Foiled for a time in these efforts, he began to make journeys about the country, in order to collect facts in support of the views which he advocated, and at the same time to propagate those views among the farmers. He published his journal from time to time, relating his observations and adventures with the utmost humour.
Nothing, perhaps, would give a better idea of Cobbett's peculiar character than a rural ride taken in his company. If he stays at an inn, he rises with the chickens, and rousing up waiters and maids and boots, demands his breakfast almost before it is day, light. Little cares he for the ill-humour in the kitchen, or the objurgations which are audibly muttered as he leaves the yard. To rise early suits him, and is an excellent lesson for them, so he sets off on his journey, bright as a lark, and cheerful as a grasshopper. The rays of the morning sun have just begun to light up the landscape, and the soul of the peregrinating politician, ever attuned to the harmonies of nature, revels in the song of the birds in the sparkle of the dew, in the bloom of the purple heather, in the mist which still lies in the valley, in the wisps of blue smoke curling from the cottage chimneys. The strife with which he commenced the day seems to act as a tonic. The wrath of men no more jars the tuneful chords of his being than the anger of nature. Nothing can depress his inexhaustible spirits. Cold and damp fogs, soaking rains, and dreary, monotonous Lincolnshire fens, he will describe them all with such a perfect touch as to prove that he heartily enjoys and enters into their spirit. Those little shrewd, twinkling eyes of his, in fact, see everything: the nature of the soil, and of the subsoil; what it produces, and how it is cultivated. In a sentence, in a word, he paints a picture of the agriculture of a locality. He talks to every one, he enters the cottages, he sees the labourers in the misery of their homes, broken down and demoralised by starvation; he sees farmhouses going, the larger farms gradually devouring the smaller ones; he sees villages which were once towns; churches far too large for the present number of their worshippers; he sees game eating up the people's food, while farmers are fined, and poachers hanged, to preserve it; in fine, he sees the hereditary patrimonies of hundreds of yeomen, once the pride and strength of England, fall one after the other
