The Sun.
London, England, 1828-11-01 00:00:00

COBBETT.

He at length arrived : upon his entering the enclosure,
I heard a cry of " Cobbett, Cobbett !" and turning my
eyes to the spot from which the exclamation came, I -per-
ceived less sensation than I expected to find. Some twenty
of the lowest class of freeholders made some demonstration
of pleasure at his appearance, and followed him as he made
his way towel! tis a waggon on the right of the
Sheriff. He was dressed in a gray frieze coat,
with a red handkerchief, which gave him a very
extraordinary aspect, and presented. him in contrast
with the body of those who occupied the waggons, who,
on account of the public mourning, were dre►sed in black.
He appeared in excellent health and spirits, for his cheeks
were almost as ruddy as his neckcloth, and set off his white
hair, while his eyes sparkled at the anticipation of the vic-
tory which he was confidept that he should obtain. He
seemed to me to mistake the following and acclamation of
a few of the rabble for the applauses of the whole_ Meeting.
When, however, be ascended the waggon, and stood before
the assembly, he ought to have discovered that he did not
stand very high in the general favour; for while the circle
about him cheered him with rather faint plaudits, the mo-
ment his tall but somewhat fantastical figure was exhibited
to the meeting, he was assailed by the Brunawiekers with
the grossest insults, which, instead of exciting the anger,
produced a burst of merriment among the Catholic party.
" Down with the old bone-grubber 1" " Oh, Cobbett,
•
have you brought Burdett along with you ?" " Where's
your gridiron?" " Will you pay Burdett out of the next
crop of Indian corn ?" These, aid other contumelies,
were lavished upon hies by a set of fellows who were ob-
viously posted in the meeting, in order to assail their anta-
gonists and bent them down. Cobbett was so flushed with
the certainty of success, and so self-deluded by the egre-
gious notions of his own importance, that -his temper was
not at first disturbed, but looking down triumphantly to
those immediately about him, and drawing forth a long pe-
tition, told them that he had brought them something that
should content them all. I surveyed him attentively at
this moment. Cobbett is generally represented as a man
of rather a clownish-looking demeanour ; and I have reed,
in some descriptions of him, that be could not, at first
view, suggest any notion of his peculiar intellectual powers.
Ido not at all agree in the opinion. He has certainly a '
rude and rough bearing, and affects a heedlessness of form
amounting to coarseness and rusticity. But it is only re-
quisite to look at him, in order to see in the expression of
his countenance the vigorous mind with which he is en-
dowed. The higher portion of his face is not unlike Sir
Walter Scott's, to whom he bears, especially about the
brow, a resemblance. His eyes are mere vivid than the
great author's, while the lower part of his countenance is
expressive of fierce and vehement emotions. His attire
end aspect certainly suggest, at first view, his early occu-
pations, and the predilectinne of his latter life (for be is
more attached to agriculture than to politics); but who-
ever
looks at him narrowly will see the impress of intel-
lectual superiority upon his countenance, and perceive,
under his rude bearing, the predominance of mind.—
When he first addressed the people, he was in ex-
ceedingly good humour; and as lie snapped his fin-
gers, and cried out, " Emancipation is all roguery !"
the laugh which the recollection of his own devotedness to
the Catholic cause created, was echoed by his own merri-
' ment, and be seemed to enjoy his political inconsistency as
an exceeding good joke. lie told the people that he was
well aware that the Sheriff intended to adjourn the Meet-
ing, but thathe would stay there and hold a Meeting bins-
self. Nest to Cobbett stood the great leader of the Radi-
cals, Mr Hunt. A reconciliation has been recently effected
between them, and they stood together in the front of the
same waggon before the people. I was surprised to find in
Mr. Hunt a man of an exceedingly mild and gentle aspect,
with a smootti and almost youthful cheek, a bright and
pleasant eye, a sweet and urbane smile, and altogether a
most gentlemanlike and disrrming demeanour. His voice,
too, is exceedingly melodious, and as soft as his manners.—
This Gracchus of Manchester is utterly unlike the picture
which the imagination is apt to form of a tribune of the
people ; and indeed I do not consider him to possess the ex-
ternal qualifications of a great . demagogue, though he is
certainly endowed with that plain and simple eloquence
which is so peculiarly effective with an English multitude.
Near Hunt and Cobbett, the Pylades and Orestes of ra-
dicalism, stood Counsellor French, an Irish Catholic bar-
rister, who is now a proselyte among the refbriners, but
seems to have many of the qualities necessary to constitute
An apostolic in tlie cause, and is likely one day to set up for
himself. In the waggon next that in which Cobbett, Dar-
; rel, and Hunt were placed, sat Mr. Shell, the Irish demi-
; gogne. This gentleman was said,-by some people, to have

been seni over tbe Ass&iation tViege ethers as-
serted that he had, of hi S nun eecor6,• embarked in
the perilous rterprise of " 4.'43 Men of
was a feeling of cociisif"io, mingled with
disrelish, hv his apPearane tl•eie. The ttngljsh
Catholics had endea;etit t^ dissuade hirn from the under,
taking; and Mr. Darrell, a gen'N4an Of property in the
county, was particularly anxious that :i6" sbotild not at-
tt
this
pat
Itvo
Izeraqkt;
stLepo,rdanDdasronlie);
Sheil freehold, ti ihtimated, I heard, that the death-bed
of the Duke of York W a t yet so much fori,,otten, that
Sheil should venture into sash sir ressonbly. That
‘f‘rla also very
etTlt itro.
genticinan sat in one of the waggons, appatchtareless
of
the impression which he should preduce ; hut his P-a.fsz' and
hilioti‘lare, in which discontent and solicitude, mingled
ii-M1 a spirit of Sardonic virulence, are !Apresse.l, and his
restless and timitiiet eye, gave indications that he was an-
noyed at the opprobtiMls epithets which were showered
upon him, and that he was runic-'a'l4; about the event, as it
should personally affect himself. There is cattainly in Mr.
Sheil's face and person little to bespeak the favoir! •f a
public assembly; and if he produces oratorical effect, he
rtmst he indebted to a power of phrase, and an art of de-
livery, of Whitdr, in the uproar in which he spoke, it was
impossible in that meeting to form any estimate. • Next to
Mr. Shell was the waggon apprVriafeci to the Committee,
where Owre were some Engljsh Catholics; rnd Lord Darn-
ley's and Lord Radnor's waggons suceeecieei.

The toppesite wing was, as I have mentioned, occupied
by the Brunswiel!ertr, of whom by far the most conspicu-
ous was Lent Winch('!sec He is a tall, strong-built,
vigorous-locking man, destitute of ell dignity and grace,
but with a bluff, rude, and directly nautictrllreating, which
reminds one of tha quarter-deck, and would lead you to
suppose that he was the mate of a ship (a conjecture which
a black silk handkerchief tied tightly about his neck tends
to assist) rather than an bereditaiy counsellor of the Crown.

Whatever feelings of partiality his late conduct may have
generated towards him with his own faction, he is certainly
not popular in the county ; for he is the terror of poachers,
and is most arbitrary in the enforcement of the game laws.
It is hut justice to him to say, that he has, upon one or
two occasions, when he has detected poachers upon his
estate, given them the alternative of going to prison or
fighting with him ; for to his political he superadds no in-
considerable pugilistic qualifications. Tie Seems very well
qualified to lead an English mob, and possesses in a far
greater perfection than Hunt or Cobbett, the demagogic
qualities of voice, which gave Eim at Penenden Heath a
great advantage over his opponents. Before the chair was
taken, he was actively engaged in marshalling his troops,
and cheering them on to battle, and it was manifest that
he felt all the excitement of a leader engaged in a cause,
upon the issue of which his own political importance was
depending. I did net remark any persons of rank about
him, and indeed the Protestant was conspicuously inferior
in this particular to the Catholic wing. There were,
however, on the left side, a number of persons, in whom
it was easy to recognise the sacerdotal physiognomy,
of far more influence than noblemen could have been ;
the whole body of the Kent Clergy were marshalled
for the occasion ; and not only the priests of the establishes!
religion, but many of the dissenting preachers of the Me-
thodist school were arrayed under the Winchelsea banners.
It was easy to recognize them even amidst the crowd of men

habited in black, by their lugubrious and dismal expression.
The clergy at the meeting were so numerous that the Pro-
testant side had much more a clerical than an agricultural
aspect. The different parties being thus distributed, and
every waggon having been occupied, and the whole of the
area within the enclosure having been filled by the dense
crowd, the Sheriff, Sir T. Maryon Wilson, appeared exactly
at 12 o'clock, and took the chair. He seemed to me, from the
distance at which I saw him, a young man, quite untutored in
the business of public meetings ; hut he had beside hie. his
sub-sheriff, Mr. Scudamore, who appeared to have all the
seal by which his employer Was actuated in the cause of
Protestantism, and to be perfectly well versed in the stra-
tagems by which an advantage may be given to one party,
without affording to the other an opportunity of complain-
ing of any very gross breach of decorum. This gentleman
had a coarse, red-whiskered, and blunt face, of the Dog-
berry character, in which a vulgar authoritativeness was.
combined with those habits of submission to his superior,
which are general found in subordinate functionaries.