"He was a farmer when a politician; and throughout the hot and bitter struggle of his life, there were two kinds of Englishmen whom he always loved and laboured for, the farmer and the farm-labourer; the former not yet swollen into his present pretensions, the latter not yet dwarfed into his terrible degradation... He never swerved from his purpose, that of undertaking the defence of the farmer and the peasant. As a consequence, his influence was exceedingly great among the class from whom he sprung."