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The Changing Image of William Cobbett

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Abstract

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Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1974

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References

1. Reprinted in Eclectic Magazine (New York), XXXIII (1858), 412Google Scholar.

2. See Hazlitt, W., “Character of Cobbett,” in Howe, P.P. (ed.), Complete Works of William Hazlitt (London, 1931), VIII, 5059Google Scholar.

3. SirBulwer, Henry Lytton, Historical Characters (London, 1867), pp. 354, 355Google Scholar.

4. Rev.Watson, John Selby, Biographies of John Wilkes and William Cobbett (London, 1870), p. 119Google Scholar.

5. William Cobbett,” Edinburgh Review, CIL (18781879), 495-96, 497Google Scholar. This anonymous essay was reprinted in Stebbing, William, Some Verdicts of History Reviewed (London, 1887)Google Scholar.

6. Cobbett's Political Works,” Saturday Review, XXII (1866), 19Google Scholar; Stephen's authorship of this anonymous essay has been established by Bevington, Merle M., The Saturday Review 1855-1868 (New York, 1941), p. 374Google Scholar.

7. [Stebbing, ], “Cobbett,” Edinburgh Review, CIL (18781879), 499Google Scholar.

8. Egerton, Hugh E., “A Scarce Book,” National Review, V (1885), 413–28Google Scholar. The only new edition of Rural Rides since its original appearance in 1830 seems to have been that put out by Cobbett's son in 1853, which had not been received with much interest. For a useful, though incomplete, list of editions, see Pearl, M. L., William Cobbett: A Bibliographical Account (London, 1953), p. 161Google Scholar.

9. William Cobbett,” Nineteenth Century, XIX (1886), 238–56Google Scholar, and William Cobbett,” Saturday Review, LXI (1886), 178–79Google Scholar.

10. Carlyle, E. I., William Cobbett (London, 1904), p. 295Google Scholar.

11. See Cobbett, William, Rural Rides, ed. Lobban, J. H. (London, 1908)Google Scholar.

12. See Keith, W. J., Richard Jefferies (Toronto, 1965), p. 54Google Scholar.

13. See Wiener, Martin J., “England is the Country: Modernization and the National Self-image,” Albion, III (1971), 198211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. For the social and psychic significance of country writing, see Chapple, J. A. V., Documentary and Imaginative Literature 1880-1920 (London, 1970)Google Scholar, chaps. 2-4, and Williams, Raymond, The Country and the City (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

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19. [Kebbel, T. E.], “Cobbett,” Cornhill, XXXIX (1879), 427, 433–36Google Scholar. Kebbel's authorship of this anonymous essay hals been established by Houghton, Walter (ed.), Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, I (Toronto, 1966)Google Scholar.

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21. Gaskell, C. Milnes, “William Cobbett,” Nineteenth Century, XIX (1886), 255–56Google Scholar.

22. See Toynbee, Arnold, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century in England (New York, 1923), pp. 72, 199-200, 207Google Scholar.

23. There is no good scholarly work on the land question in British politics in this period. See, however, Emy, H. V., “The Land Campaign: Lloyd George as a Social Reformer, 1909-1914,” in Taylor, A. J. P. (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London, 1971), pp. 3568Google Scholar.

24. Preface to Fordham, Montague, Mother Earth (London, 1908), p. 5Google Scholar.

25. Masterman, C. F. G., The Condition of England (London, 1909), p. 190Google Scholar; and Masterman, C. F. G., In Peril of Change (London, 1905), pp. xiii, 154Google Scholar.

26. The increasing use of the automobile in these years gave a powerful stimulus to interest in the countryside, now more accessible to the urban visitor than ever before.

27. [Hammond, J. L.], “William Cobbett,” Edinburgh Review, CCVI (19071908), 136, 138, 148Google Scholar. Hammond's authorship of this essay is recorded in the archives of Longmans and Co., the publishers of the Edinburgh Review.

28. Slater, Gilbert, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields (London, 1907), p. 237Google Scholar.

29. J. L. and Hammond, Barbara, The Village Labourer 1760-1832 (New York, 1970), pp. 161-62, 187-90, 204-05, 210-12, 291–95Google Scholar.

30. Melville, Lewis, “Cobbett,” Fortnightly Review, LXXXXVII (1912), 675–87Google Scholar, and Melville, Lewis, The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and America (London, 1913), I, viii, 16, 17Google Scholar.

31. Cole, G. D. H., The Life of William Cobbett (London, 1924), pp. 10-12, 145, 432Google Scholar.

32. As J. H. Plumb has remarked, the “dream of an Elysian England of patriarchs, well-fed peasants, contented, if illiterate, craftsmen, and compassionate, profitsharing landowners, has haunted English radicalism” ever since Plumb, Cobbett. J. H., “Farmers in Arms,” New York Review of Books, XII, no. 12 (June 19, 1969), 37Google Scholar.

33. Cole, G. D. H., “The British Labour Movement—Retrospect and Prospect,” Ralph Fox Memorial Lecture, Fabian Special, No. 8 (1952), pp. 34Google Scholar.

34. See Cole, Margaret, The Life of G. D. H. Cole (London, 1971), p. 133Google Scholar.

35. Gaitskell, Hugh, “At Oxford in the Twenties,” in Briggs, Asa and Saville, John (eds.), Essays in Labour History (London, 1960), p. 12Google Scholar. See also Cole, Margaret, G. D. H. Cole, p. 198Google Scholar, on Cole's “prejudice against foreign parts.”

36. See Gaitskell, in Briggs, and Saville, , Essays, p. 11Google Scholar, and Cole, Margaret, G. D. H. Cole, p. 130Google Scholar.

37. Cole, Margaret, Growing Up Into Revolution (London, 1949), p. 79Google Scholar.

38. In Briggs, and Saville, , Essays, pp. 1213Google Scholar.

39. Cole, , Cobbett, p. 268Google Scholar.

40. See, for example, Johnson, Dorothy C., Pioneers of Reform (London, 1929)Google Scholar.

41. Thompson, Edward P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1966), pp. 756–60Google Scholar.

42. Ibid., p. 405.

43. Chesterton, G. K., What's Wrong With The World (New York, 1910), pp. 30, 34Google Scholar.

44. The review of Melville was unsigned; it may likely have been authored by Chesterton, for it is similar in content and tone to later writings of his.

45. The Voice of England,” New Witness, I (19121913), 375Google Scholar.

46. Chesterton, G. K., The Crimes of England (London, 1915), p. 66Google Scholar. See also Clayton, Joseph, “William Cobbett,” New Witness, XVIII (19211922), 344–45Google Scholar, for a similar view.

47. The Voice of England,” New Witness, I, 376Google Scholar.

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50. Chesterton, , Short History of England, p. 251Google Scholar.

51. Chesterton, , William Cobbett, pp. 1415Google Scholar.

52. Morton, J. B., “William Cobbett,” London Mercury, XX (1929), 176Google Scholar. The Mercury was edited by J. C. Squire, a panegyrist of the countryside. Many people in the interwar years besides Morton found this supposed “central idea” of Cobbett's appealing. See Wiener, note 13.

53. Massingham, H. J., The Wisdom of the Fields (London, 1945), pp. 12, 20Google Scholar.

54. Pemberton, W. Baring, William Cobbett (London, 1949), pp. 182–85Google Scholar. Pemberton himself was living, “much to his satisfaction,” in the Sussex countryside.

55. Saintsbury, George, Essays on English Literature 1780-1860 (New York, 1895), pp. 50, 55Google Scholar.

56. George, M. Dorothy, England in Transition (London, 1962), pp. 92, 96, 137–38Google Scholar.

57. Osborne, John W., William Cobbett: His Thought and His Times (New Brunswick, 1966), pp. 188, 254, 256Google Scholar.

58. Osborne, John W., The Silent Revolution: The Industrial Revolution in England as a Source of Cultural Change (New York, 1970), p. 213Google Scholar.

59. Himmelfarb, Gertrude, review of Osborne, John W., William Cobbett, in Victorian Studies, XI (19671968), 241Google Scholar.