SOURCE: "Mr. Cobbett, and What is Wanted in Parliament," in Leigh Hunt's Political and Occasional Essays, edited by Lawrence Huston Houtchens and Carolyn Washburn Houtchens, Columbia University Press, 1962, pp. 228-35.

An English poet and essayist, Hunt as literary critic encouraged and influenced several Romantic poets, especially John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hunt was a cofounder of the weekly liberal newspaper the Examiner. In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in the Examiner in 1820, Hunt proclaims the salutary effect of Cobbett's pending election to Parliament.

There are things in Mr. Cobbett which are not to our "fastidious" taste; but we should like much to see him in Parliament. His interests, small as well as great, are those of the age; and he has sense enough to perceive it. Then he has a considerable knowledge of statistics; he speaks as he writes, a good clear idiomatic style...