Village politics

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The enormous working-class sale of Paine's Rights of man Part I was met on the right both by censorship and by the promotion of popular literature dedicated to political stability. Village politics urges the working man: 'study to be quiet, work with your hands, and mind your own business'. The Cheap repository tracts, which began to appear two years later, had similar aims but in the framework of religious renewal. The shepherd of Salisbury Plain, celebrating piety, poverty and simplicity, was one of the most popular; first published in 1795, it is here reproduced in a more legible text of the 1820s.