the hand that wrote the “Grammar;”’ another, ‘That is the hand that wrote the “Protestant Reformation;”’ another, ‘That is the hand that wrote the “Advice to Young Men.”’ This was the case, more or less, at every place where I was.… Nor was this confined to the buoyant spirits of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the heart seems always upon the lips; but I found it the same everywhere.” The month of June saw the triumph of the Parliamentary Reformers, and eager preparations were made for canvass. Expectation ran high: the newly-enfranchised took the matter into their own hands; and amongst these were the people of Lancashire. Manchester had sent a member to Parliament in some long past age, but had been for centuries unrepresented, and was now to have two members. Oldham, with a population of over 50,000, was, likewise, to elect two. Early in July, 1832, Mr. Cobbett received a letter from an Oldham friend, informing him that it was determined to put him in nomination; and that two strangers having unexpectedly commenced a canvass, his friends had at once announced his name, along with that of Mr. John Fielden; the latter having consented to the proposal, with the understanding that Cobbett should be his colleague, if not elected for some other place. Several other constituencies had been thought of; but this unmistakable earnestness on the part of Lancashire decided the matter; and when, in the course of December, the elections came off, Fielden and Cobbett were at the top of the poll for Oldham. The people of Manchester had also put Mr. Cobbett in nomination, but, the result of the contest at Oldham being made known there on the first day of the poll, the votes intended for him were transferred to other candidates. Meanwhile, another lecturing tour had been undertaken during the autumn, extending into Scotland; and, if one may judge from the reception he met with, Mr. Cobbett was now enjoying greater popularity than at any other period of his life.[3] The notions which Mr. Cobbett had acquired, concerning the duties belonging to the position in which he was now placed, were quite at variance with any known principles. Until the æra of the Reformed Parliament it was accounted a preposterous thing for any member to be professedly without a party; and any one entering the House with a popular grievance at his back, as Paull and Burdett and Wardle had done in a previous generation--and as O’Connell and Hume in recent times--to a great extent stood alone. They might get supporters from time to time; but such men were not of the sort which could coalesce with the patrician nominees and the plutocrats, who had hitherto pretended to represent the Commons of England.