[130] Life, p. 38. In his "Advice to Young Men" Cobbett says: "For my part, I can truly say that I owe more of my great labors to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have here given you than to all the natural abilities with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not in early life contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was _always ready_. If I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never did any man or any thing wait one moment for me.... My custom was this: to get up in summer at daylight, and in winter at four o'clock; shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese or pork and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour or two to read before the time came for any duty out of doors."[131] [131] Advice to Young Men, pp. 35, 36. At a later period of life, when his condition was entirely changed, and his name as a writer was in all men's mouths, he thus describes his habits. "I hardly ever eat more than twice a day,--when at home, never,--and I never, if I can well avoid it, eat any meat later than one or two o'clock in the day. I drink a little tea or milk-and-water at the usual tea-time (about seven o'clock). I go to bed at eight, if I can. I write or read from about four to about eight, and then, hungry as a hunter, I go to breakfast."[132] [132] Life, p. 137. In another place he recounts with especial satisfaction a conversation at which he was present, one of the parties to which was Sir John Sinclair, the famous agriculturist and correspondent of Washington. "I once heard Sir John Sinclair," he says, "ask Mr. Cochrane Johnstone whether he meant to have a son of his, then a little boy, taught Latin. 'No,' said Mr. Johnstone, 'but I mean to do something a great deal better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other, 'teach him to shave with cold water and without a glass.'"[133] [133] Advice to Young Men, p. 34.