SOURCE: "William Cobbett," in The Collected Essays and Papers of George Saintsbury, 1875-1920, Vol. I, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1923, pp. 269-301.

Saintsbury was a late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century English literary historian and critic. Hugely prolific, he composed histories of English and European literature as well as numerous critical works on individual authors, styles, and periods. In the following essay, originally published in Macmillan's Magazine in 1891, Saintsbury discusses Cobbett's career and significance.

To acquaint oneself properly with the works of Cobbett is no child's play. It requires some money, a great deal of time, still more patience, and a certain freedom from superfineness. For, as few of his books have recently been reprinted, and as they were all very popular when they appeared, it is frequently necessary to put up with copies exhibiting the marks of that popularity in a form with which Coleridge and Lamb professed to be...