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HOW TO GET ON IN THE WORLD ~ -'. .- ?
AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE

LIFE AND LANGUAGE
OF

WILLIAM COBBETT
TO WHICH IS ADDED

COBBETT'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR WITH NOTES

••-: ""l

;.-

.~
/

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B/
ROBERT WATERS

"

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....

Teacher of Language and Literature In the Hoboken (N . J.) Academy . _

1883

EDITOR'S PREFACE.
MR. RICHARD GRANT WHITE'S VIEWS; AND SOME OTHER VIEWS.

r
COPYRIGHT, 1883,
DY

ROBERT

WATERS.

.· . ,

\i

Among recent writers on language, there is perhaps
not one who has written more wisely, or exhibited a finer
perception of the true means of acquiring the power of
• expression, than Mr. Richard Grant White. His two
works, "Words and their Uses" and "Every-day English,"
are marvelously interesting and full of sound, wholesome
instruction. These books will, by any one uninformed of
his novel views, be read with surprise and even with incredulity; but they cannot fail to .impress the reader with
the conviction, that they possess a measure of truth which
is confirmed by experience. Mr. White condemns as altogether u seless, nay, as worse than useless, the grammar
studies of our public schools, and recommends the study
of authors instead of grammars.
Now, although I agree in the main with Mr. White's
views concerning the character of ·our tongue, and the
unprofitableness of grammar studies in general; although
I fully agree with him that our language must be learned, .
chiefly, from h earing good speakers and reading good
writers; still I maintain that THIS IS NOT ENOUGH; that in
order to be able to write· correctly, and to be SURE that one
DOES write correctly, a fair knowledge of well-defined principles is necessary; that the study of these principles,
rightly pursued, is not only necessary to enable one to
speak and write correctly, but is useful as a discipline of
the mind and as a m. ~ns of general culture. Theory
MUST obe combined with practice.
For although one may,
by a large acquaintance with good writers and speakers,
acquire a good ear and a discriminating sense of correct
language, these are not infallible guides; a person with

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Editor's Preface.

Editor's Preface.

the finest culture of this kind may commit the most egregious blunders. It is precisely this which is so forcibly
displayed by Cobbett in his "Six Lessons"; where he
shows that persons of the highest rank, the finest taste,
the gentlest training, and the most extensive learning
have committed errors of the coarset:?t kind.
Mr. White says: "In speaking or writing English, we
have only to choose the right words and put them in the
right places, respecting no laws but those of reason, conforming to no order but that which we call logical." But
many people must be taught what are "the laws of reason,
and the order which we call logical." Without some instruction in these matters, common people will hardly
ever write half-a-dozen lines without a blunder. Take the
mechanics and shopkeepers, for instance, and you will
find that most of them are unable to announce even their
names and business correctly. Not to mention the ludicrous and amusing errors of which Mr. White himself
gives specimens-the "inauguration of a sample-room,"
the "home-made hotel," etc.-we have only t o look at any
common sign to be convinced of the truth of this statement. " John Smith, Iron Foundry,'' "John Jones, CigarStore." John Smith is not an iron foundry, nor John
Jones a cigar-store. We know that they mean, " John
Smith, Iron Founder," or "John Smith's Iron Foundry,"
"John Jones, Cigar-maker," or " John J ones's CigarStore" ; but they must be TAUGHT, to SAY what they mean,
and the only way io do this is to instruct them in t1!e
principles of grammar; or, if you please, in "the laws of
reason and the order which we call logical."
Boys and girls must be taught to write their thoughts
as well as to spealc them. It is vain to say otherwise.
And the only question is, what iHthe best way of teaching
them. Mr. White will not listen to the teaching of grammar in any shape or form whatever. Well, a::i far as the
text-book method, the rule-and-word-crammi ng method

of the public schools, is concerned, he is. perfectly right;
there is very little profit to be derived from it. But there
is a right and a wrong way of doing everything. Mr.
White has never, I imagine, been a teacher; he knows
nothing of the actual work of teaching young people how
to write correctly; he knows nothing of teaching, I imagine, except by writing, which is an easy, pleasant, and
convenient way of teaching-I say not a word against its
effectiveness-for no questions are asked, except such as
may oe again answered in writing, at one's leisure, and
without interruption or interpellation. . If he were a
teacher, he would find it impossible to teach boys and
girls anything of correct speech without giving them some
knowledge of the LAWS of speech-as impossible as it
would be to teach them any science or art without mentioning the name or explaining the meaning of any one of
its parts. I do not say that this knowledge must be communicated by means of a book ; it may be communicated
without a book; indeed, much better without a book.
But taught it must be. For when you have shown boys
and girls how-to write a composition, and they have written it, how are you going to show them or explain to them
its errors, or how to improve their language, without ever
mentioning anything of the principles of grammar? Can
there be any better way of showing a boy that "He writes
beautiful" is wrong, than by explaining to him the difference between the adjective and the adverb? Can there be
any better way of showing him that "The book lays on
the table " is wrong, than by explaining to him the difference between a transitive and an intr. .lsitive verb? Can
there be any better way of showing that "I am taller
than him" is wrong, than by explaining to him the difference between . the nominative and the objective case? ,
That "The color of the leaves are green" is wrong, than
by showing him the nature of subject and predicate, and
that the one must agree with the other? These explana-

lV

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vi

Editor's Preface.

tions, properly done, will be like taking him out 0£ a thick
fog, and putting him in broad sunlight; taking him out
, of .a perplering, bewildering maze, and putting him on
a plain high-road, with a chart or compass by which he
may walk right on to his goal, with perfect ease, and in
perfect confidence.
I have heard of a lawyer who, at a banquet of gentlemen of his cloth, brought out a toast "To the man who
writes his own will." Why? Because he is likely to
make use of language that will admit of question as to
its meaning; and thus give work to the lawyers. Now I
maintain that the man who acquires a clear comprehension
of the principles of our language may write in such a
manner as to defy the astutest lawyer to make his
words mean anything else than what he intends them
to mean; which is something that cannot be said of the
man who learns only by talking and reading. Such a man
lives in the land of uncertainty, and never knows whither
he is going or whence he has come.
Grammar, properly considered and prop~rly taught, is
nothing but an unfolding of general principles, which
. must be appli~ d, more or less, in all languages ; every one
of which. principles has a reason for its existence, and the
majority of which may be made as plain and evident as a
statement in mathematics. Mr. White says that nobody
that thinks of his grammar while writing will ever write
a sentence worth reading. Of course, no boy or girl
ought for a moment to think of his grammar while writing
a composition; in fact, nobody ever does think of his
grammar while intent on putting down his thoughts.
But ~hen the work is DONE, when he HAS ~tten it, then
he ought to be able to review it understandingly, and see
tlw.t it conforms to "the laws of reason and the order'
which we call logical" ; otherwise he will, in nine cases
out .of_ten, write incorrectly. '
I fully agree with 'Mr. White, that all the grammars of

PREFACE.
WHY

, AT a time when the conviction is fast gaining ground
that the language studies pursued in our public and private schools utterly fail to attain the object aimed at, and
that the one thing needful, to obtain a good practical
knowledge of the English tongue, is the careful study 'o f
the best, most idiomatic English -writers, it is thought .
that an account of the life and wntings of orie of Eng~
. land's most powerful writers and most remarkable char'. · ac~ers, with one of the best productions of his pen, cannot
.'. . fa~ to be useful. There is, perhaps, no modern English
.,. ·: wnter whose style is so pleasing and attractive, so vigor·;;{:; ous ai:1d racy;_ so calculated to arouse interest and create
a desll'e to learn and get on in the world, as that of..
W~M CoBBE.T~. As a writer, as a master of pure, ·QOr~
~· , rr r,ect, vigorous, idiomatic Saxon English, he has never been
' • at~
.
•
. . B1:11J>assed ; and as an mstructor of the lang~age which he
.,himse.lf used so thoroughly well, he is, unquestionably
;,supenor to any other writer who ever at.:empted to teach
.; 1t. Let any intelligent American read his little English
. <;trammar, and he will be compelled to admit that it is
-'·; s~perior to anything of the kind ever produced; or let
read ~is Advice to Young Men, and he will as surely
au.ow that m attractiveness of style, in clearness and force
,',:of expression,. corre.otness and simplicity of language, ·no
.. ;'- o,t her work of the kind can at all -co~pare with it.

··<..

·<·

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AND FOR WHOM THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.

iv

Preface.

Mr. Richard Grant White, in speaking of the language
of British author::;, rightly places Cobbett among authors
of the very highest class: "Macaulay, Thackeray, Helps, George Eliot, Johnson, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Goldsmith,
and Cobbett." Nor is he at all unworthy of such noble
company; for I hardly know which of them surpasses
him in effective use of our noble Anglo-Saxon speech.
The Saturday Review speaks of him as possessing " immense vigor, resource, energy, and courage, joined to a
force of understanding, a degree of logical power, and,
above all, a force of expression, which have rarely been
equalled.'' Southey declared that there never was a better
or more forcible English writer than William Cobbett;
and it was, I think, the same writer who declared that if
a foreigner should ask him for a specimen of PURE ENGLISH, he would select a passage, not from a work of one
of the Oxford or Cambridge-bred scholars, but from one
of those of the peasant-born and self-taught WILLIAM
COBBETT.
As to his Grammar, it has enabled thousands who have
failed to make head or tail of any other grammar to master the English language, and to speak and write it correctly. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer speaks of it as" the only
amusing grammar in the world;" Hazlitt says it is "interesting as a story-book;" and l\'Ir. Richard Grant "White
declares that he "knows it well, and has read it with
great admiration." When it first appeared in England,
ten thousand copies were sold in the first month, and it
bas had a steady sale in that country ever since. In
Germany it has been considered worthy of an honor
which has never, I believe, been conferred on any other
English grammar,- namely, it is printed in the original,
with notes in the German language, for the use of German students.
The language of the ordinary English grammar-book is
incomprehensible to boys and girls; its words are unfa-

Preface.

v

miliar and unintelligible to them; in fact, the whole
vocabulary of grammar is a DEAD LANGUAGE to them. Now
Cobbett's little work has the BREATH OF LIFE in it; it is in
LIVING, EVERY-DAY ENGLISH; the very words of it are alive,
running over with life; it talks to its readers, allures and
draws them on, and makes learning pleasant to them.
Read Cobbett to a class of boys and girls, and you will
see their eyes sparkle, their lips break in smiles, and their
whole faces indicate pleased interest and surprise. Turn,
now, and read Brown, Green, or Whitney to them. ·what
a change! Their faces instantly assume an expression of
listlessness and indifference; their jaws fall and their eyes
grow dull; weariness takes possession of them, and if
there is any movement at all among them, it is one
expressive of impatience or annoyance. And no wonder;
for such a change is passing from LIFE to DEATH. The
grammars of these men are nothing but words, words,
.words; names, names; names ; rules, rules, rules ; Latin
-" before and Latin behind; prefixes, suffixes, adjuncts;
s~bordinate and co-ordinate elements; causative, copulative, adversative, alternative connectives; genitive, accusative, ablative, locative cases; appositive adjectives
and adnominal genitives; factitive predicates and dative
objectives ;-a perfect whirlwind of hard words and
phrases. And then they are all cut up into little bits;
so many dry, hard, knotty little chips; sapless and savorless, broad-faced, narrow-faced; long, short; thick, thin;
all tacked on one to anotheL H ow different Cobbett's
little work is to theirs! He carries everything alonO' in
~ne lucid living whole, and there is a freshness, an Enghshness, a salt-sea-air-iness about his work that is entirely lacking in theirs. Even l\'Ir. Whitney devotes page
after page to nothing but giving names to forms and
expressions which never can possibly be misused; and
t~e scholar who, with incredible pains and toil, gropes
his way through his book, finds at last that he has learned

vi

Preface.

little more than a lot of names. Cobbett gives just that
knowledge which is necessary to enable one to WRITE and
SPEAK correctly, and all the rest he leaves to philologists
and word-mongers. Instead of walking away up in the
air on stilts, with unapproachable strides, he comes down
and talks to his scholar in language that h e can understand, in language that every plough-boy or news-boy can
understand; and yet, though suited to the comprehension
of the least cultivated, his work is written in a style that
the man of the finest cultme cannot but admire.
If, therefore, any text-book at all is to be introduced in
the class, Cobbett's Grammar is the v~ry one; the only
one; for with it, the dullest, most lifeless t eacher must
succeed in t eaching, and the dullest, most lifeless scholar
must succeed in learning the principles of English grammar; or with even no teacher at all he will succeed, for it
is itself the teacher; teaching, truly enough, "without a
master," or, at least, without any other master. I }mow
this by actual experience; for it was the first grammar
that had any significance to me ; the first that I could
understand; the first from which I learned anything;all the others were hateful things, which had no sort of
significance to me. Cobbett's work is a mental awakener; a rouser of cm·iosity, interest, and ambition; and
when these feelings are once aroused, everythmg is
gained, teaching becomes easy, and success is certain.
For what makes school a place of tortm·e to children
is the being compelled to listen to what they do not
understand, to what they llo not see the use of or the
good of, and what they therefore do not care to listen to.
This little grammar is the very book, too, for those who
are trying to teach themselves; those who are working
away at mental improvement by self-help; for those who
have none but Providence and themselves to h elp them;
the very work for " soldiers, sailors, apprentices, ploughboys, clerks," mechanics; for all those who are striving

Preface.

Vll

to learn for themselves how to speak and write good,
plain correct English. It is the very book for those ambitio~s and earnest young teachers who wish to lear~ the
best way of communicating knowledge to youthful_ mm_ds.
When Charles J a.mes Fox heard any one speak m high
terms of any recently-delivered speech, he was w~nt to
ask "Does it read well?'' and if the answer were m the
afu·mative, he would say, "It is a bad speech;" concli:~­
ing that it was too formal and elaborate to be talk-like
and natmal. If any one should tell me of a good lesson
which he had listened to, the first thing I shoul_d ask
would be: Did it excite interest ? was .the attent10n of
.k ·t q If the answer
the scholars aroused? did they li e l ·
to these questions were in the negative, then I sh~uld
say the lesson was a bad one, no matter how l~g1cal,
well arranged, compact, or learned it inight other:"'1se be:
for the first r equisite in teaching is to arouse. ~~erest;
whence follows al ~ention; whence the acqmsit10n of
knowledge; whence reflection; whence cultme.. Hence
the great advantage of Cobbett's manner of teachmg:_ he
arouses attention; awakens interest; makes the sub1ect
attractive; and kindles a desire to learn. H~ was the
first to write on the subject in a way that plam people
could understand; and I think he still continues unrivalled as a teacher of the art of writing well.
The ~im of this work is to show what CoBBETT was as
a MAN and a WRITER. It is a study in language as well
as in life. It is intended esp ecially for every young man
who is striving to educate himself and to GET ON IN T~
WORLD; for every young teacher aiming at adv~ncem_ent m
his profession, and for every one who is prepar~g himself
to be a teacher or writer; for all those who wish to _see
how a good writer has acquired his_pow~r of ex~ress1on,
' d how he teaches others to acqmre this powe1 · He:e
an
k"
h"
up in
is the story of a poor plough-boy wor ·mg is way
the world by his own unaided exertions, from the lowest

Pi·efacc.

P rejace.

round of the ladder to almost the highest; from a poor
lawyer's drudge and copyist to be one of the fuo~t wri~ers
of the age; and here is one of the best works of h~s gemu~,
composed when he had attained the full matunty of his
powers.
.
The most frequently-quoted biography of Cobbett is
that by the Rev. J ohn Selby Watson.* This work, to
which I h er e acknowledge my indebtedness for many
fact s in the life of Cobbett, is well written, complete, and
apparently impartial ; but the impartiality is only apparent-and there is no surer way of destroying a man's
character than by apparent impartiality in the doing of it
-for its sp'ir'i,t is strongly hostile to Cobbett. Never was
there a more skillfully arranged plan of attack; never
was ther e such well-disguised hostility under the cloak of
impartiality ; n ever did cunning savage or murderous
assassin ply his weapon with mor e deadly effect than
Mr. Watson has plied his pen in destroying the character
of William Cobbett. The way is prepared by the account
of the life of a notoriously bad man. CoBBET'r is linked
with WILKES; and his character is painted in such dark
and doubtful colors, that we ~nally feel as little respect
for the one as for the other. Mr. Watson belongs to the
Established Church, to Oxford, and to the Conservative
Party, at all of which Cobbett flung the most vigorous
and telling shafts. Mr. Watson's sympathies are almost
always with those whom Cobbett opp osed or attacked ;
and he subjects his acts and motives t o such a suspicious scrutiny, looks with such constant distrust on almost
every thing Cobbett t ells or says of himself, and puts
his actions in such a r epellent, discreditable light, that
the impression one finally gets of him is, that h e was a
man with whom one wishes to have nothing further to

do, whose conduct was hardly ever pl'aiseworthy, and
from whose writings very little profit is to b e derived.
Being deeply convinced of the injustice of the picture
thus drawn by Mr. Watson, I have endeavored to disprove
a number of his accusations and insinuations, and to
give an unprejudiced and fair view of the man and his
writings.

viu

* Biographies of J ohn Wilkes and William Cobbett.
wood. Edinburgh, 1870.

Black-

ix

Mr. Edward Smith's Biography of Cobbett*-which I
had not discovered until I had finished mine-is a very
good one and very full. Mr. Smith's work is an endeavor
to show what Cobbett was as a MAN, while mine is an
attempt to show what h e was as a WRITER as well as a 111AN.
Though the best account of him that I have seen, Mr.
Smith's work is, I think, faulty in one respect: it is the
opposite of Mr. Watson's, being about as uniformly laudatory of his subj ect as Watson's is condemnatory. Mr.
Smith strives as hard to make Cobbett out a perfect man,
as Mr. Watson (whom h e never once mentions through his
whole two volumes) strives to make him out a worthless
one. While Mr. Watson takes pains to bring out prominently all the doubtful passages of his life, and says little
of the noble ones, Mr. Smith p asses OYer very lio-htly or
.
t>
'
men t 10ns not at all, the doubtful passages, and makes the
m~st of the noble ones. Besides, many things which this
wnter r egards from an English p oint of view present a
very different appearance when regarded from an American point of view. The only important things that I
have taken from his work are an extract from l\fr. Windham's diary, confirming Cobbett's presence at the Pitt
dinner; and a list of Cobbett's works, which I have placed
at the end of the life.
I am also indebted to the " Historical Characters " of

~ir ~enry Lytton Bulwer (now Lord Dailing) for one or

two important facts. But the main sources of my informa*William Cobbett : a Biography: 2 volumes.
son, Low & Co., 1878.
• ,

.1

London : Samp-

•

Preface.
tion are in the writings of Cobbett himself; writings
which, it is well known, are remarkn.bly autobiographical
in their nature.
CoBBETT, whom the L ondon Times well termed "the
last of the Saxons " and the Saturclay R eview "the most.
English of Englishmen," was a truly !51-' eat m~n, notwithstanding his many faults, and notwithstanding all t~at
his enemies have said of him. For me, he has p eculiar
claims· for he was one of the heroes of my boyhooda man from whose writings I received more instruction in
my youth than from those of any other ; and it ~as been
inexpressibly painful to me to see him covered with. obloquy, accused of bribe-taking, forgery, falsehood, dishonesty, demagoguery, hypocrisy and what not; ne~rly all of
which accusations without any other foundat10n than
mere assumption. Cobbett was not a perfect man-:Vh?
is ~-but he had many sterling virtues well worthy of imitation; and the knowledge of both his virtues and his
failings may be found, especially by young people, profitable for instruction, for precept, and for example.
HOBOKEN A CADE MY,
HoBOKEN,

N. J., May 9th, 1883.

Contents of the Life and Language.
PART I.
COBBETT's CAREER IN YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. -FROM ms
BIRTH, 1762, TILL HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND, 1800.
Chapter
I.~The

· Page

occupations of an English farmer's boy.
II.-From holding the plough to driving a quill.
III.-Life in the British army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV.-Conduct in love and courtship. . . . . . . . . . . .
V.-The Court-martial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VI.-Life as a teacher and author.-Becomes the
champion of George III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VII.-The political part.ies in the United States.Cobbett sides with Washington's party..
VIII.-In the thick of the fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IX.-How he defied the Democrats.... . . .. . ...
X .-The Court-martial again.- An ill-founded
accusation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XI.-The meeting of Cobbett and Talleyrand. . .
XII.-Editorial warfare.- A mild con-espondent. .
XIII.-Legal troubles.-Return to England. . . . . .

1
7
12
19
28

35

41
44
47
49
54
56
60

PART II.
FROM COBBETT'S RETURN TO ENGLAND TILL HIS RELEASE FROM
NEWGATE.
I.-..Why Cobbett acted as he did in America.Reeept10n b 3' the Hon. William Windham. o'!
II.-The Pitt dinner-party.. ...... ...... ..... 6G

'"

218

How he 1'a'Ug/it G1·ar1tmu1·.

L ife of William Cobbett.

him the most extraordinary Englishman of his age, and
called him "the last of the Saxons;" the llfo1·ning Chronicle d eclar ed he was one of the most p owerful writers
that England ever produced, unequalled as an advocate;
and the Standard acknowledged that h e was the first
political writer of his age, wh olly without a rival since . the days of Swift. As for the fee'.ings with which the
people r egarded his death, they were, I think, :fitly expressed in some lines written on the occasion by Elliott,
the Corn-Law Rhymer:
Oh b ear him where the rain can fall ,
And where the winds can blow;
And let th e sun weep o'er his pall,
As to the grave ye go.
And in some little lone churchyard,
Bes ide the growing corn,
Lay gentle Nature's stern Prose Bard,
H er mightiest peasant born I
Yes, let the wild-flower wed his grave,
Th :Lt bees may murmur near
Wh en <>' (!r his last home bcnrl the brave,
And s.iy, "A MA N lies here!"

r
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'.<'or Britons honor CoBBETr's name,
Thoug!1 rashly oft h e spoke;
And 1101:e can scorn, and few will blame,
The low-laid heart of oak.
F or when his stormy voice was loud ,
And GuILT quaked at the so und,
Benea; li the frown that shook the P1muo,
The POOR a shelter found.
Dead Oak, thou liv'st! Thy smitten hands,
The t hunders of thy brow,
Speak with strange tongues, in many lands,
And tyrants hear thee No w!

219

PART IV.
Hrs

vVoRKS, STYLE, AND

CHARACTER.

CHAPTER I.
HOW HE TAUGH'r GRAM?.Lo\.R.
EVERY

man has his own experience with bookc as with

~ther things ; and as the world of books is unlimited, and

life but too limited, the communication of that experience
, is sometimes useful, especially to young p eople. One never
. fo~gets those books which have caused the mind to see
new things in life, or to see life itself in a new light, and
. which consequently have had a large share in the formation of one's character; and, on looking back, and r Pcalling the books one has read, one often finds that_ the important or impression-Iµaking books, th ose wlnch have
awakened n ew feelings and given a new turn .to our
minds, which h ave suddenly aroused a thirst for knowledge and helped to make us what we are, ar e so few that
they may be counted on the fingers of one hand. I have
sketched the life of a man whose books were t o me the
source of the first real instruction I ever received. They
were the first that excited interest, that roused ambition
' to learn and created in me, like Swift's " Tale of a Tub"
'
i.a Cobbett himself, an intellectual birth, a mental awakening, a rousing from the long sleep of youthful indifference. His grammars were the first of his works that I
became acquainted with; and after having struggled il1
vain with the dry-as-dust and obscure jargon of the old
grammarians, I found his works on grammar a perfect

.

•
220

Ly'e of William Uobbett.

revelation, a source of intellectual enlightenment;
refreshment as well as of instruction. In youth, I had ·
worked away at conjugations, declensions, parts of speech,•·
and so on, until I acquired a pure horror of the very name
of grammar. Cobbett's little English grammar fell into
my hands, when lo! astonishing discovery ! I found a sub-.
ject which I had imagined the most wearisome, the most
difficult, and the most repulsive in existence, suddenly
change its character, and become positi vely in~eresting, ·
pleasing, and even amusing! Never was anybody more
pleasantly surprised ; never was anybody more effectively
helped out of difficulty.
I had the same experience with his French grammar, I .
which is almost equally good, Had it n ot been for that
gra=ar, wherein he displays the same entertaining, captivating style of teaching, applied to a foreign tongue, I
should never, I think, have learned the language at all;
for I could make neither h ead nor t ail of the old grammars of that language. I knew a young man who, with
no other knowledge of French than what he had acquired
from this grammar, succeeded in earning a living as a
compositor on a French newspap~r in P aris, and subsequently in t eaching English and German to French boys
in the north of France.
No writer of modern times has made the subject of
grammar so plain, so intelligible, so interesting, as Cob- ,,
bett; his books on this subject are almost as fascinating
as story-books, and they r ender easy and pleasant a subject which, in other hands, has b een the torment. and
despair of b oys and girls from time imm~morial. He
divested grammar of all the learned nonsense of the
teachers of his time ; discarded, so to speak, the old
clothes of the Greek and Latin scholars, which all the
grammarians had put on one after another, and he gave the
subject a new, fresh, pleasing, English dress, capable of
being appreciated by every person of common capacity.

How he 1'aught Grammar.
'

.

221

ure him for introducing polipolitical allusions while
tics into grammar, f?r ma mg
nnecti.on with politics.
.
b' t which has no co
. ,
d t d of the art of teachmg.
. treating a su iec . .
How little such cnt~cs un ~rs:~ch sharpens the appetite,
It is this very practice of hi:
otherwise by no means
. and gives spi~e andlt~av:~s ~e:; practice of his,-of illusis .
t examples -which makes
captivating dish.
"kin
d piquan
'
· d
trating by stn g an
l . Those who have studie
him so successful as a t eac ie;~dinary school-books know
English grammar ~y the
never come to an undernothing of ~he s;btc!~e t:i~?t hundred men you meet in
standing of it.
a e.
er an thing that ninety of
Wall street, and I will wlalg hi hyi·s right "It is she,"
' nommative
· ·
· not b e able to te wknc
hat the
them will
" They do not
ow w
·t
or "It is h er.
th n ever could make i
. ·
al is because ey
or the ob1ective c e '
"bl 1 n<tuacre of Green, Brown,
·
rehensi e a o o
. out from the mcomp
. t hundrecl letters of the corre. and Black. Or take th~ fas
y ·k nd I will guarantee
·
f
fummN~ m,a
, spondents o any
atical errors,-e1Tors
h ,e gross rrramm
ob the r ecipients, because
that ninety of t h em a>
which, of course, are not seen tyhe subJ. ect as the writers.
.
h · darkness on
. h
they are as muc m
f ordinary grammarians is t e
How different from that o dl th. sub]. ect ! He makes
. h C bb tt ban es is
manner in wh1c
o e
1 . s a pikestaff, as clear
.
t.
but as p am a
.
d tand what he means,
it not only mteres mg,
·
t fail to un ers
as daylight. One ~ann~ interest ed in what he says. " His
and one cannot fail to ~
.
. . indeed almost un. a m struction is
ower
of
conveymo
the
reader to leai·n than
P
rather to woo
fi. Id
equalled; h e seems
l
"th his pupil over the e
h.
h
e
trave
s
wi
.
t
to affect t o t eac '
.
d never seemmg 0
·
h " h he is engage '
of knowledge m w ic.
hi
lf learned. H e assumes
b :vh1ch he rose
. t · too minute for t h e
forget the s t eps Y'
.
. k
n and no pom is
that nothmg is
. now
t" 't. on Ab ove all, the pure moth er.
:most cai·eful roves ~g~ i . t"
a,.e conveyed make him
.
. .
hi h his mstruc ions """
.
English m w c
h"l the reader is ostensibly rea double teacher, for w i e

·Mi-. Watson and others cen~.

222

Life o.f Will'i am Cobbett.

?eiving instruct~on o~ some subject of rural economy, he
is at the same fame msensibly imbibing a taste for good
sound Saxon English-the very type of the substantial
matters whereof the author delights to discourse." So
wrote an appreciative writer in a journal of far-off New
Zealand.
The first requisite of a good teacher is to make hi8
lessons interesting and attractive. As soon as a subject
becomes interesting, it is being understood ; ideas on the
subject are entering the brain. Cobbett lent interest to
every subject he touched: this is the secret of his suc?ess. Of course, introducing politics into grammar iii
i~-:regular; but it is the irregularity that succeeds; it is
~ike Napoleon's tactics in Italy, irregular and ridiculous
m the eyes o_f the old-fashioned generals; but it succeeds,
a~d succes8 is the only criterion of e•cellence in instruc-.
tion as well as in war.
. Cobbett enables the learner to overcome the difficulties
~~ _gra1:im~r, to master the situation, to gain what the
big-wigs · were unable to teach him. Two English
noblemen,-Oxford-bred, no doubt,-declared to Moore
the yoet, that "they had never read any English grammO.:
until Cobbett's lately. " And no wonder; other grammars
were not fit to read, or not worth reading; they were a
confused mass o~ incomprehensible terms; and probably
the very first thing they learned, on r eading Cobbett's
grammar, was that they knew nothing of the principles of
the language they thought they knew so well. All th~t­
Oxford students knew of English grammar was obtained
through the study of Greek and Latin, which, like the:
study of any modern language, is a capital aid in the study i
of the i:nother tongue; but the study of these tongu£Js .
alone will never make any man a good English scholar.
W1thou~ a ~r~per study of the mother~tongue, by itself,
other l~gm~tic . attaini:r:ents are apt only to spoil the
i:;tudent s native idiomatic speech, by giving it a foreign,

'l'he Chami of Cobbett's Style.

223

pedantic, and consequently obscure air. This is clearly
shown in Cobbett's "Six Lessons," in which he gives
aniusing specimens of the wretched English then used by
the University-bred, Greek-and-Latin-crammed magni.ficos
of England.

CHAPTER II.
0

TH E CHARM o;· COBBETT S STYLE.

THERE is such a strong flavor of egotism, of the personality of the author, in all Cobbett's writings, even those
on agriculture and political economy, that they at once
attract attention, and create a desire to know .more of the
man who writes, as well as of the subject of which he
· writes. And he does not speak of himself b ecause he
likes to speak of himself; not at all; but, as Hazlitt says,
"because some circumstance that has happened to himself
is the best possible illustration of the subj ect, and he is
not the man to shrink from giving th 'l best possib~e illustration of the subj ect from a squ eamish delicacy. H e
places us in the same situation with himself, and makes us
see all that he sees. There is no blindman's-buff, no conscious hints, no awkward ventriloquism, no testimonials of
applause, no abstract senseless self-complacency, no smuggled admiration of his own p erson by proxy ; it is all
plain and above board." This entire freedom from affectation or pretence is what makes his egotism so pleasing.
It is as natural as the talk of a child, and he is so interesting and pleasing in what he says, that we cannot take
offence at it.
His style has been compared to that of Swift, of Defoe,
of Franklin, of Paine; but, as the same critic well observes, no great man is exactly like anoth er, and his style
is not exactly like any one of these, although it has per-

