IV
The first tilt which he made from the new side of the ring where he had now taken his stand was against Mr. Pitt—whom it was not difficult towards the close of his life to condemn, for the worst fault which a minister can commit—being unfortunate. Cobbett’s next assault—on the demand of the Whigs for an increase of allowance to the king’s younger sons—was against Royalty itself, its pensions, governorships, and rangerships, which he called “its cheeseparings and candle-ends!” Some Republicans on the other side of the Atlantic must have rubbed their spectacles when they read these effusions; but the editor of the Register was indifferent to provoking censure, and satisfied with exciting astonishment. Besides, we may fairly admit, that, when the King demanded that his private property in the funds should be free from taxation (showing he had such property), and at the same time called upon the country to increase the allowances of his children, he did much to try the loyalty of the nation, and gave Cobbett occasion to observe that a rich man did not ask the parish to provide for his offspring. “I am,” said he, “against these things, not because I am a Republican, but because I am for monarchical government, and consequently adverse to all that gives Republicans a fair occasion for sneering at it.”
In the meantime his periodical labours did not prevent his undertaking works of a more solid description; and in 1806 he announced the “Parliamentary Register,” which was to contain all the recorded proceedings of Parliament from the earliest times; and was in the highest degree useful, since the reader had previously to wade through a hundred volumes of journals in order to know anything of the history of the two Houses of Parliament. These more serious labours did not, however, interfere with his weekly paper, which had a large circulation, and, though without any party influence (for Cobbett attacked all parties), gave him a great deal of personal power and importance. “It came up,” says the author, proudly, “like a grain of mustard-seed, and like a grain of mustard-seed it has spread over the whole civilised world.” Meanwhile, this peasant-born politician was uniting rural pursuits with literary labours, and becoming, in the occupation of a farm at Botley, a prominent agriculturist and a sort of intellectual authority in his neighbourhood. From this life, which no one has described with a pen more pregnant with the charm and freshness of green fields and woods, he was torn by another prosecution for libel.