of it which they wished me to expunge. This little book has, amongst other things, caused the Leghorn Plat to be raised from the straw, and platted in the Orkney Islands. It has taught hundreds of thousands of people to make their own bread and their own beer. It may be called the philosophy of the belly and the back; the groundwork of good living, of content, and of peaceable community. It has done more good, and is doing more good, every single day, than you could, if you were so disposed, do good in the course of a long life. 1822. TWELVE SERMONS; that more recently published, relative to the bloody and blaspheming Jews, being the thirteenth. Give up your evil courses and read these sermons! Dig, you cannot; that is an act above your capacity; but, you can rake kennels and crack stones: read and rake and crack, and you will learn that you ought not to live by lying and slandering. 1823. FRENCH GRAMMAR. I will not appeal to you; but I appeal to French scholars, and bid them look at the principles and rules relative to the two past times and to the passive participle. But, what need I say anything more than that it is a book which has supplanted all others of the same sort. 1825. PROTESTANT REFORMATION. Make a book, you caitiff, which, like this, which you called " pig's meat," has been printed at Paris, at Rome, at Madrid, in Germany, in Holland, in the United States of America, in South America, besides its native place, England; make a book like this, you impudent vagabond, and then you will not say that it is bad. You Whig faction talk about your labours for Catholic emancipation: there are others who claim the merit of that measure it was obtained by the goodwill of the Protestants of England, and to that good-will, the Pro testants of England were brought by the reading of this book. It was not written for the sake of Catholics or the Catholic religion. It was written for the sake of truth and justice, and to let the people of England know the happy lives which their forefathers had led, the greatness which their country had always enjoyed, and to let them see how the working people have been despoiled of their patrimony. Now you may hear people enough to talk of the origin of tithes. Whoever thought of such a thing, before that book was written? Lawyers and parsons knew something about it, but it was a secret to all the rest of mankind. book except the Bible has had so wide a circulation; that circulation will continue, after you shall be dirt or gravel. No 1826. POOR MAN'S FRIEND. A little book, but too many for Brougham, Mother Martineau and the whole crew of Malthusian philosophers. This book is my challenge to them. This eightpenny-worth braves them all. They have no answer; and because they do not answer, they think that nobody reads. First and last, there have been more reading of this book, and is still, than there ever will be of anything that Brougham and his crew can put forth. 1827. ENGLISH GARDENER. Like all other elementary books, written by me, abounding with principles; because rules without principles are good for nothing, except for fourlegged animals. This book is the result, not only of what I have done, but what I have thought about gardening; and I defy any man who can read, and will read with attention, and do precisely that which is directed in this book, not to have a good garden, if he have tolerably good ground. 1827. WOODLANDS. This is the sort of book of which I am really proud: language, politics, history, law these are necessary, and use I put them at the price of ash; and then you have another cutting, next time, in five years, and twice the number of poles, because you may let two go up out of every stem. Now, this is a thing never heard of before in England. Here is a clear addition made to the value of England; but then, I defy a man to do this work, unless he see the instructions contained in this book. The failures arise merely from want of attention to the book; and I dare say that there are brutes who have failed, and then have laid the fault upon the book, which they have not read. A lawyer, who had failed in his case, said, "Then I'll burn my books;" but was told by the judge, "No, do not burn your books; read them." So say I to lazy and stupid planters. ful in their way; but, it is Cottage Economy; it is the Gardener, and, above all things, it is this book, of which I am proud. This book, which takes every tree and every sort of underwood known in England in its blossom; and then takes its seed, accurately describes that seed, tells you how to manage the seed, and all along through, how to make it a tree or a stem of underwood, and then tells you its uses and how to convert it into use. This book is a real benefit to England. One of the objects of writing it was, to teach the best method of preparing the ground for planting. It teaches a mode of doing this, which was never heard of before. Fifty gentlemen are ready to bear. testimony to the wonderfully beneficial effect of this mode. Another object of the book was, to render common the planting of the locust-1828. tree for underwood as well as for timber. Many plantations are now raising their heads, caused by this book alone. Four years ago, I gave the book, and gave some seed, to Mr. William Palmer, of Bollitree near Ross. He made a fine plantation, in the month of April, 1830. A letter, which I now have, from him, written a few days ago, tells me, that the little things which were seeds in the month of April, 1829, are now trees, the average of which are seventeen feet high, and some of which are twenty feet high, or more. He tells me that, in three years more, the whole will be fit for hop-poles, and that some of them are fit for hop poles now. When fit for hop-poles, taking them at the price of ash at Maidstone, they are worth forty-five shillings the hundred. They are four feet apart, which gives two thousand six hundred to the acre A forty-six shillings a hundred, this amounts to fifty-nine pounds sixteen shillings an acre, for the first cutting. Though the poles will last a man's lifetime, while an ash pole will last but four years, COBBETT'S CORN-BOOK. Very bad, to be sure; but making any farmer rich who will attend to it, and enabling him to do justice to his men, and to prevent rick-burning. Give me a patent for the growing of this corn, I said at the time when I wrote the book. I say so still, and I will have the patent to a very considerable extent. The fewer there are who read this book, the better it is for me, who can now grow corn_myself. 1829. ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. You being a battered old beast, this can scarcely be understood by you; but, at any rate, it has brought me, from virtuous parents, more than a thousand in number, very sincere thanks for the good which this book has done to their sons. 1830. STEPPING-STONE to the English Grammar. If you were not the most ungrateful wretch upon earth, you would thank me for this, at any rate. It is just fitted for you. Read it, study it, and then you will know something. 1832. GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. The only complete book of the kind that has ever been made, for Eng land and Wales; and a statistica}|having missed that something. This is table at the end, which, if it be not the first time that I have heard that attended to by any man, will arm observation made; but I never yet met him against all the delusions of the with any one bold enough to tell me poor-law liars, and of the surplus-what that something was which I might population mongers. have been, by pursuing another course. 1833. FRENCH AND ENGLISH DICTION-I might have been, I am aware of it, ARY. No great conjuration re- possessed of bags of public gold or of quired, to be sure; but I believe it landed domains, purchased with that to be the best book of the kind gold. I trudge through the dirt, and I that ever was in print, and perhaps might have ridden in the ring in Hyde that ever will be; and I say, that Park, with four horses to draw me along with my Grammar and Dictionary, in a gilded carriage, with a coachman every man but you may learn before me and footmen behind me, all French in six months, and that I, having ropes hanging down from their the maker of the books, learned shoulders; and, from the same cause, French in less time. However, as I might have deserved to be hung up the Grammar is too great a jump by the neck by one of those ropes to one for persons of such moderate ca- of the elm-trees. What I might have pacity to take all at once, the first been, it is hard to say: what I have fortnight's leisure that I have, I been, and what I am, all the world intend to write a STEPPING-STONE knows; I was a plough-boy and a TO THE FRENCH GRAMMAR, and that, I hope, will draw you off from the dirty work in which you are at present engaged. 1833. TOUR IN SCOTLAND, which I shall be always glad that I took, because I made the discovery that the bad had come out of that country to England, and had left the good behind. Now, point out the bad book amongst these. You; you murderer of the poor old Morning Chronicle! You talk of bad books, made by anybody. I think I now behold the poor old creature upon her back, her hands tied behind her, her knees drawn up, and her poor old eyes looking up to heaven in vain for relief, while you, sitting astride across her breast, with that dark and savage look of yours, drawing up your thick lips and showing your teeth, are sawing away at her neck with your rusty and blunt knife, exclaiming, "Domn ye, an ye gee nae malk, ye shall e'en dee!" Poor old soul, you have been drying up her dugs any time these ten years, and now you find fault with her for giving no milk! savage that you are, let her die quietly, at any rate! V. That I might have been something very desirable for a man to be, and that it must give me pain to reflect upon private soldier, and I am a Member of the House of Commons, sent thither by the free voice of a great community, and of one as sensible and virtuous as any in this kingdom. I started at the same age, or thereabouts, with Canning, Liverpool, and Huskisson. I always told them that it was judgment as well as taste, that led me into a path different from theirs. Time has shown that my judgment was as sound as my taste; for, if we are to estimate the future as well as the past: they are already rotten; and the kingdom hardly recollects that there were such men. Whereas, some generations, at least, will pass away, before the name of William Cobbett will cease to be familiar in the mouths of the people of England; and, for the rest of the world I care not a straw. VI. That unless I restrain my personal and political ferocity, my exit from public life is near at hand. Hands off, murderer! You said, in your for mer brutal article, that my life was drawing to a close; and now you mean, I suppose, to be the fulfiller of your own prophecy. You are like the hangman, who predicted that a mur derer that was just condemned on the Saturday, would die on the Monday. Ah! you will not find it so easy to despatch me, as you do to despatch the poor old Chronicle! You have been so mercifully with me next session. Those long accustomed to this sort of that have read the article in the Register` butchery, that you seem to think that to which you allude, will know how the showing of your knife is sufficient false this is, and, more especially Mr. to reduce one to silence. You will find Ellice, to whom I have given praise for yourself mistaken with regard to me. his humane and considerate conduct I will make you restrain yourself, or, with regard to Newsham, the soldier; rather, make your master restrain you; but, to whom at the same time I have or I shall lay on my "lash" without pledged my opposition at Coventry, as much discrimination; and, I will some- far as I can be properly concerned there. how or other get at your abettors: a But, these members of Parliament will man is not only to refrain from being all clearly perceive what the drift of you infamous himself; but he is to avoid and your employers is. They will pergiving his countenance to infamy. Iceive that you find me annoying and will hunt out your setters-on, and make formidable, and that you wish very nathem feel that which your callous hide turally to turn the lash aside from you is incapable of feeling. to them; they will perceive this very VII. That my imputations relative to clearly; and they will, tossing down a Bourbon-police is a bugaboo. Bug-poor old Chronicle (if they ever see her), aboo as it is, it was the ground upon exclaim, "This is surely the meanest which I cut the old Chronicle, at the and basest of all mankind!" beginning of the last session. I know X. Finally that, after all the fuss that Brougham and his crew were in- about my getting into Parliament, I have structing you to break the way for the done nothing there to satisfy anybody introduction of what they called a but my own vain self. Nothing to "rural police," representing such police please Brougham and his gang, to be as necessary to keep down the labourers sure; nothing to satisfy them; and and to prevent the fires. I know that I am not for setting my endeayou were so instructed. I know it; and vours up over those of any member it was because I knew it, that I cut you, of Parliament; but I have done one as the most conspicuous thing that I thing; really done it; namely, blown could do, to show my detestation of up the infernal Bourbon spy system; what you were engaged in. The scheme for, though the Ministers and the House has been defeated; and it will continue and the Committee all acted their part defeated; and out of this defeat, arises very well, as far as we have hitherto a part of the malignity of those who are gone, it was I who presented the petisetting you on and promising you re- tion from the people of Walworth and ward. Camberwell; and I took the pains to VIII. That I am exceedingly cow-obtain the information necessary to ardly, as has been proved by my tameness make that important petition effectual; under castigation in the House of Com-and those good men are now about to mons, where I have been all abjectness. have a public dinner on Tuesday next, The only remark I shall make upon to celebrate their triumph over the spies. this is, that I hope every member of the So that, here is one thing, at any rate; House of Commons will read what you and it is very curious, that it is the only have said; and, then, if it is nothing thing which, during the session, was new to him to know that you are the begun, continued, and brought to a sucmost malignant traducer that ever cessful and satisfactory conclusion, of breathed, they themselves, if they do the merit of doing which I claim no their duty well, ought to be prepared more than my share, along with the for meeting with precisely this species rest of the committee, without whose of calumny. disposition to be just and impartial, it could not have been done. IX. That I BE-SLOBBER Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Spring Rice, and Mr. And, now, wretched caitiff; hungry, Ellice, in the hope that they will deal gaunt, cadaverous-looking devil, you, who predict that the end of my life, po- | Do you convey any instruction, which litical and natural, is approaching, what can be of practical good to any have you to say in your defence? What human being? Do you till the reparation; no, not reparation, for, land and cause anything to grow? offering your worthless carcass to be Do you assist to make the clothing flung on my land to be used as manure or the houses, to cook the victuals, for my cabbages would not be repara- to turn the barley into drink; to tion; but, what excuse have you for make those articles of furniture which putting forth this string of calumnies are for the use, ease, or pleasure of and abuse! I have attacked you; that man ? Do you curry the horses, or is to say, you mean, that I have knocked milk the cows (except as a rural policeyou away when you were coming at me man)? Do you polish the knives, or with your nasty rusty and blunt old turn the brown into black on the shoes? knife. It was you attacked me: No: none of these; no earthly thing do I had not dragged you out by the ears: you do, that tends at all to those purposes it was roaring Rushton, Pis-aller which conduce to the ease and happiParkes, and Wood called John, that I ness of a people. You are a mere conhad dragged out. I saw you, to be sumer of food, clothing, houses, and sure, at your murderous work upon the other things which ought to be kept for poor old Chronicle: I would have glad- the use of those who produce them, or ly beaten you away; but, if her owner who possess the lands, ships, or facchose to have her murdered, it was no tories, or work-shops, out of which affair of mine. But, when you began they all spring. How, then, do you raising your old jagged knife at me, it attempt to maintain the affirmative of was high time to look about me, having your major proposition; namely, that it no fancy for a cutting and slashing, more is necessary that you should live? I am like a sawing, such as you had been arguing, if the case were not so plain, performing so long upon my poor old at a great disadvantage, because the acquaintance, the Chronicle. I know, proof ought to rest with you, not the that in answer to these interrogatives disproof with me. of mine, you will come with a syllogism, thus: 1. It is necessary that I should live, and, of course, necessary that I should eat. 2. In order to be able to eat, I must slander you. 3. Therefore, it is necessary that I slander you. Vell, then, this major proposition being manifestly false, as far as relates to all the rest of the world, yourself excepted, let us now see how it is with regard to that precious self. That you should live is clearly not necessary with regard to the rest of mankind; and, now, with regard to yourself! It is a pinching question, to be sure; but, if you had any portion This is the way that a libellous poet of candour in you, you would acknowreasoned with a French minister, whom ledge that it would be better even for he had lampooned. The minister an- yourself, if you were not to live any swered him, as I might at once answer longer. The change is only that of you, by denying your major: and I do going under ground from above ground; deny that it is at all necessary that you and if you would give the matter due should live. Necessary to whom and reflection, or were capable of that, you for what, I should be glad to know? you would clearly perceive that, if, to Are you doing any good in the world? all your other shuffling, you were to add Are you of any use upon this earth? If the "shuffling off this mortal coil,' you were to go under it to-morrow it would be a change greatly for morning at daylight, would it be said the better, even to yourself. For, by any human being, in the evening, what can you want to stay upon this anything had been lost to the world, ground for! Every eye that beholds you and particularly to the poor old Chro- almost weeps that humanity should nicle, in consequence of your demise? have been permitted to assume such a |