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> the governmental system of the Romantic era.

I didn't know the Romantic era had one. That's really bad, even for Wikipedia.

The early 1800s didn't have governments?

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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