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years of his career, described him to me a3 always writing
nnd speaking fp tho top of his knowledge.” The real meaning
of this, I believe, was that Cobden had a peculiar gift for
turning everything that he read to useful purpose in
strengthening or adorning his arguments. He only read or
listened where he expected to find help, and his quickness in
assimilating was due to a combination of strong concentration
of interest on his own subject, with keen dexterity in turning
light upon it from other subjects. Or, in saying that Cobden
always spoke and wrote to the top of his knowledge, our informant
 was perhaps expressing what any one may well feel
in reading his pamphlets and speeches, namely, that he had
a mind so intensely alive, so penetrative, 80 real, as to he
able by means of moderate knowledge rapidly acquired, to
get nearer to the root of the matter, than others who had
laboured after a far more extensive preparation.
Very early in life Cobden perceived, and he never ceased to
perceive, that for hig purposes no preparation could be so
offective as that of travel. He first went abroad in the
summer of 1833 (July), when he visited Paris in search of
designs for his business. He did not on this occasion stay
long enough to derive any ideas about France that are
worth recording now. He hardly got beyond the common
English impression that the French are a nation of grownup
 children, thongh he described the habit of Parisian life
in a happy phrase, ag pleasure without pomp.” ®
In the following year he again went to France, and continued
 his Journey to Switzerland, The forests and mounbains
 inspired him with the admiration and awe that no
nodern can avoid, Once in after-years, a friend who was
about to visit the United States, asked him whether it would
be worth while to gy far out of his way for the sake of seeug
 the Falls of [3 ingars, Yes, most assuredly,” was
¢ To 3, Cobden, July 27, 1888.

1833.8.
Aor, 29.32

1534