Note 1 — Chapter XXVII · “I HAVE BEEN THE GREAT ENLIGHTENER OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.”[1]

“Cobbett was not only an example of self-instruction, but of public teaching. He said, on some occasion, many years ago, “It is certain that I have been the great enlightener of the people of England;” and so he was. The newspapers have not, that we are aware, adverted to our deepest obligation to him. He was the inventor of Twopenny Trash. Let the title be inscribed on his monument. The infamous Six Acts, although they suspended the machinery for awhile, of cheap political publications, could not undo what had been done, nor avert its great immediate, and far greater eventual utility. If only for that good work, honoured be the memory of old Cobbett.”—(Mr. W. J. Fox, in the Monthly Repository, for 1835, p. 487.)