Thomas Babington Macaulay was a poet, too, the author of ‘Horatius’ and other such well remembered ditties. In the Edinburgh Review of January 1830 he reviewed Southey’s Colloquies and did not pull his punches. Far from idyllic, the life of the rural peasant was one of hellish poverty, he said; the factory towns were better off, which was why people were flocking to them.
