From the day of the first appearance of the _Political Register_, a new æra dawned for journalism. Its originality in plan, and the power with which it was written, awakened envy; its plain English, and rapid acquisition of independence in opinion, provoked opposition. And the success, with which its early career was marked, brought imitators into the field. But that which soon characterized it, more particularly, was an inflexible hostility to such newspapers, and such persons, who endeavoured to extenuate or explain away the misuse of public money. People sadly wanted educating upon this point. The principles of Walpole and Newcastle had borne fruit. The Treasury was surrounded by hungry adventurers; and there were hundreds of men, as late as William Pitt’s time, who had sucked-in these principles, as it were, with their mothers’ milk. And if we consider that, when Cobbett began the fight, and for some time after, there was no one else had the courage, or was in the mind, to expose it all, we shall understand the singular position in which he stood. For an anonymous writer to sit down, and write off a malicious paragraph or two with insinuations of venality, was one thing; but, for a man, well-known in the flesh, renouncing the editorial “we,” and affecting the first-person-singular, proceeding to tell a plain story, fearless of the consequences, was a phenomenon which startled Society; the effect produced being similar to that which occurs upon poking your walking-stick into an ants’ nest. Decent Society never forgave Mr. Cobbett. No matter! Upon that man’s memory lies the credit of having been chiefly instrumental in restoring political purity to the nation. The whole domestic history of England, between 1800 and 1835, is distinguished by the struggles of the nation to emancipate itself from corruption in Church and State. The pioneer was William Cobbett; and no history of those struggles, which does not place him high among the “leaders and guiders” of men, will be worthy of the name.