Barham Downs (2 vols, 1784) was Robert Bage’s second novel, and it was the one that, a generation later, seemed to cause his admirer Sir Walter Scott most embarrassment. While Scott readily admitted that, in the early years of the nineteenth century, Bage’s democratic politics were old-fashioned and potentially distracting, he was able to dismiss them with relatively little fuss, merely pointing out “the sophistry on which ... [Bage’s principles] are founded” and remarking, apropos of Hermsprong, that readers should remember “a good jest is no argument” (The Lives of the Novelists. 1826. London: J.M. Dent, 1928, 290). Yet when he turned to Barham Downs, even the urbane and sophisticated Scott was shocked by how far Bage had ventured into radicalism. The problem was not the novel’s reformist politics, however – far milder than what...

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Citation: Perkins, Pam. "Barham Downs". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6447, accessed 05 December 2025.]