518
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. JUNE 28, 1913.
PINKSTAN JAMES (US. vii. 470). Accord-
ing to a pedigree in The Pedigree Register
for June, 1907, the mother of Pinkstan
James was Anne, sister of John Stephens.
HENRY B. SWANZY.
PETER BARROW (11 S. vii. 429). Peter Barrow, Consul at Kertch, 8 March, 1866, retired on pension 11 Jan., 1880 ; died at Onistreham, Calvados, 6 Oct., 1899 (Times, 11 Oct., 1899, p. 1). FREDERIC BOASE.
THE SIGN OF THE DRIPPING-PAN (11 S. vii. 447). It may be of interest to mention that the cricket-ground at Lewes, Sussex, is called the " Dripping-Pan, 3 ' probably from the peculiarity of its formation.
CECIL CLARKE.
Junior Athenaeum Club.
The Life and Letters of William Cobbett. By
Lewis Melville. 2 vols. (John Lane.) MR. MELVILLE has in this ' Life of Cobbett ' shown the same care and industry as he bestowed on what must be considered the standard life of Thackeray. Cobbett is allowed to tell his story in his own words, the best form of biography, although to carry this out successfully means an immense amount of labour to the compiler. Mr. Melville has had the advantage of basing this memoir mainly upon unpublished correspondence. Although there have been earlier biographies of Cobbett, none of the writers has made any considerable use of his letters.
With Cobbett there was no occasion for the prayer that he might have a good conceit of himself, for, as his biographer records, although " it must never be forgotten that there was in him a substratum of sound common sense, it is verily William Cobbett first, and the rest no- where." If in the realms of vanity he was almost unequalled* vanity w T as his worst fault. His industry was wonderful, and his capacity for work has never been exceeded : " One of the most voluminous writers the world has ever known, he worked week after week, month after month, year after year, without interruption." He was never weary, and through all his troubles and losses he was " always in spirits," and nothing " pulled him down." W T hile he enjoyed his food, he knew not the pleasures of the table. " I have not during my life spent more than thirty five minutes a day at table." His practice was " to eat little, and to drink nothing that in- toxicates." " He that eats till he is full is little better than a beast, and he that drinks till he is drunk is quite ^ a beast." His ideas about fiction would not suit the lending libraries of the present day, for he deprecated romances of every description : "It is impossible they can do any good, and they may do a great deal of harm."
Among lives of writers, that of Cobbett must be reckoned one of the most romantic. When only eleven years old, he was thrown on the world withoxit money to support, without friends to
advise, and without book-learning to assist him.
After passing a few years dependent solely on his
own labours, he reached London, in May, 1783,
with just half-a-crown in his pocket, and, after
nine months' quill-driving in a lawyer's office,
enlisted in the 54th Foot. He spent a year at
Chatham, where he mastered Lowth's Grammar,
and read through a whole lending library. He
served as sergeant-major in New Brunswick,
and on his return, having saved one hundred and
fifty guineas, received a most flattering discharge.
He married in 1792, and went to France to get
out of a court-martial on three of his late officers
whom he had charged with peculation. Six
months afterwards he left for America, where he
taught English to French refugees. In 1800,
when he returned to England, William Windham
declared in the House of Commons " that a
statue of gold ought to be erected in his honour,
as the Champion of England in America and the
opponent of France." On the 7th of August
a dinner was given to him, at which Pitt,
Canning, and Hookham Frere were present ;
and on the 30th of October, looking round for
some employment that would provide him with
means to support his family, he published the
first number of The Porcupine. Cobbett broke
with the ministerial party on the subject of the
Peace of Amiens, and of all his political friends
found himself in agreement with only William
Windham, who also opposed the treaty. This
staunch friend saw an opportunity to help at one
stroke Cobbett and the cause they had at heart.
He and Dr. French Laurence invited Cobbett to
start a weekly paper, and undertook to provide
the means. This Cobbett agreed to, upon the
understanding that he should have a perfectly
free hand, and on the 18th of January, 1802, Cob-
bett's Political Register first saw the light. Cobbett
disliked London life, so when, three years after-
wards, the paper had secured a steady sale of
four thousand weekly, he went to live at Botley,
where he delighted in his farm and garden, and
was up at work in them at daybreak. Miss
Mitford has recorded that " few persons excelled
him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and
flowers." " His green Indian corn, his Carolina
beans, his water melons, could hardly have been
excelled at New York. His wall fruit was equally
splendid, and, much as flowers have been since
that day, I never saw a more glowing or more
fragrant garden than that at Botley, with its
pyramids of hollyhocks, its masses of china-
asters, of cloves, of mignonette, and of variegated
geraniums."
In this rural retreat we find an altogether different man from the truculent Cobbett of political life. As Leslie Stephen put it, " The domestic Cobbett is invariably charming." From the vivid descriptions we have of him, he seems to be present before us, with his unfailing good- humour and good spirits, " a tall, stout man, fair and sunburnt, with a bright smile, and an air com- pounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which the habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little." He wore a " broad- brimmed white hat, a little on one side, and thrown back so as to give the fullest view of his shrewd though bluff countenance, and his keen cold-looking eye." All in his household loved him, and his servants said " they would never wish to serve a better master." He was always planning improvements, not only on
