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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
jp ^ a ^ t ^ rWillisun . Cobbett . ' We cannot even venture tq weave a vj $ \ fqx . Xhe occasion , lest we should hear his voice exclaiming (j&at it is not black enough ; for he would contrast it with Caaderea # h and the Six Acts / ' the Manchester massacre , ' ' the
b ] # ody old " Times /' ' and the hell-featured' object of his latest attack * We are , moreover , scarcely assured that he is really gppe : a ride among the Sussex cottages , or an acre of Indian corn ,, a Hampshire farm , or even a gridiron , will recall him among all the public life that is so busy around us , and that is all nothing without the shadow that used to attach to them .
* William Cobbett a shadow ! well , that ' s a pretty particular d—r d lie > I guess , ' exclaims a voice from the Hudson . True , he had more ' blood' than the Guillotine , more ' hell' than the J ^ tpntgomery -Satan ; but still what would he have been if Ministers had always been honest , Kings' speeches grammatical , the 'Times' gentlemanly and consistent , and the Manchester people as sleek and as well to do as the Manchester cottons , or * the son
of the cotton-spinner ? ' He did hang upon these particulars of l > ad government , and reposed upon his Hampshire farming , and sample corn , and his Grammar , and every thing he had done , ^* - aye , as a . shadow—we are tenacious , you shall have it—or the gridiron . Nay , we insist on it , no corporal is more a slave to his drill than Cobbett to his topics and himself . Some writers have
attempted , or will attempt , to define or circumscribe the attributes of Cobbett , but let them beware : could they succeed in picturing a Sancho Pauza without the knight-companion , the valorous Don Quixotte ? could they extol a bass without giving us the air ? Oh , ye doctrinaires ! Vanity—all is vanity ! Ye may sift and sort , and sort and sift , but when will you collect the elements of character ? Be modest , and avow that , without such and such
occurrences , you know not how the ' Weekly Register' would have lived half a century of weeks . And with such and such things happening , the gentlemanly Castlereagh succeeded by the polite Peel , and the sharp Canning by the peppery Stanley , and the Manchester massacre by the uprooting of our rural population and farming wealth , and the ' bloody old Times * by the
' weathercock journal / - —how can Cobbett be spared ? Ye mornii \ g journals , increase your double sheet by advertisements ; ye Monthlies , swell your wrapper with puffs ; when will you gain a character like the ' Weekly Register , which never puffed but ' ourselves , '—never was tempted by the vulgar egotism of the common advertisement ? And , with all your attempts , what do you
achieve ? to bandy explanation and contradiction from day to day , Of month to month , with * our contemporary / until your readers bfgin to think you may bo all wron ^ . Uobbett had no such thuttlecock game in hand . * Swear by my gridiron I do you th ^ i f ihat it hag been there since 1819 for you to grin through ? Now Who could touch up " Heddckushun" like me V And § o we
Untitled Article
$ 44 William CobbetL
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1835, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2648/page/44/
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