SOURCE: "A Scarce Book," in The National Review, London, Vol. V, No. 27, May, 1885, pp. 413-28.

In the following excerpt, Egerton discusses Rural Rides, citing several lengthy quotations to illustrate Cobbett's handling of various concerns and emphases.

Were the well-meaning persons to have their way who long for the establishment of an English Academy, one wonders what would be the attitude of such an august body towards a writer like Cobbett. And yet his claim to rank as a classic admits, I suppose, of little question. The position he holds among the immortals he has taken, as it were, by storm; and what no favour of literary clique helped to gain, no passing whim of favour can take away. It is indeed possible that as the English language comes more and more to savour of the dissecting-room and the studio, and the form of its literature to sink beneath...