“Anti-Cobbett; or, The Weekly Patriotic Register” (from the _New Times_), which appeared about eight times. “The Detector; an Occasional Paper” (Hatchard). We cannot “detect” the existence of more than four such papers. These were all on similar lines: extracts from, and references to, the days of Porcupine, spiced with transparent falsehood. [6] “We believe it is now some five or six years since the _Times_ journal put down the work entitled _Cobbett’s Weekly Register_, and sunk its author into obscurity and contempt.… Since that time we had thought that his journal had wholly dropped to the ground, some other writers, such as those of the _Independent Whig_ and _Examiner_, who were more virulent and impudent than himself, having sprung up. We learned, however, lately, that Cobbett’s _Register_ was still in existence, having crept on in obscurity for a series of years.”--_Times_, Nov. 14, 1816. [7] For the context, whence these choice epithets are extracted, _vide_ _Quarterly Review_, 1816-17, _passim_. CHAPTER XXII. “BETWEEN SILENCE AND A DUNGEON LAY MY ONLY CHOICE.” When your wife, or your nurse, or your mother-in-law, utters that reproach of hers, “Ah, I told you how it would be!”--the spirit within you is not apt to be tinged with a pervading gratefulness. Similarly, “a man is not likely to be thanked who calls attention to the vast discrepancies between the theory and practice of the Constitution” (as one of our later philosophers remarks). What with the impertinence of the thing--the implied assertion of superiority--the further implication of failure and muddle on the part of the prescriptive interpreters of the Constitution: the counsel offered by outsiders is rejected with disdain, or put down to anything but disinterested motives. The shortsightedness and illiberality of the Eldon and Sidmouth type of statesmanship was constantly displayed in this way. Let there be a Reform petition offered to Parliament, and they would refuse to receive it, if, by any means, some technical objection could be raised. Given a civic state dinner, and the ministers would absent themselves if they disagreed with the Lord Mayor’s politics. Let a Sunday paper advocate the correction of financial abuses, and the suspicion is at once raised that the grievance really lies in not having a share of the spoil. Genuine men like Whitbread and Romilly, Roebuck and Cobden, have not always escaped similar imputation, from which their known characters should yet have shielded them.