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JavaScript Programmer s Reference 1st ed. Edition
Valentine Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Valentine, Thomas, Reid, Jonathan
ISBN(s): 9781430246299, 1430246294
Edition: 1st ed.
File Details: PDF, 2.82 MB
Year: 2013
Language: english
JavaScript Programmer’s
Reference

Jonathan Reid
Thomas Valentine

Apress
JavaScript Programmer’s Reference
Copyright © 2013 by Jonathan Reid and Thomas Valentine
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For Mom and Dad, who have always been there for me.
—Jon Reid

For my Rock, my Mother

—Thomas Valentine
Contents at a Glance

About the Authors............................................................................................................... xv

About the Technical Reviewer .......................................................................................... xvii
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... xix

N Chapter 1: JavaScript Basics ............................................................................................1

N Chapter 2: JavaScript Nuts and Bolts..............................................................................25
N Chapter 3: The DOM .........................................................................................................57
N Chapter 4: JavaScript in Action .......................................................................................87
N Chapter 5: JavaScript Global Objects Reference ...........................................................133
N Chapter 6: JavaScript Control Statements Reference ...................................................185
N Chapter 7: JavaScript Operators Reference ..................................................................195
N Chapter 8: The DOM Reference ......................................................................................209

Index .................................................................................................................................269

v
Contents

About the Authors............................................................................................................... xv

About the Technical Reviewer .......................................................................................... xvii
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... xix

N Chapter 1: JavaScript Basics ............................................................................................1

Hard to Learn, Harder to Love .......................................................................................................1
What Is JavaScript?.......................................................................................................................2
The Evolution of JavaScript and the ECMA-262 Standard ..................................................................................... 3
JavaScript Implementations .................................................................................................................................. 3

Web Browsers and JavaScript ......................................................................................................4

JavaScript in Web Pages ....................................................................................................................................... 5

Brief Digression: Understanding and Running Examples ..............................................................7

Running the Examples ........................................................................................................................................... 7

JavaScript’s Three Difficult Features.............................................................................................8

Prototypal Inheritance ........................................................................................................................................... 8
Scoping in JavaScript .......................................................................................................................................... 11
One of Those Weak Types, Eh? ............................................................................................................................ 16

Putting It Together: Two Common Patterns .................................................................................20

Immediately Executing Function Expressions ..................................................................................................... 21
The Module Pattern ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Summary .....................................................................................................................................23

vii
N CONTENTS

N Chapter 2: JavaScript Nuts and Bolts..............................................................................25

Formatting JavaScript Code ........................................................................................................25
Relying on ASI ...................................................................................................................................................... 26
Be Consistent....................................................................................................................................................... 27

Expressions and Statements .......................................................................................................27

Expressions ......................................................................................................................................................... 27
Statements .......................................................................................................................................................... 28

Operators.....................................................................................................................................29
Precedence .......................................................................................................................................................... 30

Variables......................................................................................................................................32
Declaring Variables in JavaScript ........................................................................................................................ 32
Understanding Variable Scope in JavaScript ....................................................................................................... 33
Managing Variables in JavaScript ....................................................................................................................... 35
Objects ........................................................................................................................................37
Inheritance........................................................................................................................................................... 37
Accessing Properties and Enumeration ............................................................................................................... 37
Creating Objects .................................................................................................................................................. 39

Arrays ..........................................................................................................................................41
Dynamic Length ................................................................................................................................................... 41
Accessing and Assigning Values.......................................................................................................................... 41
Creating Arrays .................................................................................................................................................... 42

Functions.....................................................................................................................................45
Function Declarations .......................................................................................................................................... 45
Function Expressions........................................................................................................................................... 46

Conditionals.................................................................................................................................51
if Statements ....................................................................................................................................................... 51
switch Statements ............................................................................................................................................... 52

viii
 N CONTENTS

Loops ...........................................................................................................................................53
for Loops.............................................................................................................................................................. 53
for-in Loops ......................................................................................................................................................... 54
while Loops ......................................................................................................................................................... 55
do Loops .............................................................................................................................................................. 55

Summary .....................................................................................................................................56

N Chapter 3: The DOM .........................................................................................................57

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the DOM....................................................................57
History of the DOM Standard .......................................................................................................58
Browser Dependencies ...............................................................................................................60
DOM Structure .............................................................................................................................60
Accessing Elements in the DOM .................................................................................................62
Traversing the DOM ............................................................................................................................................. 65

Modifying the DOM ......................................................................................................................66

Modifying Existing Elements ............................................................................................................................... 66
Creating New Elements ....................................................................................................................................... 70
Deleting Elements................................................................................................................................................ 72

DOM Events .................................................................................................................................72

Event Phases ....................................................................................................................................................... 73
Event Execution Context ...................................................................................................................................... 73
Different Events ................................................................................................................................................... 73
Binding Event Handlers ....................................................................................................................................... 74
Unbinding Event Handlers ................................................................................................................................... 75
The Event Object.................................................................................................................................................. 76
Event Delegation.................................................................................................................................................. 78
Manually Firing Events ........................................................................................................................................ 79
Custom Events ..................................................................................................................................................... 83
Cross-Browser Strategies.................................................................................................................................... 85
Summary .....................................................................................................................................86

ix
N CONTENTS

N Chapter 4: JavaScript in Action .......................................................................................87

Working with JavaScript .............................................................................................................87
JavaScript IDEs .................................................................................................................................................... 88
Browsers ............................................................................................................................................................. 90
Web Servers ........................................................................................................................................................ 92
JavaScript Development Workflow ...................................................................................................................... 93
Breakpoints ......................................................................................................................................................... 95

Loading Scripts Efficiently...........................................................................................................95

How Browsers Download and Process Content................................................................................................... 96
Optimization Tip #1: Load Scripts at the End of the Document ........................................................................... 97
Optimization Tip #2: Combine, Minify, and GZip ................................................................................................. 100
Optimization Tip #3: Load Scripts In the Document Head Using a Non-Blocking Technique ............................. 101
Optimization Tip #4: Moderation is Good ........................................................................................................... 103

Asynchronous Communication using XMLHttpRequest ............................................................103

How It Works...................................................................................................................................................... 103

Cross Domain Techniques .........................................................................................................108

Server-side proxy .............................................................................................................................................. 108
JSONP ................................................................................................................................................................ 108
CORS.................................................................................................................................................................. 111
Post Message .................................................................................................................................................... 111

Data Caching .............................................................................................................................112

JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks.......................................................................................115
Choosing a Library ............................................................................................................................................. 115

Using jQuery ..............................................................................................................................118

How It Works...................................................................................................................................................... 118
Events in jQuery................................................................................................................................................. 121
jQuery UI ............................................................................................................................................................ 124
jQuery Mobile .................................................................................................................................................... 124

Building a Library ......................................................................................................................126

Summary ...................................................................................................................................132

x
 N CONTENTS

N Chapter 5: JavaScript Global Objects Reference ...........................................................133

Array ..........................................................................................................................................133
Array Properties ................................................................................................................................................. 135
Array Methods ................................................................................................................................................... 135

Boolean .....................................................................................................................................140
Boolean Methods ............................................................................................................................................... 141

Date ...........................................................................................................................................142
Date Methods .................................................................................................................................................... 142

Math ..........................................................................................................................................159
Math Properties ................................................................................................................................................. 160
Math Methods.................................................................................................................................................... 160
Number......................................................................................................................................166
Number Properties ............................................................................................................................................ 166
Number Methods ............................................................................................................................................... 166

RegExp ......................................................................................................................................168
RegExp Properties ............................................................................................................................................. 168
RegExp Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 170

String .........................................................................................................................................171
String Properties................................................................................................................................................ 172
String Methods .................................................................................................................................................. 172

Miscellaneous Global Variables and Functions .........................................................................179

Variables ............................................................................................................................................................ 179
Functions ........................................................................................................................................................... 182

Summary ...................................................................................................................................184

N Chapter 6: JavaScript Control Statements Reference ...................................................185

Introduction ...............................................................................................................................185
break .........................................................................................................................................185
continue ....................................................................................................................................186
do/while ....................................................................................................................................187

xi
N CONTENTS

for and for/in .............................................................................................................................187

for ...................................................................................................................................................................... 187
for/in .................................................................................................................................................................. 188

if ................................................................................................................................................188
label...........................................................................................................................................189
return ........................................................................................................................................190
switch/case ...............................................................................................................................190
while..........................................................................................................................................192
with ...........................................................................................................................................192
Summary ...................................................................................................................................193

N Chapter 7: JavaScript Operators Reference ..................................................................195

Assignment Operators ...............................................................................................................195
Comparison Operators...............................................................................................................196
Strict Comparisons ............................................................................................................................................ 197
Coerced Comparisons........................................................................................................................................ 198

Arithmetic Operators .................................................................................................................198

Bitwise Operators ......................................................................................................................199
A Bit About Binary Numbers .............................................................................................................................. 199

Logical Operators ......................................................................................................................200

String Operator ..........................................................................................................................201
Miscellaneous Operators ...........................................................................................................201
Conditional Operator .......................................................................................................................................... 201
Comma Operator ............................................................................................................................................... 202
delete Operator .................................................................................................................................................. 202
function Operator............................................................................................................................................... 203
get Operator....................................................................................................................................................... 203
in Operator ......................................................................................................................................................... 204
instanceof Operator ........................................................................................................................................... 204

xii
 N CONTENTS

new Operator ..................................................................................................................................................... 205

set Operator ....................................................................................................................................................... 205
typeof Operator .................................................................................................................................................. 206
void Operator ..................................................................................................................................................... 207

Summary ...................................................................................................................................207

N Chapter 8: The DOM Reference ......................................................................................209

Browser Support .......................................................................................................................209
DOM Objects..............................................................................................................................209
The Window Object Reference ..................................................................................................210
Properties .......................................................................................................................................................... 210
Methods ............................................................................................................................................................. 220

The document Object Reference ...............................................................................................235

Properties .......................................................................................................................................................... 236
Methods ............................................................................................................................................................. 240

The element Object Reference ..................................................................................................245

Properties .......................................................................................................................................................... 245
Methods ............................................................................................................................................................. 254

Summary ...................................................................................................................................268

Index .................................................................................................................................269

xiii
About the Authors

Jonathan Reid has been building web-based applications since 1996 and is passionate about creating awesome and
compelling user experiences on the web. He is a firm believer in user-centered creative processes and is an advocate
for standards and accessibility. Jon has a wide range of experience developing web applications, ranging from
genetic analysis software to cutting-edge advertising. Jon teaches courses in JavaScript, jQuery, and jQuery Mobile,
and has written extensively on all three topics. Jon bet his career on web technologies early on, and he is happy to
see his bet paying off.
Jon is an alumnus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he graduated with a degree in physics and
mathematics. He currently works as a Senior JavaScript Developer at Google, and lives in Sunnyvale, California with
his partner of 15 years. He occasionally tweets as @jreid01 and blogs even more occasionally at
webdev.dreamwidth.org.

Thomas Valentine lives in the small town of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada on the shores of the Red River. His love of the
written word has shaped his career and life and will continue to do so for many years to come.

xv
About the Technical Reviewer

RJ Owen is a Product Manager and Design Lead at Convercent in Denver, Colorado.

RJ started his career as a software developer and spent ten years working in C++,
Java, and Flex before moving to the design and product side of things. He truly loves
good design and understanding what makes people tick. RJ holds an MBA and
a bachelor’s in physics and computer science. He is a frequent speaker at many
industry events including Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive, and Adobe MAX

xvii
Introduction

JavaScript has seen a huge increase in popularity in the last decade. Originally used to create interactive web pages
and handle basic form validation, JavaScript is now the backbone of many complex web applications. As a result,
people who can program well with JavaScript are in high demand for a wide range of projects. If you want to work with
web technologies, you should know JavaScript.
This book aims to provide both a complete reference for JavaScript and to cover the fundamentals of the
language. Our overall goal was to cover all the topics you need to work with JavaScript in projects of any size.

Who is this book for?

This book is aimed at two audiences: people who already know JavaScript and need a solid reference, and people
who are just learning the language and want to come up to speed quickly. In either case we assume you have at least
a basic background in programming. Chapter 1, in particular, assumes you are coming to JavaScript from a more
traditional language, such as C++ or Java.
We also assume you have a basic understanding of HTML, including semantic markup and the various document
type declarations—though throughout the book the examples that use HTML are written in HTML 5. We also assume
you have a basic understanding of CSS and how to use it to manage the appearance of your web pages.
Finally, we assume you have a basic understanding of the web and its underlying protocols.
If you have never written a line of code in your life, or if you are brand new to web technologies, this might not be
the best book for you. But as long as you have a basic understanding of programming and web technologies, this book
can help you learn JavaScript.

Overview
This book is divided into two sections. The first section is devoted to teaching the basics of JavaScript and its related
technologies. The second section is devoted to reference.
r
Chapter 1 is aimed at the programmer who is coming to JavaScript from another language.
JavaScript is a much more dynamic language than most of the common languages, and
moving to JavaScript from those languages can present special challenges. First we cover what
JavaScript is and how it came to be, and then we dive right into the three main challenges that
programmers of other languages encounter: JavaScript’s object inheritance and lack of classes,
its rules for scoping, and its dynamic typing. All of these features work quite differently in
JavaScript than they do in other languages, and we want to get into them immediately. We wind
up the chapter by providing some common patterns in JavaScript that use what we have learned.
r
Chapter 2 is an overall reference for the JavaScript language. We start at the beginning, with
JavaScript’s lexical structure, and quickly move into its operators, how it handles variables,
JavaScript’s take on objects, arrays, and functions. We wind up the chapter by going
over JavaScript’s flow control statements. Chapter 2 covers some of the things mentioned in
Chapter 1 in more detail. Together they form a solid introduction to the language, all the way
from the basics to intermediate concepts like closures.

xix
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
in any community is the best judge of its interests; whilst it is even
less certain, if it did know these interests, that it would necessarily
and invariably follow them. In almost every collection of men the
intelligent few know better what is for the common interest than the
ignorant many; and it is rare indeed to see communities or
individuals pursuing their interest steadily even when they perceive it
clearly. It would, perhaps, be more reconcilable to reason to say that
the intellect of a community should govern a community; but this
assertion is also open to objection, since a small number of
intelligent men might govern for their own interest, and not for the
interest of the society they represented. In short, though it is easy to
see that the science of government does not consist in giving power
to the greatest number, but in giving it to the most intelligent, and
making it for their interest to govern for the interest of the greatest
number; still, every day teaches us that good government is rather a
thing relative than a thing absolute; that all governments have good
mixed with evil, and evil mixed with good; and that the statesman’s
task, as is beautifully demonstrated by Montesquieu, is, not to
destroy an evil combined with a greater good, nor to create a good
accompanied with a greater evil; but to calculate how the greatest
amount of good and the least amount of evil can be combined
together. Hence it is, that the best governments with which we are
acquainted seem rather to have been fashioned by the working hand
of daily experience, than by the artistic fingers of philosophical
speculation.
Nevertheless, the theory, that the good of the greatest number in
any community ought to be the object which its government should
strive to attain, and the maxim, that the interest and happiness of
every unit in a community are to be treated as a portion of the
interest and happiness of the whole community, are humanizing
precepts, and have, through the influence of Mr. Bentham and of his
disciples, produced, within my own memory, a considerable change
in the public opinion of England.
Mr. Bentham’s name, then, is far more above the scoff of his
antagonists than below the enthusiasm of his disciples; and it is in
this spirit, and with a becoming respect, that Sir James Mackintosh
treats the philosopher while he combats his philosophy.

IX.

In regard to the theory of Sir James himself, if I understand it

rightly (and it is rather, as I have said, indistinctly expressed), he
accepts neither the doctrine of innate ideas disinterestedly producing
or ordering our actions, nor that of sense-derived ideas by which,
with a concentrated regard to self, some suppose men to be
governed—but imagines an association of ideas, naturally suggested
by our human condition, which, according to a pre-ordinated state of
the mind, produces, as in chemical processes, some emotion
different from any of the combined elements or causes from which it
springs.
This emotion, once existing, requires, without consideration or
reflection, its gratification. In this manner the satisfaction of
benevolence and pity springs as much from a spontaneous desire as
the satisfaction of hunger; and man is unconsciously taught, through
feelings necessary to him as man, to wish involuntarily for that
which, on reflection and experience, he would find (such is the
beautiful dispensation of Providence) most for his happiness and
advantage.
The union, assemblage, or incorporation, if one may so speak, of
these involuntary desires, affecting and affected by them all,
becomes our universal moral sense or conscience, which in each of
its propensities is gratified or mortified, according to our conduct.

X.

Here end my criticisms. They have passed rapidly in review the

principal works and events of Sir James Mackintosh’s life;[104] and
what have they illustrated? That, which I commenced by observing:
that he had made several excellent speeches, that he had taken an
active part in politics, that he had written ably upon history, that he
had manifested a profound knowledge of philosophy; but that he
had not been pre-eminent as an orator, as a politician, as an
historian, as a philosopher.[105] It may be doubted whether any
speech or book of his will long survive his time; but a very valuable
work might be compiled from his writings and speeches. Indeed,
there are hardly any books in our language more interesting or more
instructive than the two volumes published by his son, and which
display in every page the best qualities of an excellent heart and an
excellent understanding, set off by the most amiable and remarkable
simplicity. His striking, peculiar, and unrivalled merit, however, was
that of a conversationalist. Great good-nature, great and yet gentle
animation, much learning, and a sound, discriminating, and
comprehensive judgment, made him this. He had little of the wit of
words—brilliant repartées, caustic sayings, concentrated and
epigrammatic turns of expression. But he knew everything and could
talk of everything without being tedious. A lady of great wit,
intellect, and judgment (Lady William Russell), in describing his soft
Scotch voice, said to me—“Mackintosh played on your understanding
with a flageolet, Macaulay with a trumpet.” Having lived much by
himself and with books, and much also in the world and with men,
he had the light anecdote and easy manner of society, and the grave
and serious gatherings in of lonely hours. He added also to much
knowledge considerable powers of observation; and there are few
persons of whom he speaks, even at the dawn of their career, whom
he has not judged with discrimination. His agreeableness, moreover,
being that of a full mind expressed with facility, was the most
translatable of any man’s, and he succeeded with foreigners, and in
France, which he visited three times—once at the peace of Amiens,
again in 1814, and again in 1824—quite as much as in his own
country, and with his own countrymen. Madame de Staël and
Benjamin Constant prized him not less than did Lord Dudley or Lord
Byron. It was not only in England, then, but also on the Continent,
where his early pamphlet and distinguished friendships had made
him equally known—that he ever remained the man of promise;
until, amidst hopes which his vast and various information, his
wonderful memory, his copious elocution, and his transitory fits of
energy, still nourished, he died, in the sixty-seventh year of his age,
universally admired and regretted, though without a high reputation
for any one thing, or the ardent attachment of any particular set of
persons. His death, which took place the 30th of May, 1832, was
occasioned by a small fragment of chicken-bone, which, having
lacerated the trachea, created a wound that ultimately proved fatal.
He met his end with calmness and resignation, expressing his belief
in the Christian faith, and placing his trust in it.

XI.

No man doing so little ever went through a long life continually

creating the belief that he would ultimately do so much. A want of
earnestness, a want of passion, a want of genius, prevented him
from playing a first-rate part amongst men during his day, and from
leaving any of those monuments behind him which command the
attention of posterity. A love of knowledge, an acute and capacious
intelligence, an early and noble ambition, led him into literary and
active life, and furnished him with the materials and at moments
with the energy by which success in both is obtained. An amiable
disposition, a lively flow of spirits, an extraordinary and varied stock
of information made his society agreeable to the most distinguished
persons of his age, and induced them, encouraged by some
occasional displays of remarkable power, to consider his available
abilities to be greater than they really were.
“What have you done,” he relates that a French lady once said to
him, “that people should think you so superior?” “I was obliged,” he
adds, “as usual, to refer to my projects.” For active life he was too
much of the academic school:—believing nearly all great distinctions
to be less than they were, and remaining irresolute between small
ones. He passed, as he himself said, from Burke to Fox in half an
hour, and remained weeks, as we learn from a friend (Lord Nugent),
in determining whether he should employ “usefulness” or “utility” in
some particular composition. Such is not the stuff out of which great
leaders or statesmen are formed. His main error as a writer and as a
speaker was his elaborate struggle against that easy idle way of
delivering himself, which made the charm of his talk when he did not
think of what he was saying. “The great fault of my manner,” he
himself observes somewhere, “is that I overload.” And to many of his
more finished compositions we might, indeed, apply the old saying
of the critic, who on being asked whether he admired a certain
tragedy of Dionysius, replied: “I have not seen it; it is obscured with
language.” His early compositions had a sharper and terser style
than his later ones, the activity of the author’s mind being greater,
and his doubts and toils after perfection less; but even these were
over-prepared. Can he be considered a failure? No; if you compare
him with other men. Yes; if you compare him with the general idea
entertained as to himself. The reputation he attained, however
vague and uncertain, the writings that he left, though inferior to the
prevalent notions as to his powers,—all placed him on a pedestal of
conspicuous, though not of gigantic elevation amongst his
contemporaries. The results of his life only disappointed when you
measured them by the anticipations which his merits had excited—
then he became “the man of promise.” Could he have arrived at
greater eminence than that which he attained? if so, it must have
been by a different road. I cannot repeat too often that no man
struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own character; and
one of the first principles of success in life, is so to regulate our
career as rather to turn our physical constitution and natural
inclinations to good account, than to endeavour to counteract the
one or oppose the other.
There can be no general comparison between Montaigne and
Mackintosh. The first was an original thinker, and the latter a
combiner and retailer of the thoughts of others. But I have often
pictured to myself the French philosopher lounging away the
greatest portion of his life in the old square turret of his château,
yielding to his laziness all that it exacted from him, and becoming,
almost in spite of himself, the first magistrate of his town, and,
though carelessly and discursively, the greatest writer of his time. He
gave the rein to the idleness of his nature, and had reason to be
satisfied with the employment of his life.
On the other hand, let us look at the accomplished Scotchman,
constantly agitated by his aspirations after fame and his inclinations
for repose; formed for literary ease, forcing himself into political
conflict—dreaming of a long-laboured history, and writing a hasty
article in a review; earnest about nothing, because the objects to
which he momentarily directed his efforts were not likely to give the
permanent distinction for which he pined; and thus, with a doubtful
mind and a broken career, achieving little that was worthy of his
abilities, or equal to the expectations of his friends. I have said there
can be no general comparison between men whose particular
faculties were no doubt of a very different order; yet, had the one
mixed in contest with the bold and factious spirits of his day, he
would have been but a poor “ligueur;” and had the other abstained
from politics and renounced long and laborious compositions, merely
writing under the stimulus of some accidental inspiration, it is
probable that his name would have gone down to posterity as that
of the most agreeable and instructive essayist of his remarkable
epoch. But at all events that name is graven on the monument
which commemorates more Christian manners and more mild
legislation: and “Blessed shall he be,” as said our great lawyer, “who
layeth the first stone of this building; more blessed he that proceeds
in it; most of all he that finisheth it in the glory of God, and the
honour of our king and nation.”
COBBETT, THE CONTENTIOUS MAN.
Part I.
FROM HIS BIRTH, IN MARCH, 1762, TO HIS QUITTING THE UNITED
STATES, JUNE 1ST, 1800.

Son of a small farmer.—Boyhood spent in the country.—Runs away from home.—

Becomes a lawyer’s clerk.—Enlists as a soldier, 1784.—Learns grammar and studies
Swift.—Goes to Canada.—Remarked for good conduct.—Rises to rank of sergeant-
major.—Gets discharge, 1791.—Marries.—Quits Europe for United States.—Starts
as a bookseller in Pennsylvania.—Becomes a political writer of great power.—Takes
a violent anti-republican tone.—Has to suffer different prosecutions, and at last
sets sail for England.

I.

The character which I am now tempted to delineate is just the

reverse of that which I rise from describing. Mackintosh was a man
of great powers of reasoning, of accomplished learning, but of little
or no sustained energy. His vision took a wide and calm range; he
saw all things coolly, dispassionately, and, except at his first entry
into life, was never so lost in his admiration of one object as to
overlook the rest. His fault lay in rather the opposite extreme; his
perception of the universal weakened that of the particular, and the
variety of colours which appeared at once before him became too
blended in his sight for the adequate appreciation of each.
The subject of this memoir, on the contrary, though he could
argue well in favour of any opinion he adopted, had not that
elevated and philosophic cast of mind which makes men inquire
after truth for the sake of truth, regarding its pursuit as a delight, its
attainment as a duty. Neither could he take that comprehensive view
of affairs which affords to the judgment an ample scope for the
comparison and selection of opinions. But he possessed a rapid
power of concentration; a will that scorned opposition; he saw
clearly that one side of a question which caught his attention; and
pursued the object he had momentarily in view with an energy that
never recoiled before a danger, and was rarely arrested by a scruple.
The sense of his force gave him the passion for action; but he
encouraged this passion until it became restlessness, a desire to
fight rather for the pleasure of fighting than for devotion to any
cause for which he fought.
While Mackintosh always struggled against his character, and
thereby never gave himself fair play, the person of whom I am now
about to speak—borne away in a perfectly opposite extreme—
allowed his character to usurp and govern his abilities, frequently
without either usefulness or aim. Thus, the one changed sides two
or three times in his life, from that want of natural ardour which
creates strong attachments; the other attacked and defended
various parties with a furious zeal, upon which no one could rely,
because it proceeded from the temporary caprice of a whimsical
imagination, and not from the stedfast enthusiasm of any well-
meditated conviction. With two or three qualities more, Cobbett
would have been a very great man in the world; as it was, he made
a great noise in it. But I pass from criticism to narrative.

II.

William Cobbett was born in the neighbourhood of Farnham, on

the 9th of March, 1762. The remotest ancestor he had ever heard of
was his grandfather, who had been a day labourer, and, according to
the rustic habits of old times, worked with the same farmer from the
day of his marriage to that of his death. The son, Cobbett’s parent,
was a man superior to the generality of persons in his station of life.
He could not only read and write, but he knew also a little
mathematics; understood land surveying, was honest and
industrious, and had thus risen from the position of labourer, a
position in which he was born, to that of having labourers under
him.
Cobbett’s boyhood, I may say his childhood, was passed in the
fields: first he was seen frightening the birds from the turnips, then
weeding wheat, then leading a horse at harrowing barley, finally
joining the reapers at harvest, driving the team, and holding the
plough. His literary instruction was small, and only such as he could
acquire at home. It was shrewdly asked by Dr. Johnson, “What
becomes of all the clever schoolboys?” In fact, many of the boys
clever at school are not heard of afterwards, because if they are
docile they are also timid, and attend to the routine of education less
from the love of learning than the want of animal spirits. Cobbett
was not a boy of this kind. At the age of sixteen he determined to go
to sea, but could not get a captain to take him. At the age of
seventeen he quitted his home (having already, when much younger,
done so in search of adventures), and without communicating his
design to any one, started, dressed in his Sunday clothes, for the
great city of London. Here, owing to the kind exertions of a
passenger in the coach in which this his first journey was made, he
got engaged after some time and trouble as under-clerk to an
attorney (Mr. Holland), in Gray’s Inn Lane.
It is natural enough that to a lad accustomed to fresh air, green
fields, and out-of-door exercise, the close atmosphere, dull aspect,
and sedentary position awaiting an attorney’s under-clerk at Gray’s
Inn must have been hateful. But William Cobbett never once thought
of escaping from what he called “an earthly hell” by a return to his
home and friends. This would have been to confess himself beaten,
which he never meant to be. On the contrary, rushing from one bold
step to another still more so, he enlisted himself (1784) as a soldier
in a regiment intended to serve in Nova Scotia. His father, though
somewhat of his own stern and surly nature, begged, prayed, and
remonstrated. But it was useless. The recruit, however, had some
months to pass in England, since, peace having taken place, there
was no hurry in sending off the troops. These months he spent in
Chatham, storing his brains with the lore of a circulating library, and
his heart with love-dreams of the librarian’s daughter.
To this period he owed what he always considered his most
valuable acquisition, a knowledge of his native language; the
assiduity with which he gave himself up to study, on this occasion,
insured his success and evinced his character. He wrote out the
whole of an English grammar two or three times; he got it by heart;
he repeated it every morning and evening, and he imposed on
himself the task of saying it over once every time that he mounted
guard. “I learned grammar,” he himself says, “when I was a private
soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that
of the guard-bed, was my seat to study on; my knapsack was my
book-case, a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and
the task did not demand anything like a year of my life.” Such is will.
In America, Cobbett remained as a soldier till the month of
September, 1791, when his regiment was relieved and sent home.
On the 19th of November, he obtained his discharge, after having
served nearly eight years, never having once been disgraced,
confined, or reprimanded, and having attained, owing to his zeal and
intelligence, the rank of sergeant-major without having passed
through the intermediate rank of sergeant.
The following was the order issued at Portsmouth on the day of
his discharge:
“Portsmouth, 19th Dec. 1791.
“Sergeant-Major Cobbett having most pressingly
applied for his discharge, at Major Lord Edward
Fitzgerald’s request, General Frederick has ordered
Major Lord Edward Fitzgerald to return the Sergeant-
Major thanks for his behaviour and conduct during the
time of his being in the regiment, and Major Lord
Edward adds his most hearty thanks to those of the
General.”

III.
 At this period Cobbett married. Nobody has left us wiser
sentiments or pithier sentences on the choice of a wife. His own, the
daughter of a sergeant of artillery, stationed like himself at New
Brunswick, had been selected at once. He had met her two or three
times, and found her pretty; beauty, indeed, he considered
indispensable, but beauty alone would never have suited him.
Industry, activity, energy, the qualities which he possessed, were
those which he most admired, and the partner of his life was fixed
upon when he found her, one morning before it was distinctly light,
“scrubbing out a washing-tub before her father’s door.” “That’s the
girl for me,” he said, and he kept to this resolution with a fortitude
which the object of his attachment deserved and imitated.
The courtship was continued, and the assurance of reciprocated
affection given; but before the union of hands could sanctify that of
hearts, the artillery were ordered home for England. Cobbett, whose
regiment was then at some distance from the spot where his
betrothed was still residing, unable to have the satisfaction of a
personal farewell, sent her 150 guineas, the whole amount of his
savings, and begged her to use it—as he feared her residence with
her father at Woolwich might expose her to bad company—in
making herself comfortable in a small lodging with respectable
people until his arrival. It was not until four years afterwards that he
himself was able to quit America, and he then found the damsel he
had so judiciously chosen not with her father, it is true, nor yet
lodging in idleness, but as servant-of-all-work for five pounds a year,
and at their first interview she put into his hands the 150 guineas
which had been confided to her—untouched. Such a woman had no
ordinary force of mind; and it has been frequently asserted that he
who, once beyond his own threshold, was ready to contend with
every government in the world, was, when at home, under what has
been appropriately called the government of the petticoat.
Cobbett’s marriage took place on the 3rd of February, 1792; that
is, about ten weeks after his discharge; but having in March brought
a very grave charge against some of the officers of his regiment,
which charge, when a court-martial was summoned, he did not
appear to support, he was forced to quit England for France, where
he remained till September, 1792, when he determined on trying his
fortune in the United States.

IV.

On his arrival he settled in Philadelphia, and was soon joined by

Mrs. Cobbett, who had not accompanied him out. His livelihood was
at first procured by giving English lessons to French emigrants; and
it is a fact not without interest that a celebrated person who figures
amongst these sketches—M. de Talleyrand—wished to become one
of his pupils. He refused, he says, to go to the ci-devant bishop’s
house, but adds, in his usual style, that the lame fiend hopped over
this difficulty at once by offering to come to his (Cobbett’s) house,
an offer that was not accepted. About this time Doctor Priestley
came to America. The enthusiasm with which the doctor was
received roused the resentment of the British soldier, who moreover
panted for a battle. He published then—though with some difficulty,
booksellers objecting to the unpopularity of the subject, an objection
at which the author was most indignant—a pamphlet called
“Observations on Priestley’s Emigration.” This pamphlet, on account
both of its ability and scurrility, made a sensation, and thus
commenced the author’s reputation, though it only added 1s. 7½d.
to his riches. But he was abusing, he was abused. This was to be in
his element, and he rose at once, so far as the power and peculiarity
of his style were concerned, to a foremost place amongst political
writers. This style had been formed at an early period of life, and
perhaps unconsciously to himself.
“At eleven years of age,” he says in an article in the Evening Post,
calling upon the reformers to pay for returning him to Parliament,
“my employment was clipping of box-edgings and weeding beds of
flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at the castle of
Farnham, my native town. I had always been fond of beautiful
gardens, and a gardener who had just come from the King’s gardens
at Kew gave me such a description of them as made me instantly
resolve to work in those gardens. The next morning” (this is the
early adventure I have previously spoken of), “without saying a word
to any one, off I set, with no clothes except those upon my back,
and with thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found that I must go to
Richmond, and I accordingly went on from place to place inquiring
my way thither. A long day (it was in June) brought me to Richmond
in the afternoon. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese and a
pennyworth of small beer which I had on the road, and one
halfpenny that I had lost somehow or other, left three pence in my
pocket. With this for my whole fortune, I was trudging through
Richmond in my blue smock-frock, and my red garters tied under my
knees, when, staring about me, my eye fell upon a little book in a
bookseller’s window, on the outside of which was written ‘The Tale
of a Tub, price 3d.’ The title was so odd that my curiosity was
excited. I had the threepence; but then I could not have any supper.
In I went and got the little book, which I was so impatient to read,
that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Gardens,
where there stood a haystack. On the shady side of this I sat down
to read. The book was so different from anything that I had ever
read before, it was something so new to my mind, that, though I
could not understand some parts of it, it delighted me beyond
description, and produced what I have always considered a sort of
birth of intellect.
“I read on until it was dark without any thought of supper or bed.
When I could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket and
tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept till the birds in
the Kew Gardens awakened me in the morning, when off I started to
Kew, reading my little book. The singularity of my dress, the
simplicity of my manner, my lively and confident air, and doubtless
his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a
Scotchman, I remember, to give me victuals, find me lodging, and
set me to work; and it was during the period that I was at Kew that
George IV. and two of his brothers laughed at the oddness of my
dress while I was sweeping the grass-plot round the foot of the
Pagoda. The gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me some
gardening books to read; but these I could not relish after my ‘Tale
of a Tub,’ which I carried about with me wherever I went, and when
I—at about twenty years old—lost it in a box that fell overboard in
the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me greater pain
than I have since felt at losing thousands of pounds.”

V.

Many had cause to remember, this evening passed under a

haystack at Kew. The genius of Swift engrafted itself naturally on an
intellect so clear and a disposition so inclined to satire as that of the
gardener’s boy.
Cobbett’s earliest writings are more especially tinged with the
colouring of his master. Take for instance the following fable, which
will at all times find a ready application:
“In a pot-shop, well stocked with wares of all sorts, a
discontented, ill-formed pitcher unluckily bore the sway. One day,
after the mortifying neglect of several customers, ‘Gentlemen,’ said
he, addressing himself to his brown brethren in general—‘gentlemen,
with your permission, we are a set of tame fools, without ambition,
without courage, condemned to the vilest uses; we suffer all without
murmuring; let us dare to declare ourselves, and we shall soon see
the difference. That superb ewer, which, like us, is but earth—these
gilded jars, vases, china, and, in short, all those elegant nonsenses
whose colour and beauty have neither weight nor solidity—must
yield to our strength and give place to our superior merit.’ This civic
harangue was received with applause, and the pitcher, chosen
president, became the organ of the assembly. Some, however, more
moderate than the rest, attempted to calm the minds of the
multitude; but all the vulgar utensils, which shall be nameless, were
become intractable. Eager to vie with the bowls and the cups, they
were impatient, almost to madness, to quit their obscure abodes to
shine upon the table, kiss the lip, and ornament the cupboard.
 “In vain did a wise water-jug—some say it was a platter—make
them a long and serious discourse upon the utility of their vocation.
‘Those,’ said he, ‘who are destined to great employments are rarely
the most happy. We are all of the same clay, ’tis true, but He who
made us formed us for different functions; one is for ornament,
another for use. The posts the least important are often the most
necessary. Our employments are extremely different, and so are our
talents.’
“This had a most wonderful effect; the most stupid began to open
their ears; perhaps it would have succeeded, if a grease-pot had not
cried out in a decisive tone: ‘You reason like an ass—to the devil
with you and your silly lessons.’ Now the scale was turned again; all
the horde of pans and pitchers applauded the superior eloquence
and reasoning of the grease-pot. In short, they determined on an
enterprise; but a dispute arose—who should be the chief? Every one
would command, but no one obey. It was then you might have
heard a clatter; all put themselves in motion at once, and so wisely
and with so much vigour were their operations conducted, that the
whole was soon changed—not into china, but into rubbish.”

VI.

The tendency of this tale is manifest. It was in opposition to the

democratic spirit mainly because such was the ruling spirit of the
country in which the author had come to reside—a democratic spirit
which has since developed itself more fully, but which then, though
predominant, had a powerful and respectable party to contend
against.
The constitution of the United States had indeed perfectly satisfied
none of its framers. Franklin had declared that he consented to it,
not as the best, but as the best that he could then hope for.
Washington expressed the same opinion. It necessarily gave birth to
two parties, which for a time were held together by the position, the
abilities, and the reputation of the first president of the new
Republic. They existed, however, in his government itself, where
Jefferson represented the Democratic faction, and Hamilton the
Federal or Conservative one. To the latter the president—though
holding the balance with apparent impartiality—belonged; for he was
an English gentleman, of a firm and moderate character, and,
moreover, wished that the government of which he was the head
should be possessed of an adequate force. The great movement,
however, in France—which he was almost the only person to judge
from the first with calm discernment—overbore his views and
complicated his situation. Determined that the United States should
take only a neutral position in the European contest, he was assailed
on all sides—as a tyrant, because he wished for order—as a partisan
of Great Britain, because he wished for peace. To those among the
native Americans, who dreamt impossible theories, or desired
inextricable confusion, were joined all the foreign intriguers, who,
banished from their own countries, had no hopes of returning there
but as enemies and invaders. “I am called everything,” said
Washington, “even a Nero.”[106] His continuance in the presidency,
to which he was incited by some persons to pretend for a third time,
had indeed become incompatible with his character and honour.
The respect which he had so worthily merited and so long inspired
was on the wane. The cabinet with which he had commenced his
government was broken up; his taxes, in some provinces, were
refused; a treaty he had concluded with England was pretty
generally condemned; and as he retired to Mount Vernon, the
democratic party saw that approaching triumph which the election of
their leader to the presidency was soon about to achieve. The cry
against Great Britain was fiercer; the shout for Jefferson was louder
than it had ever been before.

VII.

At this time Cobbett, then better known as Peter Porcupine, a

name which on becoming an author he had assumed, and which had
at least the merit of representing his character appropriately, having
quarrelled with a legion of booksellers, determined to set up in the
bookselling line for himself; and in the spring of 1796, he took a
house in Second Street for that purpose.
Though he was not so universally obnoxious then as he
subsequently became, his enemies were already many and violent—
his friends warm, but few. These last feared for him in the course he
was entering upon; they advised him, therefore, to be prudent—to
do nothing, at all events, on commencing business, that might
attract public indignation; and, above all, not to put up any
aristocratic portraits in his windows.
Cobbett’s plan was decided. His shop opened on a Monday, and he
spent all the previous Sunday in so preparing it that, when he took
down his shutters on the morning following, the people of
Philadelphia were actually aghast at the collection of prints, arrayed
in their defiance, including the effigies of George III., which had
never been shown at any window since the rebellion. From that
moment the newspapers were filled, and the shops placarded, with
“A Blue Pill for Peter Porcupine,” “A Pill for Peter Porcupine,” “A
Boaster for Peter Porcupine,” “A Picture of Peter Porcupine.” Peter
Porcupine had become a person of decided consideration and
importance.
“Dear father,” says the writer who had assumed this name, in one
of his letters home, “when you used to set me off to work in the
morning, dressed in my blue smock-frock and woollen
spatterdashes, with a bag of bread and cheese and a bottle of small
beer over my shoulder, on the little crook that my godfather gave
me, little did you imagine that I should one day become so great a
man.”

VIII.

Paine’s arrival in America soon furnished fresh matter for invective.

Paine, like Priestley, was a Republican; and was, like Priestley, hailed
with popular enthusiasm by the Republicans. Cobbett attacked this
new idol, therefore, as he had done the preceding one, and even
with still greater virulence. This carried him to the highest pitch of
unpopularity which it was possible to attain in the United States, and
it was now certain that no opportunity would be lost of restraining
his violence or breaking his pen. In August, 1797, accordingly, he
was indicted for a libel against the Spanish minister and his court;
but the bill was ignored by a majority of one; and indeed, it would
have been difficult for an American jury to have punished an
Englishman for declaring the Spanish king at that time “the tool of
France.” A question was now raised as to whether the obnoxious
writer should not be turned out of the United States, under the Alien
Act.
This having been objected to by the Attorney General, a new
course of prosecution was adopted. Nearly all Cobbett’s writings
were brought together into one mass, and he was charged with
having published throughout them libels against almost every liberal
man of note in America, France, and England. Under such a charge
he was obliged to find recognisances for his good behaviour to the
amount of 4000 dollars, and it was hoped by a diligent search into
his subsequent writings to convict him of having forfeited these
recognisances.
His enemies, indeed, might safely count on his getting into further
troubles; nor had they long to wait. A Doctor Rash having at this
time risen into great repute by a system of purging and bleeding,
with which he had attempted to stop the yellow fever, Cobbett, who
could ill tolerate another’s reputation, even in medicine, darted forth
against this new candidate for public favour with his usual vigour of
abuse. “Can the Rush grow up without mire, or the flag without
water?” was his exclamation, and down went his ruthless and never-
pausing flail on poor Dr. Rush’s birth, parentage, manners, character,
medicine, and everything that was his by nature, chance, or
education. This could not long continue; Cobbett was again indicted
for a libel.
 In tyrannies justice is administered unscrupulously in the case of a
political enemy; in democracies also law must frequently be
controlled by vulgar prejudice and popular passion. This was seen in
the present case. The defendant pleaded, in the first place, that his
trial should be removed from the Court of the State of Pennsylvania
to that of the United States. It was generally thought that as an
alien he could claim to have his cause thus transferred. This claim,
however, was refused by the chief justice, whom he had recklessly
affronted; and the trial coming on when a jury was pretty certain to
be hostile, Cobbett was assessed in damages to the amount of 5000
dollars; nor was much consolation to be derived from the fact that
on the 14th December, the day on which he was condemned for
libelling Rush, General Washington died, in some degree the victim
of that treatment which the libelled doctor had prescribed.
The costs of the suit he had lost, added to the fine which the
adverse sentence had imposed, made altogether a considerable
sum. Cobbett was nearly ruined, but he bore himself up with a stout
heart; and for a moment turning round at bay faced his enemies,
and determined yet to remain in the United States. But on second
thoughts, without despairing of his fortunes, he resolved to seek
them elsewhere; and set sail for England. This he did on the 1st of
June, 1800; shaking the dust from his feet on what he then
stigmatised as “that infamous land, where judges become felons,
and felons judges.”

Part II.
FROM JUNE 1ST, 1800, TO MARCH 28TH, 1817, WHEN, HAVING
ALTOGETHER CHANGED HIS POLITICS, HE RETURNS TO AMERICA.
 Starts a paper, by title The Porcupine, which he had made famous in America.—
Begins as a Tory.—Soon verges towards opposition.—Abandons Porcupine and
commences Register.—Prosecuted for libel.—Changes politics, and becomes radical.
—Prosecuted again for libel.—Convicted and imprisoned.—Industry and activity
though confined in Newgate.—Sentence expires.—Released.—Power as a writer
increases.—Government determined to put him down.—Creditors pressing.—He
returns to the United States.

I.

The space Cobbett filled in the public mind of his native land was at
this time, 1800, considerable. Few, in fact, have within so brief a
period achieved so remarkable a career, or gained under similar
circumstances an equal reputation. The boy from the plough had
become the soldier, and distinguished himself, so far as his birth and
term of service at that time admitted, in the military profession; the
uneducated soldier had become the writer; and, as the advocate of
monarchical principles in a Republican state, had shown a power and
a resolution which had raised him to the position of an antagonist to
the whole people amongst whom he had been residing. There was
Cobbett on one side of the arena, and all the democracy of
democratic America on the other!
He now returned to the Old World and the land for which he had
been fighting the battle. His name had preceded him. George III.
admired him as his champion; Lord North hailed him as the greatest
political reasoner of his time (Burke being amongst his
contemporaries); Mr. Windham—the elegant, refined, classical, manly,
but whimsical Mr. Windham—was in raptures at his genius; and
though the English people at this time were beginning to be a little
less violent than they had been in their hatred of France and America,
the English writer who despised Frenchmen and insulted Americans,
was still a popular character in England.
Numerous plans of life were open to him; that which he chose was
the one for which he was most fitting, and to which he could most
easily and naturally adapt himself. He again became editor of a public
paper, designated by the name he had rendered famous, and called
The Porcupine.
The principles on which this paper was to be conducted were
announced with spirit and vigour. “The subjects of a British king,” said
Cobbett, “like the sons of every provident and tender father, never
know his value till they feel the want of his protection. In the days of
youth and ignorance I was led to believe that comfort, freedom, and
virtue were exclusively the lot of Republicans. A very short trial
convinced me of my error, admonished me to repent of my folly, and
urged me to compensate for the injustice of the opinion which I had
conceived. During an eight years’ absence from my country, I was not
an unconcerned spectator of her perils, nor did I listen in silence to
the slander of her enemies.
“Though divided from England by the ocean, though her gay fields
were hidden probably for ever from my view, still her happiness and
her glory were the objects of my constant solicitude. I rejoiced at her
victories, I mourned at her defeats; her friends were my friends, her
foes were my foes. Once more returned, once more under the
safeguard of that sovereign who watched over me in my infancy, and
the want of whose protecting arm I have so long had reason to
lament, I feel an irresistible desire to communicate to my countrymen
the fruit of my experience; to show them the injurious and degrading
consequences of discontent, disloyalty, and innovation; to convince
them that they are the first as well as happiest of the human race,
and above all to warn them against the arts of those ambitious and
perfidious demagogues who could willingly reduce them to a level
with the cheated slaves, in the bearing of whose yoke I had the
mortification to share.”

II.

The events even at this time were preparing, which in their series
of eddies whirled the writer we have been quoting into the midst of
those very ambitious and perfidious demagogues whom he here
denounces. Nor was this notable change, under all the circumstances
which surrounded it, very astonishing. In the first place, the party in
power, after greeting him on his arrival with a welcome which,
perhaps, was more marked by curiosity than courtesy, did little to
gratify their champion’s vanity, or to advance his interests. With that
indifference usually shown by official men in our country to genius, if
it is unaccompanied by aristocratical or social influence, they allowed
the great writer to seek his fortunes as he had sought them hitherto,
pen in hand, without aid or patronage.
In the second place, the part which Mr. Pitt took on the side of
Catholic emancipation was contrary to all Cobbett’s antecedent
prejudices: and then Mr. Pitt had treated Cobbett with coolness one
day when they met at Mr. Windham’s. Thus a private grievance was
added to a public one.
The peace with France—a peace for which he would not illuminate,
having his windows smashed by the mob in consequence—disgusted
him yet more with Mr. Addington, whose moderate character he
heartily despised; and not the less so for that temporising
statesman’s inclination rather to catch wavering Whigs than to satisfy
discontented Tories. These reasons partly suggested his giving up the
daily journal he had started (called, as I have said, The Porcupine),
and commencing the Weekly Political Register, which he conducted
with singular ability against every party in the country. I say against
every party in the country; for, though he was still, no doubt, a stout
advocate of kingly government, he did not sufficiently admit, for the
purposes of his personal safety, that the king’s government was the
king’s ministers. Thus, no doubt to his great surprise, he found that
he, George III.’s most devoted servant, was summoned one morning
to answer before the law for maliciously intending to move and incite
the liege subjects of his Majesty to hatred and contempt of his royal
authority.
The libel made to bear this forced interpretation was taken from
letters in November and December, 1803, signed “Juverna,” that
appeared in the Register, and were not flattering to the government
of Ireland.
 III.

If we turn to the state of that country at this time, we shall find

that the resignation of Mr. Pitt, and the hopeless situation of the
Catholics, had naturally created much discontent. Mr. Addington, it is
true, was anything but a severe minister; he did nothing to rouse the
passions of the Irish, but he did nothing to win the heart, excite the
imagination, or gain the affection of that sensitive people. The person
he had nominated to the post of Lord Lieutenant was a fair type of
his own ministry, that person being a sensible, good-natured man,
with nothing brilliant or striking in his manner or abilities, but carrying
into his high office the honest intention to make the course he was
enjoined to pursue as little obnoxious as possible to those whom he
could not expect to please. In this manner his government, though
mild and inoffensive, neither captivated the wavering nor overawed
the disaffected; and under it was hatched, by a young and visionary
enthusiast (Mr. Emmett), a conspiracy, which, though contemptible as
the means of overturning the established authority, was accompanied
at its explosion by the murder of the Lord Chief Justice, and the
exposure of Dublin to pillage and flames. The enemies of ministers
naturally seized on so fair an occasion for assailing them, and
Cobbett, who held a want of energy to be at all times worse than the
want of all other qualities, put his paper at their disposal.
In the present instance, the writer of “Juverna’s” letters, calling to
his aid the old story of the wooden horse which carried the Greeks
within the walls of Troy, and exclaiming, “Equo ne credite Teucri!”
compared the Irish administration, so simple and innocuous in its
outward appearance, but containing within its bosom, as he said, all
the elements of mischief, to that famous and fatal prodigy of wood;
and after complimenting the Lord Lieutenant on having a head made
of the same harmless material as the wooden horse itself, thus
flatteringly proceeded: “But who is this Lord Hardwicke? I have
discovered him to be in rank an earl, in manners a gentleman, in
morals a good father and a kind husband, and that, moreover, he has
a good library in St. James’s Square. Here I should have been for ever
stopped, if I had not by accident met with one Mr. Lindsay, a Scotch
parson, since become (and I am sure it must be by Divine
Providence, for it would be impossible to account for it by secondary
causes) Bishop of Killaloe. From this Mr. Lindsay I further learned that
my Lord Hardwicke was celebrated for understanding the mode and
method of fattening sheep as well as any man in Cambridgeshire.”
The general character of the attack on Lord Hardwicke may be
judged of by the above quotation, and was certainly not of a very
malignant nature. It sufficed, however, to procure a hostile verdict;
and the Editor of the Political Register was declared “Guilty of having
attempted to subvert the King’s authority.”
This, however, was not all. Mr. Plunkett, then Solicitor-General for
Ireland, had pleaded against Mr. Emmett, whose father he had
known, with more bitterness than perhaps was necessary, since the
culprit brought forward no evidence in his favour, and did not even
attempt a defence. Mr. Plunkett, moreover, had himself but a short
time previously expressed rather violent opinions, and, when
speaking of the Union, had gone so far as to say that, if it passed into
a law, no Irishman would be bound to obey it. In short, the position
in which he stood was one which required great delicacy and
forbearance, and delicacy and forbearance he had not shown.
“Juverna” thus speaks of him:
“If any one man could be found of whom a young but unhappy
victim of the justly offended laws of his country had, in the moment
of his conviction and sentence, uttered the following apostrophe:
‘That viper, whom my father nourished, he it is whose principles and
doctrines now drag me to my grave; and he it is who is now brought
forward as my prosecutor, and who, by an unheard-of exercise of the
royal prerogative, has wantonly lashed with a speech to evidence the
dying son of his former friend, when that dying son had produced no
evidence, had made no defence, but, on the contrary, acknowledged
the charge and submitted to his fate’—Lord Kenyon would have
turned with horror from such a scene, in which, if guilt were in one
part punished, justice in the whole drama was confounded, humanity
outraged, and loyalty insulted.”
 These observations, made in a far more rancorous spirit than those
relating to Lord Hardwicke, could not fail to be bitterly felt by the
Solicitor-General, who was probably obliged, in deference to Irish
opinion, to prosecute the editor of the paper they appeared in.
He did so, and obtained 500l. damages.
Luckily for Cobbett, however, he escaped punishment in both suits;
for the real author of these attacks, Mr. Johnson, subsequently Judge
Johnson, having been discovered, or having discovered himself,
Cobbett was left without further molestation. But an impression had
been created in his mind. He had fought the battle of loyalty in
America against a host of enemies to the loss of his property, and
even at the hazard of his life. Shouts of triumph had hailed him from
the British shores. The virulence of his invectives, the coarseness of
his epithets, the exaggeration of his opinions, were all forgotten and
forgiven when he wrote the English language out of England. He
came to his native country; he advocated the same doctrines, and
wrote in the same style; his heart was still as devoted to his king, and
his wishes as warm for the welfare of his country; but, because it was
stated in his journal that Lord Hardwicke was an excellent sheep-
feeder, and Mr. Plunkett a viper—(a disagreeable appellation,
certainly, but one soft and gentle in comparison with many which he
had bestowed, fifty times over, on the most distinguished writers,
members of Congress, judges and lawyers in the United States—
without the regard and esteem of his British patrons being one jot
abated)—he had been stigmatised as a traitor and condemned to pay
five hundred pounds as a libeller.
He did not recognise, in these proceedings, the beauties of the
British Constitution, nor the impartial justice which he had always
maintained when in America, was to be found in loyal old England. He
did not see why his respect for his sovereign prevented him from
saying or letting it be said that a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was a
very ordinary man, nor that a Solicitor-General of Ireland had made a
very cruel and ungenerous speech, when the facts thus stated were
perfectly true. The Tory leaders had done nothing to gain him as a
partisan, they had done much that jarred with his general notions on
politics, and finally they treated him as a political foe. The insult, for
such he deemed it, was received with a grim smile of defiance, and
grievous was the loss which Conservative opinions sustained when
those who represented them drove the most powerful controversialist
of his day into the opposite ranks.
Nor can the value of his support be estimated merely by the injury
inflicted by his hostility. When Cobbett departed from his consistency,
he forfeited a great portion of his influence. With his marvellous skill
in exciting the popular passions in favour of the ideas he espoused;
with his nicknames, with his simple, sterling, and at all times powerful
eloquence, it is difficult to limit the effect he might have produced
amongst the classes to which he belonged, and which with an
improved education were beginning to acquire greater power, if
acquainted with their habits and warmed by their passions, he had
devoted his self-taught intellect to the defence of ancient institutions
and the depreciation of modern ideas.
But official gentlemen then were even more official than they are
now; and fancying that every man in office was a great man, every
one out of it a small one, their especial contempt was reserved for a
public writer. If, however, such persons, the scarecrows of genius,
were indifferent to Cobbett’s defection, they whose standard he
joined hailed with enthusiasm his conversion.
These were not the Whigs. Cobbett’s was one of those natures
which never did things by halves. Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Hunt, Major
Cartwright, and a set of men who propounded theories of
parliamentary reform—which no one, who was at that time
considered a practical statesman, deemed capable of realization—
were his new associates and admirers.
Nor was his change a mere change in political opinion. It was,
unfortunately, a change in political morality. The farmer’s son had not
been educated at a learned university—having his youthful mind
nourished and strengthened by great examples of patriotism and
consistency, drawn from Greece and Rome:—he was educating
himself by modern examples from the world in which he was living,
and there he found statesmen slow to reward the advocacy of their
public opinions, but quick to avenge any attack on their personal
vanity or individual interests. It struck him then that their principles
were like the signs which innkeepers stick over their tap-rooms,
intended to catch the traveller’s attention, and induce him to buy their
liquors; but having no more real signification than “St. George and
the Dragon,” or the “Blue Boar,” or the “Flying Serpent;” hence
concluding that one sign might be pulled down and the other put up,
to suit the taste of the customers, or the speculation of the landlord.
And now begins a perfectly new period in his life. Up to this date
he had always been one and the same individual. Every corner of his
being had been apparently filled with the same loyal hatred to
Frenchmen and Democrats. He had loved, in every inch of him, the
king and the church, and the wooden walls of Old England. “Who will
say,” he exclaims in America, “that an Englishman ought not to
despise all the nations in the world? For my part I do, and that most
heartily.” What he here says of every one of a different nation from
his own, he had said, and said constantly, of every one of a different
political creed from his own, and his own political creed had as yet
never varied. But consistency and Cobbett here separated. Not only
was his new self a complete and constant contradiction with his old
self—this was to be expected: but whereas his old self was one solid
block, his new self was a piece of tesselated workmanship, in which
were patched together all sorts of materials of all sorts of colours. I
do not mean to say that, having taken to the liberal side in politics, he
ever turned round again and became violent on the opposite side. But
his liberalism had no code. He recognised no fixed friends—no
definite opinions. The notions he advocated were such as he selected
for the particular day of the week on which he was writing, and which
he considered himself free on the following day to dispute with those
who adopted them. As to his alliances, they were no more closely
woven into his existence than his doctrines; and he stood forth
distinguished for being dissatisfied with everything, and quarrelling
with every one.
 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.

V.

The following paragraph had appeared in the Courier paper:

“London, Saturday, July 1st, 1809.
“Motto.—The mutiny amongst the Local Militia, which broke out at
Ely, was fortunately suppressed on Wednesday by the arrival of four
squadrons of the German Legion Cavalry from Bury, under the
command of General Auckland.
“Five of the ringleaders were tried by a court-martial, and
sentenced to receive five hundred lashes each, part of which
punishment they received on Wednesday, and a part was remitted. A
stoppage for their knapsacks was the ground of complaint which
excited this mutinous spirit, and occasioned the men to surround their
officers and demand what they deemed their arrears. The first
division of the German Legion halted yesterday at Newmarket on
their return to Bury.”
On this paragraph Cobbett made the subjoining observations:
“‘Summary of politics. Local Militia and German Legion.’ See the
motto, English reader, see the motto, and then do, pray, recollect all
that has been said about the way in which Bonaparte raises his
soldiers. Well done, Lord Castlereagh! This is just what it was thought
that your plan would produce. Well said, Mr. Huskisson! It was really
not without reason you dwelt with so much earnestness upon the
great utility of the foreign troops, whom Mr. Wardle appeared to think
of no utility at all. Poor gentleman! he little thought how great a
genius might find employment for such troops; he little imagined they
might be made the means of compelling Englishmen to submit to that
sort of discipline which is so conducive to producing in them a
disposition to defend the country at the risk of their lives. Let Mr.
Wardle look at my motto, and then say whether the German soldiers
are of no use. Five hundred lashes each! Ay, that is right; flog them!
flog them! flog them; they deserve it, and a great deal more! They
deserve a flogging at every meal time. Lash them daily! Lash them
daily! What! shall the rascals dare to mutiny, and that, too, when the
German Legion is so near at hand? Lash them! Lash them! Lash
them! they deserve it. Oh! yes, they deserve a double-tailed cat. Base
dogs! what, mutiny for the sake of the price of a knapsack! Lash
them! flog them! base rascals! mutiny for the price of a goat-skin,
and then upon the appearance of the German soldiers they take a
flogging as quietly as so many trunks of trees.”

VI.

The attack on the Hanoverian troops, who had nothing to do with

the question as to whether the militiamen were flogged justly or not,
was doubtless most illiberal and unfair. Those troops simply did their
duty, as any other disciplined troops would have done, in seeing a
superior’s order executed. It was not their fault if they were employed
on this service; neither were they in our country or our army under
ordinary circumstances. They had lost their own land for fighting our
battles; they were in our army because they would not serve in the
army of the enemy.
But we can hardly expect newspaper writers to be more logical and
just than forensic advocates. A free press is not a good unmixed with
evil; there are arguments against it, as there are arguments for it; but
where it is admitted as an important part of a nation’s institutions,
this admission includes, as I conceive, the permission to state one
side of a question in the most telling manner, the corrective being the
juxtaposition of the other side of the question stated with an equal
intent to captivate, and perhaps to mislead.
Two years’ imprisonment, and a fine of £1000 only wanted the
gentle accompaniment of ear-cropping to have done honour to the
Star Chamber; for, to a man who had a newspaper and a farm to
carry on, imprisonment threatened to consummate the ruin which an
exorbitant fine was well calculated to commence.
Cobbett was accused of yielding to the heaviness of the blow, and
of offering the abandonment of his journal as the price of his
forgiveness. I cannot agree with those who said that such an offer
would have been an unparalleled act of baseness. In giving up his
journal, Cobbett was not necessarily giving up his opinions. Every one
who wages war unsuccessfully retains the right of capitulation. A
writer is no more obliged to rot uselessly in a gaol for the sake of his
cause, than a general is obliged to fight a battle without a chance of
victory for the sake of his country. A man, even if a hero, is not
obliged to be a martyr. Cobbett’s disgraceful act was not in making
the proposal of which he was accused, but in denying most positively
and repeatedly that he had ever made it; for it certainly seems pretty
clear, amidst a good deal of contradictory evidence, that he did
authorize Mr. Reeves, of the Alien Office, to promise that the Register
should drop if he was not brought up for judgment; and if a Mr.
Wright, who was a sort of factotum to Cobbett at the time, can be
believed, the farewell was actually written, and only withdrawn when
the negotiation was known to have failed. At all events, no indulgence
being granted to the offender, he turned round and faced fortune
with his usual hardihood. In no portion of his life, indeed, did he show
greater courage—in none does the better side of his character come
out in brighter relief than when, within the gloomy and stifling walls
of Newgate, he carried on his farming, conducted his paper, educated
his children, and waged war (his most natural and favourite pursuit)
against his enemies with as gay a courage as could have been
expected from him in sight of the yellow cornfields, and breathing the
pure air he loved so well.
“Now, then,” he says, in describing this period of his life, “the book-
learning was forced upon us. I had a farm in hand; it was necessary
that I should be constantly informed of what was doing. I gave all the
orders, whether as to purchases, sales, ploughing, sowing, breeding
—in short, with regard to everything, and the things were in endless
number and variety, and always full of interest. My eldest son and
daughter could now write well and fast. One or the other of these
was always at Botley, and I had with me—having hired the best part
of the keeper’s house—one or two besides, either their brother or
sister. We had a hamper, with a lock and two keys, which came up
once a week or oftener, bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare.
This hamper, which was always at both ends of the line looked for
with the most lively interest, became our school. It brought me a
journal of labours, proceedings, and occurrences, written on paper of
shape and size uniform, and so contrived as to margins as to admit of
binding. The journal used, when my eldest son was the writer, to be
interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts, or anything that he
wanted me to have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants,
herbs, and the like, that I might see the size of them; and almost
every one sent his or her most beautiful flowers, the earliest violets
and primroses and cowslips and bluebells, the earliest twigs of trees,
and, in short, everything that they thought calculated to delight me.
The moment the hamper arrived, I—casting aside everything else—
set to work to answer every question, to give new directions, and to
add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley.
“Every hamper brought one letter, as they called it, if not more,
from every child, and to every letter I wrote an answer, sealed up and
sent to the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other
and better letters; for though they could not read what I wrote, and
though their own consisted at first of mere scratches, and afterwards,
for a while, of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always
thanked them for their pretty letter, and never expressed any wish to
see them write better, but took care to write in a very neat and plain
hand myself, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.
“Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to
incessant mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental
powers, I found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous
and affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those
tigers were strangers. ‘Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s
aid.’ How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the
little fuddling letters from Botley. This correspondence occupied a
good part of my time. I had all the children with me, turn and turn
about; and in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two
eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn French, I used for a part
of the two years to send them for a few hours a day to an abbé, who
lived in Castle Street, Holborn. All this was a great relaxation to my
mind; and when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned
fresh and cheerful, full of vigour, and full of hope of finally seeing my
unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without caring a
straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own family
were safe, because—say what any one might—the community, taken
as a whole, had suffered this thing to be done unto us.
“The paying of the workpeople, the keeping of the accounts, the
referring to books, the writing and reading of letters, this everlasting
mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my
own surprise, find at the end of two years that I had a parcel of
scholars growing up about me, and, long before the end of the time,
I had dictated my Register to my two eldest children. Then there was
copying out of books, which taught spelling correctly. The calculations
about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us; the use, the
necessity of the thing, led to the study.
“By and by we had to look into the laws, to know what to do about
the highways, about the game, about the poor, and all rural and
parochial affairs.
“I was, indeed, by the fangs of government defeated in my fondly-
cherished project of making my sons farmers on their own land, and
keeping them from all temptation to seek vicious and enervating
enjoyments; but those fangs—merciless as they had been—had not
been able to prevent me from laying in for their lives, a store of
useful information, habits of industry, care, and sobriety, and a taste
for innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures. The fiends had made
me and them penniless, but had not been able to take from us our
health, or our mental possessions, and these were ready for
application as circumstances might ordain.”
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