SOURCE: A review of Selections from Cobbett's Political Works, in The Saturday Review, London, Vol. 22, No. 558, July 7, 1866, pp. 17-20.

James Fitzjames Stephen was an English jurist and literary critic, best known for his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873), a detailed, conservative counterblast to John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859). In the following excerpt, he attempts "to give some estimate of the man [Cobbett himself and some account of his more characteristic opinions. "]

If we had to take a representative man from each of the three kingdoms, Cobbett, O'Connell, and Walter Scott would be by no means bad men to choose. Cobbett was a model John Bull. He had all the characteristics of the race in an exaggerated from, and the chief interest which now attaches to his opinions arises from the degree in which they illustrate the strength and the weakness of a thorough-bred Englishman of much more than average power...