Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Contexts and possibilities
- Part II Texts
- 4 The Real Rights of Man, Thomas Spence, 1775
- 5 An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, William Ogilvie, 1782
- 6 Enquiry concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, William Godwin, 1798
- 7 The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States, Charles Hall, 1805
- 8 A Lay Sermon Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes on the Existing Distresses and Discontents, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
- 9 Report to the County of Lanark, Robert Owen, 1821
- 10 A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy, ‘Piercy Ravenstone’, 1821
- 11 An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; Applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, William Thompson, 1824
- 12 Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital or the Unproductiveness of Capital Proved with Reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen, Thomas Hodgskin, 1825
- 13 Rural Rides, William Cobbett, 1830
- 14 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
8 - A Lay Sermon Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes on the Existing Distresses and Discontents, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Contexts and possibilities
- Part II Texts
- 4 The Real Rights of Man, Thomas Spence, 1775
- 5 An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, William Ogilvie, 1782
- 6 Enquiry concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, William Godwin, 1798
- 7 The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States, Charles Hall, 1805
- 8 A Lay Sermon Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes on the Existing Distresses and Discontents, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
- 9 Report to the County of Lanark, Robert Owen, 1821
- 10 A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy, ‘Piercy Ravenstone’, 1821
- 11 An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; Applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, William Thompson, 1824
- 12 Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital or the Unproductiveness of Capital Proved with Reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen, Thomas Hodgskin, 1825
- 13 Rural Rides, William Cobbett, 1830
- 14 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The Lay Sermon, as its title reveals, addresses the social turmoil of 1817. After an introduction, Coleridge embarks upon a consideration of those ‘who have hitherto prescribed for the case, and are still tampering with it’ (142) – that is to say, the radicals and ‘demagogues’. His targets are not mentioned by name, but there can be little doubt that they include Burdett, Hunt, and Cobbett. He attacks these men with an intolerance and scurrility reminiscent of the Anti-Jacobin newspaper of the war years; in ten pages he reveals a rich repertory of abuse and defamation. One of the milder passages will illustrate the style:
… when we hear persons, the tyranny of whose will is the only law in their families, denouncing all law as tyranny in public – persons, whose hatred of power in others is in exact proportion to their love of it for themselves; when we behold men of sunk and irretrievable characters, to whom no man would entrust his wife, his sister, or his purse, have the effrontery to propose that we should entrust to them our religion and our country; when we meet with Patriots, who aim at an enlargement of the rights and liberties of the people by inflaming the populace to acts of madness that necessitate fetters. … (149–50)
This sustained character assassination is larded with biblical references, taken especially from the prophetic books. This is a continuation of the argument of a lay sermon of the previous year, that the Bible is the best guide to political skill and foresight.
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- Socialism, Radicalism, and NostalgiaSocial Criticism in Britain, 1775-1830, pp. 164 - 180Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987