One has no notion of him [William Cobbett] as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns readers.... He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist; "lays waste" a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon the government itself. He is a kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.

Table Talk [1821-1822]. Character of Cobbett