Has there ever been a more compelling period in London’s history than the first years of the 19th century?
Has there ever been a more compelling period in London’s history than the first years of the 19th century? There is, I suppose, a case to be made for the London of Shakespeare, but any city that can boast a Byron to look after its poetry, Sheridan its drinking, Hazlitt its journalism, Nash its architecture and Brummell the cut of its coat would certainly edge it for fun.
There was admittedly no Lancelot Andrewes to preach it into sobriety — it would have to make do with Sydney Smith — and no great statesman after the deaths of Fox and Pitt, but this lack of spiritual and political authority only added to the brew. Even at the best of times Georgian London was a notoriously volatile beast, and the ever-present threat of France abroad and a repressive Tory government at home brought a note of tension and danger to these years that was never far beneath the surface.
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