husband and father; a pleasant companion;
and his family seem to have heartily lamented
him when he died—the best of all testimonies
to private worth. His appearance (to judge
by his portraits, for we never saw him,) was
characteristic of the man, except as regarded
vanity. He dressed plainly and unaffectedly,
was strong and well-built, and had a large
forehead, and roundish and somewhat small
features for the size of his cheeks—a disparity
betokening greater will than self-control.

Cobbett said little of Kensington, considering
the time he lived there. It was not to be
expected, indeed, that he could be fond of a
place which had a palace at one end of it, the
mansion of a Whig lord at the other, and in
which he did not find himself either welcome
or prosperous. What he does say chiefly
concerns his corn and his trees. There are
but one or two passages characteristic of the
locality, and those are more so of himself, and
not unamusing. In one of them he speaks of
the poor Irish, who stand at the corners of
the streets, "their rags dancing with the
wind;" but he does it rather to rebuke than
to pity them. He could not get them to
work for victuals instead of money, not taking
into consideration that the poor rack-rented
creatures could not pay their landlord without
it. A correspondent proposed to pay
Cobbett himself in victuals for his Weekly
Register—two pounds of mutton per quarter;
but the rebuker of the Irish is very angry at
this; and—assuming, with a somewhat Irish
and self-refuting logic, that this man, not
approving of payments in meat, must be
addicted to slops, and have a dirty
complexion—calls him a "teakettle reptile" and
a "squalid wretch."

The other passage gives us his opinion
of the reviews in Hyde Park, and their
consumption of gunpowder. His compliments to
American economy in the use of that material
are hardly flattering to a great nation; but
everything was excessive in the praise and
blame which he bestowed, and consequently
was in the habit of undoing itself.

Speaking of the Duke of Clarence's appointment
to the office of Lord High Admiral, he
says, that when he first heard of it, he was
"very much pleased, because he thought it
would tend to break up the Scotch phalanx,
which appeared to him to be taking the
whole navy by storm."

"The manner of executing the office was
a thing which I," continues Cobbett, "had
little time to attend to; but I must confess,
that I soon became tired of the apparent
incessant visiting of the seaports, and the
firings of salutes. I see the Americans
getting forward with a navy fit to meet us
in war, without more noise than is made
by half-a-dozen mice, when they get into
a pantry or cupboard. These Yankees have
an education wonderfully well calculated to
make them economical in the affairs of
war. I never saw one of them in my life,
man or boy, shoot at any living thing without
killing it. A Yankee never discharges his
gun at anything, until he has made a
calculation of the value of the thing; and if that
value does not exceed the value of the powder
and the shot, the gun remains with the charge
in it until something presents itself of value
surpassing that of the charge. In shooting
at partridges, quails, squirrels, and other
things of the land kind, they always count
the number of shot they put into the gun,
and will put in no more than they think the
carcass of the animal will pay for, leaving a
certain clear profit, after the cost of labour.
These are most excellent principles to be
imbibed by those who are destined to conduct
the affairs of war; and when I, being in a
sea-port, hear bang, bang, bang, on one side
of me, answered by other bangs on the other
side, and find no soul that can tell me what
the noise is for; or when I, being at
Kensington, hear, coming from Hyde Park, pop,
pop, pop—pop, pop—pop, pop, pop, pop, the
cause of which I remember but too well;
when I hear these sounds, I cannot help
lamenting that our commanders, by sea and
land, did not receive their education among
the Yankees, who have raised a fleet, the
existence of which we shall one day have to rue:
and I should not be afraid to bet all I have
in the world, that they have done it without
wasting one single pound of powder."

Cobbett's premises at the back
neighboured those of a small mansion, Scarsdale
House, which he must have considered an
eyesore, for it belonged to a noble family and
was then a boarding-school; a thing which
he hated, for its inducing tradesmen's and
farmers' daughters to play on the piano-forte.
He saw the dangers attending the elevation
of ranks in society, but none of its advantages,
except in regard to eating and drinking;
and those he would have confined to
his own beef and bacon. A little onward from
Mr. Wright's door is Wright's Lane, which
turns out of High Street, and containing
Scarsdale House and Scarsdale Terrace, leads
round by a pleasant sequestered corner into the
fields, and terminates this point of Kensington
with the New Workhouse. Scarsdale House,
now no longer a boarding-school, appears to
have returned into the occupation of the
family that are understood to have built it;
for its present inmate is the Hon. D. Curzon,
one of the gentlemen who contributed to the
collection of cabinet work at Gore House.
From an intimation, however, in Faulkner, it
would seem as if it had been called Scarsdale
House before the creation of that title in the
Curzon and Howe-Curzon families; in which
case, it was probably built by the Earl of
Scarsdale, whose family name was Leake; the
Scarsdale celebrated by Pope and Rowe for his
love of the bottle and of Mrs. Bracegirdle:—

    Each mortal has his pleasure:—none deny
    Scarsdalo his bottle, Darty his ham-pie.