708

LIFE OF COBDEN. [om sx%

1861. here. The winter has been exceptionally fine with us,
Zr. 57. whilst it seems to have been unusually severe in England.”

No other course could have been reconcilable with Cobden’s
 pure and simple type of citizenship. To him the service
 was its own reward. The whole system of decoration
was alien to the antique and homely spirit of his patriotism
He never used great words about such things, nor spoke
bitterly of those who coveted and prized them, On one
occasion Mr. Gladstone, not long after the conclusion of the
Treaty, invited him to one of his official state dinners. “TO
tell you the truth,” Cobden replied, “I have never had the
courage to get a court costume; and as I do not like being
singular by coming in ordinary dress, I will beg you to
excuse me.” There were no heroics about him in encountering
 these trifling symbols of a social ordering with which he
did not sympathize. He merely practised, almost without
claiming it, the right of living his own plain life, and
satisfying his own ideals of civic self-respect,