Cobbett: A Bone-Grubbing Class of his Own
43. A Grammar of the English Language.
Cobbett, William. N.Y.: Clayton & Kingsland, 1818.
Best known as an incendiary English journalist, Cobbett (1763–1835) spent much of his life under threat of prosecution and imprisonment. Twice he fled to America for a period of years, on the second sojourn living on Long Island and penning this grammar, free from all “abstruseness.” The first two editions were dedicated to William Benbow, a compatriot who had helped Cobbett exhume the bones of Thomas Paine and take them to England—for which Cobbett was ingloriously nicknamed “Bone Grubber.” The bones were among Cobbett’s personal effects at death.