[1] It is a noteworthy circumstance that Moor Park and “my grandmother’s cottage” should be almost within hail of each other; for it was among these very scenes that Swift spent some of his earliest and best years—a nice little item for any ingenious believer in “affinities.”
When Cobbett wrote “The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine,” he was not aware of this coincidence, otherwise his humour would have happily played around the topic.
[2] Afterwards Admiral Sir George Berkeley. He entered the navy at twelve years of age, and saw a good deal of service, including the glorious 1st of June. Died 1818, æt. sixty-five.
CHAPTER II.
“WHEN I HAD THE HONOUR TO WEAR A RED COAT.”
From the point of view which Englishmen usually take, in speaking of success in life, it may remain an open question as to whether the hero of this story ever really attained it. But let such question be narrowed down to a point, from which is excluded all notions of wealth, and personal aggrandizement: the placing of one’s feet upon a given spot from which others have been ousted—the thing becomes clearer. The attainment of objects upon which one has set the heart, from time to time, can alone be called Success.
Now, this reflection is hazarded, because it is necessary for the reader of William Cobbett’s history to observe a leading feature in his character, from this stage onward; consisting in what may be called the instinct of discipline. Money-making (as such) was ever with him a process which he treated with contempt; the whole future, as it stood before him year after year, was to promise only the comfort of his family, and the welfare of his countrymen. All the blunders which he committed, in the untiring pursuit of this twofold object, were the result of undue impetuosity, the rashness of the soldier in the heat of strife: the temporary derangement of discipline, in the rear of a discomfited enemy. But in spite of ridicule and opposition, and long-deferred anticipation, and, besides, slanders of the foulest character, one after another were the dearest wishes of his heart fulfilled; and at seventy years of age he could write:—
“I have led the happiest life of any man that I have ever known. Never did I know one single moment when I was cast down; never one moment when I dreaded the future.”
So, if we think of the soldier’s career; what it is for the idle and the devil-may-care; what it is to the mere adventurer; what it is to the drudge; and what it is, as a last resource, to the outlaw; and, then, what it is to him who deliberately makes it a school of self-discipline, then we shall have some likelihood of understanding why this man, only twenty years after leaving the plough-tail, had become the Mentor of English statesmen, and wielded a pen so powerful that no price could buy it.