serious lesion to account for so sudden a catastrophe. 'I then,' says Dr. Monroe, 'made thin sections of the heart, liver, and kidneys, and placed them under the microscope, which immediately revealed the mystery of his death, since every organ, subjected in turn to microscopic analysis, exemplified the slow, structural disorganization of this disease. The fibres of the heart, a powerful muscle, had become so enfeebled and degenerated by the interstitial deposit of fat globules, that it had suddenly and spasmodically ceased to act, whence death resulted.' Had the man been a pure water drinker, such a suddenly fatal termination could hardly have happened. It is the misfortune of almost every medical man in good practice, to have some scores of patients in a year, labouring under various forms of fatty degeneration, who would never have occasion to require his services, were they willing to forego the daily use of small quantities of alcohol. A word to the wise is sufficient. ART. V.-RICHARD COBDEN. 1. Speeches of Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P., on Peace, Financial Reform, Colonial and other subjects, delivered during 1819. 2. 1793 and 1853, in Three Letters. By Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P. 1853. 3. Richard Cobden, M.P. A Lecture delivered at St. James's Hall. By Newman Hall, LL.B. 1865. THE On the HE grave has closed over Richard Cobden. seventh of March last, in the calm repose of a spring day, and under a bright sun, the churchyard of Lavington, situated on the brow of one of the beautiful Sussex hills, received the remains of the great economist. There was something touching and appropriate in the funeral ceremony; it was as simple and unadorned as had been the language and habits of the living man. Around that grave were assembled some hundreds of men, who without invitation had met to pay this tribute of respect to the departed. These men represented all the interests, to the promotion of which he had consecrated his energies and his talents. It was most fitting that the companions of his life, those who had shared his struggles and their triumphs, should accompany his relics to their last earthly home. This fact will speak to posterity more eloquently than if he had been borne in solemn pomp to the national mausoleum of England's illus trious dead. It conveys also an impressive lesson to the distant; and there is not a corner of the world to which the sad intelligence has been carried, where there have not been found stricken and mourning hearts to receive it. The good done by Richard Cobden is confined to no country or race. His name has taken its place among the great men who have worked in the cause of universal freedom and civilization. He endeavoured to break down the barriers which legislation and State policy had erected under specious names, and which had the effect of separating man from man, and creating unnatural jealousies and enmities among peoples. His voice was ever raised in behalf of the down-trodden and the oppressed, under whatever government they may live or whatever language they may speak. The press has been unanimous in bearing testimony to the uprightness of his motives, and the true nobleness of his character. All political differences have been sunk in the general sorrow, and there is but little left for us to say. We cannot, however, be silent when a man like Richard Cobden has passed away. We cannot withhold our expression of grief, although the weight of it may in some degree choke the utterance. We do not aspire to the higher strain of panegyric, we would not eulogize the dead any more than we would flatter the living. He needs the inscription of no 'lofty line,' his works speak for him. We seek only to apply, and this especially to the industrial classes of his countrymen, the lesson that is taught by his steady, consistent, and laborious career, and to deduce for their contemplation the moral that is supplied by his comparatively early death. No one in his generation has done more than he to improve the condition of the class who labour; no public man manifested more sympathy for them, and by none will the public loss be more felt than by them. It is not our intention to present a memoir of Richard Cobden. A very brief glance for our present purpose will suffice. There is nothing of striking interest in the youthful life of Richard Cobden, although some French writers have raised him from the lowly position of a Sussex ploughboy. His schoolboy days present nothing above the rank of commonplace. He shared in a fair degree the advantages of home culture and school education which fell to the lot of those born in his station of life-in the beginning of the present century. He drew his first breath in a farmhouse which occupied the site of that which he had made his country residence up to the time of his death, it having been rebuilt for him by a number of his attached admirers and friends. friends. His birth is dated the third of June, 1804. He was descended from a respectable family of the yeoman class, who had lived in the farmhouse at Dunford for more than two hundred years. His grandfather had been several timesthe chief magistrate of the neighbouring town of Midhurst. Of his family he used to speak often and freely, and it seemed pleasant to him in the more exciting period of his public career to refer to the scenes of his boyhood and youth. He spoke of his father as being kind-hearted and honourable, but without business aptitude, and consequently, having entered upon farming at an unfortunate time, as not being a prosperous man. His mother, he said, was a woman of great energy of character, and of both parents he expressed himself in terms of gratitude and affection. At an early age he removed to the counting-house of an uncle in London, where he advanced himself by dint of shrewdness, diligence, and quick intelligence. The notions of men of business of that time were very different from those which now prevail among men of the same class, and his uncle thought that the love of reading displayed by his young assistant would interfere with his future success as a tradesman. The hours in offices and warehouses were very long, and young men were expected to give all the time to business not imperatively demanded for rest and meals. Richard Cobden in after life often remarked with much satisfaction upon that change in public opinion and usage which has enabled young men to gratify a reasonable love of recreation, and devote some portion of every day to the cultivation of the mind. Like all men who have acquired a large amount of knowledge in a severe school, and who have been to some extent self-taught, he insisted strongly upon the necessity for young men laying the foundation of a life of usefulness by practising strict self-denial, by reading good books, by a careful observation of the current events, and especially by the study of mankind. At the time referred to he was acquiring that knowledge, and maturing those habits of self-command which gave power and effect to his public efforts; and the uncle lived to see the reading boy, of whose future he had entertained such grave doubts, take a distinguished place among the foremost men of his time, while reverses and misfortunes in business overshadowed his own later experience. Mr. Cobden allowed fifty pounds per annum to his aged relative during the remainder of his earthly life. After Richard left his uncle's warehouse, he became a commercial traveller, and subsequently took his place as partner in a Manchester firm; and it is stated, on good authority, that at the time he embarked in the League agita tion His Entrance on Political Life. 149 tion his own share in the profits amounted to £9,000 per annum. Mr. Cobden, however, had an ambition, for which the details of a counting-house or manufactory could not find sufficient scope nor adequate employment. From almost his first appearance in Manchester he took part in the local politics of the borough, as well as an interest in the larger and more national questions of the day. In Mr. Cobden's career, so far, there is nothing remarkable and nothing to distinguish him from a great number of our public men. In all communities, but especially among the Saxon races, there are examples of a like success. In our own country there are many who, from a humbler origin and with fewer advantages of education, have attained position, and in fact won for themselves or their immediate descendants the highest honours of the State. There could be collected a still more numerous list of examples of men who have raised up colossal establishments, and realized princely fortunes from smaller beginnings. But Cobden stands among the few who have abandoned lucrative commercial pursuits to pursue a public object, and who have declined to receive, in the shape of title, office, or pension, that reward which is usually reserved for distinguished services, and can be received without suspicion or reproach by the man of strictest principle. Mr. Cobden declined all this in the most quiet and unostentatious manner. There was nothing of the cynic in his nature, nor was he insensible to the intended honour. The refusal was, however, an evidence of his inflexible tenacity of purpose. He knew that nothing the Government of his country had to bestow could add to a reputation so honestly and honourably acquired, but he felt that possibly it might impair his influence. He was faithful to his mission. He was wont to say that the triumph of free trade principles would never be complete so long as a custom-house remained upon any shore, or a single tariff existed. It was the duty and business of his life to give expression on every available opportunity to the great idea which first moved his mind against the Corn Laws. The highest offices or titles could have no attractions for him, but even if their acceptance would have been agreeable he would have rejected them, inasmuch as he would have felt that they might fetter his free action, or surround him with obligations from which it would be difficult to break loose. It will not be an unprofitable retrospect to look back upon the time when Richard Cobden appeared on the scene as the apostle of free trade doctrines. He had acquired a reputation as a writer by the appearance of some letters in the local journals, journals, and by the publication of a work on 'England and America,' and another on Russia.' Although these works were published anonymously, as written by a Manchester manufacturer, it soon became known that the author was Mr. Alderman Cobden. Had he sought to win renown as a successful agitator, no career could have seemed so unpromising at the time as that of joining in a crusade against the Corn Laws. Their retention was fought for as stubbornly as slavery has been subsequently contested in America, but with this difference, that we have been able to settle our disputes without an appeal to the arbitrament of the sword. The protectionist party were all-powerful in Parliament, and had an immense influence in the country; and, besides this, although there was much and wide-spread distress, the minds of the people were uninstructed as to the actual causes of that distress. There was great apathy among the manufacturers themselves, and the working classes, who began to declare a bitter disappointment as to the result of the Reform Bill, had joined in an agitation for the People's Charter. Among the more intelligent of the working classes Socialism had obtained many converts, and, both by the Chartists and the Socialists, the free trade doctrine was regarded as a nostrum which would increase competition, place more power in the hands of the manufacturers, and grind down the poor to a lower depth of poverty and degradation. This was the state of public opinion when the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its active operations; but, on the other hand, it had justice behind its demands, and it was aided by those terrible teachers starvation among the poorer, and bankruptcy among the middle classes. Ever since the termination of the war there had been periodical visitations of distress, and by turns all the manufacturing districts had bowed before it. Each shock seemed heavier than the one which had preceded it, and although there might be occasional gleams of prosperity, the gloom was never wholly dispersed. A storm seemed impending that threatened nothing short of social disorganization. In 1838 the distress was extreme in many parts of Lancashire, and in Bolton it had reached an almost unexampled severity. Of fifty manufactories in that town thirty were entirely closed. About five thousand workmen were out of employment, one-fourth of the houses were without tenants, and the prisons and workhouses were full to overflowing. Dr. Bowring, who then represented the borough in Parliament, had brought the question before the House, and an inquiry into the extent and causes of manufacturing distress had been made, but without resulting in any specific measure |