Who was Walter Bagehot? For generations of politics students he has been the all-but-unpronounceable — Bayge-hot? Baggott? — author of the magisterial The English Constitution (1867). Since the 2008 crash he has enjoyed a vogue among central bankers for Lombard Street (1873), his brilliant anatomisation of the City of London. He remains the most revered, though not the first, editor of the Economist.
The historian G.M. Young wrote in 1937 of him:
We are looking for a man who was in and of his age… with sympathy to share and genius to judge… whose influence… can still impart, the most precious element in Victorian civilisation, its robust and masculine sanity.
In short, ‘the greatest Victorian’. That sobriquet is picked up in the title of James Grant’s new book. But Grant has, like so many authors today, been the victim of his publisher’s marketing department. The truth is that this claim is tosh. It was tosh when Young wrote it and it is tosh now.
Of course ‘the greatest Victorian’ is a phrase largely empty of meaning.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in