Cobbett was anything but refined, in the conventional sense of the word; but he was pure, temperate, self-denying, industrious, vigorous, and energetic, in an eminent degree.

Many of his views were, no doubt, wrong, but they were his own, for he insisted on thinking for himself in everything.

Though few men took a firmer grasp of the real than he did, perhaps still fewer were more swayed by the ideal.

In word-pictures of his own emotions, he is unsurpassed.

Indeed, Cobbett might almost be regarded as one of the greatest prose poets of English real life..