More from William Cobbett, about "Paradise Lost."

"All this, and indeed, the whole of Milton's poem, is such barbarous trash, so outrageously offensive to reason and to common sense, that one is naturally led to wonder how it can have been tolerated by a people, amongst whom astronomy, navigation and chemistry are understood. But, it is the fashion to turn up the eyes, when 'Paradise Lost' is mentioned; and if you fail herein, you want taste; you want judgment even, if you do not admire this absurd and ridiculous stuff, when, if one of your relations were to write a letter in the same strain, you would send him to a mad-house and take his estate. It is the sacrificing of reason to fashion."

from "On the Subject of Potatoes", Cobbett's Political Register, Vol 29