"[H]e is always a hearty Englishman. He may vary in his opinions as to doctrines and as to men, but he is ever for making England great, powerful, and prosperous—her people healthy, brave, and free. He never falls into the error of mistaking political economy for the whole of political science. He does not say, “Be wealthy, make money, and care about nothing else.” He advocates rural pursuits as invigorating to a population, although less profitable than manufacturing. He desires to see Englishmen fit for war as well as for peace. There is none of that puling primness about him which marks the philosophers who would have a great nation, like a good boy at a private school, fit for nothing but obedience and books. To use a slang phrase, there was “a go” about him which, despite all his charlatanism, all his eccentricities, kept up the national spirit, and exhibited in this one of the highest merits of political writing. The immense number of all his publications that sold immediately on their appearance, sufficiently proves the wonderful popularity of his style; and it is but just to admit that many of his writings were as useful as popular."
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Henry Lytton Bulwer, ‘Cobbett, The Contentious Man’, Historical Characters: Talleyrand, Cobbett, Mackintosh, Canning [1867] (1900), pp. 355–56
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Cobbett
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William Cobbett
William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English politician, agriculturist, journalist and pamphleteer, writing first in the Tory and then in the Radical cause.
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