this visit, for the staymaker was rarely seen abroad except on Sundays, and her dislike to the dirty shop and its two owners was proverbial. It rained so, that little seas of water stood in the pots and pans outside the door, and the Moses having retreated to their small parlour behind the shop, these were now watched by little Sue, who, huddled on the topmost step without shawl or bonnet, made way for Mrs. Gussett to step in.