He pushed his way up through the lower classes, up through the middle classes, up through the upper classes, until he stood a master, self-poised upon the topmost round of political and social power.

Rebuffed, scorned, ridiculed, hissed down in the House of Commons, he simply said, "The time will come when you shall hear me." The time did come, and the boy with no chance but a determined will, swayed the sceptre of England for a quarter of a century.
"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day," said William Cobbett.

"The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my bookcase; 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.

I had no money to purchase candles or oil; in winter it was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn, even of that.

To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was compelled to forego some portion of my food, though in a state of half starvation.