“Not far above Amesbury is a little village called Netheravon, where I once saw an acre of hares. We were coursing at Everley, a few miles off, and one of the party happening to say that he had seen an acre of hares at Mr. Hicks-Beach’s at Netheravon, we who wanted to see the same, or to detect our informant, sent a messenger to beg a day’s coursing, which being granted, we went over the next day. Mr. Beach received us very politely. He took us into a wheat stubble close to his paddock; his son took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all over the field, ran into a flock like sheep, and we all agreed that the flock did cover an acre of ground.”
“This is the most famous place in all England for coursing. I was here, at this very inn, with a party eighteen years ago; and the landlord, who is still the same, recognized me as soon as he saw me. There were forty brace of greyhounds taken out into the field on one of the days, and every brace had one course, and some of them two. The ground is the finest in the world: from two to three miles for the hare to run to cover, and not a stone, nor a bush, nor a hillock. It was here proved to me that the hare is by far the swiftest of all English animals; for I saw three hares in one day run away from the dogs. To give dog and hare a fair trial, there should be but one dog; then, if that dog got so close as to compel the hare to turn, that would be a proof that the dog ran fastest. When the dog, or dogs, never get near enough to the hare to induce her to turn, she is said, and very justly, to run away from them; and, as I saw three hares do this in one day, I conclude that the hare is the swifter animal of the two.”
[6] The first genuine piece of criticism upon Cobbett’s writings, which had any real talent, was an article by Francis Jeffery in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1807. But it had the same conspicuous failure which attended all partisan writers, and Whigs above all, in their efforts to define political consistency.
This article furnished the material out of which all subsequent attacks upon Cobbett’s alleged “tergiversation” would seem to have been founded. While, however, there was abundant material for comparison, there was no impugning the justness of his reasons for a change of views; nor, indeed, was any attempt made to do so. Both Jeffery and his copiers studiously avoided arguing out Cobbett’s conclusions. It was all-sufficient, in the eye of a party writer, to wreck a man’s reputation who had once openly forsaken a cause.
And yet, the reviewer, near the opening of his article, says the Register “can only be acceptable to men of some vigour of intellect, and some independence of principle.” That was the very root of the matter. Imagine the Edinburgh of that day being acceptable to men of any independence of principle! The very number in question has an article on Catholic Relief, which not only contains sentiments differing from Jeffery’s, but the very opposite to those enunciated by the same review only three years before.
But there was one leading difference between the Whig writer and Mr. Cobbett—they were place-hunters and he was not, and no awkward “comparisons” could wipe out this notorious fact.
[7] “An Appeal to the Public and a Farewell Address to the British Army, by Brevet-Major Hogan, who Resigned his Commission in consequence of the Treatment he experienced from the Duke of York, and of the System that prevails in the Army respecting Promotion” (London, 1808).
[8] Mr. Wardle was a man of fortune, a native of Cheshire, who had served in Ireland during the rebellion; he entered Parliament, as Member for Oakhampton, in the year 1807. This affair of the Duke of York brought him vast popularity.
Francis Place says that Colonel Wardle was a weak and timid man, without the capacity to estimate either his own powers or resources, and that, had he foreseen the trouble and vexation his motion would have occasioned him, he would not have made it. Mr. Brooks (another Westminster politician) raised a subscription of 4000l. for Wardle. See Place MSS. in the British Museum (Addl. 27,850).
[9] The details of this inquiry are accessible, in the Annual Register of the year; and Lord Colchester’s Diary, vol. ii., gives some outline of the plans of Ministers concerning the Duke’s defence. Cobbett’s Register was, of course, very entertaining over the matter.