Old George Cobbett remained a staunch American in politics; but, as to whether he was right or wrong, his son admits that he never, at that period, formed any opinion. His own notions were those of his father, which would have been as warmly entertained if they had been all on the other side. The short autobiography of which the above forms a part, was written during the early part of his pamphleteering career in the United States; at which time he found it necessary to explain that he had not been nursed in the lap of aristocracy, and that he did not imbibe his then “principles or prejudices from those who were the advocates of blind submission.” The story of this pamphlet will come in its proper place, when its author was upwards of thirty years of age. * * * * * Here we have, then, probably as much as we shall ever know, of William Cobbett’s early years. The utter obscurity of his father’s social status is, of itself, sufficient reason why there were no admiring friends to detect precocity, and to record its achievements: until the age of twenty his life was made up of the ordinary occupations of a country lad. Fairs, cricket-matches, and hare-hunts filled up the joyous periods of recreation; and it was not till the year 1782, that an incident occurred, which, bringing him into the bustling activity of town-life, had the same effect upon him, that a similar change of scene has had upon many an ardent, healthy spirit; and which estranged him from the sequestered vale of life, for ever. There can be little doubt, however, that a very great mental stimulus was acquired by the trip to Kew, and the reading of Swift’s wonderful satire.[1] The poor ploughboy, very probably, read and reread the laughable story of Peter and Martin hundreds of times without understanding the real drift of it; but there was enough in the book, with its entertaining accounts of grotesque fashions and weak-minded characters, to furnish such an impressionable spirit as Cobbett’s with an inexhaustible store of odd ideas concerning the world outside him. Readers of his works will notice his frequent quotation of Swift: “The celebrated Dean of St. Patrick somewhere observes, &c., &c.” is the opening sentence of the autobiographical sketch; and the “Political Register,” in after-years, continued to manifest evidences of the source and character of Cobbett’s early reading. Cobbett’s literary style, however, was not exactly that of Dean Swift; of which the former’s ignorance, and even contempt, of Latinity is sufficient explanation. But his alternations of sweetness and acrimony,--his ever-ready images,--the picturesque manner of his describing individual characters,--his constant tendency to satire,--cannot but be ascribed, in great measure, to the little book whose loss “cost him greater pain than losing thousands of pounds.”