A LETTER FROM ONE OF HIS DAUGHTERS. INTERESTING REMINISCENCES OF AN ENGLISH The following letter from a daughter of the Chapel Lane, Welmslow, Manchester, 1 October, 1888. Dear Sir: A friend has lately lent us (to my sister and myself) your interesting book called "How to Get On in the World," in which I ses, p. 186, that you are at a loss to find the place in "Cobbett's Grammar" where the author slightly mentions the words "so" and "such." You will find this in para. 183. Allow me to say that we have found great pleasure in reading your book, in which you show so much more discrimination and good judgment regarding my father's character and nature and his motives and actions than have ever been found in almost any of the "Lives" or "Sketches" of him that I have ever seen, although there was a small sketch of him by Chambers, which was free from the usual ill-nature and misrepresentation. There have been many "booksellers' books" about my father, and many catch-penny notices of him in little magazines, all, of course, containing a certain quantity of odd and amusing. anecdotes, calculated to make the production sell, but without the least regard to truth in their selection, and those who have prepared these things have, of course, belonged to that class of persons whom my father stigmatized as "The race tha write." To this race belonged the Rev. Selby Watson, whom you mention as the most often. quoted of any writer on Cobbett, I have never seen him mentioned by any one but yourself, and no doubt his book has not been referred to in England because of the shocking event which closed his career, and which, as proceeding from mental derangement, rendered it necessary to keep him in seclusion for the rest of his life. In America the case would be different, as he would not there be known. To the race that write Lord Dalling did not belong, but even he could catch up anecdotes and use them in the idlest manner, although one would look upon such a man as a credible authority. He, however, told over again that attractive fiction of "The Times" newspaper, about my father keeping a butcher's shop at Kensing ton; and Lord Dalling told another anecdote of his own creation, which was that when my father was invited to the Speaker's dinner on entering Parliament, he declined the invitation on the plea that he was unused to the company of gentlemen! It is very likely that some member might have been rearned to that Paria ment of 1832 who might feel a modest reluctance to make one of such company, and Lord Dalling had perhaps seen the latter, and afterward in a harumscarum way, have confused the men in his own mind, but no biographer should be so little accurate. SITE |