[apocalypstyx]

The early 1800s didn't have governments?

[tgv]

Was the English system of government similar to the French? The German? The Greek? The Chinese? And who governed the Romantic era?

Countries have governments, badly defined time periods don't.

[cess11]

The sentence you quoted from mentions the British Empire twice already, do you really need a third mention at the end to understand what the context is for the quoted part?

[tgv]

We know exactly when Shelley lived. There’s no need to mention that either. It’s a form of bad journalistic fluffing, that in —-a straightforward interpretation— is misleading.

[cess11]

Can't be easy getting angry about journalism at bits of sentences taken out of context in non-journalistic texts.

[JKCalhoun]

When discussing government as opposed to say art or literature, "Romantic era" is a strange choice.

[mr_toad]

A cynic might argue that Humanism and the Enlightenment had no lasting impact on the “stupid cruelty” of the governed or their governments.