COBBETT'S "ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN."
pre THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 Sru,—The writer of a review in last week's Spectator speaks of Cobbett's "Advice to Young Men" as "a book which has every ingredient of priggery except consistency and coolness." This strikes me as a strangely unfair and mis- leading description of that admirable work, which is surely as free from priggishness and pedantry as any book that has ever been written for the instruction of youth. Certainly there is nothing priggish about the type of character which it seeks to form. And why is it pronounced to be wanting in "consistency and coolness"? Cobbett's political incon- sistency and love of change did not extend to the sphere of domestic life and manners, in which he showed himself remarkably constant to habits of thought full of a sane and robust conservatism (the anti-self-help school of the present day would probably rank him with the much-despised Dr. Smiles); and the doctrine of this particular little book is all of a piece from title-page to finis. As regards want of "coolness," it may, I think, be said that, while Cobbett's opinions are always strong and strongly expressed, the tone of the "Advice to Young Men" is for the most part calmly
authoritative.—I am, Sir, &c., C. L. D.
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