Lord Macaulay writes a devastating review of Southey’s Colloquies in which the Poet Laureate’s ignorance of the real condition of the working class in England is exposed (1830)
Found in: Critical and Historical Essays, Vol. 1
Lord Macaulay writes a devastating review of Southey’s Colloquies (1830) in which the Poet Laureate’s ignorance of the real condition of the working class in England is exposed:
Economics
[T]he labouring classes of this island, though they have their grievances and distresses, some produced by their own improvidence, some by the errors of their rulers, are on the whole better off as to physical comforts than the inhabitants of any equally extensive district of the old world. For this very reason, suffering is more acutely felt and more loudly bewailed here than elsewhere. We must take into the account the liberty of discussion, and the strong interest which the opponents of a ministry always have to exaggerate the extent of the public disasters.