L} EDUCATION AND EABLY DAYS IN LONDON. EF
me $0 gain a genteel livelihood whenever I am called into 1819-26.
the world to do for myself.” 2lr. 16-21,

It was not until 1819 that this cruel and disgusting
mockery of an education came to sn end. Cobden was
received as a clerk in his uncle’s warehouse in Old Change.
It wags some time before things here van easily. Nothing is
barder to manage, on either side, than the sense of an
obligation conferred or received. Cobden’s uncle and aunt
expected servility in the place of gratitude, and in his own
phrase, “inflicted rather than bestowed their bounties.”
They especially disapproved of his learning French lessons
in the early hours of the morning in his bedroom, and his
fondness for book-knowledge was thought of evil omen for
his future as a man of business. The position became
so unpleasant, that in 1822 Cobden accepted the offer of
a situation in a house of business at Ghent. It promised
considerable advantages, but his father would not give
his approval, and Cobden after some demur fell in with
his father’s wish, He remained where he was, and did not
quarrel with such opportunity as he had, simply because he
had missed a better. It is one of the familiar puzzles of
life, that those whose want of energy has sunk their lives
in failure, are often so eager to check and disparage the
energy of stronger natures than their own.
William Cobden’s letters all breathe a soft domesticity
which is more French than English, and the only real discomfort
 of his poverty to him seems to have been a weak
regret that he could not have his’ family constantly around
his hearth. Frederick, his eldest son, was in the United
States for several years; his father was always gently
importunate for his return. In 1824 he came home,
having done nothing by his travels towards bettering forbunes
 that remained stubbornly unprosperous to the end