Rg2

LIFE OF COBDEN. [omar

1863. Judging from past experience, this intrusion of gross personality
Air. go. Will tend only to attract public notice to a matter which it was meant 0
"put out of sight, It has been the fate of the Times to help forwar
every cause it has opposed, By its truculent, I had almost said ruffanlys
attacks on every movement while in the weakness of infancy, it bas
roused to increased efforts the energies of those it has assailed ; while, #t
the same time, it has awakened the attention of a langnid public, and
nttracted the sympathy of fair and manly minds. Ibis thus that such
public measures as the abolition of the Corn Laws, the repeal of the
Taxes on Knowledge, and the negotiation of the Treaty of Commerce
with France, triumphed in spite of its virulent, pertinacious, and unscrnpulous
 opposition; until, at last, I am tending to the conviction that
there are three conditions only, requisite for the success of any great projeot
 of reform, —namely, a good cause, persevering advocates, and the
hostility of the Times.
I shall forward this correspondence for publication in the Rochdale
Observer, that it may at least be perused by the community which has
the greatest interest in a controversy which concerns the reputation of
Mz. Bright and myself.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,
BR CoORDEN.

Mipnurst, Dec. 9. 1868.

To this Mr. Delane replied (Dec. 11) that it was quite true
that they had long been personally acquainted ; that there was
no need to identify his handwriting ; and that he had no desire
to deny his personal responsibility for what Cobden was
pleased to call his “scandalous aspersions.” Proceeding to
vindicate himself, Mr. Delane asked whether it was egotistic
or unreasonable to suppose that one who had pounced 80
promptly upon a single phrase in an article of much inferior
interest to himself, should have read the articles which dis
cussed his own speech ? Could he be expected to know that
a gentleman who once preferred a single copy of the Times
“to all the books of Thucydides” did not admit the Times to
his house ?* The pith of the vindication was in the following
paragraph :—

§ Thig refers to an expression of Cobden’s which was a standing joke
against him in those days. Ait & meeting of the Manchester Athena
(Deo, 27, 1850), Oobdse used tha following Ingusgs tem take it that. 88