Again, in 1816, the people of the northern and midland counties being in great distress, attributed their calamities to machinery, and great rioting and destruction of property was the consequence. Cobbett came forward to stop these vulgar delusions. But he knew the nature of the public mind. It was necessary, in order to divert it from one idea, to give it another. So, he ridiculed the idea of distress proceeding from machinery, and attributed it to misgovernment. Of his twopenny pamphlet, called “A Letter to Journeymen and Labourers,” 30,000 copies were sold in a week, and with such advantage that Lord Brougham, in 1831, asked permission to republish it. Much in his exaggerations and contradictions is likewise to be set down to drollery rather than to any serious design to deceive. I remember the late Lady Holland once asking me if I did not think she sometimes said ill-natured things; and on my acquiescing, she rejoined: “I don’t mean to burn any one, but merely to poke the fire.” Cobbett liked to poke the fire, to make a blaze; but in general—I will not say always—he thought more of sport than of mischief.
At all events, this very spirit of change, of criticism, of combativeness, is the spirit of journalism; and Cobbett was not only this spirit embodied, but—and this renders his life so remarkable in our history—he represented journalism, and fought the fight of journalism against authority, when it was still a doubt which would gain the day.
Let us not, indeed, forget the blind and uncalculating intolerance with which the law struggled against opinion from 1809 to 1822. Writers during this period were transported, imprisoned, and fined, without limit or conscience; and just when government became more gentle to legitimate newspapers, it engaged in a new conflict with unstamped ones. No less than 500 vendors of these were imprisoned within six years. The contest was one of life and death. Amidst the general din of the battle, but high above all shouts more confused, was heard Cobbett’s bold, bitter, scornful voice, cheering on the small but determined band, which defied tyranny without employing force. The failure of the last prosecution against the Register was the general failure of prosecutions against the Press, and may be said to have closed the contest in which government lost power every time that it made victims.
Such was Cobbett—such his career! I have only to add that, in his family relations, this contentious man was kind and gentle. An incomparable husband, an excellent father; and his sons—profiting by an excellent education, and inheriting, not, perhaps, the marvellous energies, but a great portion of the ability, of their father—carry on with credit and respectability the name of a man, who, whatever his faults, must be considered by every Englishman who loves our literature, or studies our history, as one of the most remarkable illustrations of his very remarkable time.
CANNING, THE BRILLIANT MAN.
Part I.
FROM BIRTH AND EDUCATION TO DUEL WITH LORD CASTLEREAGH.
Proper time for writing a biography.—Mr. Canning born (1770).—Education at Eton and Oxford.—Early literary performances.—Brought into Parliament by Mr. Pitt.—Politics he espoused.—His commencement as a speaker.—Writes for the Anti-Jacobin.—Quits office with Mr. Pitt.—Opposes Mr. Addington.—Returns to office with Mr. Pitt.—Distinguishes himself in opposition to “All the Talents.”—Becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs on their fall.—Foreign policy.—Quarrel with Lord Castlereagh, and duel.