As to how far Mr. Cobbett’s ideas and predictions have been accepted, is not the purpose of the present work; if, even, its limits did not forbid such an essay. It is certain that he was largely pirated, during his lifetime, both in speeches and in newspaper articles. But he lost so much weight, in the minds of dispassionate men, by such unbounded extravagance as was displayed in his “History of the Reformation;” and his cotemporaries were so cruelly lashed and scolded, when the advocacy of their own views exceeded the truth, that the significance of his career could not be properly understood by his generation. It is almost surprising that more bad institutions did not fall before his trenchant blows; yet, with respect to those that remain,[3] and are doomed, it may safely be recommended to ransack the _Political Register_ for the best arguments and illustrations, with which to defy their supporters. On many great questions Cobbett was far in advance of his time; perhaps on nothing more so than in the foresight with which he contemplated the development of popular ideas. To us, in Liberal-Conservative times, the following passage (May, 1833) seems a commonplace; but, to the privileged classes of his own days, the words were as the words of Micaiah in the ears of Ahab:-- “It is not by harshly and rudely resisting the claims of the people, that you put a stop to the progress of democracy. It is by yielding in time; by yielding to what is manifestly just in the people’s demands; by removing expenses so clearly unjust towards the people, and so clearly unnecessary to the support of good and efficient government; it is by taking from their backs burdens which they cannot bear without ruin; and which they ought not to bear at all. It is by means like these; by doing these things, which satisfy all reasonable men, and putting them on your side; it is by these that you check, and put a stop to, the progress of democracy; and not by acts which plainly tell the people that they are to expect no redress of their grievances as long as the present order of things shall exist.”