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his temperate habits, the hard work at home and long hours in the House were too much for him; and to these causes, doubtless, may be attributed the illness by which he was cut off so suddenly at last.

At the general election which followed the resignation of the Whig ministry in 1834, and the brief return of Sir Robert Peel to Downing Street, Mr Cobbett was again returned for Oldham, and resumed his regular attendance in the House in spite of an inflammatory attack from which he was suffering. When the Marquis of Chandos brought on his motion for the repeal of the malt-tax, Mr Cobbett attempted to speak in favour of it, but, owing to inflammation of the throat, from which he had not recovered, he could not make himself heard. He remained to vote on that occasion, thereby increasing his complaint. It was not till after another instance of the same imprudence, that he felt the serious nature of his illness, and saw the necessity of taking some care of himself. He resolved to go down to his farm near Farnham, and get rid of his hoarseness and inflammation. After a few weeks there, he seemed to have almost recovered his usual health, but he imprudently took tea in the open air, on the evening of Thursday, June 11, and the consequence was a violent relapse of his complaint. With a few fluctuations, he lingered for a week, during which he recovered so far as to be able to talk in the most sprightly manner upon politics and farming, and to express a wish for four days' rain for the Cobbett corn and the root crops.'

On the day previous to his death, he could not rest in the house, but insisted on being carried round the farm. The strong man, who had hardly ever known what illness was, seemed as if he would set disease at defiance to the very last. That night he grew more and more feeble-the journey round the farm had been the last flicker in the socket. About one o'clock on Thursday morning, the 18th of June 1835, William Cobbett expired, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

On the 27th June, the funeral took place from Normandy Farm. The procession was attended by Mr Fielden, M.P., Mr O'Connell, Mr Wakley, and several other members of parliament. By the time it had reached Farnham, it was swelled by thousands of labourers in their smock-frocks and straw-hats, who followed the procession to the church-yard, where the mortal remains of England's greatest self-taught prose writer were deposited beside those of his humble ancestors.

And now, looking back at the forty years of stern battling with abuses which he maintained so resolutely, many persons scruple not to affirm that Cobbett deserves no higher place in history than is given to a Wilkes, a Sacheverel, or any of those other self-exaggerating agitators who have disturbed society at various periods during the last two centuries, and whose names must speedily sink into well-merited oblivion. Those who form such an estimate, however, only shew their ignorance of the man, and of the powerful

influence he exercised on public affairs, more especially during the last twenty or thirty years of his active and laborious life. Without speaking of the many admirable volumes he wrotethe Advice to Young Men, the Rural Rides, the Year's Residence in America, the Cottage Economy, the Tour in Scotland, the English Gardener, the Woodlands, almost any one of which would have given him a high place in literature as one of the finest painters of rural life-no one who is familiar with his political writings, and who has paid attention to the gradual progress of the great Condition of England Question' since the end of the war, can fail to perceive that William Cobbett did more to awaken public opinion to a sense of its duty towards the poor, gave a more powerful impulse to the movement for bettering the condition of the working-classes, which is rapidly becoming the greatest question of the day, than any writer of the present century. What higher praise could be awarded to a public journalist!

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Y earliest recollections-and they are of many years ago, for I am no longer young-carry me back to a dark and dirty room in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. The ceiling was smokestained, the paper faded and torn, and the windows, from never being cleaned, admitted no prospect and scarcely any sunshine from without. There was a battered pianoforte in one corner, of that old-fashioned kind I knew afterwards was called a clavecin. This was crowded with heaps of yellow dusty music. There was also a bass viol, several violins, and my father's music-desk, for

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he was a musician, and played in the band of Drury Lane Theatre. I also recollect that a portrait of Mrs Billington, and a print of David Garrick were suspended on the walls, and that my father's easy-chair was generally occupied by a large black cat, the dearest playfellow of my childhood. I was a lonely, motherless, neglected little creature, without amusement and without education. I could not read. There were some dusty volumes lying about, with curious frontispieces, and portraits of a past generation of actors in strange dresses, scattered at long intervals amid their pages. These I used to look at day by day with hopeless admiration and perplexity, and turn over leaf after leaf of those mysterious printed characters which had no meaning for my eyes, till I wept for very ignorance and shame. I used now and then to see my father reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning, and sometimes smiling over its contents. I never dared to ask him if I might learn to do the same, for he was harsh and cold, and seldom seemed aware even of my presence; but I have sat for many a silent hour and watched the motion of his eyes along the lines with inexpressible longing.

and

I have said that these are my earliest recollections; but I seemed even then to have dim remembrances, broken and shadowy enough, of a time long before. They were not so much remembrances, either, as reflections from a faded light, like images mirrored dreamily in water. Fragments of old rhymes and fairy stories floated in my mind, mingled with the tones of a soft voice; these I used to strive to summon back again, and loved to connect the scattered links with the weavings of my own fancy. Sometimes too, when I was lying in my bed, with the moonlight streaming in through the uncurtained window, I woke from pleasant dreams in which I seemed to see a gentle face, forgotten, yet familiar, and then slept to dream again.

I was very young at this time; not more, I should fancy, than seven years of age; but I never knew the exact date of my birth, nor do I now. The house in which we lived was let out from kitchen to attic. The ground-floor and shop belonged to a Jew, who made up clothing for the stage, and kept all kinds of hideous masks, glittering dresses, swords, and fearful things, for hire. If ever I went out into the street, I hurried past his door with uncontrollable terror. I cannot even now recall, without a shudder, the hideous laugh with which he used to greet my flying steps, and the way in which he lay in wait for my return, thrusting his yellow face through the half-opened door, and asking me if I would not give one little kiss to old Soloman!

I had a beautiful voice. I used to sing for hours in the day, and delighted, in my father's absence, to repeat, in my clear childish treble, the airs and brilliant variations I sometimes heard him practising upon the violin. From daily exercise in this amusement, I attained to such proficiency that I could warble the most difficult bravura passages with perfect fluency.

One morning as I was singing thus, the door opened slowly and softly, and a gentleman looked in.

'Go on, my dear,' said he with the kindest smile in the world; 'go on, and sing that pretty tune again for me.'

I was silent.

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'What! quite dumb?' said he, coming over and taking a seat opposite to me. Well, if you will not sing, tell me your name.' The gentleman's voice and eyes were so pleasant, that I contrived to stammer: 'Alice Hoffmann.'

He looked surprised, and told me that he knew my father quite well, but had never supposed he had a little girl like me. And then he took me on his knee, and kissed my cheek, and shewed me his watch; and so winning my confidence with gentle words, persuaded me to sing to him again. He listened to me very attentively; and when I had done, asked me to repeat it. My childish vanity was pleased for the first time, and I sung one of my father's brilliant pieces.

'Thank you, Alice,' he said at the close of my second performance; you are a good child, and now I will sing you a song in return.' And instantly the gentleman assumed the most comical expression I had ever seen, placed his hands on his knees, and began to sing. I have now no recollection of the words or the air, but I remember dancing and rolling about in ecstasies of mirth. He seemed to tie up every feature into knots, his mouth extended itself from ear to ear, and his words poured forth as if he had a dozen tongues.

In the midst of a torrent of volubility on the part of the gentleman, and my shrill peals of laughter, the door opened suddenly, and my father walked in. The stranger started, and his face became instantly transformed to its previous mild good-natured repose: the merriment died away upon my lips; my father looked sternly amazed; and as he advanced towards the visitor, reddened, and bowed with some formality.

"You are surprised to find me here, Hoffmann,' said he, blushing also; 'but I came to see Soloman down stairs about some properties, and hearing your child's voice singing overhead, I stole up stairs to listen to her.'

It is a poor place for you to enter, Mr Grimaldi,' said my father, proudly.

'Poor, with this little treasure in it!' exclaimed Mr Grimaldi, taking me by the hand: 'I should think my home rich if Í possessed her! What a magnificent voice the child has !'

'Indeed?' said my father, with a glance of cold surprise. 'I never heard her sing a note!'

The strange gentleman whistled and stared, and looked from my father's face to mine with a curious expression of bewilder

ment.

My father turned stiffly towards me: Can he asked in a harsh tone.

you sing, Alice ?'

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