Volume 1

Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen.

  • Leslie Stephen
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    276/284 page 264
    schemes suggested by the same evils, and leading to his later Socialism. Cobbett was lamenting the demoralisation of the agricultural labourer, and taking up his curious position of Radicalism in¬ spired by regret for the 4 good old times.’ There is no need, at the present day, for expounding such views or explaining why it should appear to Wordsworth that the revolutionary movement which had started by taking up the cause of the poor had ended by assailing the very basis of order and morality. The foreign developments, the growth of a military despotism, and the oppression of Switzerland by France in the name of fraternity, no doubt seemed clear justifications of his attitude. But he had sufficient reasons at home. The Radical, with whom he had been allied, was attacking what he held dearest,—not only destroying the privileges of nobles, but breaking up the poor man’s home, and creating a vast4 pro¬ letariat ’—a mass of degraded humanity—instead of encouraging 4 plain living and high thinking,’ and destroying the classes whose simplicity and independence had made them the soundest element of mutual prosperity. I do not, of course, inquire how far Wordsworth’s estimate of the situation
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