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A History of the Protestant Reformation in England & Ireland
A History of the Protestant Reformation in England Ireland Author:William Cobbett This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1897. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... William Cobbett, the author of 7X* History of the Protestant Reformation, a new edition of which is here published, needs no introduction. His ... more »name, writes Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, is that "of a man, who, whatever his faults, must be considered, by every Englishman who loves our literature or studies our history, as one of the most remarkable illustrations of his very remarkable time." Born on the 9th of March, 1766, of poor parents, near Farnham in Hampshire, William Cobbett quickly aspired to something higher than that for which the circumstances of his country life promised to afford him scope. From the task of frightening birds from the turnip fields, and weeding the walks and flower-beds in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham Castle, in which his boy- hood was spent, he made his way to London at the age of seven- teen. Here for a brief time he was engaged as a lawyer's clerk, but finding the occupation not to his taste, he enlisted in a regi- ment intended for Nova Scotia. During the period of nearly eight years in which he served in the ranks, he acquired what he always regarded as his most valuable possession, a thorough knowledge of the English language. "I learned grammar," he says himself, "when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth or that of the guard-bed was my seat to study on, my knapsack was my bookcase, a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life." We are not here concerned with following the varied career c-f our author, and only refer to the early portion of it to show that he was intimately acquainted with the condition of the lower classes in England at the time when he wrote his History of the Protestant Reformation. When ...« less