COB'BETT, WrI,LrAm, a celebrated English political writer, was b. in Mar., 1762, at Farnham, in Surrey, where his father was a small farmer. From his infancy, he was trained in habits of industry and self-dependence. Taking a dislike to rural occupa tions, he went to London, where he was employed a few months as a copying-clerk—a kind of employment so distasteful to him, that he enlisted into the 54th foot, and with it went out to Nova Scotia shortly after. In this regiment he remained about eight years, in the course of which time his uniform good conduct, activity, and intelligence had secured him the high promotion of sergeant-major. During his soldier-years, he indulged in none of the dissipations common to barrack-life, but devoted the whole of his leisure to the work of self-education. On his return to England, about the end of 1791, he obtained his discharge, married, and went to America in the following He settled in Philadelphia, where he commenced his career as a political writer. following the signature of "Peter Porcupine," he was at this early stage as keen a tory as in later life he was a radical, and he lashed French republicanism and American democracy with a scorn as coarse and personal sometimes as it was always bitter. In America. he was twice prosecuted for libel. He left America in June, 1800, and returned to Eng land. In Jan., 1802, appeared the first number of his famous Weekly Political Register, which he continued without intermission until his death in 1835. At first, tory, the Register gradually changed its politics, until at last it became the most fierce and deter mined opponent of the government, then presided over by Pitt, and the most uncom promising champion of radicalism. In 1810, having previously been twice tried and
found guilty of libel on certain members of the government, he was sentenced to imprisonment for two years in Newgate, and to pay a fine of £1000, for having in the Register made somo severe remarks upon the flogging of five militiamen. In in consequence of pecuniary embarrassments, and the dread of being sent to Newgate again, under the six acts for the suppression of freedom of discussion. C. went once more to America, where he remained more than two years, his articles for the Register being transmitted with unfailing regularity across the Atlantic. In 1829-30, C. delivered political lectures in several of the principal towns of England and Scotland, and every where met with a most enthusiastic reception as the boldest and most powerful advo cate of the people's rights. In 1832, he was returned to the first reformed parliament as one of the members for Oldham. His speeches in parliament, however, did not add to his reputation. He died June 18, 1835. Among C.'s best known works are his Eng lish Grammar; Rural Rides; Cottage Economy; Advice to Young Nen and Women; and Parliamentary History. C. was by no means a man of the first order of intellect; ho was shut out altogether from the higher and more refined departments of human thought. But in dealing with matters of common-sense merely, lie exhibited a native vigor far surpassing that of any writer of his day. Nor can there be any doubt that, in spite of his crotchets, he rendered lasting service to the cense of the people. See Smith's Lzfe of C. (1878).