"Peter Porcupine." W. Cobbett.
[Eccentricities of Cobbett.]
Cobbett began his career a political writer of ultra-Conservative stamp. He first became known to the public as "Peter Porcupine," under which name he fiercely attacked the democratic writers and speakers of France and America. He was then resident in America, and encountered one or two trials at law for alleged libels, in his defence of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. The Porcupine Papers attracted much notice in England, were quoted and lauded by the government organs—quoted in both Houses of Parliament, and eulogized in the pulpit. The writer was considered one of the most powerful supports of the principles of the British constitution. This series of papers was republished in England, in twelve volumes octavo, under the patronage of the Prince Regent, to whom, it is believed, the work was dedicated.
On his return from America, Cobbett began a daily paper called the Porcupine. This was soon discontinued, and he began the Register. Both these papers were strongly in favour of the government; and the Register ran through several volumes before a change took place in the political opinions of the editor—a change hastened, if not caused, by an affront offered him by William Pitt. Windham was a great admirer of Cobbett, and after reading one of his Porcupine papers, declared that the author was "worthy of a statue in gold." Pitt had refused to meet the author of the Register at Windham's table; and this Cobbett resented, and never forgave. Very soon after this, a marked change took place in his politics; henceforth he was more consistent, and the last Register which came from his pen, very shortly before his death, breathed the same spirit which he had shown years before as one of the leaders of the democratic party.
One of Cobbett's oddities was the wood-cut of a gridiron which for many years headed the Political Register, as an emblem of the martyrdom which he avowed he was prepared to undergo, upon certain conditions. The gridiron will be recollected as one of the emblems of St. Lawrence, and we see it as the large gilt vane of one of the City churches dedicated to the saint.
As he was broiled on a gridiron for refusing to give up the treasures of the church committed to his care, so Cobbett vowed that he would consent to be broiled upon certain terms, in his Register, dated Long Island, on the 24th of September, 1819, wherein he wrote the well-known prophecy on Peel's Cash Payments Bill of that year as follows:—"I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry their bill into effect is impossible; and I say that if this bill be carried into full effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron, and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans."
On the hoisting of the gridiron on the Register, he wrote and published the fulfilment of his prophecy in the following statement:—"Peel's bill, together with the laws about small notes, which last were in force when Peel's bill was passed; these laws all taken together, if they had gone into effect, would have put an end to all small notes on the first day of May, 1823; but to precede this blowing-up of the whole of the funding system, an act was passed, in the month of July, 1822, to prevent these laws, and especially that part of Peel's bill which put an end to small Bank of England notes, from going into full effect; thus the system received a respite; but thus did the parliament fulfil the above prophecy of September, 1819."
A large sign-gridiron was actually made for Mr. Cobbett. It was of dimensions sufficient for him to have lain thereon (he was six feet high); the implement was gilt, and we remember to have seen it in his office-window, in Fleet Street; but it was never hoisted outside the office. It was long to be seen on the gable-end of a building next Mr. Cobbett's house at Kensington.
Cobbett possessed extraordinary native vigour of mind; but every portion of his history is marked by strange blunders. Shakspeare, the British Museum, antiquities, posterity, America, France, Germany, are, one and all, either wholly indifferent to him, or objects of his bitter contempt. He absurdly condemned the British Museum as "a bundle of dead insects;" abused drinking "the immortal memory" as a contradiction of terms; and stigmatized "consuming the midnight oil" as cant and humbug. His political nicknames were very ludicrous: as big O for O'Connell; Prosperity Robinson for a flaming Chancellor of the Exchequer; and shoy-hoy for all degrees of quacks and pretenders. Still, his own gridiron was a monstrous piece of quackery, as audacious as any charlatan ever set up.