As a champion of the liberty of the press, Mr. Cobbett holds a place among the very foremost; and, indeed, a minor object of the biographer, in this history, is to establish his claim to that place. But it may still remain open to question how far that liberty is to go: perhaps it will always vary, according to each particular judge and jury,[1] as to what is “liberty” and what is “libel.” It is certain that the two cases in which Cobbett was involved, while a newspaper-writer in America, were decided without much consideration of their real merits. One went in his favour, the other against him; and both the prosecutions were undertaken, instigated by political rancour. We have got the better of this sort of thing, at last, in England; but only after much shame. And we are not perfect yet. Mr. Cobbett’s career of “crime,” during these tumultuous days in Philadelphia, consisted in his being a genuine satirist. In this respect he was unapproachable by any of his scribbling brethren; and there lay the fundamental reasons for the hatred of those who were amongst his opponents. He had imported into the arena of political controversy the squibbing propensities of his great master, Jonathan Swift; and, armed with the results of his laborious study of grammar and logic, it was useless for any one to expect successfully to contend with him on his own ground. The weapons, therefore, to which they resorted were lies and filth of most abominable character. The phlegmatic, practical, native Pennsylvanian could sit and laugh over Porcupine’s hard hits, for they did not, as a rule, touch him. But the hot-blooded importations since the Revolution--soured with the mortified feelings occasioned by unwilling expatriation--rendered more and more violent by the intoxicating influence of French principles, and, to some extent, made reckless by the exigencies of change, were a different class. The vocabulary of personal abuse formed their resource. It is not very surprising, then, to find after a time some disposition, on the part of Cobbett, to yield to a similar indulgence in coarse language. Upon the whole, however, a perusal of his American writings does not justify the calumnious epithets which have been bestowed upon them. All true humourists, from Rabelais downwards, have suffered a similar penalty. The knave, even more than the fool, both fears and hates your lampooner, and can only resort to base imputations in the expectation that a part of his slime must stick. We, in these later days, will take to heart the maxim of Montesquieu: _To judge justly of men, we must overlook the prejudices of their times._ We know Mr. Cobbett to have been an earnest, honest, high-spirited man, whose whole life, both public and private, was governed by principles of conduct which were far in advance of his times; an uncorrupt politician, who may be placed by the side of Andrew Marvel; a husband and a parent, whose example cannot be excelled; in a day when most