“Mr. Cobbett is still of stately stature, and must in youth have been tall. He must then, in physiognomy, person, and bearing, have been a fine specimen of the true Saxon breed;-- “The eyes of azure, and the locks of brown, And the blunt speech, that bursts without a pause, And free-born thoughts, which league the soldier with the laws.” … His thin, white hairs and high forehead, the humour lurking in the eye, and playing about the lips, betokened something more than the squire in his gala suit; still, the altogether was of this respectable and responsible kind. His voice is low-toned, clear, and flexible, and so skilfully modulated, that not an aspiration was lost of his nervous, fluent, unhesitating, and perfectly correct discourse. There was no embarrassment, no flutter, no picking of words; nor was the speaker once at fault, or in the smallest degree disturbed, by those petty accidents and annoyances which must have moved almost any other man.… He is, indeed, a first-rate comic actor, possessed of that flexible, penetrative power of imitation which extends to mind and character, as well as to their outward signs. His genius is, besides, essentially dramatic. We have often read his lively characteristic dialogues with pleasure and amusement, but to see him act them, and personate Lord Althorp, pommelled and posed by the future Member for Oldham, was a degree beyond this. He was in nothing vehement or obstreperous, though everybody had anticipated something of this kind; and his subdued tone and excellent discretion gave double point to his best hits.… The humour of his solemn irony, his blistering sarcasm, but especially his sly hits and unexpected or random strokes and pokes on the sore or weak sides of the Whigs, told with full effect. To oratory, in the highest sense of the term, Mr. Cobbett never once rises, but he is ever a wily, clear, and most effective speaker.” “Mr. Cobbett expressed himself highly gratified with his reception in Edinburgh. In Glasgow, and other parts of the country, he has been, if that were possible, still more popular. And at this we rejoice, as evidence of affection for the cause to which, whatever fastidious persons may think, Cobbett has been a useful, rough pioneer, and most powerful auxiliary.” The Rev. George Gilfillan gives (“Gallery of Literary Portraits,” 2nd Ser.) an animated account of Cobbett’s appearance in Edinburgh, and is very fair, albeit shrewd enough, in his entire estimate of Cobbett’s character. [4] “Memoirs,” ii. 335. [5] _Vide_ the _Courier_ newspaper, March, 1833.