Perhaps, in Cobbett’s voluminous writings, there is nothing so complete
as the following picture of his boyish scenes and recollections: it has
been well compared to the most simple and touching passages in
Richardson’s _Pamela_:--
“After living within a hundred yards of Westminster Hall and the
Abbey church, and the bridge, and looking from my own window into
St. James’s Park, all other buildings and spots appear mean and
insignificant. I went to-day to see the house I formerly occupied.
How small! It is always thus: the words large and small are carried
about with us in our minds, and we forget real dimensions. The
idea, such as it was received, remains during our absence from the
object. When I returned to England in 1800, after an absence from
the country parts of it of sixteen years, the trees, the hedges,
even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear
little gutters, that I could jump over, called rivers! The Thames
was but ‘a creek!’ But when, in about a month after my arrival in
London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my
surprise! Every thing was become so pitifully small! I had to cross
in my postchaise the long and dreary heath of Bagshot. Then, at the
end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I
knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of
Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of
fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learned
before the death of my father and mother. There is a hill not far
from the town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat
in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I
used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This
hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the
superlative degree of height. ‘As high as Crooksbury Hill,’ meant
with us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore, the first object
my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes!
Literally speaking, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed,
and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen in New Brunswick
a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as big, and four or
five times as high! The post-boy, going down hill, and not a bad
road, whisked me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden
of which I could see the prodigious sand hill where I had begun my
gardening works. What a nothing! But now came rushing into my mind
all at once my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my
little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of
my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle and
tender-hearted and affectionate mother. I hastened back into the
room. If I had looked a moment longer, I should have dropped. When
I came to reflect, what a change! What scenes I had gone through!
How altered my state! I had dined the day before at a secretary of
state’s, in company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men
in gaudy liveries! I had had nobody to assist me in the world. No
teachers of any sort. Nobody to shelter me from the consequence of
bad, and nobody to counsel me to good behaviour. I felt proud. The
distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth, all became nothing in my
eyes; and from that moment (less than a month after my arrival in
England), I resolved never to bend before them.”
Cobbett was, for a short time, a labourer in the kitchen grounds of the
Royal Gardens at Kew. King George the Third often visited the gardens
to inquire after the fruits and esculents; and one day, he saw here
Cobbett, then a lad, who with a few halfpence in his pocket, and Swift’s
_Tale of a Tub_ in his hand, had been so captivated by the wonders of
the royal gardens, that he applied there for employment. The king, on
perceiving the clownish boy, with his stockings tied about his legs by
scarlet garters, inquired about him, and specially desired that he might
be continued in his service.