rd Cr GoBDEMN.

[omar

1826. have been very unhappy. They were all blessed by nature
= 2a. with a kind of blissful mercurial simplicity, that hindered
their anxieties from eating into character. Their healthy
buoyancy would not allow carking care to put the sun out in
the heavens. When things were dreariest, Richard Cobden
rowed himself across the Solent and back, and with one
of his sisters enjoyed cheery days in the Isle of Wight, and
among his kinsfolk at Chichester and elsewhere. Perhaps
it was fortunate that his energetic spirit was free for the
service of his family, at a moment when they seemed to
be sinking below the surface. It was clear that means
for the support of the household could only be found in
some more considerable place than Westmeon. Presently
it was resolved to migrate to Farnham, renowned for the
excellence of its hop-gardens, for the stateliest of episcopal
sastles, and for its associations with two of the finest writers
of English prose, William Cobbett who was the son of a
Farnham cottager, and Jonathan Swift who had been Sir
William Temple’s secretary at Moor Park a mile or two away.
Thinking less of any of these things, than of the hard eternal
puzzle how to make sure of food and a roof-tree in the world,
William Cobden migrated hither in the beginning of 1827.
“The thought of leaving this dear village,” one of his
janghters had written (July, 1826), “endeared to us by
a thousand tender recollections, makes me completely miserable.”
 This dejection was shared in a supreme degree by
the head of the household. He found some consolation
in the good-will that he left behind him; and his old
neighbours, when they were busy with turnip-sowing,
hay-making, and sheep-shearing, were wont to invite him,
partly for help and work, and partly for kindly fellowship’s
sake, to pay them long visits, never failing to send a horse
ap the road to meet him for his convenience and the further
ance of his jonraey.