Page "Merry England" Paragraph 11

William Cobbett provided conservative commentary on the rapidly changing look and mores of an industrialising nation by invoking the stable social hierarchy and prosperous working class of the pre-industrial country of his youth in his Rural Rides ( 1822 – 26, collected in book form, 1830 ).

The later works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge also subscribed to some extent to the " Merry England " view.

Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present also made the case for Merrie England ; the conclusion of Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock contrasts the mediaevalism of Mr. Chainmail to the contemporary social unrest.

Barry Cornwall's patriotic poem.

" Hurrah for Merry England ", was set twice to music and printed in The Musical Times, in 1861 and 1880.