So Mr. Cobbett’s address to the electors of Manchester was denounced as utterly subversive of the institutions of the country. However, he went down to Manchester in the course of the winter, and delivered several lectures, with the object of showing that his principles, on the contrary, would tend to conserve, instead of destroy. Lord Radnor had previously written a letter to one of the Manchester papers[2] warmly supporting him, and offering his aid, in case of a subscription being made. And Cobbett now found, upon visiting Manchester, that he had already won his way into the hearts and minds of the people there. Before he left, a dinner was given in his honour, at which Mr. John Fielden, manufacturer, of Todmorden, presided. The following will give an example of his general reception in Lancashire. Most of Cobbett’s “egotism” was displayed in answer to personal attacks, and we owe a good deal of biographical matter to those occasions on which he chose to answer. One evening in the House of Lords, the Earl of Falmouth, in passing a sneer over to Lord Radnor, concerning the latter’s nomination-borough of Downton, insinuated that the loss of that borough would be “a bad thing for Cobbett, whom the people would scarcely elect, if left to themselves.” Lord Falmouth had a taste of Mr. Cobbett’s lash, as a reward for his temerity; and Cobbett concluded his paper thus:-- “I have been lecturing on politics--I have been maintaining my _Manchester propositions_, in every great town in the north, as far as the northern confines of Yorkshire, with the exception, I believe, of Liverpool and Bradford; and I have everywhere maintained that, unless those propositions be acted upon to the full extent, a reform of the Parliament will be a delusion and a mockery. Everywhere I have been received with every mark of approbation.… Two or three words with my name, written by myself, have been begged as a valuable present by more than a hundred persons. No mark of disapprobation have I received during the whole of half-a-hundred lectures that I have given.… The people of England will have the sense to perceive that it is not title and fortune that they want to represent them; but talent, knowledge, and courage; a love of the honour of their country; men who see in every labourer their countryman, and who take to themselves a share of the disgrace of seeing him robbed of the fruit of his toil. Experience has now taught the people of England that, to be restored to their liberties and happiness, they must rely upon one another; and though you do not know it, the country everywhere teems with clever and well-educated young men. During my last tour, scores--and I might say many hundreds of young men, sometimes twenty at a time--have crowded round me as I have been going out of the lecturing-places; one saying, as he shook my hand, ‘That is