Mr. Watt was in the strictest sense a cultivated man. There was hardly a physical science or an art with which he was not pretty intimately acquainted. He was familiar with several modern languages, and well read in literature. "Perhaps no individual in his age," says Mr. Jeffrey, "possessed so much, and such varied and exact information; had read so much, or remembered what he had read so accurately and well. He had infinite quickness of apprehension, a prodigious memory, and a certain rectifying and methodizing power of understanding, which extracted something precious out of all that was presented to it. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, and yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over them. It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in conversation had been that which he had been last occupied in studying and exhausting, such was the copiousness, the precision, and the admirable clearness of the information which he poured out upon it without effort or hesitation. Nor was this promptitude and compass of knowledge confined in any degree to the studies connected with his ordinary pursuits. That he should have been minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry and the arts, and in most of the branches of physical science, might, perhaps, have been conjectured; but it could not have been inferred from his usual occupations, and probably is not generally known, that he was curiously learned in many branches of antiquity, metaphysics, medicine, and etymology, and perfectly at home in all the details of architecture, music, and law."

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ONE of the most remarkable self-made men that England can boast is William Cobbett, the subject of the present sketch. From the author's own voluminous writings we are able to gather most of the materials of his eventful life, especially from that entertaining work, the Life of Peter Porcupine. It is unfortunate, however, that Mr. Cobbett never thought it worth while to dwell minutely on the early incidents of his life, and our information on that interesting era is necessarily imperfect and broken. We will endeavor to string together what we can in the author's own words.

William Cobbett was born in the town of Farnham, Surrey, England, in the spring of the year 1762. His father was a small tenant farmer, of very limited education and humble means, but he was considered learned for a man in his rank of life. He understood land-surveying well, and was often chosen to draw the plans of disputed territory, and, being honest, industrious, and frugal, was a man of consideration among his neighbors.

William says that he does not remember the time when he did not earn his own living. His first occupation was driving the

small birds from the turnip-seed, and the rooks from the peas. His next employment was weeding wheat, and leading a single horse at harrowing barley. Hoeing peas followed, and thence he arrived at the honor of joining the reapers in the harvest, driving the team, and holding the plow. All the family were strong and laborious, and the father used to boast that he had four sons, the eldest of whom was but fifteen years old, who did as much work as any three men in the parish of Farnham. William says that he had some faint recollection of going to school to an old woman, who, he fancies, did not succeed in the arduous undertaking of teaching him his alphabet. In the winter evenings, however, his father taught him to read and write, and gave him some instruction in arithmetic and grammar.

From his infancy Cobbett displayed great fondness for rural occupations, which he describes as "healthy, rational, and heartcheering pursuits, in which every day presents something new, in which the spirits are never suffered to flag, and in which industry, skill, and care are sure to meet with their due reward;" to which he adds, "I have never, for any eight months together, during my whole life, been without a garden." Under the influence of this healthful passion, he left home at the age of eleven with the determination of seeing Kew Gardens, of which he had heard so much that he could not rest. He describes the incident admira

bly. "At eleven years of age my employment was clipping of box edgings and weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at the Castle of Farnham. I had always been fond of beautiful flowers, and a gardener, who had just come from the king's gardens at Kew, gave such a description of them as made me instantly resolve to work in these gardens. The next morning, without saying a word to any one, off I set, with no clothes except those upon my back, and with thirteen halfpence my pocket. I found that I must go to Richmond, and I accordingly went from place to place, inquiring my way thither. A long day-it was in June-brought me to Richmond in the afternoon. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese, and a pennyworth of small beer which I had on the road, and a halfpenny which I had lost somehow or other, left threepence in my pocket. With this for my whole fortune, I was trudging through Richmond in my blue smock frock, and my red gaiters tied under my knees, when, staring about me, my eye fell upon a little book in a bookseller's window,

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on the outside of which was written, Tale of a Tub; price 3d.' The title was so odd that my curiosity was excited. I had the threepence, but then I could have no supper. In I went and got the little book, which I was so impatient to read that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Garden, where there stood a haystack. On the shady side of this I sat down to read. The book was so different from any thing that I had read before—it was something so new to my mind, that, though I could not at all understand some of it, it delighted me beyond description, and it produced what I have always considered a birth of intellect. I read on till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed. When I could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket, and tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept till the birds in Kew Gardens awaked me in the morning, when off I started to Kew, reading my little book. The singularity of my dress, the simplicity of my manner, my confident and lively air, and, doubtless, his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotchman, to give me victuals, find me a lodging, and set me to work." It is not known how long he remained at Kew. We lose sight of him until 1782, when, having gone to visit a relation who lived in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, he first beheld the sea. Every young lad falls in love with that element, and Cobbett was no exception to the rule. He saw the English fleet riding at anchor, and his heart expanded with national pride. The next morning he walked down to the beach, got into a boat, and in a few minutes was on board the Pegasus man-of-war. Here he endeavored to enlist in the naval service, but without success. The captain advised him to go home, but he was not so easily dissuaded. He made an attempt to get his name enrolled in another vessel, but here again the captain advised him to go home. Very reluctantly he did so; but his peace of mind was gone. He dreamed of the sea, and of traveling round the world. Farnham-even England-became too small for him. He determined to escape. Accordingly, on the 6th of May, 1783, he sallied forth to seek adventures. "I was dressed in my holiday clothes, in order to accompany two or three lasses to Guildford Fair. They were to assemble at a house about three miles from my home, where I was to attend them; but, unfortunately for me, I had to cross the London turnpike-road. The stage-coach had just turned the summit of a hill, and was rattling down toward

me at a merry rate. The notion of going to London never entered my mind till this very moment, yet the step was completely determined on before the coach came to the spot where I stood. Up I got, and was in London about nine o'clock in the evening. It was by mere accident that I had money enough to defray the expenses of this day. Being rigged out for the fair, I had three or four crown and half crown pieces (which most certainly I did not intend to spend), besides a few shillings and halfpence. This, my little all, which I had been years in amassing, melted away like snow before the sun when touched by the fingers of the innkeepers and their waiters. In short, when I arrived at Ludgate Hill, and had paid my fare, I had but about half a crown in my pocket." Fortunately, he had succeeded in making the acquaintance of a passenger-a hop merchant from Southwark-who knew his father, and who was disposed to lend a helping hand to the young man. He invited him to his house, which he told him he might look upon as his home till something turned up. In the mean time he wrote to his father, advising him of what had taken place. The latter desired Cobbett to return immediately, but a mistaken sense of false delicacy prevented his doing so. At length a situation as copying clerk in a lawyer's office was obtained for him, and for nearly a year he went through the wretched drudgery of that occupation-the only portion of his life, he says, which was 'totally unattended with pleasure." It is not easy to escape from a lawyer's office into a higher sphere of usefulness, and to this circumstance we may perhaps attribute Cobbett's lengthened experiment in the gloom and wretchedness of the law. One fine spring morning in 1784, while strolling through St. James's Park, to cheer himself "with the sight of the trees, the grass, and the water," he read an advertisement inviting all loyal young men to serve their country, and reap honor and riches in that patriotic undertaking. Any life was welcome to Cobbett, provided it did not revolve on the high stool of an attorney's office. Without troubling himself about inquiries, he took the king's shilling, and became a private in the 54th regiment. He remained about a year at Chatham, during which time he learned his duties thoroughly, and occupied his leisure in reading and study. He says that during this year he learned more than he had ever done before. Whatever books came in his way (and he subscribed to a circulating library) he read with avidity, but, it is to be feared,

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