If he were on the Left, Roger Scruton would be one of our towering public intellectuals; but it is a peculiarity of our age that conservative thinkers occupy a space beyond the mental horizons of most commissioning editors. There will always be right-wing columnists of the Richard Littlejohn variety, but a right-wing professor whose writings range from German philosophy to the oddities of common law, from religious art to country sports, is likely to be regarded – when he is noticed at all – as an eccentric class traitor.

Yet Scruton will be read and remembered when many of the prominent literary figures of our day are footnotes – partly for the keenness of his intelligence and partly for the consistency of his vision, but mainly for the grandeur of his prose. He can ennoble almost any subject –