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 / ' // t*s2j> ^*^l 
 
 / 
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 OF 
 
 EBENEZER ELLIOTT, 
 
 THE COEN LAW EHYMEE. 
 
 BY JA.NUAEY SEABLE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " LEAVES FKOM SHERWOOD FOBEST," ETC, 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHARLES GILPIN, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET. 
 
 EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK. 
 
 DUBLIN: J. B. GILPIN. 
 
 3IDCCCL, 
 
DEDICATION, 
 
 TO THE REV. EDMUND R. LABKEN, M. A., 
 
 RECTOR OP BURTON, NEAR LINCOLN; 
 
 AND CHAPLAIN TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONORABLE, THE LORD MONSON J 
 THE FOLLOWING 
 
 MEMOIR OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT IS DEDICATED, 
 
 BY HIS 
 
 FAITHFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 804.608 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 THE substance of the following volume was 
 delivered before the Leeds Mechanics' Institute 
 and Literary Society, as a lecture; and is now 
 presented as such, with additions and emen- 
 dations. It is to be regarded therefore, not as a 
 professed Life of Elliott, but as a mere sketch of 
 his character and writings. 
 
LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 OP 
 
 EBENEZEE ELLIOTT, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Review of Ebenezer Elliott's Mind and Writings. 
 
 I HAVE to speak in this paper upon the genius 
 and character of Ebenezer Elliott, whose stormy 
 life is now ended, and whose great musical heart 
 lies still and silent in the grave. And although, 
 if I consulted my own feelings, the love which 
 I bore the departed poet would prompt me to 
 write a threnody over his ashes, rather than a 
 cool analysis of his mind and writings, yet I 
 will endeavour to merge all private sympathies 
 in this discourse, and treat my subject in a 
 Catholic spirit, from the historical point of 
 view alone. 
 
 Fortunately, the materials for this work are 
 near at hand ; and the poet has not been long 
 
14 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 enough dead to have passed into the perplexing 
 regions either of mythology or tradition. Indeed 
 it was but yesterday that I conversed with him 
 in his own house, heard him read his own 
 poems, and joined with his fair daughters in 
 singing the beautiful melodies which, at their 
 request, ho \vrota and adapted to some of our 
 most popular airs. And when I think of the 
 good and brave old -man with his venerable 
 grey hairs his kind eyes, now beaming with 
 love, and now flashing with indignant fire, as 
 he spoke of human wrong and misery I can 
 scarcely reconcile myself to the idea that he is 
 gone for ever from the world. The stern truth, 
 however, returns to me with solemn emphasis, 
 in spite of my incredulity ; and I know but 
 too surely, that I shall see him no more. It is, 
 nevertheless, a high consolation to look back 
 upon the noble and manly life which he lived ; 
 for he was an exemplar worthy, in many impor- 
 tant particulars, to be imitated and reverenced. 
 He was no half-and-half man, wavering with 
 doubtful indecision between two opinions, but 
 an earnest and sincere, if not a complete and 
 many-sided character. It was his way through- 
 out life, first of all to master every subject that 
 interested him, and then heroically, and without 
 calculating the chances of defeat, or caring for 
 the world's sanction or opposition, to throw 
 himself into the arena as its champion. Like 
 tho warriors of the old chivalry, wherever 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 15 
 
 he appeared he left the marks"*of his battle-axe 
 behind him. There is no mistaking the man 
 in any of his performances ; for whatever he 
 touches bears the impress of his own indi- 
 viduality. Of all men, therefore, who have 
 written books, he is, perhaps, the hardest, 
 in a literary point of view, to imitate. 
 Indeed, Nature seems to have cast him 
 in such sharp and decisive moulds that she 
 might be sure of her man, and secure herself 
 from all counterfeits of him. It is at all events 
 certain, that while the mannerism of every other 
 considerable poet has been seized upon by verse- 
 wrights, and persons of that ilk, and passed into 
 the general currency of literature, Elliott is the 
 only bard whose genius has not been corrupted 
 by these base coiners. Looking at him through 
 his writings, he reminds me of some grim Cy- 
 clop, into whose body a divine soul has passed, 
 radiating him with glory, and making even his 
 deformities beautiful. For he is not dressed in 
 the ordinary costume of the Bards, having his 
 garland and singing robes around him (such as 
 Milton and Spencer wore) ; but he appears in 
 the naked buff of a hard-working man grimed 
 with soot and sweat, and singing of the " ac- 
 cursed Bread Tax," made manifest to him as 
 such, in the empty trenchers of his famished 
 children ! We must not look, therefore, in his 
 pages for that external polish and courtly bear- 
 ing which characterise the highest nobility of 
 
16 OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 the poetic order; for there is nothing which he 
 so little professes. And yet he is not without 
 polish, but, on the contrary, he sometimes sur- 
 prises us with delicate touches, and even with 
 whole pictures, finished in the best style of art. 
 The secret of this rude demeanour this bandy- 
 ing of coarse names and crooked epithets, which 
 are so common in his writings, lies primarily in 
 the earnestness of his nature, and, in a secondary 
 sense, in that lack of early culture which he sets 
 forth so prominently in his autobiography. It 
 is this rugged, fiery, and impetuous utterance, 
 however, which gives the main charm to his 
 poetry, and makes it, like Luther's speech, a con- 
 tinual battle. I, for one, do not wish to see 
 these scars and trenches erased from his writings. 
 They are the birth-pangs of his spirit, as it 
 burst forth, with mighty upheavings, from its 
 dumb sepulchre, and arose triumphant into life 
 and melody. 
 
 In his later writings he evinces more mastery 
 over his imagination and feelings, than in most 
 of his earlier productions, but his wild spirit 
 was never entirely tamed ; and the spots and 
 claws of the leopard are everywhere visible 
 in his pages. Still it would not be doing 
 justice to him as a Poet, if one were to deny 
 that he was ignorant of his art. Few 
 men, indeed, have proved themselves greater 
 masters than he, of the secrets of rhythmical 
 science. Many of his poems are executed 
 

 OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 17 
 
 with consummate skill ; and his descriptive 
 passages are so true, natural, and beautiful, 
 that they can scarcely be surpassed by any 
 similar efforts in the language. He excels 
 most in this kind of writing because he is 
 always at home with Nature and loves her 
 like a mother, with a gentle, confiding, and 
 most affectionate heart. But no sooner do the 
 dark aspects of humanity the wrongs, the 
 follies, the pride, and the crimes of men, pass 
 over his mind, than he bursts forth into pas- 
 sionate and vehement exclamation, and the calm 
 heavens, and the meek and beautiful earth, are 
 suddenly darkened and distorted with the fiery 
 ashes of his wrath. We see in all that he does 
 a strong man ; a sort of gigantic Titan, who 
 hates his chains ; in whom the Divine impulses 
 are so powerful that he must speak even if it be 
 in flame ; for although he has a wonderful 
 faculty of condensation both in thought and 
 matter yet he rarely evinces that subdued 
 power, that central balance and equipoise 
 which are the highest marks of greatness. He 
 knows nothing of the deep repose, the sorrowful 
 strength, which is manifested in Wordsworth ; 
 nor did he ever fully appreciate the writings of 
 that noble and philosophical Bard. He mis- 
 took in several instances the artistic simplicity, 
 and the pure Greek beauty, of Wordsworth, 
 for sheer weakness, and thought very meanly of 
 the Ecclesiastical Sonnets. He allowed that 
 
18 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 there was merit in the " Peter '.Bell," but gave 
 his praise grudgingly, like one who was half 
 ashamed of his judgment. He had no sym- 
 pathy with those high speculations which are 
 for ever haunting the mind of Wordsworth, and 
 are so beautifully embodied in his poetry. He 
 was a far-seeing, much-enduring, hard-working, 
 practical man; dealing always with practical 
 questions, and rarely attempting to soar into the 
 higher regions of thought. Whatever was 
 tinged with mysticism, and did not represent 
 some tangible matter, which he could grasp and 
 wrestle with, was to him idle and empty dream- 
 ing. He was cradled into poetry by human 
 wrong and misery ; and was emphatically, the 
 Bard of Poverty singing of the poor man's 
 loves and sorrows, and denouncing his oppres- 
 sors. This he conceived to be his mission ; and 
 whilst the Corn Laws existed, and Labour and 
 Famine went hand in hand together, he had no 
 time for the dainty speculations of philosophy, 
 even if he had possessed the capacity for them. 
 His mind, however, was not metaphysical ; but 
 as I said, practical ; "and his want of relish for 
 Wordsworth as a whole, lay in the necessity 
 of his intellect. I remember reading to him, 
 after a long conversation upon the relative 
 merits of Wordsworth and Byron, the fine ode 
 of the former poet, called " Intimations of Im- 
 mortality, gathered from Recollections of early 
 Childhood ;" but notwithstanding the profound 
 
OP EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. ID 
 
 significance, and deep anthem-melody of the 
 poem, he would not acknowledge its merit. 
 Nay, he confessed that it was beyond his depth, 
 although he afterwards quoted one or two fine 
 lines, which had struck him during the reading, 
 and seemed to haunt him in spite of himself. 
 This poem, which may be called the Apotheosis 
 of life, and is in every respect a wonderful per- 
 formance, both in spirit, compass, and execution, 
 is the test by which one might measure the 
 depth and culture of all candidates for honors 
 in the Poetical Tripos. And as some one has 
 said I believe Berkeley that unless a man 
 have doubted the fact of his own existence, he 
 may be sure he has no aptitude for metaphysics, 
 so it may likewise be said, that he who cannot 
 understand the moral fitness and spiritual aim 
 of the ode in Question, has no claim to be admitted 
 into the highest regions of poetical inspiration. 
 The truth of this postulate is borne out, so far 
 as Elliott is concerned, both in his public 
 writings and private discourse. The fine Pla- 
 tonism of the ode alluded to, finds no echo in 
 his heart ; the shadowy recollections, as of a 
 dim and forgotten existence, which flit over the 
 golden brain of childhood, and which to Words- 
 worth are evidences of an old, dateless, and 
 eternal birth, and which, 
 
 " be they what they may, 
 Are still the common light of all our day; 
 Are still the fountain light of all our seeing j 
 
20 LIFE, CHARACTER, AIS'D GENIUS, 
 
 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of th' Eternal Silence ;" . 
 
 these recollections, I say, suggest no such deep 
 thoughts and high emprises, to the mind of 
 Elliott, but have a psychological base, and may 
 be psychologically explained. He looked, in 
 fact, for a literal meaning in the ode, and 
 missed, therefore, the whole grandeur and sub- 
 limity of its aim. " For what purpose," said 
 he, " should the soul return again to earth, 
 after it has once left it ? Is life then, and such 
 a life as this famine-life of England, so love- 
 able ?" The question is a key to Elliott's mind, 
 and we can see very well, how many, and what 
 kind of chambers in the Spiritual kingdom, it 
 will unlock. I find the same practical and ob- 
 stinate question, occurring in one of his latest 
 poems, the " Plaint" written, as he told me, 
 one night to withdraw his mind from the pain 
 and agony of his bodily suffering. This "Plaint," 
 which is the most mystical of all his Poems, is 
 pitched in the same key-note as ITland's u Silent 
 Land," and is wonderfully beautiful and strik- 
 ing. It is the sorrowful wail of a soul wander- 
 ing in the dark, on the very margin of the 
 eternal shores ; companioned by millions, and 
 yet going all alone, into the dark, silent, dread, 
 Unknown. I know of nothing so sad and 
 melancholy in literature; and the gloomy, al- 
 most heart-breaking effect of the poem is height- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 21 
 
 ened by the dreary melody of the rhythm, and 
 the skill whereby the main idea of one verse is 
 repeated in the next, and merged into some new 
 and still more mournful thought. The question 
 to which I have alluded will be found in the 
 sixth verse of this poem, where the desire for 
 the re-union of the soul, either with the world, 
 or with its ex- tenants in the immortal spheres, 
 is regarded as selfish and profane, because God 
 is all. Here is the poem : 
 
 PLAINT. 
 
 " Dark, deep, and cold, the current flows, 
 Unto the sea where no wind blows, 
 Seeking the land which no one knows. 
 
 O'er its sad gloom still comes and goes, 
 The mingled wail of friends and foes, 
 Borne to the land which no one knows. 
 
 nr. 
 
 Why shrieks for help yon wretch who goes, 
 With millions, from a world of woes, 
 Unto the land which no one knows ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tho* myriads go with him who goes, 
 Alone he goes, where no wind blows, 
 Unto the land which no one knows. 
 
 For all must go where no wind blows, 
 And none can go for him who goes ; 
 None, none return, whence no one knows. 
 B2 
 
22 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 Yet why should he who shrieking goes 
 With millions, from a world of woes, 
 Reunion seek with it or those ? 
 
 YII. 
 
 Alone with God, where no wind blows, 
 And Death, His shadow, doom'd he goes, 
 That God is there, the shadow shows. 
 
 Oh ! shoreless Deep ! where no wind blows ! 
 And thou, oh Land, which no one knows I 
 That God is All, His shadow shows." 
 
 Still, although Elliott could not penetrate the 
 deep allusions of Wordsworth, nor appreciate 
 his philosophy, he held the Bard in great 
 reverence, and spoke of the u Excursion" as one 
 of the poems destined for immortality. He 
 could quote all its finest descriptive passages ; 
 and regarded many of Wordsworth's Minor Ef- 
 fusions, as pieces of pure Nature. His love for 
 Southey, " who condescended," as he says, " to 
 teach him the art of poetry," was sincere, natural, 
 and characteristic. For Elliott was a worshipper 
 of Power and Beauty, and delighted in the 
 architectural pomp of poetry, where he could 
 sit as in a vast cathedral, and contemplate the 
 gorgeous creations of genius upon its painted 
 domes. Hence he spoke of " Thalaba" as the 
 most wonderful effort of the human imagina- 
 tion, and more than one of his pieces is stained 
 -with the fiery colouring of that caballistic poem. 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 23 
 
 His admiration of Byron amounted almost to 
 idolatry ; and he was impatient of all dissent 
 from his judgment in this particular. Neither 
 would he allow you to differ from him, unless 
 you could at once substantiate your opinion, 
 by a direct reference to the poet's writings. 
 Nor was it easy to convince him that there was 
 a single flaw in the rhetoric or sentiments of his 
 noble idol. He would not admit that he was ir- 
 religious or immoral in his writings; and de- 
 nounced all such judgment as " cant, twaddle, 
 and hypocrisy." It has become fashionable, he 
 said, to abuse Lord Byron but he will live when 
 the bones of his blasphemers shall have rotted. 
 And then after he had exhausted the fierce tor- 
 nadoes of L.1-.3 v,ra.tli against all such blasphe- 
 mers, he would quote you endless passages from 
 this poet, all of them full of human beauty, and 
 breathing a fine spirit of natural piety. He had 
 a rich and costly edition of " Childe Harold" 
 illustrated, if I remember rightly, by Turner 
 which he cherished with an almost holy love ; 
 for he declared this poem to be the finest master- 
 piece of melody which our noble English tongue 
 can boast of. Shelley and Keats were likewise 
 great favourites with him. The former he 
 loved not only for his genius, but for his deep 
 sympathy with his race ; and the latter he esti- 
 mated more highly than any modern poet, with 
 the exception of Byron ; not so much from what 
 he had actually accomplished, as, for the pro- 
 
24 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 mise which his performances manifested. In 
 these likings, and estimates of the genius of his 
 contemporaries, we see the objective tendency 
 of his mind, and its delight in sensuous, rather 
 than in spiritual beauty and speculative thought. 
 I think, therefore, from these considerations, 
 and others to be shewn hereafter, that Elliott 
 can scarcely be classed amongst the highest 
 order of poetical minds. And yet he belongs 
 to the " true breed of the vermin," as he 
 himself expressed it, in speaking of a much 
 humbler person. For in his writings are to 
 be found all the elements of a beautiful and 
 aesthetic, as well as of a grand moral poetry. 
 And it is precisely in the aesthetic and moral 
 sphere, as distinguished from the spiritual, that 
 he takes his place as a poet ; looking upon all 
 things through the medium of the beautiful, in 
 their relation to the moral laws. There is 
 something Hebraic and sublime in the stern 
 justice which he executes upon falsehood and 
 wrong-doing. He is like the Indian imperso- 
 nation of Brahm all eyes, all ears, all feet 
 keen to see, powerful to perform, swift to 
 overtake. He has one central idea terrible 
 and awful in its aspect, although beautiful and 
 beneficent in its spirit before which he tries 
 all causes, and men, and things. It is the 
 Eternal Idea of Right ; his synonyme of God. 
 And this Idea is perpetually present in his 
 mind, pervades all his thoughts, will not be 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 25 
 
 shuffled nor cheated, but demands a full satis- 
 faction from all violators of it. The Titled 
 Scoundrel, and the Mitred Priest, the Bread- 
 Tax-Eater, the Fox-Hunter, the Game-Law- 
 Squire, the Hundred Popes of Englands' 
 Jesuitry, are all summoned before this tribunal, 
 and dealt with sometimes with an over-severe 
 judgment. One can make allowance, however, 
 for the occasional exaggeration of the sentence, 
 because the doom of his delinquents is always 
 just. Besides a man, whose feelings, as he says, 
 " have been hammered until they have become 
 cold-short^ and are apt to snap and fly off 
 in sarcasms," is not likely to be choice in his 
 expressions, when he is dealing with known 
 lies ; nor have they any mercy to expect at his 
 hands. For poetry, with Elliott, was no pas- 
 time, nor even a musical unrest, but a stern and 
 inspired demonic labour deep as life, strong as 
 death ; involving life, or death issues. He had 
 a great contempt for dilitante poetry, and could 
 pardon nothing short of genius ; and even then, 
 genius must be married to practical endeavour, 
 or God had thrown away his highest gift upon an 
 indolent dreamer. " We cannot spare one true 
 man from the ranks of thought and progress, in 
 these distracted times," he said; "and it grieves 
 me to see any man waste his talents in con- 
 structing cobwebs, when the world has to be 
 built anew." For he looked upon the world as 
 altogether diseased; right and wrong had 
 
26 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 changed places in it, and the divine was under- 
 most. A hireling church, and a do-nothing, 
 eat -every- thing Aristocacy, were his nightmare 
 of this moral death ; and he devoted all his 
 powers to crush it. The waving corn-fields, 
 and the sweet-singing birds, piping their rica 
 melodies in the trees and hedge-rows around 
 him, made him sad. " God has given us food 
 to eat, and man. the tyrant and oppressor, has 
 taxed it !" he one day exclaimed, as I wandered 
 with him, in the valley below his house, "and 
 these beautiful birds are singing, as if there were 
 no sorrow in the world. Ye break my heart, 
 ye little birds" he added, turning with his 
 eyes brimful of tears, to the unconscious musi- 
 cians. It was a touching sight ; for Elliott was 
 then grey, and bowed down with the weight of 
 years and affliction. He could not find one pure, 
 unmixed pleasure in all the landscapes, wood- 
 lands, and cloudlands of Nature ; for this Divine 
 harmony which he saw every where around 
 him, became, as I said, sad and painful when 
 contrasted, as by the very law of his mind it was 
 sure to be, with the wretchedness and misery of 
 men. For the Poet had looked upon Nature in 
 so many and such various moods, that all her 
 phenomena and forms were transfigured by the 
 power of his feelings and passions, and had be- 
 come to him the symbols and the representatives 
 of human thought and life. Nature and man's 
 life were fused indeed into one great whole, and 
 
OF EBENEZEB ELLIOTT* 27 
 
 i the midst of sunshine, and waters, and singing 
 birds, he heard the wild wail of famine, and the 
 shrieks and moans of bleeding and broken hearts. 
 Nay, he took a strange and unwearied pleasure 
 in drawing pictures of woe and misery, and 
 making them speak in a language that melts all 
 hearts. We may thank Crabbe for much of 
 this, and for the gloomy colouring which darkens 
 the genius of our manful and earnest poet. 
 Crabbe was his model in early life, and con- 
 firmed the natural bias of his mind towards 
 these dark and doleful subjects. All his heroes 
 are unhappy ; the victims of social wrong and 
 Corn Law oppression, He regarded Poverty 
 as the waste and flaming Saharra of Life, where 
 no flowers grew, no rain descended, no stars 
 shone. It was his extremes t, deepest hell ; and 
 he peopled it with horror and despair. On the 
 other hand, outward prosperity and a " Home 
 of Taste," for the working man, were his highest 
 visions of a terrestial Paradise. These were the 
 two Poles of his ethical and political science. 
 He could not understand that Poverty was no 
 evil ; that it might be a great good ; capable of 
 yielding priceless blessings : he called it an un- 
 mitigable curse. For he looked at it with the 
 eyes of a Political Economist, and could not, or 
 would not, entertain it as a question of morals. 
 From a very sufficient trial of poverty, however, 
 I can pronounce it good for discipline, consola- 
 tion, guidance, strength ; a very Hercules' 
 
28 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 cradle ; and not at all, therefore, a curse, but a 
 blessing; provided always that a trustful and 
 hopeful heart be at the bottom of it. But 
 Elliott could not see the Angel through this 
 disguise of rags ; and his professed business was 
 to denounce it as a loathesome harlot ; the 
 mother of crime and infamy. As a politician, 
 he was stone-blind to the moral uses of suffer- 
 ing ; and neither the public history of nations, 
 nor the private lives of great men, who had been 
 tried and purified in that fire, could instruct 
 him in the wisdom of the Institution, or induce 
 him to regard it as a divine appointment. Free 
 trade was his religion, and heaven was paved 
 with cheap bread, and rich mosaics of golden 
 untaxed grain. From the altar of this enthu- 
 siasm he preached his new gospel of commerce, 
 which was to emancipate the world from 
 tyranny and superstition, and regenerate the 
 lives and ways of men. It is curious and instruc- 
 tive to observe the strong faith which he has in 
 the power and consequences of this material 
 reform ; what impossible things he expects from 
 it! and how earnestly he believes the demon 
 that possesses him, and speaks through his 
 tongue. Had he been born a little earlier, he 
 would have been a leader in the Commonwealth 
 perhaps a Puritan preacher, a regicide, and 
 Poet Laureate to the Lord Protector. He would 
 have fought well too, at Marston Moor, if one 
 may judge from the battle-music which rings 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 29 
 
 through his verses. But as a divine guide, and 
 teacher of heavenly things, he has no faculty, 
 and therefore no mission. He is a poet, but 
 not a priest ; and one always feels dark and 
 lonely with him, except when he goes forth to 
 worship on the hill tops. The beautiful and 
 sorrowful stars instruct us in a holier lore than 
 that of Corn Law Rhymes, and anti-Corn Law 
 curses ; and the poet himself is never so human, 
 natural, and happy, as when singing the songs 
 which they inspire. His thoughts and ways 
 are his own, however ; the proper and necessary 
 unfolding of his nature, and should be received 
 and accepted as such. 
 
 The philosophy of Adam Smith and Jeremy 
 Bentham was the substratum upon which his 
 mind was built ; and this philosophy, interpene- 
 trated by his genius, found at last a voice which 
 burst forth in Corn Law Rhymes. It was the 
 first melody that ever came from the dead and 
 monotonous mill- wheels of political economy; and 
 is the best result which I, for one, can hope for 
 from that quarter. The works of the above 
 authors, and those of the good Colonel Thomp- 
 son, made Elliott a politician ; and he no sooner 
 saw the evil effects of the Corn Laws upon the 
 industry of the nation, than he began to de- 
 nounce them. Unfortunately, his hatred of 
 monopoly made him a monopolist in his hatred ; 
 limited his vision, dwarfed his sympathies, and 
 converted him into a kind of Polyphemus a 
 
SO LIFB, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 one-eyed King of Song. The Corn Laws were 
 at the root of all our evils ; social, moral, poli- 
 tical, and religious. Destroy these laws, and 
 you will have free trade, and with it a happy, 
 contented, and virtuous population ! Such was 
 the remedy which the Poet proposed for the 
 deep spiritual disease of the nation. 
 
 His insight did not extend beyond the cuticle 
 of the world ; and all its spiritual wants and 
 necessities were as impenetrably hidden from 
 his eyes as if they had been closed by the 
 seven seals spoken of in the Apocalypse. But 
 no man living in his time had a clearer prac- 
 tical vision, or a more ready aud seasonable 
 wit. He always struck at the right moment, 
 whilst the iron was hot, and sent the hissing 
 and burning sparks around him, with good 
 effect. And thus whether speaking at public 
 meetings, lecturing at mechanics' institutes, or 
 writing political lyrics, he was always successful. 
 
 His early poems are remarkable for rude 
 power, and for a wild a?id somewhat turgid 
 imagination. They remind me of the Yoluspa, 
 and the Prose Edda of the Scandinavians, where 
 the Norse genius revels in unrestrained license, 
 and conjures its gigantic creations out of the 
 tempest and the whirlwind, and the ghostly 
 regions of eternal ice and snow. We see that 
 the wild Eagle has not yet acquired the mastery 
 over its wings ; although in all its heavenward 
 attempts there is much of glory, if also of defeat. 
 
OF EBBNEZER ELLIOTT. SI 
 
 It is extremely interesting to trace the progress 
 of the poet's mind from his first effort, "The 
 Vernal Walk," made in his seventeenth year, 
 up to the publication of the " Ranter" and the 
 " Corn Law Rhymes." He gathers fresh 
 strength at every step, and beats up the thun- 
 der from the hard highway as he marches along, 
 giving us assurance that an earnest fighting 
 man is on the road, who means, by the grace of 
 God, to become a hero and a conqueror. Unfor- 
 tunately, he is too often a Quixotic spendthrift 
 of his power : and, although he does not fight 
 windmills, he often grinds in them like blind 
 Sampson and that too, with no practical result, 
 but merely to shake off the superabundance of 
 his strength. I have read the " Vernal Walk" 
 with pleasure, as a literary curiosity ; and with 
 the same feelings which induce us to look into 
 the early literature of great nations. It is 
 very singular too, the striking resemblance in 
 the developement of ideas which exists between 
 the youth of man, and the youth of nations. 
 Wonder and worship are the elements of human 
 culture, and religion flows naturally out of the 
 loving heart, in the presence of Nature. Hence 
 all great nations have their theogonies andtheo- 
 sophies, whose origin lies in the very morning 
 of their existence; and hence also the earliest 
 efforts of our best poets have a religious source. 
 Elliott's " Vernal Walk," originally published 
 by Mr. Fowler, of Cambridge, is full of this de- 
 
32 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 votional feeling, and is moreover no inconsider- 
 able performance, in the literary sense, if we 
 take into the account his neglected education, 
 and the age at which it was written. I fancy 
 also that I can discover in this poem the seeds 
 of the future man, his love of Nature, his wor- 
 ship of the beautiful, his earnestness, strength, 
 and weakness. The same fusion of human sor- 
 row with natural beauty, which marks all he 
 does in after years, is likewise visible here. It 
 is, however, an imitative and reminiscent, rather 
 than an inspired poem ; and he apologises for 
 including it in his collected works by saying, 
 that as the idiot of the family is sometimes a 
 favourite, so this poem is endeared to him by 
 the critical persecution which it has suffered. I 
 subjoin a few extracts, which will give some 
 idea of this earliest effusion of the poet : 
 
 " Hark ! 'tis the hymn of Nature ! Love- taught birds 
 
 Salute, with songs of gratulation sweet, 
 
 The aweet May morning. How harmoniously 
 
 Over these meadows of the rising sun 
 
 The music floats ! O Love ! Love ever young ! 
 
 On the soft bosom of the Spring reclined ; 
 
 Nurse of the tender thought, and generous deed ! 
 
 Thou com'st to bless thy children. * * 
 
 Oft have I passed yon cottage door at eve, 
 
 Where sat the swain, his daily labour done, 
 
 Nursing his little children on his knee, 
 
 And kissing them at times, whilst o'er him bent 
 
 His happy partner, smiling as she viewed 
 
 Her lisping babes ; then have I blessed thee Love ! 
 
 And fondly called thee, Fount of Social Peace ! 
 
 What art thou, deathless, all-pervading power, 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 33 
 
 That, like a meek, yet universal sun, 
 Thro* universal Nature gently shin'st ? 
 Art thou a ray from light's unclouded source ? 
 An emanation of divinity ? 
 No; thou art God!" 
 
 " Here springs the odorous primrose ; sweetly here 
 The orchard blooms ; here bees are full of Spring. 
 The poet courts the violet as he strays ; 
 But Winter cometh, and the flower is gone ; 
 And then, saith he, ' 'Tis faded.' Thus, O Man ! 
 Thou liv'st, and diest ! Strong is thy youthful frame, 
 But soon the feeble steps of Age approach, 
 Follow'd by Death. Even on thy new-made grave 
 Oblivion sits " 
 
 ** E'er there lived one soul 
 To worship thee, oh, God of Holiness ! 
 "Wrapt in incomprehensibility, 
 Pleased with self contemplation, thou did'st muse 
 In silence on thine own eternal thoughts. 
 Through all extent thou piercest ; nothing is 
 Where thou art not : even in me thou dwellest, 
 Thou movest the strings of mental melody 
 Which tune my soul to harmony and love. 
 Thou bid'st my fancy soar to realms of light, 
 Bid'st reaton, holy reason, muse on thee 
 And in thy works behold thee, throned o'er heights 
 And depths of glory inaccessible. 
 I, in the majesty of Nature, see 
 The greatness of eternal majesty ; 
 I, in her smiling scenery, behold 
 The bounteous smile of beauty infinite. 
 Thy goodness is unbounded, God of Love ! 
 Here, or wherever uncreated light 
 Flames in the sea of ever-vital beams, 
 World peopled as this vernal air with birds- 
 Father and God I thy sons shall worship thee !* 
 
34 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 But notwithstanding that these early effusions 
 are rudely and coarsely constructed, there are 
 gleams of real talent in them, and touches of 
 that deep pathos whereof Elliott has since proved 
 himself so great a master. The Rejected's 
 Song in " The Second Nuptials" may be in- 
 stanced as a specimen of his early skill in this 
 department of poetry. 
 
 At a very early period of his poetical career, 
 he was fortunate enough to secure the friendship 
 of the poet Southey ; who, on the appearance of 
 his second volume, which originally comprised 
 " Both weir a dramatic poem ; " The Exile," 
 and " Second Nuptials," with a Preface from 
 "Peter Faultless to his brother Simon" defying 
 his reviewers wrote him as follows : " There 
 is power in the least of these tales ; but the 
 higher you pitch your tone the better you suc- 
 ceed. Thirty years ago they would have made 
 your reputation ; and thirty years hence, the 
 world \vill wonder that they did not do so/' 
 Elliott's third volume contained a satire under 
 the title of " Giaour," which, strange enough, 
 was a vehement attack upon Lord Byron. 
 The secret of its history is one of the 
 many curiosities of literature. According to 
 Elliott's own statement, it was written with 
 a view to goad Lord Byron into a notice of 
 him ; and to revenge himself for an affront 
 which he fancied he had received from the 
 noble lord, in the old Bank at Rotherlram. 
 
OF EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. 35 
 
 The party who relates this story, thinks it should 
 receive but a qualified credence. There seems, 
 however, to be no reason to doubt its accuracy 
 since the original statement was made by El- 
 liott himself; and I have frequently remarked, 
 that he was not only candid in the announce- 
 ment, but severe in the condemnation of his own 
 failings. It is, moreover, easy enough to see 
 how a young and sensitive man conscious of 
 his own unacknowledged merits, might be en- 
 trapped by the impetuosity of his feelings, into 
 an ungenerous revenge of a supposed insult. 
 Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" 
 is an example of this headstrong retaliation; and 
 Elliott could very well plead it as a -precedent, 
 if not as a justification. But in neither instance 
 must we draw too hasty conclusions, from these 
 erratic outbursts ; for they are no true indica- 
 tions of the character of either party. In both 
 cases it is wounded pride that speaks, and not 
 a corrupt and revengeful heart. I do not seek, 
 however, to apologize for Elliott's conduct, in 
 this instance ; and will merely add that Lord 
 Byron took no notice of his assailant. 
 
 "Corn Law Rhymes and the Ranter" ap- 
 peared next, in one volume, and were noticed in 
 the "Eclectic," and in "Black wood's Magazine." 
 In 1829, he published the " Village Patriarch," 
 which was praised by the u Westminster," but 
 did not bring him the suffrage and applause of 
 the public. He owes the celebrity which ho 
 
36 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 soon after acquired, to an accidental visit which 
 Dr. Bowring paid to T. A. Ward, Esq., of 
 Sheffield. This gentleman placed a copy of the 
 " Corn Law Rhymes, &c.," in the hands of the 
 Doctor who was immediately struck with the 
 great merit of the Poet, and was subsequently 
 introduced to him by Mr. Ward. In returning 
 to London, Dr. Bowring visited William How- 
 itt, at Nottingham, where he met Wordsworth, 
 and made them acquainted with the " w r onderful 
 poet of Sheffield, not Montgomery, but a new 
 name." Mr. Howitt claims to have directed 
 Southey's attention to Elliott, through Words- 
 worth ; but this is an error ; for Elliott had 
 already been known to Southey, for ten or eleven 
 years. In London, Dr. Bowring shewed El- 
 liott's poems to Bulwer, who introduced them 
 to the public in an anonymous letter in the 
 " New Monthly Magazine." It is dated March 
 19th, 1831, and is entitled "A Letter to Dr. 
 Southey, &c., Poet -Laureate, respecting a re- 
 markable poem by a Mechanic." Bulwer con- 
 cludes his letter thus : " And now I think you 
 will admit that I am borne out in the praises 
 with which I have prefaced this poem. I do 
 not know whether the author be young, or old; 
 if the former, I must unaffectedly add, that to 
 my judgment, he has given such a promise as 
 few men, even in this age an age wronged and 
 unappreciated would be capable of performing/' 
 This friendly notice may be regarded as the 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 37 
 
 culminating point in Elliott's poetical career; for 
 from this time his fame spread over the land, 
 and his merit was generally acknowledged. 
 Miss Jewsbury in the "Athenaeum," Mrs. Hof- 
 land in the " New Monthly" and various other 
 writers hastened to pay him homage; and Thomas 
 Carlyle wrote a genial criticism upon his writ- 
 ings, in the a Edinburgh Review." In 1833, 4, 
 and 5, he collected and published his poems in 
 three successive volumes, and in 1840, the pre- 
 vious editions being exhausted, he published the 
 whole of his works in one volume, through Tait 
 of Edinburgh. His later Poems have since been 
 published in two volumes, by Fox, London, 
 under the title of u More Yerse and Prose," by 
 the Corn Law Rhymer. 
 
 I have no time here, to enter into a critical 
 analysis of these works, in their separate cha- 
 racter ; but I may make a few short remarks 
 upon them by way of illustrating the genius and 
 limits of the writer. It is singular enough, as 
 I said a while ago, that his tales are all sad, 
 and his heroes unhappy. He had studied the 
 physiology and anatomy of human misery, and 
 was its poetical demonstrator. Every painful 
 throb, and every agony of the heart, was fami- 
 liar to his ear, and he reproduced them in 
 melodies which drop down into the soul like 
 the tears of Music. He loves the cypress and 
 the yew ; and the gloomy aisles of death and 
 the grave. I have before alluded to his powers 
 
38 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 of pathos ; and it is strange how such tender- 
 ness, pity, and deep womanly love, should be 
 united to so much rugged manliness, sternness, 
 fierceness, and valour, as met together in his 
 noble and hospitable nature. It was this mix- 
 ture of opposing elements, however, which gave 
 strength, beauty, and consistency, to his cha-- 
 racter ; and although his curses and his hatred 
 were so violent, that he exhausted all the capa- 
 bilities of language, in his utterance of them 
 yet there was nothing low and vulgar in all 
 this, and looked at from the true point of vision 
 it was even grand and prophetic, like the half 
 savage, half archangelic denunciations of the 
 old Hebrew seers. For this hate sprang from 
 love ; from the inmost depths of a heart that 
 vibrated with sympathies for all that was high 
 and dear to man. Hence an act of oppression 
 done to the meanest creature was done to him ; 
 and as if he had been God's deputy on earth, he 
 seized his thunderbolts, and hurled them flaming 
 upon the head of the aggressor. He pleads for 
 the poor, because they have no one else to plead 
 for them ; and it is most beautiful and touching 
 to see him kneeling before the Maker of all the 
 worlds, and imploring heavenly justice at his 
 hands, for these wronged and suffering children. 
 He is blamed for writing political poetry, and 
 his most friendly critics Carlyle amongst the 
 number admonished him of the fleeting nature 
 of such effusions. But politics were his element ; 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 39 
 
 the motive and the cue for all his actions, and 
 literary achievements. His mission, indeed, 
 from the beginning to the end of his life, was 
 that of a reformer, chiefly in the political 
 sphere ; and he clothed his message in the forms 
 of poetry, and the robes of song, that he might 
 render it attractive, and successful. In later 
 ages his poetry will mark the history of his 
 time ; for it is the embodiment of the wrongs 
 and sufferings of the people, and of that " blood- 
 less revolution" which has just terminated in 
 commercial freedom. He has reflected likewise 
 in his verse all the great political movements of 
 the age; and we see there, in shadowy outline, 
 the mighty pageantry of Europe as it passed in 
 blood and fire before the eyes of men in '48 and 
 '9. Nothing escapes him connected with these 
 external movements ; for he is deeply and per- 
 sonally interested, not only as a man, but as a 
 poet, in all these outward and human concerns. 
 His genius, however, is not universal but limited. 
 He has but one die in his mint wherewith he 
 stamps all his issues. He does not, like Shak- 
 spere, give us endless types of characters, but 
 reproduces himself in his poems, as Byron did 
 before him. His sympathies are deep and ex- 
 tensive ; but they are all of one class. His 
 very love is sorrow. He cannot laugh at any 
 time, without weeping. He has wrung from 
 knowledge its deepest lesson, and finds it bitter 
 as blood. His teaching is all hopeless save in 
 
40 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 one direction, and that in the lowest of all di- 
 rections viz., the political. He lacked faith 
 and spiritual insight, and could not harmonize 
 the distracting elements of the human world; 
 nor contemplate them aloof from their present 
 and practical bearings. The world disturbed 
 him too much, and he was too much of a man 
 to be a philosopher in it. His poetry was not 
 art although he was an artist but impulse 
 and passion. He did not, like Goethe, study 
 men and things, nor pass through all the grades 
 of animal, intellectual, and spiritual experience, 
 for literary purposes or for his development as 
 a complete man ; he had no such ice in his 
 nature ; he was all fervour and fire, and he 
 loved the world too well to make experiments 
 upon it for artistic purposes. There is a moral 
 in his politics, and a moral even in his most 
 trifling effusions ; and whilst he spares not the 
 classes above him in social rank, neither does 
 he spare those of his own order. A knave is as 
 infamous to him in a fustian jacket, as in an 
 ermine robe. 
 
 I have said that Crabbe was the Poet who 
 first formed his style of writing and determined 
 the natural tendency of his mind to sorrowful 
 themes. He followed Crabbe likewise in the 
 structure of his tales, although he is immeasur- 
 ably superior to him in imagination, diction, and 
 melody. " The Exile," dedicated to Bulwer, is 
 after this model but deeper in its feeling than 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 41 
 
 anything to be found in Crabbe, and incom- 
 parably more powerful. So likewise the poem 
 called cc The Letter," is of that household cha- 
 racter which Crabbe loved to delineate. This 
 is a beautiful, simple, touching, and domestic 
 tragedy ; a common tale, of common occurrence. 
 It is managed throughout with great skill, and 
 contains passages of real and marvellous beauty. 
 Both these poems are examples of the power of 
 genius to exalt human passion and human misery, 
 and invest them with enduring interest. His 
 picture of the maiden Anna prior to her mar- 
 riage and desertion, is one of the sweetest in 
 poetry, and he ransacks all the charms of nature 
 wherewith to clothe her virgin beauty. Indeed, 
 whenever he speaks of woman, his words melt 
 into music ; and violets and all sweet flowers 
 spring up and blossom around him, as if by en- 
 chantment. The poem which he calls " Love," 
 is almost an Anthem ; and would be worthy to 
 be celebrated as such, in some grand Cathedral 
 service, if it were perfect in its representations 
 of the divine passion. But in this, as in all 
 other of Elliott's performances, we miss the 
 highest voices, the choral symphonies of the 
 spiritual spheres. He sings of human love in 
 its relation to the sexes, and to social life, with 
 the lyre and emphasis of a master; but of the 
 divinest love, to which all other love is but the 
 prelude and the initiation, he knows nothing. 
 He sticks to flesh and blood, and dare not trust 
 c 2 
 
42 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 the heavenly inspirations, lest they should lead 
 him into mysticism. Still this poem is worthy 
 to have been pronounced at the Banquet of 
 Plato ; and old Plutarch would have worship- 
 ped the author of it. Let the following passages 
 speak for themselves : 
 
 " Love ! eldest Muse ! Time heard thine earliest lay 
 
 "When light thro' Heaven led forth the new-born day. 
 
 The stars that give no accent to the wind, 
 
 Are golden odes, and music to the mind; 
 
 So, Passion's thrill is Nature's minstrelsy, 
 
 So, to the young heart love is poetry. 
 
 God of the soul ! illumination caught 
 
 From thy bright glance,, is energy to thought; 
 
 And song bereft of thee is cold and tame. 
 
 ***** 
 
 But when the heart looks thro' the eyes of love 
 
 On Nature's form, things lifeless breathe and move. 
 
 The dewy forest smiles; dim Morning shakes 
 
 The rainbow from his plumage ; music wakes 
 
 The dimpled ripple of the azure wave ; 
 
 In fiery floods green hills their tresses lave, 
 
 And myriad flowers, all brightning from the dews, 
 
 Day's earth-born stars, their golden beams effuse ; 
 
 Transported passion bids rocks, floods, and skies. 
 
 Burst into song, while her delighted eyes 
 
 To all they see their own rich hues impart ; 
 
 And the heart's language speaks to every heart." 
 
 A little further on, I find the following lines, 
 which, as they have a personal bearing upon the 
 poet and his home, will be read with interest : 
 
 <r Love, 'twas my heart that named thee sweetest word, 
 Here, or in highest heaven, pronounced or heard. 
 Whether by seraph near the throne above, 
 Or soul-sick maiden, in the vernal grove, 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 43 
 
 Or matron, with her first-born on her knee, 
 Or sweeter, lisped by rose-lipped infancy ! 
 Yes, love ! my heart did name thee ; not because 
 Thy mandate gave the bright-haired comet laws ; 
 Not that thy hand, in good Almightiest showers 
 The ever- blooming, fiery petalled flowers, 
 Wide o'er the fields of hyacinthine heaven; 
 But that to me thy richest smile hath given 
 Bliss, tried in pain. So 'mid my rosy boys 
 In joy and grief, I sing, thy griefs and joys," 
 
 He then bursts out in these beautiful strains, 
 picturing his own family group, and domestic 
 happiness : 
 
 *' Blessed is the hearth when daughters gird the fire, 
 
 And sons that shall be happier than their sire, 
 
 Who sees them crowd around his evening chair, 
 
 While love and hope inspire his wordless prayer, 
 
 O from their home paternal may they go, 
 
 With little to unlearn, through much to know t 
 
 Them, may no poisoned tongue, no evil eye, 
 
 Curse for the virtues that refuse to die ; 
 
 The generous heart, the independent mind, 
 
 Till truth, like falsehood, leaves a sting behind! 
 
 May Temperance crown their feast, and Friendship share ! 
 
 May Pity come, Love's sister spirit, there ! 
 
 May they shun baseness, as they shun the grave ! 
 
 May they be frugal, pious, humble, brave ! 
 
 Sweet peace be theirs the moonlight of the breast 
 
 And occupation, and alternate rest ; 
 
 And dear to care and thought the rural walk ; 
 
 Theirs* be no flower that withers on the stalk, 
 
 But roses cropped, that shall not bloom in vain; 
 
 And Hope's blessed sun, that sets to rise again. 
 
 Be chaste their nuptial bed, their home be sweet, 
 
 Their floor resound the tread of little feet ; 
 
 Blessed beyond fear and fate, if blessed by thee, 
 
 And heirs, O Love ! of thine Eternity." 
 
 Elliott's longest, and best work upon the whole, 
 
44 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 is the " Village Patriarch." It is professedly 
 a political poem ; and in the dedication which 
 is addressed to Henry Brougham he calls it 
 the incarnation of a century. Enoch Wray, 
 the blind old Patriarch of the Village, is finely 
 drawn, and his early recollection of better days 
 is made to tell, with painful effect, upon the 
 miseries which surround him in the desolation 
 of his age. It is in fact an Epic of Misery ; 
 and Elliott, like Dante, had been in Hell. Jt 
 is a book without hope, and his prophesies of 
 England's future are as terrible as anything in 
 Jsaiah. It is embued, too, with the Hamlet 
 spirit ; or, perhaps, I should say, with that of 
 Manfred. But it is set in such a frame- work of 
 poetic jewels, that it would be difficult to find 
 its compeer ; and for pathos there is certainly no 
 poem in our language to match it. It reads as if 
 it were written in tears. The pictures of rustic 
 scenery, however, which it contains are sunny, 
 genial, and glowing with life. Elliott knows 
 all the wild- flowers by name, and the colour 
 and fashion of their leaves and petals. Enoch 
 appears at his cottage door, attracted by the 
 brief sunshine of the winter's day, and the poet 
 makes the red-breast trill his lay in the old man's 
 ears, perched on a blossoming hazel. Rivers 
 flow and murmur through his verses, and flash 
 in the sunshine, through valley and meadow, 
 or fall with trumpet voices over rocks, in the 
 dark and lonesome glen. The hum of the bee, 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 45 
 
 and the twitter of the wren, are familiar and 
 musical sounds to him ; and he knows the song 
 of all the forest birds. There is nothing too 
 humble for his notice and love. The weed on 
 the wall, the snake in the grass the poor, 
 - harmless fly ; as gentle Shakspere calls it, 
 are all God's creatures, and dear to his heart. 
 He says in his Autobiography, that he became 
 acquainted in his walks with a beautiful green 
 snake, about a yard long, which on the fine 
 Sabbath mornings, about ten o'clock, seemed to 
 expect him at the top of Primrose Lane. It 
 became so familiar that it ceased to uncurl at his 
 approach. And he has sat on the style beside 
 it, until it seemed unconscious of his presence. 
 " When I arose to go," he says, " it would only 
 lift the scales behind its head, or the skin be- 
 neath them, and they shone in the sun like fire. 
 I know not how often this beautiful and harm- 
 less child of God may have sat for his picture 
 in my writings ; a dozen at the least." And it 
 was by this close observance of Nature, and 
 through this deep love for her manifold crea- 
 tures, that he came to represent them so truth- 
 fully in his poems. I know of nothing finer 
 than this apostrophe to the Moors which occurs 
 in the fifth book of the Village Patriarch : 
 
 " The Moors ! all hail ! Ye changeless, ye sublime ! 
 That seldom hear a voice save that of Heaven. 
 Scorners of chance, and fate, and death, and time, 
 But not of him whose viewless hand hath riven 
 
40 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 The chasm, thro' which the mountain stream is driven. 
 How like a prostrate giant not in sleep 
 But listening to his beating heart, ye lie. 
 With winds, and clouds, dread harmony ye keep ; 
 Ye seem alone, beneath the cloudless sky ; 
 Ye speak, are mute, and there is no reply." 
 
 In the centre, however, of all this outward 
 array of beauty, which clothes the poem, the 
 worm of decay and death is gnawing ; and the 
 poet leads us from the banquetting halls of 
 Nature, to a horrid feast of skulls. Misery and 
 famine are everywhere; and when the curtain 
 falls over the poem it is as if a dark blanket 
 were dropped down from heaven by sorrowing 
 angels, over some region of beauty abandoned to 
 despair. 
 
 The concluding lines of this fine poem, are 
 amongst his happiest and most successful 
 efforts : 
 
 " And when the woodbine's clustered trumpet blows ; 
 And when the pink's melodious hues shall speak, 
 In unison of sweetness with the rose, 
 Joining the song of every bird that knows 
 How sweet it is of wedded love to sing; 
 And when the fells, fresh bathed in azure air, 
 Wide as the summer day's all golden wing, 
 Shall blush to Heaven, that nature is so fair, 
 And man condemned to labour in despair ; 
 Then the gay gnat, that sports its little hour; 
 The falcon, wheeling from the ancient wood j 
 The redbreast, fluttering o'er its fragrant bower ; 
 The yellow-bellied lizard of the flood; 
 And dewy morn, and evening in her hood 
 Of crimson, fringed with lucid shadows grand- 
 Shall miss the Patriarch ; at his cottage door 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 47 
 
 The bee shall seek to settle on hi s hand, 
 
 But from the vacant bench haste to the moor, 
 
 Mourning the last of England's high souled poor, 
 
 And bid the mountains weep for Enoch Wray ! 
 
 And for themselves ! albeit of things that last 
 
 Unaltered most ; for they shall pass away 
 
 Like Enoch, though their iron roots seem fast 
 
 Bound to the eternal future, as the past ; 
 
 The Patriarch died ! and they shall be no more. 
 
 Yes, and the sailless worlds, which navigate 
 
 The unutterable deep, that hath no shore, 
 
 Will lose their starry splendour soon or late ! 
 
 Like tapers, quenched by Him whose will is fate ! 
 
 Yes, and the Angel of Eternity, 
 
 Who numbers worlds, and writes their names in light, 
 
 Ere long, oh Earth, will look in vain for thee ! 
 
 And start, and stop, in his unerring flight, 
 
 And, with his wings of sorrow and affright, 
 
 Veil his impassioned brow and heavenly tears l n 
 
 The " Splendid Tillage," is a poem of the 
 same cast as the " Village Patriarch," and is 
 another chapter of the prophesies of Jeremiah, 
 although written as a satire. He laments the 
 decay of old virtues and customs, and mourns 
 once more over the bloated prosperity of the 
 bad, and the wretchedness and poverty of the 
 people. It contains, like all his poems, passages 
 of great tenderness and beauty. 
 
 " Both well" and " Kerhonah" are attempts 
 at dramatic poetry, and failures. For Elliott is 
 no Proteus, and can assume no other form than 
 his own. His individuality is too strong in him 
 to be put off, and he makes all men in his own 
 likeness. 
 
 " The Ranter" and the " Corn Law Rhymes," 
 
48 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 which first attracted the general notice of the 
 public to the Poet, are amongst his happiest 
 effusions. The Gospel Tree sermon is a historic 
 record, and reflects all that the Chartist preacher 
 Stephens, or the Chartist orator Vincent, has 
 thought, felt, and spoken in the late disastrous 
 times. Whilst however I can understand the 
 intense earnestness which breathes throughout 
 this poem, I find fault with the poem itself, as 
 I do with most of Elliott's longer works, because 
 it is too literary. He is always at the height 
 of his strength, and one can feel the strong 
 writer in his sentences, and detect his art. In 
 other words, he aims at powerful writing, and 
 his real strength passes away in thunder-clouds. 
 It was the fault of his nature, which on one side 
 was all antagonism, and on the other all love. 
 There is a strange fascination, however, about 
 this short poem, which nothing but genius could 
 produce. The materials are bare and scanty, 
 and there is neither plot nor plan in it ; and yet 
 it is wonderfully effective. We have first of 
 all a picture of the cottage where the Ranter 
 lodges then we see the poor widow rise at 
 daybreak, to prepare breakfast for her little 
 household, for it is the Sabbath morning, and 
 the Ranter's congregation of mechanics will 
 soon await him at the Gospel Tree. Presently 
 she goes to awake her son and we see her trem- 
 bling with indecision as she gazes upon the face 
 of her cc o'er laboured boy" half inclined to let 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 49 
 
 him sleep on. But, she knows it would pain 
 him to miss the morning's discourse, for it may 
 be the last he will ever hear from the poor 
 preacher, whose pale and wasted form is already 
 smitten with the blight and mildew of death. 
 So she rouses him ; and he accompanies the 
 Ranter to the place of meeting, whilst 
 
 ." the mountains one by one 
 Ascend in light ; and slow the mists retire 
 From vale and plain. The cloud on Stannington 
 Beholds a rocket No, 'tis Morthen spire ! 
 The sun is risen ! cries Stanedge, tipped with fire ; ^ 
 On Norwood's flowers the dew-drops shine and shake ; ^ 
 Up, sluggard, up ! and drink the morning breeze. 
 The birds on cloud-left Osgathorpe awake ; 
 And Wincobank is waving all his trees 
 O'er subject towns, and farms, and villages, 
 And gleaming streams, and woods, and waterfalls. 
 Up, climb the oak-crown'd summit ! Hoober Stand 
 And KeppePs Pillar gaze on Wentworth's halls. 
 And misty lakes, that brighten and expand, 
 And distant hills, that watch the western strand. 
 Up ! trace God's foot- prints where they paint the mould 
 With heavenly green, and hues that blush and glow 
 Like angels' wings ; while skies of blue and gold 
 Stoop for Miles Gordon on the mountain's brow." 
 
 And in the midst of this magnificent scenery, 
 under the old oak of Shirecliffe, the Ranter de- 
 livers his sermon. After which the congrega- 
 tion disperses, and the poor, brave Preacher dis- 
 appears to die. But the image of the man 
 never leaves you after reading the poem, al- 
 though Elliott gives no portrait of him. It is 
 the words he speaks which fashion him to our 
 
50 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 minds, and give him such a distinct individuality. 
 I may add also, that the conclusion of the ser- 
 mon is the most hopeful prophesy to he found in 
 Elliott's writings, and I will quote it here as a 
 a specimen of the sunny side of his mind : 
 
 " Poor Bread-taxed Slaves ! have ye no hope on earth ? 
 
 Yes ! God from evil still educes good ; 
 
 Sublime events are rushing to their birth ; 
 
 Lo, tyrants by their victims are withstood ! 
 
 And Freedom's seed still grows, tho' steeped in blood* 
 
 When by our Father's voice the skies are riven, 
 
 That, like the winnowed chaff, disease may fly; 
 
 And seas are shaken by the breath of Heaven, 
 
 Lest in their depths the living Spirit die ; 
 
 Man views the scene with awed, but grateful eye, 
 
 And trembling feels, could God abuse his power 
 
 Nor man, nor Nature, would endure an hour. 
 
 But there is mercy in his seeming wrath ; 
 
 It smites to save not tyrant- like to slay ; 
 
 And storms have beauty as the lily hath : 
 
 Grand are the clouds, that mirrored on the bay, 
 
 Roll, like the shadows of lost worlds, away, 
 
 When bursts thro' broken gloom, the startled light ; 
 
 Grand are the waves that, like that broken gloom, 
 
 Are smitten into splendour by his might; 
 
 And glorious is the storm's tremendous boon, 
 
 Altho' it waileth o'er a watery tomb, 
 
 And is a dreadful Ode on Oceans drowned. 
 
 Despond not then, ye plundered sons of trade I 
 
 Hope's wounded wing, shall yet disdain the ground, 
 
 And Commerce, while the powers of evil fade, 
 
 Shout o'er all seas,* All Lands for me were made.' 
 
 Her's are the apostles destined to go forth 
 
 Upon the wings of mighty winds, and preach 
 
 Christ crucified ! To her the south and north 
 
 Look thro' their tempests ; and her love shall reach 
 
 Their farthest ice, if life there be to teach. 
 
 Yes, world-reforming Commerce, one by one, 
 
 Thou vanquishest earth's tyrants ! and the hour 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 51 
 
 Cometh, when all shall fall before thee gone 
 
 Their splendour, fall'n their trophies, lost their power. 
 
 Then o'er the enfranchised nations wilt thou shower 
 
 Like dew-drops from the pinions of the dove, 
 
 Plenty and peace ; and never more on thee 
 
 Shall bondage wait ; but as the thoughts of love, 
 
 Free shalt thou fly, unehainableand free; 
 
 And men, thenceforth, shall call thee ' Liberty !' " 
 
 The Corn Law Rhymes, notwithstanding their 
 occasional coarseness, are real poetry effusions 
 from the heart. They are dedicated u to all 
 who revere the memory of Jeremy Bent ham, 
 our second Locke, and wish to promote the 
 greatest happiness of the greatest numher, for 
 the greatest length of time." Poor Elliott ! 
 How fast a hold the spirit of Political Economy 
 has upon his mind ! and how strangely it dis- 
 torts and darkens his vision. One could have 
 wished that he had seen a little deeper than 
 good Jeremy Bentham's philosophy ; or, at 
 least, that he might have outlived it ; flinging it 
 from him as the lumber of a dead world, 
 through which he had victoriously fought his 
 way. But neither in these Rhymes, nor in his 
 latest writings is there any evidence of his 
 Spiritual progression. He is painfully bound in 
 chains, like Prometheus to his rock, and in the 
 highest sense, can neither sink nor soar. He 
 always harps on the same string with a Paga- 
 ninni's hand, it is true ; but one wearies even 
 of the most beautiful variations, when the 
 melody is always the same. 
 
52 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 His writings divide themselves naturally into 
 three distinct parts each of which represents a 
 phase of the mind and genius of the Poet. They 
 consist firstly of the Political Poems ; secondly, 
 of the ^Esthetic, or those which relate to the affec- 
 tions, and the cultivation of the Taste ; and 
 thirdly, those of a Moral and Descriptive nature ; 
 wherein the poet, by a direct teaching and ex- 
 hortation, seeks to raise the minds of the people 
 into the regions so far as he knows them of 
 truth and duty. It must not be supposed, how- 
 ever, that these divisions follow in consecutive 
 order, or that the Poet designed his writings to 
 fall into this classification. He simply obeyed 
 his genius, and wrote as he was inspired, with- 
 out reference to psychological manifestation. 
 "Whoso, however, will take the trouble to ex- 
 amine his works, will find that they resolve 
 themselves into the divisions above alluded to. 
 In some of his greater poems there will of course 
 be found a fusion of the faculties, which are 
 singly predominant in others ; for in all serious 
 undertakings of this nature, whatever is in a 
 poet will come out of him ; and he is sure to 
 develope the entire wealth, and capabilities, of 
 his genius. But in his lyrical moments he will 
 obey the mood which possesses him whether 
 it be Political, ^Esthetic, or Moral. 
 
 I will now quote examples of his art, under 
 the three divisions I have named, commencing 
 with the Political ones. 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 53 
 
 BATTLE SONG. 
 
 " Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark ; 
 
 What then ? Tis day ! 
 We sleep no more ; the cock crows hark ! 
 
 To arms ! away ! 
 
 They come ! they come ! the knell is rung 
 
 Of us, or them ; 
 Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung 
 
 Of gold, and gem. 
 
 What collared hound of lawless sway, 
 
 To famine dear 
 What pensioned slave of Attila, 
 
 Leads in the rear ? 
 
 Come they from Scythian wilds afar, 
 
 Our blood to spill ? 
 Wear they the livery of the Czar ? 
 
 They do his will. 
 
 Nor tassel'd silk, nor epaulette, 
 Nor plume, nor torse 
 
 No splendour gilds, all sternly met, 
 Our foot and horse. 
 
 But dark, and still, we inly glow, 
 
 Condensed in ire 1 
 Strike, tawdry slaves 1 and ye shall know, 
 
 Our gloom is fire. 
 
54 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 In vain your pomp, ye evil powers, 
 
 Insults the land; 
 Wrongs, vengeance, and the cause are ours ! 
 
 And God's right hand ! 
 
 Madmen 1 they trample into snakes 
 
 The wormy clod I 
 Like fire beneath the feet awakes 
 
 The sword of God. 
 
 Behind, before, above, below, 
 
 They rouse the brave ; 
 Where'er they go, they make a foe, 
 
 Or find a grave." 
 
 This is perhaps the finest of his political 
 poems, and reminds one, in its spirit, of the 
 wonderful " Sword Song" by Korner. The 
 opening verse is full of martial music ; and we 
 can hear the gathering of mighty hosts, and the 
 trampling of armed feet, throughout the poem. 
 Terrible and defiant stand the two hostile 
 armies; and the bannered pageantry of the 
 " tawdry slaves" of power, is finely contrasted 
 with the dark unbannered " foot and horse" of 
 the oppressed, all sternly met for battle. It is 
 an ideal celebration of the fight between Right 
 and Wrong, which Elliott, in all probability, 
 imagined would one day be realized in the ter- 
 rible manner he has described. But this song 
 will give no idea of the Poet, in his coarse and 
 eccentric moods ; and as I design to exhibitevery 
 phase of his character, it will be necessary to 
 quote the following : 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 55 
 
 SQUIRE LEECH. 
 
 * COMB Lord Pauper ! pay my bill 
 
 For radish tops, and fire; 
 Ploughman Joe. and Weaver Will, 
 
 Keep Robert Leech, Esquire. 
 Yon say, shares are fairly shar'd 
 
 Between the high and low ; 
 While we starve, this joke runs hard 
 
 On bread-taxed Will and Joe. 
 
 Leech drinks wine ; sometimes enough ; 
 
 But then he drinks in style : 
 Club-feast ale is sinful stuff; 
 
 And pewter plate is vile. 
 Robert rides, and Robert drives, 
 
 His feeders bare-foot go ; 
 Will is clamming ; bread-tax thrives ; 
 
 And tread-mill's clamming Joe. 
 
 ' Give' of old, the Horse Leech cried: 
 
 Squire Robert cries, 'Give! Give!' 
 How the leeches are belied I 
 
 They suck, yet cannot live, 
 Little souls grow less and less, 
 
 And ever downward grow ; 
 Live and let live* they profess, 
 
 And feed on Will and Joe ! 
 
 Bread tax murders trade and hope ; 
 
 Lord Pauper cries ' Well done !' 
 Bread-tax is not yet a rope 
 
 To every rascal's son. 
 Justice is not done, 'tis said, 
 
 To Robert Leech & Co. ; 
 Gibbet is not tax on bread, 
 
 But Bread -tax gibbets Joe.*' 
 
56 LrPB, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 Here is another poem belonging to the same 
 class as the last, although it is more serious, and 
 indeed fearfully earnest : 
 
 CAGED EATS. 
 
 " Ye coop us up, and tax our bread, 
 
 And wonder why we pine ; 
 But ye are fat, and round, and red, 
 
 And filled with tax-bought wine : 
 Thus twelve rats starve while three rats thrive, 
 
 (Like you on mine and me,) 
 When fifteen rats are caged alive, 
 
 With food for nine and three. 
 
 Haste ! Havoc's torch begins to glow- 
 The ending is begun ; 
 
 Make haste ! Destruction thinks ye slow ; 
 Make haste to be undone ! 
 
 Why are ye called my Lord,' and ' Squire,' 
 While fed by mine and me, 
 
 And wringing food, and clothes, and fire, 
 From bread taxed misery ? 
 
 Make haste, slow rogues I prohibit trade, 
 
 Prohibit honest gain; 
 Turn all the good that God hath made 
 
 To fear, and hate, and pain ; 
 Till beggars all, assassins all, 
 
 All cannibals we be, 
 And death shall have no funeral 
 
 From shfpless sea to sea." 
 
 I will not dwell longer, however, upon these 
 political effusions, but proceed to give specimens 
 of his aesthetic poems. These cannot be intro- 
 4uced more appropriately than by the following 
 picture of 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 57 
 
 THE HOME OF TASTE. 
 
 " You seek the home of taste, and find 
 
 The proud mechanic there, 
 Rich as a king, and less a slave, 
 
 Throned in his elbow-chair ! 
 Or on his sofa reading Locke, 
 
 Beside his open door ! 
 Why start ? why envy worth like his 
 
 The carpet on his floor ? 
 
 You seek the home of sluttery 
 
 ' Is John at home ?' you say. 
 'No, sir ; he's at the " Sportsman's Arms ;" 
 
 The dog-fight 's o'er the way.' 
 Oh, lift the workman's heart and mind 
 
 Above low sensual sin ! 
 Give him a home ! the home of taste I 
 
 Outbid the house of gin ! 
 
 Oh, give him taste ! it is the link 
 
 Which binds us to the skies 
 A bridge of rainbows thrown across 
 
 The gulf of tears and sighs ; 
 Or like a widower's little one 
 
 An angel in a child 
 That leads him to her mother's chair, 
 
 And shows him how she smiled." 
 
 It was one of Elliott's darling schemes, to raise 
 the homes of the working classes, and he knew 
 that this could only be done by cultivating their 
 taste, feelings, and intellectual faculties. Hence 
 he exhorted them to ceaseless thrift and in- 
 dustry, and to the study of good and ennobling 
 
38 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 books, in their leisure hours. To stimulate 
 them to this course he described in many of his 
 poems the beauty and dignity of home, when 
 presided over by wise and virtuous people. He 
 shewed likewise, that the limited means of the 
 industrious classes, were no bar to elegance and 
 happiness ; and there is a direct teaching of this 
 sort in the following household pictures ; 
 
 SATURDAY. 
 
 " To-morrow will be Sunday, Ann,. 
 
 Get up my child with me ; 
 Thy father rose at four o'clock 
 
 To toil for me and thee. 
 
 The fine folks use the plate he makes, 
 And praise it when they dine ; 
 
 For .John has taste so we'll be neat, 
 Altho* we can't be fine. 
 
 Then let us shake the carpet well, 
 And wash and scour the floor, 
 
 And hang the weather-glass he made 
 Beside the cupboard-door. 
 
 And polish thou the grate, my love ; 
 
 I'll mend the sofa arm ; 
 The autumn winds blow damp and chill ; 
 
 And John loves to be warm. 
 
 And bring the new white curtain out, 
 And string the pink tape on 
 
 Mechanics should be neat and clean: 
 And I'll take heed for John. 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT, 50 
 
 And brush the little table, child, 
 
 And fetch the ancient books- 
 John loves to read ; and when he read*, 
 
 How like a king he looks! 
 
 And fill the music-glasses up 
 
 With water fresh and clear ; 
 To-morrow, when he sings and plays, 
 
 The street will stop to hear. 
 
 And throw the dead flowers from the vase, 
 
 And rub it till it glows ; 
 For in the leafless garden yet 
 
 He'll find a winter rose. 
 
 And lichen from the wood he'll bring, 
 
 And mosses from the dell ; 
 And from the sheltered stubble-field 
 
 The scarlet pimpernell," 
 
 Here is a holiday for the working man, most 
 beautifully described. 
 
 HOLIDAY. 
 
 " Oh blessed ! when some holiday 
 
 Brings townsmen to the moor. 
 And in the sunbeams brighten up 
 
 The sad looks of the poor. 
 
 The bee puts on his richest gold, 
 
 As if that worker knew 
 How hardly (and f or little) they 
 
 Their sunless task pursue. 
 
 But from their souls the sense of wrong 
 
 On dove-like pinion flies; 
 And , throned o'er all, forgiveness sees 
 
 His image in their eyes. 
 
60 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 i/ 
 
 Soon tired, the street-born lad lie* down 
 
 On marjoram and thyme, 
 And through his grated fingers sees 
 
 The falcon's flight sublime ; 
 
 Then his pale eyes, so bluely dull, 
 
 Grow darkly blue with light, 
 And his lips redden like the bloom 
 
 O'er miles of mountains bright* 
 
 The little lovely maiden-hair 
 
 Turns up its happy face, 
 And saith unto the poor man's heart, 
 
 ' Thou'rt welcome to this place. 1 
 
 The infant river leapeth free 
 
 Amid the bracken tall, 
 And cries, ' FOR EVER there is ONE 
 
 Who reigneth over all ; 
 
 'And unto Him, as unto me, 
 
 Thou'rt welcome to partake 
 His gift of light, His gift of air. 
 
 O'er mountain, glen, and lake, 
 
 * Our father loves us, want-worn man J 
 
 And know thou this from me, 
 The pride that makes thy pain his couch, 
 
 May wake to envy thee. 
 
 ' Hard, hard to bear are want and toil, 
 
 As thy worn features tell ; 
 But Wealth is armed with fortitude, 
 
 And bears thy sufferings well.'" 
 
 The following is an example of the poet's moral 
 teaching ; and perhaps nothing can better ex- 
 press his constant delight in contemplating the 
 works of Nature, and his deep reverence for 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 61 
 
 Nature's God, than the quotation of this solemn 
 and hopeful 
 
 FUNERAL HYMN. 
 
 c< Father ! our brother's course is run. 
 And we bring home Thy weary son; 
 No more he toils, no more he weeps; 
 And shall we mourn because he sleeps ? 
 
 He thank'd Thee, God of earth and sky, 
 For all that creep, and all that fly ; 
 For weeds, that silent anthems raise, 
 And thoughts, that make their silence praise. 
 
 For every thorn and every flower ! 
 For conquering Right and baffled Power; 
 For all the meek and all the proud, 
 He thank'd the Lord of sun and cloud. 
 
 For soul to feel and sight to see, 
 In all Thy works, but types of Thee; 
 For all Thy works, and for Thy word, 
 In life and death, he thanked Thee, Lord, 
 
 He thank'd Thee too for struggles long, 
 For storms that make the feeble strong 
 For every pang Thy goodness gave ; 
 For hope deferr'd and for the grave, 
 
 Oh, welcome in the morn, the road 
 That climbs to Virtue's high abode ! 
 But when descends the evening dew, 
 The inn of rest is welcome too. 
 
 Thou say'st to man, ' Arise, and run 
 Thy glorious course, like yonder sun I* 
 But when Thy children need repose, 
 Their Father's hand the curtain draws. 
 
62 
 
 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 What though with eyes that yet can weep, 
 The sinner trembles into sleep ? 
 Thou know'st he yet shall wake and rise 
 To gaze on Mercy's brightest skies. 
 
 The fearful child, though still caress'd, 
 Will tremble on his mother's breast ; 
 But he, she knows, is safe from ill, 
 Though> watched by love, he trembles still. 
 
 Lord ! when our brother wakes, may they 
 Who watch beneath Thy footstool, say, 
 ' Another wanderer is forgiven ! 
 Another child is born in Heaven !"* 
 
 " Forest Worship/' is, likewise, a beautiful 
 poem, notwithstanding the mixture of politics 
 and religion which it contains. lie takes us at 
 once 
 
 " Within the sunlit forest ; 
 
 Our roof the bright blue sky, 
 Where fountains flow, and wild flowers blov 
 
 We lift our hearts on high. 
 Beneath the frown of wicked men 
 
 Our country's strength is bowing ; 
 But, thanks to God! they can't prevent 
 
 The lone wild-flowers from blowing, 
 
 High, high, above the tree-tops, 
 
 The lark is soaring free ; 
 Where streams the light through broken clouds 
 
 His speckled breast I see : 
 Beneath the might of wicked men 
 
 The poor man's worth is dying; 
 But, thanked be God ! in spite of them, 
 
 The lark still warbles flying ! 
 
OP EBENE2ER ELLIOTT. 63 
 
 The preacher prays ' Lord bless us I* 
 
 ' Lord bless us !' Echo cries ; 
 * Amen !' the breezes murmur low, 
 
 Amen P the rill replies ; 
 The ceaseless toil of wo-worn hearts, 
 
 The proud with pangs are paying; 
 But here, O God of earth and heaven ! 
 The humble heart is praying ! 
 
 How softly in the pauses 
 
 Of song, re-echoed wide, 
 The cushet's coo, the linnet's lay, 
 
 O'er rill and river glide ! 
 With evil deeds of evil men 
 
 Th' affrighted land is ringing, 
 But still, O Lord ! the pious heart 
 
 And soul-toned voice are singing ! 
 
 Hush ! hush ! the Preacher preacheth! 
 
 ' Wo ! to the oppressor, wo !' 
 But sudden gloom o'ercasts the sun 
 
 And saddened flowers below : 
 So frowns the Lord ! but tyrants, ye 
 
 Deride his indignation, 
 And see not in his gathered brow 
 
 Your days of tribulatiQn ! 
 
 |if 
 Speak low, thou heaven-paid teacher ! 
 
 The tempest bursts above : 
 God whispers in the thunder ; hear 
 
 The terrors of his love ! 
 On useful hands, and honest hearts, 
 
 The base their wrath are wreaking; 
 But, thank'd be God ! they can't prevent 
 
 The storm of heaven from speaking." 
 
 T will close these extracts with a few more 
 specimens from his miscellaneous poems ; and 
 the reader will then have a, fair conception of 
 
64 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 the range of Elliott's mind. The two which 
 follow are very striking and beautiful, and are 
 in his highest manner : 
 
 LEAVES AND MEN. 
 
 ' Drop, drop into the grave, Old Leaf, 
 Drop, drop into the grave ; 
 Thy acorns grov/n, thy acorns sown, 
 Drop, drop into the grave. 
 December's tempests rave, Old Leaf ; 
 Above thy forest-grave, Old Leaf ; 
 Drop, drop into the grave. 
 
 The birds in Spring, will sweetly sing, 
 
 That death alone is sad ; 
 
 The grass will grow, the primrose show, 
 
 That death alone is sad. 
 
 Lament above thy grave, Old Leaf ; 
 
 For what has life to do with grief ? 
 
 'Tis death alone that's sad. 
 
 What then ? We two have both lived through 
 
 The sunshine and the rain ; 
 
 And blessed be He, to me and thee. 
 
 Who sent His sun and rain. 
 
 We've had our sun and rain, Old Leaf, 
 
 And God will send again, Old Leaf, 
 
 The sunshine and the rain. 
 
 Race after race of leaves and men, 
 
 Bloom, wither, and are gone; 
 
 As winds, and waters, rise and fall, 
 
 So life and death roll on ; 
 
 And long as ocean heaves, Old Leaf, 
 
 And bud and fade the leaves, Old Leaf 
 
 Will life and death roll on, 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 65 
 
 How like am I to thee, Old Leaf ! 
 
 We'll drop together down ; 
 
 How like art thou to me, Old Leaf! 
 
 We'll drop together down. 
 
 I'm grey, and thou art brown, Old Leaf I 
 
 We'll drop together down, Old Leaf, 
 
 We'll drop together down. 
 
 Drop, drop into the grave, Old Leaf, 
 Drop, drop into the grave ; 
 Thy acorns grown, thy acorns sown, 
 Drop, drop into the grave. 
 December's tempests rave, Old Leaf, 
 Above thy forest-grave, Old Leaf j 
 Drop, drop into the grave ! " 
 
 OH, TELL US. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Companioned each, by all and none, 
 A mob of souls, yet each alone, 
 We journey to the dread Unknown. 
 
 II. 
 
 In nothing found, in all things shown, 
 
 In all life living, yet alone, 
 
 Where may it be, that dread Unknown ? 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, who, or what, so dreadly shown, 
 
 And world-attended, yet alone, 
 
 Is that all-sought, all-known Unknown;"' 
 
G6 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 The following lines remind us of Goethe : 
 TO FANNY ANN. 
 
 " As the flower bloweth, 
 
 As the stream floweth, 
 
 Daughter of beauty, 
 
 Do Lhou thy duty. 
 
 What, tho 1 the morrow 
 
 May dawn in sorrow ? 
 
 E'en as light hasteth, 
 
 Darkness, too, wasteth : 
 
 Morn then discloses, 
 
 Rain-drops on roses ! 
 
 Daughter of beauty, 
 
 What then is duty ? 
 
 Time says, ' Death knoweth !' 
 
 Death says, Time shovveth !' * 
 
 The poem which I shall now quote was sent 
 me in MS., and appeared originally in the 
 " Truth Seeker" Magazine, edited by my friend, 
 Dr. Lees, of Leeds. It is entitled 
 
 LET ME KEST. 
 
 (t He does well who does his best; 
 Is he weary ? Let him rest : 
 Brothers ! I have done my best ; 
 I am weary let me rest. 
 After toiling oft in vain, 
 Baffled, yet to struggle fain ; 
 After toiling long to gain 
 Little good, and mickle pain ; 
 Let me rest But lay me low, 
 Where the hedge- side roses blow ; 
 Where the little daisies grow ; 
 Where the winds a- Maying go ; 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 67 
 
 Where the foot-path rustics plod ; 
 Where the breeze-bowed poplars nod ; 
 Where the old woods worship God ; 
 Where His pencil paints the sod; 
 Where the wedded throstle sings ; 
 Where the young bird tries his wings ; 
 Where the wailing plover swings 
 Near the runlet's rushy springs ! 
 Where at times the tempest's roar 
 Shaking distant sea and shore, 
 Still will rave old Barnsdale o'er, 
 To be heard by me no more. 
 There beneath the breezy west 
 Tired and thankful, let merest. 
 Like a child, that sleepeth best 
 On its gentle mother's breast." 
 
 The following poems may be cited, as specimens 
 of the pathetic power developed in the Corn 
 Law Rhymes. 
 
 i. 
 
 " Where the poor cease to pay, 
 
 Go loved one, and rest. 
 Thou art wearing away 
 
 To the land of the blest. 
 Our father is gone 
 
 Where the wronged are forgiven, 
 And that dearest one, 
 
 Thy husband, in heaven, 
 
 II. 
 
 No toil in despair ; 
 
 No tyrant, no slave; 
 No Bread-tax is there, 
 
 With a maw like the grave ; 
 
68 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 But the Poacher, thy pride, 
 Whelmed in ocean afar : 
 
 And his brother who died 
 Land-butchered in war ; 
 
 III. 
 
 And their mother who sank 
 
 Broken-hearted, to rest; 
 And the baby that drank 
 
 Till it froze on her breast; 
 With tears, and with smiles, 
 
 Are waiting for thee, 
 In the beautiful isles, 
 
 Where the wronged are the free. 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 Go loved one, and rest; 
 
 Where the poor cease to pay I 
 To the land of the blest 
 
 Thou art wearing away; 
 But the son of thy pride 
 
 Shall yet stay with thee. 
 And poor little Jane, 
 
 Look sadly like thee." 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 69 
 
 SONG. 
 
 " Child, is thy father dead ? 
 
 Father is gone ! 
 Why did they tax his bread ? 
 
 God's will be done ! 
 Mother has sold her bed ; 
 Better to die than wed ! 
 Where shall she lay her head ? 
 
 Home we have none i 
 
 Father clamm'd thrice a week- 
 God's will be done 
 Long for work did he seek, 
 
 Work he found none. 
 Tears on his hollow cheek 
 Told what no tongue could speak : 
 Why did his master break ? 
 God's will be done ! 
 
 Doctor said air was best- 
 Food we had none ; 
 Father, with panting breast, 
 
 Groaned to be gone : 
 Now he is with the blest- 
 Mother says death is best! 
 We have no place of rest- 
 Yes, ye have one 1" 
 
70 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Biography of the Poet. 
 
 AND now, having given a general characteriza- 
 tion of the mind and writings of our Poet, let 
 us take a glimpse at his early history, and try if 
 we can discover the process by which his mind 
 and character were developed. His Autobiog- 
 raphy, which appeared in No. 1 159 of the Athe- 
 naeum, and extends to his twenty- third year, 
 will enable us to accomplish this ; and it is one 
 of the most interesting pieces of personal history 
 upon record. It is written in a style as unvar- 
 nished as that of Gibbon, and contains all the 
 prominent features in his early career, both of 
 mind and fortune. It is too long to extract in 
 these pages, but it will well repay the student 
 for a private and careful reading. We will first 
 relate the particulars of his birth and parentage, 
 and then run rapidly over such parts of his sub- 
 sequent history, as may throw light upon our 
 investigation. 
 
 Elliott was born at the New Foundry, Mas- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 71 
 
 boro', in the parish of Rotherham, March 17th, 
 1781; and was well nigh smothered before he 
 had been in the world a quarter of an hour. 
 His son Francis, who relates the story to me in 
 a private letter, says : "In the hurry and con- 
 fusion attendant upon his birth, he was laid in 
 an open drawer, which was presently shut by 
 another person, who did not notice its contents, 
 and the child was missing for some minutes, and 
 could not be found. Fortunately, however, he 
 was rescued from his perilous situation, by the 
 same hands that placed him in it, and restored 
 to his mother. Three quarters of a century 
 later, this child repealed the Corn Laws; and 
 it would be interesting to know how many hun- 
 gry deaths, how many broken fortunes, how 
 many broken hearts, the timely opening of that 
 drawer has saved/' His father, who, for his 
 eccentricities, and ultra- Calvinistic notions, was 
 called " Devil Elliott," was a dissenter ; and 
 our Poet was baptized by one Tommy Wright, 
 a Barnsley Tinker, who belonged to the same 
 school of theology as Elliott's father, and be- 
 lieved that "Hell was hung round with little 
 children, a span long;" a belief by no means 
 uncommon in those days, nor even in later times, 
 as I have good reason to remember. He des- 
 cribes the ancestors of his grandfather Elliott, as 
 border thieves, who lived on the cattle they 
 stole, both from English and Scotch ; and thinks 
 he has made out a good pedigree so far. Of his 
 
72 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 own father he speaks in high terms. He was 
 married to an opulent yeoman's daughter near 
 Huddersfield, and settled in business at Mas- 
 boro', as an iron- founder, where Ebenezer, and 
 all his other children, were born and bred. " I 
 can remember seeing," says the Poet's son 
 Francis, " when very young, the name Elliott, 
 in twisted iron, over the door of a little, low, 
 time-dark building, at the top of the High- 
 street, in the town above named, where my 
 father and his brother Giles, if I mistake not, 
 spent many years of their youth, and early man- 
 hood, in serving customers with ironmongery. 
 My grandfather was a man of great natural 
 shrewdness and penetration ; with a talent for 
 humour and satire; fond of controversy, especially 
 on theology ; and possessed of respectable lite- 
 rary powers. 
 
 " I have seen a c rhymed Paraphrase of Job,' 
 written by him ; and I must do my buried 
 ancestor the justice to say, that it did not re- 
 quire a Job's patience to read it. If not very 
 poetical in its structure, it is at least as good as 
 many noted pieces in Pope and Dryden. It is 
 sententious, concise, and logical. My grand- 
 mother was a very different person ; all heart, 
 sensitiveness, and meekness. The slightest look, 
 word, or tone of unkindness, cut her to the 
 quick ; whilst a whole world of injuries could 
 not arouse within her the shadow of a desire for 
 revenge. She had great personal attractions ; a 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 73 
 
 soft and gentle style of beauty ; which was 
 sister to her heart. She was a very violet in 
 sweetness and unobtrusiveness, and she had a 
 violet's fate too. She lived unnoticed, and mis- 
 fortune trod her out of life. My grandfather's 
 bankruptcy broke her heart." 
 
 Mr. P. Rodgers, of Sheffield, has fur- 
 nished me with the following anecdote of the 
 Poet's father. " In those days, when the 
 French were generally considered atheists, and 
 the Divine Eight of Kings was an article of 
 almost universal belief it is no wonder that the 
 Poet's father who was a Jacobin and ultra- 
 Calvinist should be regarded with dread by 
 some, and suspicion by others. He was not a 
 man, however, to be trodden upon with impu- 
 nity. His son alludes, in the poem called " The 
 Jacobins Prayer" to an incident in his father's 
 life, which I well remember, and which fur- 
 nishes a good illustration of his character. The 
 Rotherham troop of Yeomanry had had a field 
 day. It was getting towards evening; and 
 previous to the dismissal of the men, they were 
 drawn up in a line, in High Street, with their 
 faces to the Crown Inn, while some one was 
 addressing a loyal speech to them from one of 
 the windows. Mr. Elliott's shop being in the 
 narrowest part of the street, and from some 
 cause or other, one or more of the military steeds, 
 which stood with their hinder parts towards his 
 door and windows, beginning to prance, they 
 
?4 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 were not long before their tails and haunches 
 came through the glass. The old man imme- 
 diately conceived the idea, that the seeming 
 accident was done on purpose, and because he 
 was a Jacobin. Under this impression he flew 
 into a terrible rage ; seized, I believe, upon 
 some offensive weapon, which the stock in his 
 own shop supplied, and rushed to the assault. 
 A terrible disturbance ensued, but no blood was 
 shed, and thus the affair did not end so seriously 
 as it might have done, considering what it was 
 to quarrel with the authorities in those days. 
 Probably, Mr. Elliott's real respectability in the 
 eyes of his neighbours, together with his com- 
 mercial influence in the town, protected him 
 from similar consequences to those which befel 
 the more unfortunate James Montgomery, at a 
 little earlier date, in Sheffield." 
 
 Such then was the parentage of the Poet 
 and his physical and mental character- 
 istics may be traced, in a great measure, 
 to this source. He had his father's strength 
 of mind and character, and his mother's 
 sensitiveness and nervous weakness. He gives 
 us a picture of his father's home, whilst he was 
 a clerk at the foundry, and before he became 
 the proprietor of it, which is interesting in 
 many important respects. " Under the room 
 where I was born," he says, " in a little parlour 
 like the cabin of a ship, which was yearly 
 painted green, and blessed with a beautiful 
 
OP EBENE2ER ELLIOTT. 75 
 
 th orougli fare of light for there was no window- 
 tax in those days my father used to preach 
 every fourth Sunday, to persons who came from 
 distances of twelve to fourteen miles, to hear his 
 tremendous doctrines of ultra- Calvinism. On 
 other days, pointing to the aquatint pictures on 
 the walls, he delighted to declaim on the virtues 
 of slandered Cromwell, and of Washington the 
 rebel ; or, shaking his sides with laughter, ex- 
 plain the glories of the c glorious victory of his 
 Majesty's forces over the rebels at Bunker's 
 Hill.' " " Here" he adds, "the reader has a key 
 which will unlock all my future politics." And 
 the fact is worth remembering. He relates as 
 proof of his nervous sensibility, that at twelve 
 years of age he fell in love with a young woman, 
 to whom he never spoke a word in his life, 
 and whose voice he never heard. "Yet if 
 I thought she saw me," he adds, " as I 
 passed her father's house, I felt as if weights 
 were tied to my feet." This is the old 
 story, in a new form, illustrative of the 
 power of love over the youthful heart; and 
 Elliott is not the last person who will feel these 
 weights to his feet, in the presence of the be- 
 loved object. The fact, however, made a deep 
 impression upon him throughout life ; for it 
 was the first sunbeam that fell upon the dark, 
 fallows of his nature, and quickened them into 
 flowers and verdure. From this moment he 
 was a new being, and his poetical tendencies 
 
76 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 .began to develope themselves. In the yard of 
 the foundry, surrounded by blast furnaces, and 
 half-naked smiths hammering at innumerable 
 anvils, he contrived a little garden of mugwort 
 and wormwood, and placed a pan of water in 
 the midst of it, where he could see the reflection 
 of the sun and clouds, and of the plants them- 
 selves, as from the surface of a natural fountain. 
 And this anecdote, trifling as it may seem, con- 
 tains the microcosm of the Poet's genius ; for 
 Nature has no new methods, but repeats, and 
 re-repeats herself in every one of her processes ; 
 and the macrocosm is but the microcosm, on a 
 large and complete scale. Combined, however, 
 with this love for the beautiful Elliott had 
 also a strange taste for the horrible a passion 
 a rage, for seeing the faces of the hanged or 
 the drowned. These frightful visages made his 
 life a burden followed him wherever he went 
 and haunted him in his dreams. He cannot ac- 
 count for this morbid love which he had for the 
 dark and obscene imagery of death ; and asks 
 whether it was a result of constitutional infirmity ? 
 and whether it had any connection with his taste 
 for writing of horrors and crimes ? I think there 
 can be no doubt of the answer to either of these 
 questions, and I can trace the effects of this 
 morbid taste in his poems. During childhood 
 he had no associates ; and although the neigh- 
 bourhood swarmed with children, he was alone. 
 Hence his mind fell back upon itself, and by 
 
OF EBENE2ER ELLIOTT. 77 
 
 dwelling too much upon its own reflections, and 
 constantly brooding over the mixed imagery of 
 beauty and horror which possessed it, he grew 
 unhealthy and diseased. Still his solitude was 
 not painful ; and he occasionally occupied him- 
 self in constructing boats and ships. He 
 remarks, however, that his imitative talents 
 secured him no respect ; and he was altogether 
 unaware that he possessed others of a higher 
 and nobler order, which were one day to awako 
 the admiration, and secure the applause, of the 
 world. Nature however, knew what she was 
 about in impelling him to these ingenious de- 
 vices of boats and ships ; for now he must go 
 down to the water's side and launch them ; and 
 there, in the midst of sunshine, flowers, and 
 darnels, she taught him many preparatory poetic 
 lessons. 
 
 He speaks with unconscious complaint of his 
 "wondrous brother Giles" who was beautiful as 
 an angel ; and compared with whom he (the 
 Poet) was ugliness itself. c< In the presence of 
 his splendid abilities," he says, " I might well 
 look like a fool, and believe myself one. As I 
 - grew up, my fondness for solitude increased ; 
 for I could not but observe the homage that was 
 paid to him, and feel the contempt with which 
 I was regarded ; although I am not aware that 
 I ever envied or at all disliked him." 
 
 The following passage from his autobiography 
 is interesting, a,$ showing the impression which 
 
78 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 the " barbarous deeds done in the name of the 
 law" made upon his mind, even in boyhood : 
 " When I look back," he says, u on the days of 
 rabid Toryism through which I have passed, 
 and consider the then almost universal tendency 
 to worship the powers that were, and their 
 worst mistakes, I feel astonished that a nerve- 
 shaken man, whose affrighted imagination in 
 boyhood and youth slept with dead men's faces, 
 a man, whose first sensation on standing up 
 to address a public meeting is that of his knees 
 giving way under him, should have been able 
 to retain his political integrity, without ab- 
 juring one article of his fearless father's creed. 
 But even in those days, I find I was a free- 
 trader though I knew it not. So barbarous 
 were some of the deeds done in that time in the 
 name of the law, and so painful was the im- 
 pression which they made on me when I was 
 about sixteen years old, that I should certainly 
 have emigrated to the United States had T 
 possessed sufficient funds for that purpose ; nor 
 should I, I fear, have been very scrupulous as 
 to the means of obtaining them, so fully had 
 the idea of emigration obtained possession of me, 
 so passionately had my mind embraced it, and 
 so poetically had I associated with it Crusoe 
 notions of self-dependence and isolation. It is 
 not improper to blush for uncommitted offences. 
 Even now, after forty-five years have been 
 added to my previous existence, I shudder if I 
 
OP EBENEER ELLIOTT. 79 
 
 chance to meet an experience-monger who tells 
 me ' that the end justifies the means :' a false 
 doctrine and fatal faith, which have wrought 
 the fall of many an all- shunned brother, and of 
 ill-starred sisters numberless, once unstained as 
 the angels. Oh, think of this, ye tempted 
 and ye tempters, even if ye be magistrates ! but 
 let no man believe that good effected by evil 
 can be aught but evil done, and an apology for 
 more ! I must return from these digressions." 
 
 His ninth year was an era in his life, he says; 
 for his father having cast a great pan, weighing 
 several tons, for an uncle who lived in Thurle- 
 stone, the young embryo Poet resolved to travel 
 thither, with it ; and accordingly, at sunset, he 
 stole unperceived, and hid himself inside the pan 
 amongst the hay. As the night advanced, he 
 looked forth from his hiding place, and gazed 
 long, with new, strange, and excited feelings, 
 upon the great blue vault of heaven, with its 
 solemn and lonely stars. " I have not forgotten," 
 he writes, "how much I was excited by the 
 solemnity of the night, and its shooting stars, 
 until I arrived at Thurlestone, about four o'clock 
 in the morning." His uncle, who was of course 
 surprised to see him, made the best of his visit, 
 and sent him to school at Pennistone, where he 
 learnt nothing. His heart, too, was with his 
 mother ; and he spent his evenings in looking 
 from the back of his uncle's house to Hoyland 
 Swaine; for he had discovered that Masboro* 
 
80 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 lay beyond that village ; " and ever when the 
 sun went down, I felt," he says, " as if some 
 great wrong had been done me." 
 
 When he returned from this "land of the 
 great Pan," as he calls it ; he was sent to Hollis 
 School in Sheffield ; but made no proficiency in 
 his studies. All his sums were done for him by 
 the other boys, and his father regarded him as 
 a confirmed dunce. He confesses that he could 
 never learn any thing at school that he got 
 into the Rule of Three, without having any 
 knowledge of numeration ; and stuck in Deci- 
 mals, like Christian in his bog of Despond. 
 Still he was looked up to, by the other boys at 
 school, and his brother Giles, when in danger, 
 always took Elliott out to defend him. His 
 father, as a last resource, finding that he had 
 made nothing out at Hollis' Hospital, sent him 
 to Dal ton School, two miles from Masboro, 
 where he hoped to have him more under his 
 own eye. " I see/* says Elliott, u at this mo- 
 ment, as vividly as if fifty years had not since 
 passed over me, the kingfisher shooting along 
 the Don, as I passed Schoolward through the 
 Aldwark Meadows, eating my dinner four 
 hours before dinner time." And so Nature was 
 revenged upon the schoolmaster ; for she taught 
 the boy her great mystic alphabet and deep 
 symbol writing, before he could either read a 
 book, or write a line. She took her own way 
 likewise in doing it ; eschewing the methods of 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. SI 
 
 the pedant. Elliott made no proficiency at this 
 new school although his master was a kind 
 and good man " a sort of sad-looking, half- 
 starved, angel without wings," he says ; " and I 
 have stood for hours beside his desk, with the 
 tears running down my face, utterly unable to 
 set down one correct figure." His ignorance, 
 and apparent want of common capacity, dis- 
 gusted him with school duties, and during the 
 summer months, he was almost always absent 
 playing truant amongst the woods of Dalton, 
 Deign, Silverwood, and Thryberg Park. On 
 one of these occasions he stole duck eggs, mis- 
 taking them for the eggs of wild birds, and was 
 brought before the Lady of the Manor for his 
 delinquency, who dismissed him, when she saw 
 what a live goose he was. 
 
 These truantings were soon discovered by the 
 poet's father, who resolved at last to make him 
 work in the foundry. " The result of this ex- 
 periment," says Elliott, " vexed the experi- 
 menter ; for it was soon found that I could play 
 my part at the York Keelman, with the best of 
 its customers." He was never fond of the ale- 
 house, however, and his thoughts were always 
 wandering to the canal banks, which were 
 covered all over with the golden " ladies' -bed- 
 straw" and to his little ships. In other respects 
 the trial at the Foundry proved successful, for 
 Elliott found he was not less clever than other 
 beginners, and the work he had to do, was done. 
 
82 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 He mentions that about this time, he had strong 
 religious impressions, and attended the ministra- 
 tions of an excentric Domine Sampson, with 
 regularity and profit. But Nature at this 
 juncture played him another trick, and dissi- 
 pated his religious moods, with her fine nick- 
 nackery of flowers. Happening to call one 
 Sunday at his aunt Robinson's a widow with 
 three children and 30 a-year, out of which she 
 gave her two sons an education, which made 
 them both gentlemen he became acquainted 
 with " Sowerby's English Botany." " Never 
 shall I forget," he says, " the impression made 
 upon me by the beautiful plates. I actually 
 touched the figure of the primrose, half con- 
 vinced that the mealiness on the leaves was 
 real." The good aunt seeing the delight he 
 took in these pictures, showed him how to draw 
 the figures, by holding them to the light with a 
 thin piece of paper before them. Finding he 
 could draw them correctly, lie was lifted at once, 
 he says, above the inmates of tlie ale-house, at 
 least a foot in mental stature. And here we 
 may see the reason why, in his aesthetic poems, 
 he exhorts the working classes to cultivate 
 a "Home of Taste" His aunt then showed 
 him a book of Dry Plants^ which, with the 
 Botanical work, belonged to her son Benjamin. 
 And these cheap and simple exhibitions gave 
 an impulse to Elliott's mind which never aban- 
 doned him, until it had completed its work, 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT^ 83 
 
 and conducted him to the Elysian fields of poe- 
 try. He soon after began to study Botany on 
 his own account not, however, in a consecutive 
 and scientific manner for to the day of his 
 death he never relished Botany as a Science ; 
 the classifications of which seemed to him to be, 
 like preparations for sending flowers to prison. 
 The minister, who had begun to entertain hopes 
 of Elliott's conversion, made frequent inquiries 
 at the paternal home, why Ebenezer did not 
 come to chapel as usual ; and the Poet says that 
 he passed his Sundays in gathering flowers, that 
 he might make pictures of them ; totally uncon- 
 scious that he was learning the art of poetry in 
 his woodland wanderings. Nay, he then hated 
 poetry ; especially that of Pope, which always 
 gave him the headache. His floral and herbal 
 gatherings soon made him a noted person in his 
 neighbourhood, and people stopped him with his 
 plants to enquire what diseases he was going to 
 cure. Even his wonderous brother Giles, con- 
 descended to admire his Hortus Siccus ; and he 
 had been so long a stranger to the voice of 
 praise, that it sounded sweetly in his ears, and 
 he welcomed it when it came with joy and 
 triumph. About this time, his brother read to 
 him the first book of Thompson's Seasons, and 
 when he came to the description of the Polyan- 
 thus and Auricula " I waited," says Elliott, 
 " impatiently until he laid down the book ; I 
 then took it into the garden, where I compared 
 
84 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 the description with the living flowers. Here 
 was a new idea ! Botany in verse I a pro- 
 phesy/' he continues, " that the days of scrib- 
 bling were at hand." The account which he 
 gives of his first essay in verse is interesting 
 enough. It was an imitation in rhyme of 
 Thompson's blank verse thunder-storm. " I 
 knew perfectly well,'* he writes, u that sheep 
 could not take flight after being killed but the 
 rhyme seemed to be of opinion that they should 
 be so described ; and as it doggedly abided by 
 this perversity, there was nothing for it but to 
 describe my flock, scudding away, after the 
 lightning had slain them." His cousin Benja- 
 min criticised the poem mercilessly, and Elliott 
 never forgave him. This cousin it seems was a 
 scholar ; and the Poet was never so happy as 
 when listening to his recitations of Homer's 
 Greek of which, although he did not understand 
 a word yet after the lapse of nearly half a cen- 
 tury, its music had not departed from his soul. 
 He regarded his brother Giles as a prodigy, and 
 became at last painfully alive to his own defi- 
 ciences. Giles' accomplishments stung him into 
 self-instruction ; and the misery of his mind at 
 this crisis, may be gathered from the fact that 
 he lost his round, healthy proportions ; and fell 
 into the disease of all students viz : that of 
 leanness, and pale-faced anxiety. He bought a 
 grammar, and studied it laboriously but could 
 never retain a single rule in his memory. Then 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 85 
 
 he took to the key, and read it through and 
 through, a hundred times. " I found at last," 
 he says, " that by reflection, and by supplying 
 elisions, &c., I could detect and correct gram- 
 matical errors. At this moment, I do not know 
 a single rule in grammar, although I flatter my- 
 self I can write English as well as Samuel 
 Johnson could ; and detect errors in a greater 
 author Samuel Bailey." His attempt at learn- 
 ing the French language, was equally unsuc- 
 cessful and his teacher, who seems to have 
 been an incompetent person, got in this instance, 
 all the blame. 
 
 An accident assisted him much at this period 
 by placing a number of books at his disposal ; 
 and as Elliott confesses that his writings owe 
 something to the list which he furnishes in the 
 text of his Autobiography, section 5th, I shall 
 be pardoned for naming them. They are " Bar- 
 row's Sermons," " Ray's Wisdom of God," 
 " Derham's Physico Theology," " Young's Night 
 Thoughts," u Hervey's Meditations, 5 ' "Here- 
 pin's Travels ;" and three vols. of the " Royal 
 Magazine," embellished with engravings. u I 
 was never weary," he says, " of Barrow, and 
 Young taught me to condense." Shenstone was 
 afterwards a favourite with him ; and he thinks 
 that he is now undervalued. The following 
 passage contains a good word to all students. 
 " I never could read a feeble book through ; 
 and it follows that I read master-pieces only 
 
86 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 the best thoughts of the highest minds : after 
 Milton, Shakspere ; then Ossian ; then Junius 
 with my father's Jacobinism for a commentary. 
 Paine's Common Sense ; Swift's Tale of a Tub ; 
 Joan of Arc ; Schiller's Robbers ; Burger's Leo- 
 nora ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall ; and long 
 afterwards Tasso, Dante, De Stael ; Schlegel, 
 Hazlitt, and the Westminster Review." A 
 strange medley ; but valuable as revealing some- 
 thing of the sources of Elliott's peculiarities of 
 writing and thinking. 
 
 He complains that his memory sometimes 
 fails him altogether ; and yet he almost knew 
 the Bible by heart, at twelve years of age ; and 
 could repeat, at sixteen, icitJwut missing a word, 
 the 1st, 2nd, and 6th books of Paradise Lost. 
 
 He is conscious to a considerable extent of 
 his own powers, although he does not do full 
 justice to his good angel, and speaks dispara- 
 gingly of his acknowledged merits and genius. 
 " Time,'' he says, " has developed in me, not 
 genius^ but powers which exist in all men, and 
 lie dormant in most. I cannot, like Byron and 
 Montgomery, pour poetry from my heart, as 
 from an unfailing fountain ; and of my ina- 
 bility to identify myself like Shakespere and 
 Scott with the character of other men, my 
 abortive c Kerhoneh' and ' Taurepdes,' and si- 
 milar rejected failures, are melancholy instances. 
 My thoughts are all exterior ; my mind is the 
 mind of ray eyes. A primrose is to me a prim- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 87 
 
 rose, and nothing more. I love it because it is 
 nothing more. There is not in my writings, 
 one good idea that has not been suggested to me 
 by some real occurrence, or by some object 
 actually before my eyes, or by some remembered 
 object or occurrence, or by the thoughts of 
 other men heard or read." At the close of his 
 Autobiography he says : u Newspaper-taught 
 as I am, and having no ideas of my own, I can 
 only seize those of others as they occur ; ear- 
 nestly applying them to current occasions. If I 
 have been mistaken in my objects, I am sorry 
 for it ; but I have never advocated any cause, 
 without first trying to know the principle on 
 which it was based. On looking back on my 
 public conduct, thanks to the science which poor 
 Cobbett, ever floundering, but great and brave, 
 called in scorn ' Poleetical Economy/ I find I 
 have had little to unlearn. And when I shall 
 go to my account, and the Great Questioner, 
 whose judgments err not, shall say to me ' What 
 didst thou with the lent talent ?' I can truly 
 answer, ' Lord, it is here ; and with it, all that 
 I could add to it, doing my best to make little, 
 much.' " 
 
 Such, in a condensed form, is the account 
 which Elliott gives of his early years. I am 
 warned, however, by his son Francis, not to 
 place implicit reliance upon the statements it 
 contains. " I doubt not," he says, " that it is 
 as correct as my father could make it ; but he 
 
88 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 was the unfittest man in the world to write or 
 speak of himself. His estimate of his merits 
 was far below the true one; and he was neither 
 the dunce and simpleton at school, nor the 
 lesser light, paled by the brilliant brother Giles, 
 which he described, and believed himself. Giles 
 was a first-rate business man; but he was 
 nothing more; and my father was that, and 
 something more. I am not surprised, however, 
 that his more solid and sterling qualities, were 
 but a poor foil to the mortal thrusts, which in 
 the eyes of his father's household, Giles* bril- 
 liance dealt him. All of them homaged and 
 flattered Giles, and my father hid his despised 
 head in the brightness of his brother's glory. I 
 have always thpught that the disparagement" 
 which he received from all about him, had 
 much influence in producing that melancholy 
 and love of gloom, which, through the rest 
 of his life, so strongly characterized his mind. 
 At school he fared no better than at home ; 
 and unless he was consoled by his almost 
 constant truantings in the woods and fields, 
 his youth must have been one of unre- 
 lieved repining and despondency. I am in- 
 clined to think, however, that the ambitious lad 
 was happier in so making himself a poet, than 
 he would have been in outshining his school- 
 fellows, in studies distasteful to him." 
 
 This statement is further confirmed by Mr. 
 John Fowler, and Mr. Paul Rodgers of Sheffield, 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 89 
 
 who were both friends of the poet. The latter 
 says : " Mr. Elliott, in the account of himself, 
 recently published in the Athenaeum, talks about 
 his own remarkable dullness, when a boy. I 
 do not think he is right ; in fact, he was no 
 judge at all in the matter. It was rather that 
 his brother's taste and his differed, than that 
 Ebenezer was essentially inferior in any way. I 
 have no doubt he shewed as much genius among 
 the modellers and mechanists in the manufac- 
 tory, as the other did in the shop or the count- 
 ing-house. Mr. Mark Gregory, then a youth 
 about his own age, and long a workman of 
 Elliott's father's a man whom Ebenezer always 
 highly esteemed says he never knew that his 
 young master was dull at any thing, but always 
 regarded him, as very much the contrary." 
 
 Mr. Rodgers likewise gives the following de- 
 scription of the " wonderous brother Giles," 
 who later on in life fell, I regret to add, into 
 intemperate habits, and blighted his own pros- 
 pects, and the hopes which his family had enter- 
 tained of him : " He was rather a handsome- 
 faced youth ; but lame, went with a limp, and 
 wore a high-heeled shoe. He had very quick 
 parts ; and was Ebenezer's acknowledged fa- 
 vourite." 
 
 From his sixteenth to his twenty- third year 
 Elliott worked for his father as laboriously as 
 any servant he had and without wages, except 
 a shilling or two for pocket-money. 
 
90 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 His first trial at business, which proved so 
 melancholy in its results, is thus spoken of by 
 his son, from whose letter, I have previously 
 quoted : "The fortune he received with my 
 mother, w r as invested in a business already 
 bankrupt beyond redemption ; and my father 
 went in as a partner with the old firm, consist- 
 ing of many partners, amongst whom was my 
 grandfather. Here he passed several years, in 
 hopeless efforts, and hopeless hopes and yearn- 
 ings, to retrieve the desperate affair. He lost 
 the last penny he had, in it ; and found an asy- 
 lum under the roof of my mother's maiden 
 sisters, with whom he spent many months, in a 
 state of wretchedness, which was relieved, how- 
 ever, by the tenderest solicitude for his happi- 
 ness, on the part of his friends. He endeavoured 
 to beat down despair by writing poems, and 
 painting landscapes in oil, from views in the 
 neighbourhood. But his state of mind will be 
 readily conceived when it is remembered that 
 he was an honest man, a proud man, and pos- 
 sessed of all the sensitiveness which charac- 
 terizes the poet." 
 
 In 1821, when he was forty years of age, he 
 was enabled, chiefly by the affectionate generosity 
 of his wife's sisters, to make another venture in 
 business. He began with a capital of ,150, 
 and managed at last to accumulate a fortune ; 
 making 20 a day sometimes, without stirring 
 from his counting-house, or ever seeing the 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 9 1 
 
 goods he disposed of, which exchanged hands as 
 they were landed at the wharf. His warehouse 
 is described as a small, dingy place, piled all 
 round with bars of iron, having a bust of Shak- 
 spere in the centre of it ; and his counting- 
 house contained casts of Achilles, Ajax, and 
 Napoleon. The following anecdote, (the circum- 
 stances of which occurred in this warehouse) 
 illustrative of his attachment to his poorer guests, 
 and of his impatience at insolent behaviour, has 
 been forwarded to me from Sheffield. "All 
 readers of Elliott," the writer commences, " will 
 be prepared to learn that a man of such strong 
 passions did not always conduct himself with 
 perfect smoothness, under circumstances of real 
 provocation. No one ever saw him guilty of 
 anything like a deliberate, or even thoughtless 
 insult ; but in reply to insolence he was always 
 indignant. A friend of mine, in humble life, 
 happening to call at his warehouse in Gibraltar 
 Street, found himself in company there, with a 
 third party, a semi- clerical gentleman. Whether 
 this gentleman had a previous pique against my 
 friend, or whether something arose during the 
 conversation which caused a misunderstanding 
 between them, I cannot tell ; but from some 
 cause or other, the said gentleman deliberately 
 insulted him. Whereupon, losing all control 
 over himself, Elliott started up, and shouting 
 c Away with you ! Do my friends come here to 
 be insulted by you ?' seized a broom-stick which 
 
J>2 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 was within reach, and dealt his blows on tho 
 offender without mercy, Dot ceasing until he 
 had pursued him into the middle of the street." 
 This is certainly the most striking anecdote which 
 .1 have been able to gather from the Poet's his- 
 tory ; and like that of the old woman who flung 
 the stool at the head of the bishop in the 
 Scotch Kirk in Charles the First's time, it 
 sticks very fast to the memory. 
 
 Up to the time of Elliott's second trial of busi- 
 ness, in 182 1, he had written, says his son, "no- 
 thing of importance ; nothing which gave pro- 
 phesy of Ebenezer Elliott. But shortly after 
 this event, works of greater pretension to poetic 
 power appeared ; and the world had an oppor- 
 tunity and used it of disregarding some of 
 the finest poetry he ever penned, and which it 
 now lauds as such, under other titles, in the 
 poems of 6 Love/ and ' Night/ Of the c Gia- 
 our/ and 'Scotch Nationality/* poems of 
 about the same period, I am not able to speak 
 so highly. The one contained first-rate satire, 
 which is never even the worst poetry ; and the 
 other an attempt at humour, which was of 
 course a failure for humour was a faculty 
 which he did not possess." 
 
 Many of his poems were written at the request 
 of his friends; and the following deeply interest- 
 ing letter explains the origin of " The Sinless 
 
 * Vide Appendix, 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 03 
 
 Cain" which celebrates the life tragedy of 
 genius. 
 
 "Upperthorpe, Wtk Oct. 1835. 
 "Young Lady, 
 
 " Your father requested me to write you a 
 poem, and I did so, and called it ' The Sinless 
 Cain/ But you are come into a world filled 
 with dangers ; and instead of sending you the 
 poem, I think it better, on the whole, to refer 
 you to it, when it shall appear in some one or 
 other of the Magazines. You will remember 
 that you are the occasion of its having been 
 written. It describes a wretched being who 
 has wandered over the earth, playing various 
 parts, almost all of them sad ones, during more 
 than six thousand years. If in after days you 
 chance to meet with him, do not believe that 
 the rags which may clothe him, are the garment 
 of God's indignation. Should he ask you for a 
 pittance, borrow a penny for him, if you have 
 not one. Should he silently implore your pity 
 only, turn not away ; for he has a heart that 
 will thank you for a tear, with its last throb. 
 But should he solicit your love, tell him that 
 you once heard of a maiden, who, dreaming that 
 she saw and heard a celestial spirit (that had 
 eyes bright as passion, and a voice like that of 
 the woods in spring), loved it with excessive 
 love, but embracing it, found it a corpse ! sweet, 
 indeed, and sadly beautiful, with tears in its 
 F 2 
 
94 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 eyelids, like a white rose gathered in the dew 
 but still a corpse ! Which, had it never known 
 the touch of mortal passion, might have con- 
 tinued to walk even on the earth, a spirit of 
 light and joy. There is a meaning in all this, 
 which, if you cannot understand, come and learn 
 it, from 
 
 "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." 
 " To Miss Rodgers." 
 
 I have already related how the Poet became 
 acquainted with Southey, and was cheered on hy 
 him ; and how, likewise, he was suddenly raised 
 into fame by the publication of the Corn Law 
 Rhymes. It will be interesting to get a per- 
 sonal glimpse of him at this period of his life ; 
 and I will, therefore, quote from Mr. Stanton, 
 an American writer, who visited him about this 
 time, and presents us with the following picture, 
 both of the Poet and his home. " I inquired," 
 says he. " of a young man, dressed in a frock 
 besmeared with iron and coal, for the head of 
 the establishment. i My father/ said he, 'is 
 just gone: you'll find him at his house yonder.' 
 I repaired thither. The Corn Law Rhymer 
 stood on the threshold, in his stocking feet, hold- 
 ing a pair of coarse shoes in his hand. His 
 frank c Walk in ' assured me I was welcome. 
 I had just left the residence of Montgomery. 
 The transition could hardly have been greater . 
 from James Montgomery to Ebenezer Elliott. 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 95 
 
 The former was polished in his manner?, exqui- 
 sitely neat in his personal appearance, and his 
 bland conversation never rose above a calm level, 
 except once, when he spoke with an indignation 
 which years had not abated, of his repeated im- 
 prisonment in York Castle, for the publication 
 first in verse and then in prose of liberal and 
 humane sentiments, which offended the govern- 
 ment. And now I was confronted with a burly 
 ironmonger, rapid in speech, glowing with en- 
 thusiasm, putting and answering a dozen ques- 
 tions in a breath ; eulogising American repub- 
 licanism, and denouncing British aristocracy ; 
 throwing sarcasms at the Duke of Wellington, 
 and anointing General Jackson with the oil of 
 flattery ; pouring out a flood of racy talk about 
 church establishments, poetry, politics, the price 
 of iron, and the price of corn ; while ever and 
 anon he thrust his clamp feet in the embers, and 
 hung his shoes on the grate to dry." As his 
 prosperity increased, he built a handsome house 
 in the suburbs of Sheffield, where he could look 
 down upon the smoky chimnies of the town, full 
 of prophetic thoughts like Teufelsdrock in the 
 " Sartor Resartus." A path at the back of the 
 house led to the hills, and the vale of the Rive- 
 lin, about which he loved to sing. Here he 
 entertained all comers right hospitably, attract- 
 ing around him troops of friends, who listened 
 to his songs and speech as to an oracle. 
 * During the whole of his residence in Sheffield, 
 
96 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 and indeed throughout life, he identified himself 
 with its interests, took part in all the public 
 concerns of the town, was an active memher of 
 the Committee of the Mechanics' Institution, 
 and delivered the course of lectures there, " On 
 Poets and Poetry/' some of which were pub- 
 lished in Tait's Magazine, and are admirable 
 literary performances. He once read to me the 
 lecture cc On Burns," which is a prose poem, 
 full of beauty and wise discrimination ; and I 
 hope to see this and the entire course included 
 in his writings. 
 
 Mr. Robert Leader, junr., in an article which 
 appeared in the Sheffield and Rotherham Inde- 
 pendent, December 8th, 1849, gives the follow- 
 ing summary of Elliott's political career : 
 
 " In politics, the great object of Mr. Elliott 
 was the abolition of the food monopoly. Some 
 were ready to say that he was a monomaniac on 
 this subject. But he saw that this question lay 
 at the root of all others in regard to politics 
 and national prosperity ; that a nation confined 
 to a limited supply of food could never be per- 
 manently happy and prosperous ; and that a 
 commercial system based on restriction could 
 not be sound. The great cause of Mr. Elliott's 
 rejoicing in the triumph of Reform was the 
 conviction that it must speedily ensure the re- 
 peal of the Corn Laws. He soon after formed 
 a local society for promoting this object. But 
 the restoration of transitory prosperity diverted 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 97 
 
 the public mind from the subject, and the Anti- 
 Corn Law agitation failed. Mr. Elliott con- 
 tinued to raise his warning voice, but it was not 
 until 1838 that people could be induced again 
 to move. Then commenced the agitation of the 
 Anti-Corn Law League, and also that for the 
 Charter. Mr. Elliott had been so much dis- 
 heartened by the previous apathy shewn towards 
 his great subject, that he seemed to lack faith in 
 the sincerity and power of the movement in 
 Manchester. The cotton lords had so long been 
 apathetic that he could not all at once give 
 them credit for having honestly and heartily 
 taken up the cause. He seems to have had 
 more hope in the movement for the Charter, 
 which commenced about the same time, and iu 
 which at first some iiiiliiential Birmingham Re- 
 formers took part. In September, 1838, Mr. 
 Elliott attended a conference in London, and in 
 the same month he presided at a meeting in Ros- 
 coe Felds, when the Charter was first publicly 
 brought forward in Sheffield. But when, in the 
 succeeding January, the Chartists put themselves 
 in opposition at an Anti-Corn Law meeting, Mr. 
 Elliott was found supporting the effort which 
 they opposed. He did not completely separata 
 himself from them, however, till further proof 
 had been given of the desperate nature of the 
 counsels which prevailed among them. When 
 Peter Foden was arrested for sedition, in August, 
 1839, Mr. Elliott, who seems not to have 
 
98 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 watched Foden's course, ga\e bail for him, at 
 the same time reprobating the men who coun- 
 selled violence. His want of caution was pun- 
 ished, as might fairly have been expected, by 
 the absconding of Foden, and Mr. Elliott's re- 
 cognizance was estreated. The more complete 
 demonstration of the principles then dominant 
 among the Chartists, which the events of the 
 winter of 1839-40 afforded, seems to have satis- 
 fied Mr. Elliott completely that the Chartist 
 cause was in wrong hands. He continued to 
 aid by his writings the Anti-Corn Law move- 
 ment, but he felt that with him the time for active 
 personal effort was passed. He retired from 
 business, and from active interference in politics, 
 and left Sheffield in 1841, to spend his last years 
 at Great Houghton, near Barnsley, where he 
 built a house upon a small estate of his own. 
 Many persons have wondered that he took so 
 little part in the operations of the Anti-Corn 
 Law League. We believe the primary cause to 
 have been a conviction that his work was done, 
 and this was not unmingled with a doubt 
 whether it was yet possible to save the country 
 from the anarchy into which he foresaw that 
 the continuance of monopoly must inevitably 
 plunge it. Becoming interested, too, in rural 
 engagements, being separated from the friends 
 with whom he had been used to converse on 
 public affairs, and left behindhand, as it were, 
 in the current news of the day, he lacked the 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 99 
 
 stimulus to play his accustomed part. During 
 great part of his residence at Great Hough ton, 
 he wrote and published little. To various invi- 
 tations to take part in public aftairs, he pleaded 
 the old man's excuse, and gradually withdrew 
 himself/' 
 
 The following letter upon the Corn Laws 
 addressed to Mr. Rodgers, of Sheffield, and dated 
 Houghton Common, May 7th, 1842, is almost 
 a prophesy; and shows the political sagacity 
 and foresight of the Poet : 
 
 " Eat each other, said we ? Yes ! but bare 
 bones are poor picking. I have still the remains 
 of a forlorn hope in the Tories. Peel, I have 
 long thought, understands our position, and will 
 do his best to prevent the coming catastrophe ; 
 but he wants moral courage. Wellington does 
 not understand our position ; when he does, if 
 ever, he will act boldly on his convictions per- 
 haps too late. 
 
 " But the c fifty pound tenant-at- will-clause 
 Whigs ; the ballot-refusing Whigs ; the re- 
 form-defecting Whigs ; the monopoly-defend- 
 ing Whigs ; the Bank Charter- renewing 
 Whigs; the Coercion-bill Whigs; the twenty 
 million-slave-holder-rewarding Whigs ; the 
 half-faced, double-faced Whigs, who could once 
 havesaved the State, and would not can do no 
 good, if willing. Their time is past. 
 
 4i EBENEZER ELLIOTT." 
 
100 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 The active part which he took at political 
 meetings in Sheffield and elsewhere, and the 
 fierce poems and epigrams which he scattered 
 over the land, made him flany enemies ; and to 
 such an extent did the virulence of party feeling 
 prevail against him, that when in 1839 he 
 sought admission to the " Sheffield Literary 
 and Philosophical Society" the gentlemen mem- 
 bers blackballed him ! Elliott, who was fear- 
 ful lest this transaction, so disgraceful to the 
 parties concerned in it, should damage in its 
 results the Mechanics Institution, of which 
 lie was a member, wrote the following letter to 
 Messrs. Paul Rodgers and John Fowler, mem- 
 bers of the Committee, offering to withdraw 
 himself from all active part in its counsels and 
 proceedings. He was the more readily induced 
 to this course, because certain weak-minded 
 persons had already taken offence at his remarks 
 upon a lute occasion, whilst introducing the 
 Reverend B. Stannus, to the audience, prepara- 
 tory to the delivery, by that gentleman, of a 
 Lecture " On Burns." The letter runs thus : 
 
 ''Sheffield, llth March, 1839. 
 " To Messrs. Paul Hodgers and John Fowler. 
 
 " In my old age, I have got the heart-ache. 
 The few words with which I introduced Mr. 
 Stannus, I am told offended influential friends, 
 or foes, of the Institution. Certainly, when I said 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 101 
 
 lie would show that <c tow Ladders have souls/' 
 I forgot that not one in fifty of my hearers knew 
 that poor Burns had been a tow hackler. You 
 at least will not suspect me of trying to injure 
 the Institution. Besides, you know, if tow 
 h adders have souls, cutters and grinders have ! 
 This may be a scandal ; but the conclusion 
 seems inevitable. You are aware how unwil- 
 ling I am to come forward on any public occa- 
 sion, and that 1 never do 30,; but from a wish 
 to be useful. All the misfortuaes of the Insti- 
 tution, it is said, are owing to two or three infi- 
 dels, of whom I am the worst Is tortures mo 
 to hear it said that no institution can stand-, if! I 
 am known to support it. They err, however, 
 who think that I am an irreligious man. I 
 know more of the book than some persons who 
 live by it. Having studied the evidence on 
 both sides of the question, I am a Christian 
 from conviction ; and because I cannot help it. 
 But would it not be better, not to elect me to 
 any office in the Institution? I could then 
 mingle with the audience, and should not offend 
 by my seeming presumption. There would then 
 be no drawback on my efforts to serve the In- 
 stitution ; and no loss could be sustained as I 
 am useless on committees, and worse than use- 
 less in the chair. 
 
 " Might I suggest to Mr. Fowler, that in 
 moving a vote of thanks to Mr. Stannus, it 
 would be well to say something to the following 
 
102 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 purport. In Mr. Stannus's first lecture, he told 
 us that we have to thank John Knox, for the 
 schools and the educational systems of Scotland. 
 How much then does the world owe to John 
 Knox. He sowed the fire- seeds which, grow- 
 ing into a flame, enabled the English Puritans, 
 not long afterwards, to kindle another flame, 
 that seems destined to enlighten the whole earth. 
 But for him, and the schools of Scotland, 
 perhaps, there wouM not have been in the world, 
 at this day, a shadow or a dream of public lib- 
 erty. The mention cf a fact so honorable to 
 John .Knox,' caanected as it is, with a similar 
 fact in the history of Burns, who established 
 the first Scotch book-club, shows what a mighty 
 educational engine public lecturing may become; 
 and so long as one person can be found to give 
 lectures, splendid as those which have been 
 heard from the reverend gentleman, I for one, 
 will not despair of the Sheffield Mechanics' In- 
 stitution. It stands yet ; and if the edifice of 
 society is to stand, such institutions must not 
 fall. If this country is to escape ruin, it will 
 not be by monopolizing ignorance. 
 
 * * x -::- * 
 
 Now don't suppose that I should not have 
 written this letter if the philosophers had not 
 blackballed me. I should not care a straw for 
 a hogshead full of their black balls, unless they 
 were black peas, and I had permission to feed a 
 pig with them." 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 103 
 
 Elliott was at this time the highest subscriber 
 to the funds of the Institution ; and he mani- 
 fested his attachment to the cause of Popular 
 Education, by his own labours therein, and by 
 the counsel which he gave to others respecting 
 it. Altogether, he was not only a good poet, 
 but a good citizen, and a true Patriot. From 
 the beginning to the end of his life, there was 
 was not a blot or flaw upon his character. His 
 attention to his business was almost proverbial; 
 and although many of his poems were written 
 in his counting-house, he never allowed his ge- 
 nius to interfere with his bread. .He was deeply 
 loved by the higher class of artizans in Sheffield, 
 who read and appreciated his poems ; whilst the 
 middle classes, as a whole, never understood 
 him, and can scarcely be said, even now, to be 
 acquainted with his works. The lower orders 
 of the town knew him only as a politician, and 
 public speaker ; and it frequently happened, 
 whilst upon the platform, or hustings, that he 
 was carried away by the force of his own 
 thoughts into a complete forgetfulness of the 
 conventional uses of language. On more than 
 one occasion he has shocked the propriety of his 
 hearers, and of the town at large, by the utter- 
 ance of forbidden words, whilst speaking upon 
 the ultimate consequences of the Corn Laws, of 
 which he was at the time totally unconscious. 
 He was so absorbed in his subject that he forgot 
 to dress it in decent costume ; and from these 
 
104 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 and similar causes sprang the prejudice which 
 ordinary people conceived against him. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was a brave, high-minded, 
 and noble person ; one of the few men who come 
 to us across the centuries, and restore our faith 
 in man and manful action. His whole life was 
 a poem an epic that closed with the demolition 
 of the Corn Laws. 
 
 His prosperity at Sheffield was interrupted 
 by the panic of 1837 ; and the subsequent com- 
 mercial revulsion, caused by the operation of the 
 Corn Laws, against which he was still fight- 
 ing swept away a great part of his earnings. 
 " J lost fully one-third of my savings," he says; 
 cc and after enabling my six boys to quit the 
 nest, got out of the fracas with about <6000, 
 which I will try to keep." He now left his 
 villa near Sheffield, and retired to Hargate Hill, 
 near Great Houghton, where he built a good 
 substantial house, suitable to his family and re- 
 sources. In an interesting letter, which he 
 wrote to Mr. Tait of Edinburgh, after he was 
 quietly domiciled in his new abode, he relates 
 all the particulars of the purchase, and gives an 
 account of the fortunes and prospects of his 
 children, which I will here extract : 
 
 " My eldest son, Ebenezer, whom you saw at 
 Sheffield, is a clergyman of the establishment, 
 being at Lothedale, near Skipton, on a salary of 
 about 140 per annum, and a house, better far 
 than mine, rent free. lie has married a lady of 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 105 
 
 great merit, who has a fortune of a hundred a 
 year, made safe to herself, and which is in 
 Chancery. Perhaps a more simple-mannered, 
 unassuming man never lived. He is no poet, 
 and yet there is a touch of the poetic in all he 
 does or suffers. If he opens his snuff-box to a 
 stranger, he spills the snuff of course ; and he 
 gets on best when he stumbles. His mother 
 thinks he has some resemblance to me. 
 
 <; My son Benjamin, unwarned by his father's 
 losses, is carrying on a steel trade at Sheffield in 
 my old premises, where (as he thinks, poor fel- 
 low ! for he is a greater hoper) he has some 
 prospect ; in any other country he would already 
 have made an independency. He endures pri- 
 vations such as no man of his pretensions ought 
 to endure anywhere, and such as no man will 
 here endure if free trade be obtained before all 
 is lost. He is a fine young man, upwards of 
 six feet high, of superior abilities, and the highest 
 moral worth but, alas I not uniadebted to his 
 grandmother ! 
 
 " My sons Henry and Francis (as I wish them 
 to do) are living as bachelors on the interest of 
 money earned and saved by themselves, and in- 
 creased by gifts from me. Henry is tall, hand- 
 some, and mechanical ; he ought to have been 
 apprenticed to engineering. Francis is tall and 
 good-looking, but he has the misfortune to be 
 a born poet ; for my mother has transmitted to 
 him, through me, her nervous constitution and 
 
106 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 body- consuming sensibilities. Is poetic genius, 
 then, a disease ? My seventh son, Edwin, is a 
 clergyman of the established church, for which 
 he may be almost said to have educated himself, 
 and into which he has won his way by his own 
 efforts. Less assisted by me than any of my 
 other sons, he is now a rector in the West In- 
 dies, where he has, I am told, a better income 
 than I have been able to secure after all my toils. 
 He is a Lytton-Bulwer-looking person, not un- 
 like a well-grown young clergy-justice, with 
 forehead enough for three. At school he was 
 remarkable for laughing hostility into kindness 
 a favourite wherever he went. We always 
 called him the gentleman of the family. Having 
 observed, when quite a youth, that fine folks 
 ride, he broke open his thrift- box, and with the 
 contents (after drawing tears and kisses from his 
 mother) bought an ass of a Tory's son (all his 
 associates were Tories), who sold it because it 
 was starving. Edwin knew that he had nothing 
 for it to eat ; but the ass, accustomed to hope in 
 despair, had expectations. It commenced busi- 
 ness at my place in Burgus Street, by thrusting 
 its lean neck through the kitchen window and 
 eating a pound of butter. The servant lass, 
 suspecting it to be a thief, kicked it into the 
 street. From the street it got into the fields, 
 and thence into the pin-fold. To prevent the 
 lad's heart from breaking, I paid 7s. 6d. for 
 trespass, and released the famished creature. 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 107 
 
 What then was to be done ? Mark the differ- 
 ence between the Tories and the toried ! At 
 last, after vast efforts in stock-feeding, I made a 
 present of it to a small manufacturing free-holder 
 who always voted blue. He fattened it by night 
 in his neighbour's field, and then sold it to him 
 for two guineas. 
 
 " My poor son John, the weakling kind- 
 hearted, intelligent, five feet four inches high, 
 and almost blind is druggisting at Sheffield, in 
 a sort of chimney called a shop, for which he 
 pays 4:0 a year. He is engaged, almost with- 
 out a moment's pause, from seven in the morn- 
 ing until ten at night, in dealing out halfpenny- 
 worths of drugs; yet I, who have been accustomed 
 to sell goods by tons, think that he is as likely 
 to thrive as most of his neighbours, and believe 
 that there are thousands of persons in Sheffield 
 who would gladly change places with him. 
 But what can our constitution be worth, if it 
 should turn out at last that my sons Henry and 
 Francis, living poorly on the interest of their 
 earnings, are wiser in their generation than the 
 trade- troubled ? The worst I wish the Dukes 
 of Richmond and Buckingham is, that they may 
 be forced, in my time, to earn their living as my 
 sons Benjamin and John earn theirs. Old as I 
 am, I would engage to hop a mile without 
 changing leg, or die rather than not, to see them 
 at it ; for to their unholy legislation, I impute it, 
 that of my six sons, the only two who could 
 
 
108 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 afford to marry may be said to be maintained 
 by 'the labour of others. 
 
 " Of my thirteen children, five are gone 
 "William, Thomas, Charles, and the iw r o un- 
 christened ones. They left behind them no 
 memorial, and the old inscription has departed 
 from the grave of Charles. But they are safe in 
 the bosom of Mercy, and not yet quite forgotten 
 even here." 
 
 We have now before us the leading features 
 in the external life of the Poet. As a boy he 
 was dull, idJe, and .incapabJe of learning the 
 simplest rudiments of education. Ui> to his 
 thirteenth year he does not manifest a single fa- 
 culty from which his future greatness might be 
 augured. His affection for his mother is the 
 only redeeming quality which he seems to have 
 possessed. For although, he says, he cannot 
 remember when he was not fond of ruralities, 
 one can scarcely call his endless truantings a 
 manifestation of his love for Nature. It was 
 vagabondism, induced by shame, not unmixed 
 with sorrow, at his own wilful ignorance. Still 
 the forms of Nature impressed themselves upon 
 his soul in these wild, woodland ramblings, and 
 remained there in dumb pictury, until lie was 
 able to reproduce them in song. I notice like- 
 wise, that he never forgets a single vision of 
 Nature ; and that all her phenomena and beau- 
 tiful creatures, range themselves round his mind 
 as if he was the sole centre of the universe. 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 109 
 
 The kingfisher flying over the waters of 
 is rememhered through the darkness of fifty 
 years ; and the lonely and solemn night, with 
 its flaming stars and meteors, is the unforgotten 
 canopy of his Hejira into the land of the great 
 Pan. The nightingales in Bassingthorpe Wood ; 
 the snake which waited for him on the sunny 
 Sabbath mornings at the top of Primrose Lane, 
 are all related to him, and flow towards him by 
 the law of polarity. They are waiting to be 
 sung ; although he is unconscious of that deep 
 underlying faculty which they are gradually and 
 silently awakening within him. The botanical 
 book and the specimens of dry plants, which he 
 saw at his aunt's, gave the first quickening im- 
 pulse to his mind and genius. Up to this time 
 He had been a frequent visitor at the York Keel- 
 man ; was drunk even, a few days before this 
 memorable visit to his aunt's cottage ; but now, 
 when he found he had talents, could admire 
 and, by tnechanical process, draw the flowers in 
 the botanical book ; he was lifted three feet all 
 at once'above his alehouse companions ; and for 
 the first time in his life the good demon opened 
 the windows of his soul, and gave him a glimpse 
 of the wonders and beauties of the universe. Then 
 followed the impressions made upon him on 
 hearing his brother Giles read that first book of 
 Thomson's Seasons his comparison of the po- 
 etical description of the flowers with the flowers 
 themselves ; and the new idea which burst upon 
 a 
 
110 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 him of "Botany in Verse!" Afterwards, we 
 find him rambling for a purpose ; mysteriously 
 collecting plants for the cure of diseases, the 
 people thought and thought truly ; although 
 the diseases were not such as they imagined. 
 Then Homer's Greek turns all his thoughts 
 into melody ; and at last he attempts his 
 rhymed thunderstorm, where the sheep are 
 represented running away after they were 
 killed hy lightning, because the rhyme icould 
 have it so ; and thus, by slow and imper- 
 ceptible degrees, was the mind of the Poet 
 developed ; and thus he sought to break 
 the chains of his spirit, and uplift the awful 
 veil of Nature. He served, however, a long 
 apprenticeship to his art before he produced any 
 thing worthy of a place in the Pantheon of 
 literature. Twenty years elapsed between the 
 publication of the Vernal Walk, and that of the 
 Corn Law Rhymes ; and although these are by 
 no means his best performances, yet they won 
 for him a name, which led to an appreciation by 
 the public of those higher books which 'he had 
 written in the interim alluded to. From the 
 first his muse was wedded to politics and to 
 social wrong. These, indeed, were the mate- 
 rials from which his inspiration was drawn ; 
 and he found in them the region of his work and 
 power. Hence he never loses sight of his mis- 
 sion but with the jealous eye, and vehement 
 soul of a Prophet and Reformer, labours with- 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. Ill 
 
 out ceasing for its accomplishment. He is of all 
 other men, the Man of his Age. Such scars are 
 upon the face of this old warrior such light- 
 nings in his eyes such thunder and terror upon 
 his brow yet withal such pity and womanly 
 tenderness such musical pathos in his heart 
 and all so strangely an'd inextricably woven 
 in his nature and radiating his person, that were 
 I to meet him a thousand years hence, in the 
 most out-of-the-way corner of Heaven, I should 
 recognize him in spite of his celestial raiment, 
 and rejoice with him that life was at last swal- 
 lowed up in victory. 
 
 I must not omit, before proceeding to the final 
 division of my subject, to quote in this place, 
 a short and characteristic note, written to the 
 Editor of the " Sheffield Independent/' by James 
 Montgomery, the sole remaining poet now, in 
 the town of fire and steel, upon the subject of 
 this paper : 
 
 " I do not remember having ever been, 
 for an hour in Mr. Elliott's company. Our 
 occasional meetings were few, and short, and 
 far between, though he was known and ad- 
 mired by me as a Poet, before the world would 
 either know or honour him as such. He pub- 
 lished several small volumes, at intervals, the 
 manuscripts of which (mostly) he had confi- 
 dentially submitted to me ; and they had my 
 best encouragement, on the ground of their 
 merit ; but not one of these could command 
 
112 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 public attention, till he broke out in 'The Corn 
 Law Rhymes/ as Waller said of Denham, 'like 
 the Irish Rebellion, forty thousand strong, when 
 nobody thought of such a thing* Then, indeed, 
 he compelled both astonishment and commenda- 
 tion from all manner of critics : Whig, Tory, and 
 Hadical reviewers vying with each other who 
 should magnanimously extol the talents which 
 they had either not discovered, or had super- 
 cilliously overlooked, till, for their own credit, 
 they could no longer hold their peace, or affect 
 to despise what they had not had heart to ac- 
 knowledge, when their countenance would have 
 done service to the struggling author. A few 
 of his master -pieces did find their way into the 
 , Iris, but I believe these were all republished by 
 himself in his successive miscarrying volumes. I, 
 however, am quite willing to hazard any critical 
 credit by avowing my persuasion, that in ori- 
 ginalty, power, and even beauty, when he chose 
 to be beautiful, he might have measured heads 
 beside Byron in tremendous energy, Crabbe in 
 graphic description, and Coleridge in effusions of 
 domestic tenderness; while in intense sympathy 
 with the poor, in whatever he deemed their 
 wrongs or their sufferings, he excelled them all, 
 and perhaps -everybody else among contempo- 
 raries, in prose or verse. He was, in a trans- 
 cendental sense, the Poet of the Poor^ whom, if 
 not always c wisely^ \ at least dare not say, he 
 loved ' too well' His personal character, his 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 113 
 
 fortunes, and his genius, would require, and 
 they deserve, a full investigation, as furnishing 
 an extraordinary study of human nature/' 
 
 The allusions made by Montgomery, in the 
 above letter, to Elliott's " Effusions of Domestic 
 Tenderness," and to his " intense" sympathy 
 with the people, cannot be better illustrated 
 than by the following poems. 
 
 THE DYING BOY TO THE SLOE BLOSSOM. 
 
 " BBFORE thy leaves thou com'st once more, 
 
 White blossom of the sloe ! 
 Thy leaves will come as heretofore ; 
 But this poor heart, it's troubles o'er, 
 Will then lie low. 
 
 A month at least before thy time 
 
 Thou com'st, pale flower, to me ; 
 For well thou know'st the frosty rime 
 Will blast me, ere my vernal prime, 
 
 No more to be. 
 
 Why here in winter ? No storm lowers 
 
 O'er Nature's silent shroud ! 
 But blithe larks meet the sunny showers, 
 High o'er the doomed untimely flowers 
 
 In beauty bowed. 
 
 Sweet violets, in the budding grove, 
 
 Peep where the glad waves run ; 
 The wren below, the thrush above, 
 Of bright to-morrow's joys and love 
 
 Sing to the sun. 
 
 And where the rose-leaf, ever bold, 
 
 Hears bees chant hymns to God, 
 The breeze-bowed palm, mossed o'er with gold, 
 Smiles on the well, in summer cold, 
 
 And daisied sod. 
 32 
 
114 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 Butthou, pale blossom, thou art come, 
 
 And flowers in winter blow, 
 To tell me that the worm makes room 
 For me, her brother, in the tomb, 
 
 And thinks me slow. 
 
 For as the rainbow of the dawn 
 
 Foretells an eve of tears, 
 A sunbeam on the saddened lawn, 
 I smile, and weep to be withdrawn 
 
 In early years. 
 
 Thy leaves will come; but songful spring 
 
 Will see no leaf of mine ; 
 Her bells will ring, her brideVmaids sing, 
 When my young leaves are withering 
 
 Where no suns shine. 
 
 might I breathe morn's dewy breath, 
 When June's sweet Sabbaths chime ! 
 
 But, thine before my time, O death ! 
 
 1 go where no flower blossometh, 
 
 Before my time. 
 
 Even as the blushes of the morn 
 
 Vanish, and long ere noon, 
 The dew drop dieth on the thorn, 
 So fair I bloomed ; and was I born 
 
 To die as soon ? 
 
 To love my mother and to die 
 
 To perish in my bloom j 
 Is this my sad brief history ? 
 A tear dropped from a mother's eye 
 
 Into the tomb. 
 
 He lived and loved will sorrow say- 
 By early sorrow tried ; 
 
 He smiled, he sighed, he past away j 
 
 His life was but an April day- 
 He loved and died ! 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 115 
 
 My mother smiles, then turns away, 
 
 But turns away to weep : 
 They whisper round me, what they say 
 1 need not hear, for in the clay 
 
 I soon must sleep. 
 
 Oh, love is sorrow ! sad it is 
 To be both tried and true ; 
 
 I ever trembled in my bliss; 
 
 N ow there are farewells in a kiss- 
 They sigh adieu. 
 
 But woodbines flaunt when blue-bells fade, 
 
 Where Don reflects the skies ; 
 And many a youth in Shire-cliff's shade 
 Will ramble where my boyhood piayed. 
 
 Though Alfred dies. 
 
 Then panting woods the breeze will feel, 
 
 And bowers, as heretofore, 
 Beneath their Ipad of roses reel ; 
 But I through woodbined lanes shall steal 
 
 No more, no more. 
 
 Well, lay me by my brother's side, 
 
 Where late we stood and wept ; 
 For I was stricken when he died 
 I felt the arrow as he sighed 
 
 His last, and slept." 
 
 The above poem needs no comment; and the 
 following, entitled "The People's Anthem," 
 will show what Montgomery means by Elliott's 
 love for the people. 
 
 " When wilt thou save the people ? 
 Oh, God of Mercy ! when ? 
 Not kings and lords, but nations I 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ! 
 
116 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 Flowers of thy heart, oh, God, are they, 
 Let them not pass like weeds away ! 
 Their heritage a sunless day ! 
 
 God save the people ! 
 
 Shall crime bring crime for ever, 
 Strength aiding still the strong * 
 Is it thy will, oh Father, 
 That man shall toil for wrong ? 
 No !' say thy mountains ; No !' thy skiet ; 
 ' Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise 
 And songs be heard instead of sighs/ 
 God save the people 1 
 
 When wilt thou save the people ? 
 Oh, God of Mercy ! when ? 
 The people, Lord ! the people ! 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ! 
 God save the people ! thine they are> 
 Thy children, as thy angels fair : 
 Save them from bondage, and despair 8 
 God I save the people.* 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 117 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Reminiscences of the Poet in his retirement at Margate Hill. 
 
 IT only now remains for me to speak of the 
 Poet in his retirement at Hargate Hill, and 
 present a picture of his private life. And as I 
 design to give personal reminiscences of him, 
 I hope I shall not incur 'the charge of egotism, 
 if, in the execution of my purpose, I shall find it 
 necessary to take a more prominent part than 
 I could otherwise wish or consent to. At all 
 events egotism is very far from my intention. 
 I have thought the matter well over, however, 
 and do not see how I could better render justice 
 to my subject, than by adopting the plan I have 
 chosen ; and with this explanation will address 
 myself forthwith to the work before me. 
 
 Hargate Hill is about eight miles from 
 Barnsley, and three from Darfield Station, on 
 the North Midland Railway. " I chose this 
 place/' says the Poet, " for its beauty, which, 
 as is usual in affairs of the heart, is invisible to 
 all but the enamoured. Rising early one morn- 
 
118 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 ing, I took a beautiful walk of eighteen miles, 
 through parks, wild lanes, and footpaths ; 
 reached the place ; liked it ; and returning the 
 same day, resolved to buy it. Supposing the 
 cottage, which stood upon it, to be worth 60, 
 I gave 180 for the land, say 18 per acre. 
 It was a wild land, having been a wood, and 
 fox cover ; called on the maps Argilt Hill, or 
 wood. I have laid out upon it, land and all, 
 about a thousand guineas. My establish- 
 ment," he continues, " is illustrious for a St. 
 Bernard dog, and a Welsh pony, ' the observed 
 of all observers/ which in its green old age of 
 twenty years, draws a small gig ; both untaxed. 
 Gig, harness, and mare, cost altogether 8 10s. 
 My family here consists of Mrs. Elliott, my two 
 daughters, or rather one daughter, for they 
 keep house for one of my sons in Sheffield in 
 turn, a servant maid, and a man who works 
 for me occasionally. Rid the Corn Laws, and I 
 shall not be without dim visions of a flunkey." 
 
 It is a lovely walk from Darfield Station up 
 to the Poet's house, and the surrounding country 
 is of an undulating, quiet, and pastoral cha- 
 racter. The road runs through thick hedges, 
 and tall trees ; with wide, green pastures on 
 either side of it, where sheep and oxen graze in 
 undisturbed tranquillity. I have many beauti- 
 ful recollections of this old green road, with its 
 musical birds and flowers ; its cool brooks, and 
 shadowy outline of trees, falling in sunny mo- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 119 
 
 sales upon the pathway. I remember too, the 
 wild roses and honeysuckles which grew upon 
 the hedges ; especially the latter, whose " clus- 
 tered trumpets," as Elliott calls them, seemed 
 to be blowing anthems of incense upon the 
 morning air, to the praise of the Great Creator. 
 For it always happened in my summer visits to 
 Elliott that the days were fine and sunny ; so 
 that I look back upon them as Sabbaths conse- 
 crated to the genius of friendship and poetry. 
 
 After walking about two miles through this 
 fine country, you come to Great Houghton, a 
 long and straggling village, chiefly remarkable 
 for an old, delapidated hall, from which Went- 
 worth, Lord Strafford, married his third wife, 
 and where he lived for some time afterwards. 
 It is a fine, old ruin ; and I remember with 
 what interest I regarded it, on my first visit in 
 that direction, to the Poet. It was very early 
 one summer's morning, and long before I arrived 
 at the village, I saw the grey, massy building 
 looming through the sunny mists ; and presently 
 beheld its grotesque gables, and projecting win- 
 dows. There was such an antique look about 
 the place, that I could have imagined myself, for 
 the moment, drawn suddenly back into the 
 Middle ages. A nearer approach, however, 
 dissipated the illusion ; for it w r as soon evident 
 that the old glory had departed from its walls, 
 and with it the ancient spirit of its chivalrous 
 owners. At the end of the field enclosing it 
 
120 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 on the west, which it was evident enough, from 
 the scattered elms and chesnut trees, had once 
 been a park, hung a wooden gate upon two 
 stone pillars formerly a chief entrance to the 
 mansion. A stone wall ran from this gate to 
 the mansion itself ; and upon an inspection of 
 the front, I found it was converted into an inn, 
 where provender was furnished to man and 
 beast for money. I opened the great door and 
 entered the house ; for Elliott had frequently 
 desired me to inspect the old mansion, and 
 named it with pride, as the most interesting, 
 historic ruin, in his neighbourhood. A large 
 fire was blazing up the huge chimney, and the 
 landlady was washing her chubby-faced children 
 in an earthen pancheon, before it. A servant 
 girl brought me a cup of milk, and asked if I 
 would not like a drop of rum in it. The land-- 
 lord, who was dressed in a velveteen shooting 
 jacket, and corduroy breeches, was quietly de- 
 vouring his hot toast and tea ; whilst a braw 
 fellow, who had brought a team of horses from 
 Sheffield, was regaling himself on the oak settle, 
 with a pint of beer. I enquired how the house 
 came to be in such a delapidated condition, and 
 the landlord told me that the steward of the 
 property had frequently promised to patch upf 
 the old rooms, and make them habitable for him 
 and his family but always forgot to keep his 
 word. The roof was quite rotten, he said, from 
 neglect; and ho could not afford to repair it 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT- 121 
 
 himself, out of the profits of the little farm he 
 rented. And to this complexion, thought I, 
 has the pride of Went worth come at last! The 
 lofty rooms, and tracery on the oaken beams 
 and wainscots, seemed to mock the vulgarity and 
 poverty of their present occupiers ; and I could 
 not help thinking that so fine a building with 
 its rich historic memories might have been de- 
 devoted to a better purpose than that of an ale- 
 house. Having obtained permission, I wandered 
 over the hall, up massy stone stair-cases; in to large 
 rooms lighted by magnificent windows; along 
 twilight galleries, where old family pictures, 
 instinct with life, were wont to stare from the 
 walls upon observing visitors, in the dim times 
 that are gone. Here were dark antechambers ; 
 the floors all rotten and breaking into dust be- 
 neath the foot; and there were others well 
 lighted, and looking out upon a fair and beauti- 
 ful country, over which the sun shone as 
 brightly as in Strafford's proudest and happiest 
 days. But Strafford himself, and his third wife, 
 and all their retainers, where were they ? The 
 eastern part of the building is a mere ruin. The 
 walls are dismantled; and have fallen in in 
 some places ; leaving nothing to be seen but 
 broken staircases and mouldering stones; where 
 the ivy clings, and the bat and the owl inhabit. 
 Elliott, in speaking of this old hall to a friend, 
 who reports his last visit to him in an interest- 
 ing paper which appeared in a late number of 
 
122 LIFB, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 " Eliza Cook's Journal," says : " After Went- 
 worth's time it became the property of Sir Wil- 
 liam Rhodes, a stout Presbyterian and Parlia- 
 mentarian. When the Civil War broke out, 
 Rhodes took the field with his tenantry, on the 
 side of the Parliament, and the first encounter 
 between the two parties is said to have taken 
 place only a few miles to the north of Old 
 Houghton. While Rhodes was at Tadcaster, 
 with Sir Thomas Fairfax, Captain Grey, (an 
 ancestor of the present Earl Grey) at the head 
 of a body of about three hundred Royalist 
 Horse, attacked the old hall, and there being 
 only some thirty servants left to defend it, took 
 the place and set fire to it, destroying all that 
 would burn. But Cromwell rode down the 
 Cavaliers with his ploughmen at Marston Moor, 
 not very far from here either, and then Rhodes 
 built the little Chapel that you will see still 
 standing at the west end of the hall, and estab- 
 lished a Godly Presbyterian Divine to minister 
 there ; forming a road from thence to Drimeld, 
 about three miles off, to enable the inhabitants 
 of that place to reach it by a short and conve- 
 nient route. I forget how it happened (con- 
 tinued the poet,) I believe it was by marriage, 
 but so it was that the estate fell into the 
 possession in these latter days, of Monckton 
 Milnes, the poet's father, to whom it belongs." 
 
 Resting myself awhile, after I had explored 
 the dusty chambers and ruins of the hall, I re- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 123 
 
 sumed my walk through Great Houghton vil- 
 lage, about half a mile from which, at the top of 
 a hill, stands the poet's house. And as I 
 ascended from the valley, I heard afar off the 
 well-known bark of the great St. Bernard's 
 dog already alluded to, as one of the notable 
 appendages to Elliott's establishment. The red 
 marly road led me under beautiful shady trees, 
 up to Barnsdale Moor, which spread out with 
 its blossoming gorse bushes, like a sea of golden 
 emeralds. On the right hand, there was a farm- 
 house, with great stacks piled up on one side of 
 it, and a little cluster of trees in the back 
 ground ; and on the left, fenced in from the 
 Moor by a good and substantial stone-wall, 
 stood Elliott's villa. Here I turned off upon 
 the gravel road leading to the large blue gates, 
 and entered the Poet's grounds, where I was 
 saluted by the great shaggy dog, whose bark I 
 had heard below. He came at me with a 
 bound, wagging his huge tail; and jumping 
 with his paws upon my shoulder, thrust his 
 friendly snout into my face. I entered the gar- 
 den, and soon stood within the porch of the 
 <loor. It was about nine o'clock, and I re- 
 mained awhile to listen ; for I heard the sound 
 of musical voices within, accompanied by the 
 piano-forte. It was soon evident that the whole 
 family were engaged in singing those beautiful 
 matins : and I heard the Poet's voice mingling 
 its plaintive wailings with the general harmony. 
 
124 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 I walked into the hall, took off my hat and 
 coat, and suddenly presented myself in the 
 sitting room. There was a general exclamation 
 of surprise, joy, and welcome. The Poet ad- 
 vanced first to shake me by the hand, flinging 
 his spectacles over his shaggy brows, whilst his 
 blue eyes were lighted up, as with the sunshine 
 of all the worlds. Tt was something to feel the 
 warm grip of that manly hand, and to hear the 
 kind, hearty, and hospitable words that accom- 
 panied it. Nor was it less pleasant to be 
 greeted by the good wife and fair daughter, who 
 constituted at that time the little household at 
 Hargate. I shall never forget that morning. The 
 warm sunshine streamed into the room, from 
 the open casement, as we sat at breakfast, and 
 the sweet roses looked through the window 
 panes, smiling upon the happy group within. 
 An open canary cage stood upon a table, under 
 the window, and the pretty yellow war bier sang 
 its richest song all breakfast time, flying across 
 the room at intervals, and settling with loving 
 wings upon the head of the venerable Poet. 
 Then we had a pleasant conversation upon the 
 beautiful country that lay around us ; with its 
 dark woods, vallies, dells, and moorlands ; and 
 the Poet related to me all the local traditions 
 and histories, which he had gathered from the 
 " Deanery of Doncaster" and other sources. He 
 spoke of two great oaks about a mile from his 
 house, where the Wapontake assembled in 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 125 
 
 ancient times ; and where, in the hollow of one 
 of them, Nevison, the celebrated highwayman, 
 used to secret himself when in danger. He 
 likewise related the history of Nevison, who was 
 born at Wortley, in Charles the Second's time, 
 and knew the site of the public-house, where 
 he was at last captured : " A heart-breaking 
 story, I have no doubt," said Elliott, in speak- 
 ing of it ; " for the daughter of the innkeeper 
 was Nevison's sweetheart.'' The site of this 
 house is at Kingstone Hill, otherwise celebrated 
 as the place where Sir Godfrey Rhodes assem- 
 bled the first troop in the parliamentary war. 
 He spoke likewise of South Kirby a little 
 village about two- and-a-half miles off as in- 
 teresting to him from the fact that there the 
 Rev. George Beaumont lived as Yicar who 
 was tried and executed, Feb. 18th, 1648, for 
 holding correspondence with Colonel Morris, 
 who had surprised Pontefract Castle for the 
 King. Pope's mother was born also in his 
 neighbourhood, he said ; viz., at Marrow Thorn; 
 although it was nearer Barnsley than Hargate. 
 Her maiden name was Edith Turner ; and the 
 registry of her birth is dated the 18th of June, 
 1649. These historical facts were deeply 
 interesting to him, and he loved to relate 
 them to his friends and visitors. I shall 
 not soon forget the indignation with which 
 he spoke of one Thomas Gargrave, who, at 
 the age of thirty-four, was hanged, for burning 
 
12f> LrFB, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 a poor servant boy of his in an oven, at Great 
 Ploughton. 
 
 When breakfast was over, the Poet related to 
 me many incidents in his early life, and spoke 
 of his ramblings around Sheffield, as the most 
 beautiful of all his memories. The hill above 
 the old Park Wood, where the scene of the 
 Ranter's last sermon is placed, was a favourite 
 haunt of his ; and he heard the sound of the 
 many voiced rivers the Don, the Loxley, Ew- 
 den, Rivelin, Sheaf, and Porter like the songs 
 of innumerable Syrens, singing to him for ever, and 
 cheering him in his Hargate solitude. His love 
 for these beautiful streams had grown into a 
 passion, which was increased by his long absence 
 from them ; and whilst alluding to them on the 
 morning in question, he repeated the following 
 u Farewell to Rivelin " which he had written 
 previous to his leaving Sheffield : 
 
 <' Beautiful River ! Goldenly shining 
 Where, with the cistus, Woodbines are twining, 
 (Birklands around thee, Mountains above thee,) 
 Rivelin wildest I Do I not love thee ? 
 
 Why do I lovo thee, Heart-breaking River ? 
 Love thee, and leave thee ? Leave thee for ever I 
 Never to see thee, Where the storms greet thee ! 
 Never to hear thee, Rushing to meet me ! 
 
 Never to hail thee, Joyfully chiming 
 Beauty in music, Sister of Wyming! 
 Playfully mingling Laughter and sadness, 
 Ribbledin's sister ! Sad in thy gladness. 
 
OP EBBNEZER ELLIOTT. 127 
 
 Oh, when thy poet, Weary reposes, 
 Coffin'd in slander, Far from thy rose, 
 Tell slave and tyrant (Heart-breaking River I) 
 Tell them I loved thee, Love theefor ever !"* 
 
 He was, however, well satisfied with his present 
 position. " People," he said, " laughed at me 
 for buying this little estate, and thought I should 
 soon die of ennui, so far removed as I am from 
 friends, companions, and the conveniences of 
 civilization. But they were all mistaken. I 
 am happy with my family and books ; and 
 spend my time in laying out my garden, plant- 
 ing trees, walking, driving, reading, writing. I 
 envy no man, nor have I any right to do so. 
 This is not an unlovely neighbourhood, (he 
 added) for a poet in his old age, as I will prove 
 to you before I return. And in the meanwhile, 
 look out of the window, and tell me what you 
 think of the view from it/* I did so, and found 
 that the Poet had made artificial openings in the 
 trees which bounded the croft beyond the gar^ 
 den, through which the best pictures of the 
 landscape were visible. Here were the Hall 
 and Village of Great Houghton, and the dim 
 landscape beyond it ; and a little to the right, 
 far off, through another opening of foliage, lay 
 the manufacturing villages of Swinton and 
 Warth ; arid nearer in the valley, the beautiful 
 church of Darfield looked over the quiet scenery 
 towards the Poet's house, backed by the woods 
 
 * See Appendix, 
 
128 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 of Wentworth ; through which the monuments of 
 Hoober Stand, Needles' Eye, and Smoothing 
 Iron, shot gleaming in the sunshine; whilst a line 
 of dark hills bounded the horizon. " Confessnow," 
 said the Poet, " that I have not made a foolish 
 choice, in coming up here to live." Shortly 
 afterwards, at my request, he read to me some 
 of his unpublished poems. These were written 
 in a large folio book, which he kept in a wooden 
 box, on one side the piano. He repeated like- 
 wise, several melodies which he had adapted to 
 some of our national airs, and I afterwards had 
 the pleasure of joining his daughter in singing 
 them. In this way we beguiled several hours ; 
 and then took a short ramble over the moor, and 
 through the fields and woods ; conversing by 
 the way, of the aspects and tendencies of the 
 age, and of the truly great men now living 
 amongst us. In the political sphere, Cobden 
 was his idol. He called him the Hero of the 
 Bloodless Revolution ; the golden-mouthed ora- 
 tor, whose plainest words rang with music ; and 
 whose eloquence, at once simple, powerful, earn- 
 est, argumentative, and convincing, was the 
 most wonderful which ancient or modern times 
 could boast of. " I look to Cobden," he said, 
 " as the leader of the Advance Body Guard of 
 Man ! Great as the Corn Law Battle was, and 
 incalculably great as it will be in its results, 
 Cobden will yet effect another revolution as 
 great as that. He will destroy monopoly in all 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 129 
 
 its forms; and by reducing our taxation, he will 
 rid the country of its titled paupers, and enahle 
 the working man not only to eat cheap bread, 
 but to possess a comfortable home to educate 
 his children to live as a man !" He named 
 Bright, too, as a fiery and energetic speaker and 
 actor : but intellectually considered, as a Melanc- 
 thon leaning upon the bosom of Luther. Of 
 Lord John Russel and the Whigs he had no 
 hope ; and spoke of them in contemptuous, and 
 not very polite language. But he respected Sir 
 Robert Peel, and regretted that he had u retired 
 from business.'' I have previously shown, in an 
 extract from one of his letters, that he had all 
 but prophesied, ten years before the event took 
 place, that Sir Robert would repeal the Corn 
 Laws, as soon as he understood the true com- 
 mercial position of England ; " and now," he 
 said, u we want Sir Robert to execute his own 
 measures ; for we have not got Free Trade yet, 
 and when we do get it, we shall have hard work 
 to keep it." Speaking of Colonel Thompson 
 the brave Reformer and accomplished Scholar, 
 he called him the Prince of Politicians ; and 
 said that every letter of the Corn Law Cate- 
 chism ought to be printed in gold, and read once 
 a day on Sundays, from every pulpit in the 
 land. For this book was Elliott's gospel ; and 
 I am not quite sure that he did not go to heaven 
 with it in his hand. He will read it there 
 to Bentham, as he advised Tennyson when 
 
 H2 
 
130 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 he died, to read Longfellows' " Evangeline " to 
 Homer. 
 
 I ventured to allude to the neglect with which 
 he had been treated by his own party, as a sort 
 of probe which I thought might reach him ; 
 but lie had no bitterness in his heart against 
 his quondam associates, and fellow workers. 
 " I am no longer wanted," he said ; " I have 
 done my work, and can die, when God calls me; 
 thankful that the battle is over, and the good 
 time coming/' We were now in the midst of a 
 wood, wandering knee-deep in blue bells, whilst 
 the birds were singing merrily around us. 
 " These," he said, pointing to the flowers, and 
 trees, and birds, "are my companions; from 
 them I derive consolation and hope ; for Nature 
 is all harmony and beauty, and man will one 
 day be like her ; and the war of castes and the 
 war for bread will be no more." And then he 
 stooped down, and gathering a flower, placed 
 it affectionately in my hand, and bade me keep 
 it in remembrance of that day's ramble. "For," 
 he added, with the most touching emphasis of 
 voice, " when these old woods are brown with 
 their autumnal attire, I shall, in all probability, 
 be at rest in the grave." 
 
 The afternoon of that day was spent in walking 
 up and down the grass-plot before the house, 
 where we continued our morning's conversation, 
 interrupted occasionally by the St. Bernard's 
 dog, who seemed to be jealous of my monopoly 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 131 
 
 of the Poet, and came to ask for his wonted 
 caresses. We were sometimes joined likewise 
 by Mrs. Elliott and her daughter, who, when 
 they had heard enough of our politics, retired 
 amongst the flowers, and left us alone in the 
 full glory of debate. It is well known that 
 Elliott was a redoubted champion of competition, 
 and that he looked upon communism as fatal to 
 the best interests of man ; as a system where 
 Do-nothing was to have all, with George Sand 
 for a king. It is related of him, that walking 
 once in company with a leading Socialist of 
 Sheffield, discussing this subject, they came to 
 a sudden turn of the road, which revealed a 
 number of willow trees in a meadow, all re- 
 cently cut into one uniform shape. At this 
 strange and unexpected sight Elliott extended 
 his arms, and cried aloud, " Behold a society of 
 ready made Socialists !" He was apt enough at 
 this work, and never let slip a good opportunity 
 of illustrating his arguments by such casual 
 examples as fell in his way. His hatred of 
 communism however, blinded him, as usual, to 
 the whole merits of the subject, which he had 
 never studied, and which he said was not worth 
 studying. George Sand was his Mother of Har- 
 lots, in the new regime ; and he called Louis 
 Blanc the fit legislator of an infernal Noodledom. 
 He regarded the communistic tendencies of the 
 age as the most death- like sign, which if not 
 arrested would plunge the nation into anarchy, 
 
132 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 confusion, and ruin. No argument drawn from 
 the anomalies of our social state, could convince 
 him that Capital had not a right to rule the 
 world, according to the law of supply and de- 
 mand ; and no horrible Irish famine ; no cri- 
 minal statistics ; no facts of daily starvation ; 
 no revelation of fever cellars of starving needle- 
 women making shirts at 4d. a day, and that 
 they might not die, compelled to the most pitiable, 
 sorrowful degradation (such as one cannot 
 think of without tears and agony) I say none 
 of these things could move Elliott one inch from 
 his political doctrine, or make him doubt for a 
 moment that competition was the great social 
 law of God, destined to rule the w r orld to the 
 end of time. Neither would he admit the 
 validity of the higher argument drawn from the 
 Christian precepts, in favour of co-operation. 
 Free trade, he said, would give us all we wanted 
 of material wealth ; and education would gra- 
 dually introduce a better feeling, and a kinder 
 understanding between masters and men. Not 
 that Elliott was impassible to the sufferings 
 of the classes we have alluded to ; for it is no- 
 torious that he was keenly alive to them. It 
 was as a poet, however, not as a political econo- 
 mist. In the former capacity he would have 
 died to save them ; in the latter, he could have 
 seen the earth filled with graves, rather than 
 have abandoned it to poor Dudevant, a Ashley's 
 Cow," and Louis Blanc. 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 133 
 
 Returning once more to the Corn Law Agita- 
 tion, he said, " You spoke this morning about 
 the neglect which you imagined me to have re- 
 ceived at the hands of the old League ; and you 
 are not perhaps aware that the League itself 
 originated in Sheffield ; and that the Ariti Corn 
 Law Association, commenced the crusade against 
 monopoly, and engaged Paulton as their lec- 
 turer." He likewise claimed for himself the 
 honour of having given the first decided impulse 
 to the movement, and by his songs, epigrams 
 and- satires, prepared the way for the reception 
 of the Anti-Corn Law doctrines. He spoke too 
 with great and pardonable pride, upon his posi- 
 tion with respect to the Corn Law Agitation. 
 u I have won my name as the " Rhymer of the 
 Revolution," he said, " And am prouder of that 
 distinction, than I should be if I were made 
 Poet Laureate of England." He did not seem 
 to be aware that his fame as a poet could not 
 last upon that foundation alone ; or that there 
 was any thing in his poetry of which he might 
 be more justly proud than of these political 
 effusions. He was delighted when his corres- 
 pondents styled him Ebeneezer Elliott, C.L.R. 
 (Corn Law Rhymer), and he had a seal with 
 these initials surmounting his own name, which 
 he was in the habit of using upon his letters. In 
 conversation he was sometimes slow and de- 
 liberate ; condensing his thoughts in as few 
 words as possible, and giving the net result > 
 
134 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 as with a u whip of fire/' without letting one 
 see the " cold process" of his thinking. Hence he 
 was often sudden and startling in his annuncia- 
 tions ; but he was no dogmatist in the rigid 
 meaning of that word and if his premises were 
 disputed would take infinite pains to establish 
 them, conducting afterwards the entire argument 
 with logical accuracy. But when the subject 
 was a sacred one to him, and he grew warm 
 over it, there was no bound to his rhetoric. He 
 would utter the finest things, one after another, 
 with the throat of Etna ; scattering them about 
 in blasts of fire and thunder. He was a sort of 
 walking earthquake, clad in flowers and rain- 
 bows ; one of the most beautiful and terrible of 
 men. 
 
 I need not say that he was a thorough demo- 
 crat in principle, for all his poems bear witness 
 to the fact ; but he had no patience with Moboo- 
 racy ; and despised the demagogues, who made 
 it their business to mislead the people, coolly 
 pocketing the wages of their iniquity. At one 
 period of his life, when William Lovett guided 
 the popular movement for reform, Elliott did all 
 in his power to promote the enfranchisement of 
 the people, both by speaking and writing ; but 
 when O'Connor and the physical force Chartists 
 appeared, he withdrew from the movement, 
 and warned the working men of the inevitable 
 issue of that business. And whilst we w r ere 
 walking this afternoon in the garden at Har- 
 
OP EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. 135 
 
 gate, he fought his old Reform Battles over 
 again ; and told me how he trembled when 
 he had to face a public meeting ; how he pre- 
 pared all his speeches, and committed them to 
 memory, singing them in public, to the same 
 tune wherein he had learned them in private. 
 And when we were tired of talking, he con- 
 ducted me round the house and garden, and 
 over his little farm of corn-fields, grass, and 
 clover. The garden, which was laid out by the 
 poet himself, was very tastefully arranged, 
 having many winding paths in it, running be- 
 tween rich borders of shrubs and flowers. A 
 mound, artificially elevated, on one side of the 
 garden, commanded a beautiful and extensive 
 prospect of hills, woods, dales, and streams. On 
 the west lay a sunny dell, and just beyond it, 
 on the side of the hill, stood a farm-house and 
 buildings whilst several cows were grouped 
 under the branches of a large beech tree in the 
 farm croft. Lady "Wood, West Wood, Spring 
 Wood, and Nun Wood, stretched away at our 
 feet, covering many hundred acres, and forming 
 a fine foreground to the wide and distant 
 scenery, lying between them and the Hudders- 
 field Hills which bounded the horizon. " We 
 can see West Nab, and Home Moss distinctly 
 from this mound," said the poet, " and in damp 
 weather they look as if they would come into 
 my parlour windows/' We proceeded from this 
 mound down the hill side, which the poet had 
 
136 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 planted with trees and shrubs, to the little dell 
 below, where a trout stream w r ent babbling 
 along over its shallow and stony bed. "When 
 we arrived opposite the corn-field, just as they 
 slope down to the lowlands we being still 
 in the dell the Poet led me to a tree, which 
 spread its friendly branches over the beautiful 
 waving grass at our feet. " Under this tree," he 
 said, with a plaintive and serious voice, " I 
 mean to be buried. I shall sleep well enough 
 here, out of the consecrated churchyard ; and who 
 knows but I may feel the daisies growing over 
 my grave, and hear the birds sing to me in my 
 winding-sheet !" He once desired to be buried 
 at Sbirecliffe, tmder the Gospel Tree, which he 
 has celebrated in his poem of the u Hanter ;" 
 and had even driven a large nail in it, and 
 communicated the fact to two beloved friends in 
 Sheffield, that they might know it, and see his 
 wishes enforced, in case of his sudden death. 
 But his sepulture on his own estate at Hargate 
 was a more pleasing and touching desire, full of 
 pastoral simplicity, and patriarchal beauty. 
 That it was his earnest desire to be thus buried, 
 and that he had long contemplated the event, 
 there can be no doubt. Writing to a friend, 
 (Isaac Ironsides of Sheffield) in September, 1848, 
 he says : Ci I suffer great pain, and after losing 
 more than twenty eight pounds in weight, I 
 continue to lose at the rate of one pound weekly. 
 You cannot fatten calves in that way ! If I am 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 137 
 
 not removed suddenly, I shall last till April 
 next." He then continues, " I wish to be bu- 
 ried in my skin, at the foot of Lord Galway's 
 ash tree here. My folks are all for holy ground, 
 and costs ; so I suppose I must submit ; and 
 Hotherham Church being full of corruption, and 
 one of our neighbouring clergymen happening to 
 be here, I have been trying to bargain with him 
 for a grave at Darfield. Could you think it ! 
 Sinking the offal, it will cost 40s. for the use of 
 the ground alone." In this way he grimly 
 played with the subject, but it had a deep hold 
 of him nevertheless ; as the little poem entitled 
 u Let me Rest" in which he desires to be 
 buried in Barnsdale, " where the wayside daisies 
 grow, where the winds a Maying go," will 
 sufficiently testify. Neither did he look on 
 death as trifling and unimportant, but as a 
 serious event, upon which were suspended the 
 awful reprisals of a future judgment and an 
 eternal doom. He confessed, however, that he 
 knew nothing of this great Hereafter, whose 
 starry curtain all mortals are forbidden to un- 
 draw. But he clung with an infinite faith to 
 the idea of immortality, and knew that he must 
 soon unriddle the problem, which it presents to 
 us. 
 
 As we returned to the front of the house, he 
 pointed to the wooded hills in the East, where 
 the seat of Sir Charles Wood (present Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer) was situated ; with Conisbro 
 
138 LIFB, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 Castle and Hickleton Hall, in the distance; all 
 of them visible in clear weather. We then 
 crossed the garden, and went to the back of the 
 house, where we had a fine view of Barnsdale 
 Moor with its gorse and bracken whilst lines 
 of dark trees fenced it on the right, and thick 
 towering woods on the left. Descending the 
 hill side, which was well planted with trees, we 
 again entered the dell ; and the Poet led me to 
 a little fish pond which he had laid down him- 
 self, and stocked with trout from the neigh- 
 bouring streams. It was a cool and beautiful 
 spot, like some quiet nook in the mythic vale of 
 Tempe. The birds sang there all day; and 
 the pond itself was supplied by water which 
 gushed in living streams out of the hill side. 
 Elliott promised himself many happy hours in 
 fishing and musing upon its banks. He had 
 been a fisher in early life, and the statement of 
 this fact, led naturally to Izaak Walton and his 
 beautiful book on Angling, which contains, per- 
 haps, the very best pastoral description in our 
 language. I found that Elliott knew Walton 
 by heart, and loved the fine old commonwealths- 
 man too, notwithstanding his loyalty to the 
 king. All books, indeed, which were true re- 
 flexes of nature, were his delight. Hence the 
 Howitts were his especial favourites ; two of 
 Nature's most beautiful children, whose lives 
 were all sunshine and poetry. He spoke of 
 their mutual wanderings, and visits to remarka- 
 
OP EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. 139 
 
 ble places, as a rare and pleasant feature in the 
 married life of literary people ; and so inseperable 
 were they, he said, in his mind, that he always 
 associated with their names, the old William 
 and Mary Shillings. 
 
 When we returned to the house, we found 
 Mrs. Elliott and her daughter waiting for us at 
 the tea table. The little yellow canary was still 
 singing, perched outside its cage ; and the dis- 
 tant lowland landscape was beginning to darken 
 in the blue twilight of evening, as we gazed upon 
 it through the open casement. The room in 
 which we were assembled was large and conve- 
 nient ; having the true household look about it; 
 with none of the modern finery which marks 
 the sitting rooms of the wealthy. There was 
 the Poet's library against the wall opposite the 
 window, which, with his easy chair, and the 
 wooden box wherin he kept his MSS., are now 
 the most interesting of these household relics. 
 The piano he did not look upon as a luxury, but 
 as a necessary article, which ought to appertain 
 to every home, even the poorest ; and a deal 
 box, instead of a mahogany case, to put the 
 instrument in, would bring it, he said, within 
 reach of the humblest means. Music was a 
 great source of consolation to him, and often 
 charmed him into forgetfulness of his bodily pain. 
 For music has a language of her own ; and 
 speaks to us of things which, as Jean Paul says, 
 " in all our endless life we have not found, and 
 
140 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 shall not find." The best parlour was opposite 
 to the one we were sitting in, and contained 
 portraits of the Poet, his wife, and children. 
 That of Elliott himself, is the best I have yet 
 seen ; although it is far from being a true repre- 
 sentation of the man. It is singular, that all 
 the attempts made by various artists to imprison 
 him upon canvass, have been unsuccessful. 
 William Howitt compliments Margaret Gillies 
 upon the sketch she made of him, which appeared 
 in the " People's Journal," some two years ago ; 
 but it is a most comical failure ; and reminds me 
 of the following criticism which the Poet passed 
 upon four portaits of him in oil, which appeared 
 in the first exhibition on behalf of the Sheffield 
 Mechanics' Institute. "Taking them altogether, 
 I could imagine them to represent four impor- 
 tant scenes in the life of a Tailor : first, the 
 Tailor turned gentleman ; second, the Tailor 
 going a picturesqueing; third, the Tailor seeking 
 cabbage ; fourth, the Tailor selecting his own 
 grave." As I said, however, the portrait pos- 
 sessed by his family is the best I have seen. 
 
 After tea we fell gradually into an earnest 
 conversation upon the literature of the day. I 
 have already spoken of his admiration of Byron, 
 Keats, and other poets, and in alluding to the 
 Life of Keats, by R. Monckton Milries which 
 he thought a fine piece of Biography on the 
 whole, although rather too hasty in its finish 
 he said the death of Keats, as described by hia 
 
OF EBENE2ER ELLIOTT. 141 
 
 friend Spenser, was the most painful and deeply 
 affecting scene upon record. And, indeed, the 
 world is deeply indebted to this true and beau- 
 tiful brother, who, with the love of St. John in 
 his great and devoted heart, watched the poor 
 dying poet day after day week after week, 
 and never left him until the stern work of death 
 was over. " Had Keats lived," said Elliott, 
 "there is nothing which he might not have 
 achieved in the way of poetry." It was re- 
 marked that this poem called " St. Agnes Eve," 
 had no rival in our language as a picture of 
 mediaeval life ; that its feudal and religious 
 architecture was perfect, and that all the char- 
 acters were as truly and faithfully drawn, as 
 those in the Romeo and Juliet of Shakspere, of 
 which indeed, it was a kind of episode. " But 
 the Hyperion, Sir?" said Elliott, " What do 
 you think of that ?" That it is a beautiful ruin, 
 created and deserted by the gods. u Aye," he 
 answered, " And what a ruin !" He then 
 read the following lines upon Keats, which are 
 published in the first volume of his "More Prose 
 and Verse" fyc. 
 
 " He lived, and loved ! He was a power 
 That left its thought more felt than spoken : 
 
 ' A fading flower, a falling shower, 
 
 A breaking wave.' which now is broken. 
 
 
 Can greatness die and be unborn ? 
 
 It cannot, thou in scorn repliest; 
 He perished in his scorn of scorn, 
 
 And lowest deemed, of all was highest. 
 
142 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 A vapour quenched his visions grand, 
 Ah ! hope destroyed is worth's undoing ! 
 
 He left the deathless deed he planned, 
 A deed undone !- And what a Ruin 1" 
 
 "We then spoke of Scott and Tennyson, of Leigh 
 Hunt, Charles Lamb, and Philip Bailey. Scott 
 was his greatest favourite, and he quoted long 
 passages from " Marmion" and the " Lady of the 
 Lake/' " I envy Scott his narrative power in 
 poetry," he said, " more than any other faculty 
 which he possesses. Nothing is more difficult 
 than to tell a tale well in rhyme ; and Scott 
 has succeeded better than any one else. I have 
 begun," he continued " a narrative epic in twelve 
 books, four of which are finished ; and each 
 book is complete in itself. I will read it to you 
 before you go, and you will then' see in my own 
 failure, why I envy Scott." I afterwards heard 
 the poem in question, which is printed in his 
 new volumes ; and I cannot understand why it 
 has dropped silently from the press. For it is 
 a poem of great power and beauty, and contains 
 passages superior to any thing which Elliott 
 had previously written. There is a little in- 
 congruity and indistinctness perhaps in some of 
 the characters, but this is amply atoned for by 
 the general skill of the narrative, and the har- 
 mony of its plan and details. There are one or 
 two blots in it, however, of which ho was duly 
 warned by friendly critics ; and these consist in 
 that love of the horrible, which he says in his Au- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 143 
 
 tobiography, haunted him so in his young days. 
 I allude more particularly to the picture of the 
 drowned woman who fell a victim to Lord 
 Konig's lust which occurs in the sixteenth 
 section of the second book of this poem and 
 which, in spite of the moral and poetical drapery 
 thrown over it by the Poet, is a loathesome, and 
 not a " beauteous horror" This was pointed out 
 to him when he read it ; and it was endeavoured 
 to be shown that things horrible and repulsive 
 in themselves, were not fit subjects for poetry, 
 and could not be elevated, even by the highest 
 genius, into the region of human sympathy. He 
 acknowledged the justice of this criticism and 
 promised to alter the passage, and I have no 
 doubt would have done so if death had not 
 summoned him away so soon after this conver- 
 sation. 
 
 Elliott loved Tennyson for his pathos, and 
 the courtly finish of his marvellous verse. He 
 has caught a few eches of the Marianne in a 
 soliliquy which occurs in the opening of his 
 epic, but Tennyson was too dreamy a poet to 
 make much impression upon the Corn Law 
 Hhymer ; although he spoke of him with affec- 
 tion and reverence. Bailey's Festus had a 
 stronger hold of him ; but he knew very well 
 how to discriminate between a panorama of 
 pictures, and a poetic work of art. His admi- 
 ration of Festus was therefore limited to its 
 glorious passages, and wild flights of hnagina- 
 
 
144 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 tion ; and to the lyrics scattered through its 
 pages. He severely condemned the theological 
 soliloquies which darken the last edition of this 
 poem, and so painfully hurden its action. " The 
 book," he said, u wanted cutting down hefore, 
 in the first edition ; and now it sprawls its un- 
 wieldy length to such an appalling extent, that 
 its many and manifest beauties will hardly save 
 it from perishing." 
 
 He spoke with great enthusiasm of Carlyle, 
 and had a copy of tc The French Revolution^ a 
 History" in his library. He was a long while 
 before he knew what to make of that book ; 
 but when he had grown familiar w r ith its strange 
 terminology, and could steer his way amid the 
 endless pageants that swept in glaring colours 
 past him, upon that wild revolutionary ocean of 
 blood and fire, he found it the most vivid and 
 splendid of histories, He called it poetry in 
 prose ; and named Carlyle the Homer of his 
 age. And then as he w r armed in his eulogies, 
 he rose from his seat, and advancing to the 
 bookcase took down the first volume the 
 Bastille and said, " Now, sir, I will give 
 you a scene from this book that would wring 
 tears from marble." He then read, with a voice 
 full of pathos, the following letter signed Que- 
 ret Demery, which was found in one of the 
 cells of the Bastille, after its demolition by the 
 populace : 
 
 "If, for my consolation, Monseigneur would 
 
OP EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 145 
 
 grant mo, for the sake of God, and the most 
 Blessed Trinity, that I could have news of my 
 dear wife ; were it only her name on a card, to 
 show that she is alive ! It were the greatest 
 consolation I could receive ; and I should for 
 ever bless the greatness of Monseigneur." 
 
 " There, sir," he said, wiping away the tears 
 which streamed down his furrowed cheeks, 
 " that is the most painful and agonizing passage 
 in the language. You see it has made a woman 
 of me ; and I should be a brute if I could not 
 weep over such great, sad sufferings ; such calm 
 resignation in the midst of I know not how 
 many years of despair ; which only breaks si- 
 lence at last in a touching, heart-breaking appeal 
 
 to the d- d Monseigneur that it would please 
 
 him to send the poor captive tidings of his dear 
 wife, were it only ; her name on a card/ " " O 
 God !" he continued, " how dreadfully the wail 
 of that poor, unknown, broken heart, sounds in 
 the ears of men for ever." " Bless the greatness 
 of Monseigneur !" he added, walking fiercely up 
 and down the room; "Yes ! and pray too that 
 Hell might be hot enough for him ! God for- 
 give these scoundrels, sir ; it is not in me !" 
 
 Later in the evening he asked me if I had 
 seen Emerson during his visit to this country, 
 and when I replied that I had the honour to 
 entertain him during the greater part of his stay 
 in Huddersfield, he requested me to describe 
 the man, and his bearing in social life. My 
 i 
 
146 
 
 great reverence for Emerson made me draw, 
 perhaps, too partial a picture of him ; for the 
 Poet remarked that such a high and impassable 
 nature, with such simple and winning manners, 
 rarely met together in so illustrious a person ; 
 and that he approached the ideal he had formed 
 of the great Plato. He had not read Emerson 
 however, and was only acquainted with him 
 through extracts from his printed works, which 
 he had seen in the periodicals of the day ; and 
 through the puhlic reports of his lectures. If 
 he had known more of him, he would have 
 liked him less ; for so called the Transcen- 
 dental Philosophy was to him a stumbling- 
 block. He was too strongly tied with his 
 natal-cord to the objective world, to appreciate 
 the speculations and inner revealings of the 
 Massachusetts Philosopher ; although his mind 
 was broad enough in its aesthetic and intellec- 
 tual relations, and could grasp all the beauty of 
 the universe, and resolve in some fashion at 
 least not a few of the moral problems which 
 affect the destiny of the race. But -beauty was 
 not symbolical to him ; or at least, not in the 
 same sense as it was to Shakespere, Plotinus, 
 or Swedenberg. It was God's silent gospel, re- 
 vealing God as The Beautiful; and beauty 
 was his divinest Idea. He did not see that 
 beauty was fleeting and evanescent ; the mere 
 garment of the Invisible, behind which HE sat 
 enthroned, whose are all the worlds. And be- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 147 
 
 cause he could not pierce through the painted 
 robes of the Phenominal, he never read the 
 Divine Secrets, and could form therefore, no 
 conception of the "Ubi" or "Whereness" of 
 Emerson. Still there was enough of the prac- 
 tical and homely in this author to recommend 
 itself to the Poet; and as the newspapers, which 
 always cater for the mass, instinctively assimi- 
 lated such passages, as they w T ere thrown off by 
 the Reviewers, Elliott's estimate of Emerson 
 was formed almost exclusively upon them. He 
 much regretted that neither Carlyle nor Emer- 
 son had visited him ; especially since they had 
 both been in his neighbourhood. He was in- 
 formed that Carlyle had once set off with Monck- 
 ton Milnes to visit him, but was detained on 
 the way by some occurrence which had slipped 
 the memory of the speaker ; and moreover that 
 Carlyle had asked many questions about him, 
 upon one or two occasions which were specified ; 
 and Elliott in his turn now asked for particulars 
 respecting Carlyle. The conversation termi- 
 nated by the Poet expressing his deep regret 
 that the opportunity alluded to was gone by for 
 ever. For now, he said, we shall never meet, 
 unless in Heaven. 
 
 I have previously given the general character- 
 istics of Elliott's conversational speech ; but I 
 find it impossible to do him justice in this re- 
 spect. The poor fragments which I have ren- 
 dered in these pages will give no idea of him ; 
 
 
148 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 except to those who knew him personally ; (for 
 they can vivify these broken sentences, by put- 
 ting the fire of the man into them) ; to all others 
 they must be comparatively lifeless. And this 
 seems to be the fittest place to describe Elliott's 
 personal appearance, not as he was when a young 
 man, but at the time I am now speaking of. 
 Most of his readers imagine him to have been a 
 man of large proportions, a true son of the forge 
 broad-set, strong, and muscular, as a Cyclop. 
 But he was the reverse of all this. In stature 
 he was not more than five feet six inches ; of a 
 slender make, and a bilious-nervous tempera- 
 ment. His hair was quite grey ; and his eyes, 
 which were of a greyish blue, were surmounted 
 by thick bushy brows, which looked like the* 
 thunder clouds of Jove. His forehead was not 
 broad, but rather narrow; and his head was 
 small. There was great pugnacity in the mouth, 
 especially when he was excited ; but in repose 
 it seemed to smile, more in consciousness of 
 strength, however, than in sunny unconscious 
 beauty. His nostrils were full of scorn ; and his 
 eyes which w r ere the true indices of his soul 
 literally smote you with fire, or beamed with 
 kindness and affection, according to the mood he 
 was in. In earnest debate, his whole face was 
 lighted up, and became terrible and tragic. At 
 such times he paced up and down the room, with 
 a firm foot, full of trampling scorn, and his words 
 were whirlwinds. In gayer moments he would at- 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 149 
 
 tempt comedy, and I have heard him recite pas- 
 sages from Molliere who was a great favourite 
 with him until I scarcely knew whether to laugh 
 or weep. For he had no comic faculty, and all his 
 attempts that way, were mere travestied tragedy. 
 His voice was as musical as a lute, and capable 
 of the deepest pathos. He was very fond of 
 that fine old song by Burns u Ye banks and 
 braes of bonny Doon," and during the evening 
 I am now speaking of, he recited and sang it 
 with great effect, notwithstanding his weakness. 
 Fancy the grey, old man, standing, during this 
 performance, behind his easy chair ; dressed in a 
 blue frock-coat ; a blue waistcoat, which came 
 down to the hips, and a pair of blue trowsers ; 
 for this was his ordinary attire ; and he walked 
 about his garden with a blue cap on. These 
 facts are, to me at least, very interesting ; and 
 I think they are not without general interest. 
 
 He had a great love for the Latin and Greek 
 classics, which he read through English transla- 
 tions. Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, and Tacitus 
 were his chief favourites. He was well ac- 
 quainted with " jEschylus," was keenly alive 
 to its beauties, and was fond of comparing the 
 different translations of this tragedy ; never 
 failing to adopt the best renderings of particular 
 lines. In a book called a " Monopoly graph," 
 by Samuel Gower, a scholar and a poet of 
 Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, he found the fol- 
 lowing beautiful translation of one of the most 
 J 2 
 
 
150 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 difficult lines in this tragedy, which he was 
 never weary of repeating. I will quote the pas- 
 sage; and it is the last line to which I now 
 allude : 
 
 PROMETHEUS (solus). 
 
 " Oh, thou divine and boundless atmosphere I 
 
 And you, ye swift-wing-ed winds of heaven ; and thou 
 Oh countless laughter of the salt-sea waves !" 
 
 There can be no question that this is a great im- 
 provement upon the old translations and that 
 it is rendered in the true spirit of the original. 
 
 I said that Elliott's prejudices were very 
 strong, and will now relate an anecdote to illus- 
 trate this fact, although indeed, such illustration 
 is scarcely necessary, We had been speaking 
 about mesmerism : and Mrs. Elliott, who had 
 seen many experiments performed by Dr. Hol- 
 land of Sheffield, confessed her entire belief in this 
 mysterious and occult science. The Poet, how- 
 ever, was loud in his denunciations of it, and in- 
 sisted that it was mere collusion and quackery. 
 As this was a charge brought against many 
 men whom I knew to have practised mesmer- 
 ism, and whose characters were unimpeachable, 
 I ventured to remonstrate with him, intimating 
 at the same time that I had proved the truth of 
 mesmerism myself, in various cases, and at 
 various times. "If that be the case," said 
 Elliott, "you can mesmerize me. Come, sir, 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 151 
 
 try your power ; and if you succeed I will be- 
 lieve in this infernal art." I was unwilling, 
 however, to make the attempt, because I do not 
 like playing at such a serious game ; but I told 
 him I had no doubt I should succeed, in case I 
 tried. He called this a subterfuge, and laughed 
 at me with the merriest mockery ; literally 
 crowing with exultation, and repeating his chal- 
 lenge, as he paced up and down the room. At 
 the request of his daughters and Mrs. Elliott, 
 who were very anxious that he should be con- 
 vinced, I at last accepted the challenge. Ac- 
 cordingly, the Poet sat down in his chair, and 
 the moment my hand came in contact with his 
 head, he shrunk as if struck by a Voltaic Pile, 
 uttered a deep sigh, fell back upon his chair, 
 and all consciousness fled from him. I shall 
 never forget my sensations at that moment, as 
 I contemplated the pale and lifeless form of the 
 Poet thus suddenly silenced all the fire of his 
 spirit quenched, and put out as if by the hand 
 of Death. His daughter, however, became 
 alarmed, and to relieve her I began to denies- 
 merize him. He gradually roused himself, and 
 when consciousness returned, he rubbed his eyes, 
 started from his chair, and exclaimed, " What 
 have I been asleep ?" " Yes," was the triumph- 
 ant reply of his daughter ; and Mrs. Elliott 
 clapped her hands in chorus. The Poet, how- 
 ever, was still dubious ; and would have it that 
 he had fallen asleep from exhaustion. 
 
152 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GEKIUS, 
 
 In religious matters it is difficult to say what 
 he believed, and what he disbelieved. Like 
 the great mass of literary men, he had no creed, 
 properly so called, and no faith in sects or par- 
 ties. Still he loved Christianity for the human 
 beauty which pervades, it and the divine 
 revelations which it unfolds to man. In one 
 of his letters to a friend, already quoted, he 
 says, <c I am a Christian from conviction, and 
 because I cannot help it." The same friend 
 to whom this letter was written confesses him- 
 self much indebted to Elliott for removing his 
 religious doubts, although the method adopted by 
 the poet was strange, and quite alien to orthodox 
 teaching. " For instance/' says the party alluded 
 to, " on my expressing a conjecture, or a hope, 
 or a belief, of which he saw the absurdity, he 
 would, by a single striking sentence, send a flash 
 of conviction to my mind, which suddenly demo- 
 lished my airy castles. He well knew that 
 wholesale doubt led to enquiry, and enquiry to 
 consistent and lasting faith. He seldom meddled 
 with theologieal views, and thought religion 
 more a passion than a belief. The character, 
 real works, and doctrine of Christ, he main- 
 tained were only to be accounted for, on the 
 grounds of God's presence and power in Christ. 
 Lastly, he had a strong faith in the immortality 
 of the soul." Such is the account furnished me 
 by this Sheffield friend ; but it must be remem- 
 bered that this is a reminiscence of years long 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 153 
 
 since passed away ; and I have no means of 
 knowing what were Elliott's latest convictions 
 on these important subjects. I will quote, how- 
 ever, a passage from one of his letters to me, dated 
 September llth, 1848, in which, speaking upon 
 the availableness of prayer, he says : " Long, 
 long ago, perhaps fifteen years, when food-taxing 
 and much- mortgaged Chandos who grieved to 
 see anything eatable escape his maw had been 
 accusing his victims of luxurious living, and 
 want of forethought, I prayed aloud in the pre- 
 sence of eight or ten thousand Sheffielders, in 
 Paradise Square assembled, * That he might live 
 to know what it is to be poor/ Though a mur- 
 mured, yet sublime, 'Amen !' responded to me, 
 persons present, and afterwards persons not pre- 
 sent, called me ' monster,' with the saving clause, 
 'if not madman! But God heard my prayer. I 
 then ought not to say that supplications addressed 
 immediately to Him are useless. The following, 
 however, is my creed : The only true, because 
 the only useful prayer, is that which human 
 beings (after vainly doing their best for them- 
 selves) address to their fellow- creatures for as- 
 sistance. And it justifies begging ! Unless 
 desperate people are to be forced to that awful 
 and sole remaining alternative, which they have 
 just the same right to use, that a drowning man 
 has to catcli at a straw." 
 
 The best summary, however, of his religious 
 convictions is contained in the following poem : 
 
154 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 " What is religion ? speak the truth in love, 
 Reject no good : mend, if thou cans't, thy lot. 
 Doubting, enquire, nor dictate till thou prove. 
 Enjoy thy ownexceed not, trespass not. 
 Pity the scorners of life's meanest thing. 
 If wronged, forgivethat hate may lose his sting. 
 Think, speak, work, get; bestow, or wisely keep. 
 So live, that thou may'st smile and no one weep. 
 Be blessed like birds that sing because they love. 
 And bless like rivers singing to the sun, 
 Giving and taking blessings, as they run; 
 Or soft voiced showers, that cool the answering grove 
 When cloudy wings are seen in heaven displayed, 
 And blessings brighten o'er the freshened sod 
 Till earth is like the countenance of God. 
 This is Religion ! saith the Bard of Trade." 
 
 In the year 1848, I proposed to deliver a lec- 
 ture upon his writings, and he furnished me 
 with the following particulars, which, added to 
 the sketch I have already drawn of his person 
 and manners, will complete the picture. 
 
 " You may say," he begins, " that there is 
 nothing remarkable in Elliott's personal appear- 
 ance, except, perhaps, his gentle manners. He 
 has neither a shoulder like a leg of mutton, nor 
 a hinder-end broader than a blacksmith's bellows. 
 He is five feet seven inches high, and slimly 
 rather than strongly made. His eyes are dim 
 and pale ; mostly kind in their expression, but 
 sometimes wild. His features are harsh, but 
 
OF EBENEZBR ELLIOTT. 155 
 
 expressive, and not un pleasing. On the whole, 
 he is just the man who, if unknown, would pass 
 unnoticed any where." 
 
 This letter was written October 5th, 1848, 
 and on the 7th of the same month, I received 
 the following : 
 
 " What you have to say of me will not be 
 complete without this addition, which you can 
 use, or not : He is a politician and a poet. 
 With his politics, you know, I have here nothing 
 to do. Poets, you also know, are usually people 
 who, having expressed in verse, thoughts not fit 
 or not good enough for prose, get pensioned or 
 die in the workhouse. It is a real distinction to 
 the Corn Law Rhymer, that in his grey hairs, 
 and in the land of palaces and workhouses, he 
 is not yet either a pauper or a pensioner. Tired, 
 and comparatively poor, but self-sustained, like 
 one who, after hard labour, reaches his home and 
 rests, he sits on his own Hill top." 
 
 In conclusion, I will quote what the Poet's 
 son writes me respecting his father's last illness : 
 " It was early in 1848, that he perceived the 
 first symptoms of declining health. He was 
 troubled with acute internal pain of a fixed cha- 
 racter. It was cancer of the rectum. By 
 means of the strongest stimulants and opiates, 
 his life was prolonged until the close of 1849. 
 Then his sufferings rapidly increased. The last 
 month of his life was one of great torture, and 
 equal fortitude ; and he died in the presence of 
 
 
156 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND GENIUS, 
 
 his family early on the morning of the first of 
 December, and was buried, in great privacy, 
 as he wished to be, in the churchyard of the 
 "beautiful little Tillage of Darfield. The tower 
 of the church can be seen from the windows of 
 his house, and forms a distinguishing feature in 
 a landscape that was dear to his eyes. 
 
 " What can I say more ? Shall I tell you 
 how beautifully, how poetically he watched the 
 approach of death ? ' Francis,' he often said to 
 me, c I am to die ; and if I am to live in pain, 
 I do not ask to live. I could have wished to 
 finish Eth-Kon-Tel (this was the name he had 
 intended to give to a narrative poem, consisting 
 of three narrative poems, each a part of the same 
 story, and yet a complete story in itself Ethe- 
 line being the first of them). 1 die with my 
 work undone with my faculties undeveloped. 
 I cannot help mourning over Eth-Kon-Tel. 
 He hastened the contemplated marriage of his 
 daughter Fanny his Moved daughter whose 
 name was her mother's, and desired to be buried 
 in the church where she was married. On the 
 wedding day he was supported from the bed to 
 the window, to see the return of the party from 
 church. The fatigue was almost more than he 
 was capable of bearing. c My child/ he said to 
 Fanny, c I feel so weak that an infant could 
 fell me with a primrose." He heard a robin 
 singing one morning, in the garden beneath his 
 chamber window, and composed the lines I send 
 
OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 157 
 
 you below, dictating them to me, as he lay upon 
 his pillow. They are his last notes. 
 
 " ' Thy notes sweet Robin, soft as dew, 
 Heard soon or late, are dear to me. 
 To music I could bid adieu, 
 But not to thee. 
 
 When from my eyes, this lifeful throng 
 Has passed away, no more to be ; 
 Then Autumn's primrose, Robin's song, 
 Return to me.' " 
 
 And thus in strains of gentle music, did the 
 spirit of our brave Poet pass away for ever from 
 the earth. Those who knew him best, loved 
 him most ; and will feel for some time yet to 
 come as if, in his death, " some great wrong '* 
 had been done to them. Time, however, will 
 bring with it its own wisdom, and convert this 
 private and apparent wrong into universal jus- 
 tice, which all shall see and acknowledge. In 
 the meanwhile, let us be thankful for the rich 
 legacy which the Poet has left us in his songs, 
 and for the example which he has set us of a 
 life lived for a purpose. 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 MR. THOMAS LISTER, the Barnsley Poet, has 
 sent me the letter and extracts which I print 
 below ; and I am glad of so favourable an op- 
 portunity as the present, to say a word or two 
 respecting this excellent man, whom Elliott de- 
 lighted to call his friend ; and for whom I also 
 have great respect and esteem. Mr. Lister was 
 on terms of intimacy with the Corn Law 
 Rhymer, for upwards of fifteeen years ; and I 
 am glad to find that he is arranging his recol- 
 lections of his brother Poet, for the press. 
 During the last eight or nine years, Mr. Lister 
 was a frequent guest at Elliott's house; for 
 Barnsley and Hargate Hill are not more than 
 seven or eight miles apart. It was my good 
 fortune to visit Elliott when I was first intro- 
 duced to him with Mr. Lister, and I recollect 
 with pleasure the beautiful drive we had through 
 that richly- wooded country, and the many ob- 
 jects of interest which Lister pointed out to 
 me on the way. When we arrived at Hargate 
 
APPENDIX. 159 
 
 Hill, I was surprised to find Elliott a man of 
 short stature, instead of the bulky Titan I had 
 pictured him in imagination. The sound of our 
 gig wheels in the court-yard brought him to the 
 door. He was dressed in a complete suit of 
 blue, and wore a blue cap, as I have described 
 him in the third part of this memoir. He wel- 
 comed us with real hospitality, and as his ser- 
 ving-man was away from the house, he fell to, 
 with great dexterity, and began to unbuckle our 
 harness himself. His wife and daughter received 
 us in the hall, and ushered us into the sitting- 
 room, where we spent a happy and memorable 
 evening. I had been invited to spend a few 
 days with the Poet, and after Mr. Lister was 
 gone, Elliott and I made a night of it. 
 
 And now let me give a short sketch of Lister's 
 life in the words of a friendly and competent 
 critic : 
 
 " Our rustic Bard was lured by the charms 
 of Nature, which luxuriate in his native valley, 
 and by the trains of contemplation to which 
 existing events prompted him, to indulge in the 
 sweet seducements of Poesy, before he had 
 acquired almost any acquaintance with the 
 proudest and least perishable of her songs. Pos- 
 sessing but a slight knowledge of the rules of 
 composition, and still less of the laws which 
 regulate the standard of taste he has composed, 
 chiefly whilst pursuing his daily toils in the 
 open air, many productions which have found 
 
1 60 APPENDIX. 
 
 favour amongst those who know him, and have 
 excited a warm interest throughout the country. 
 
 " Some time after his c warhlings wild* had 
 attracted the notice of his townsmen, and par- 
 ticularly of James Porter, Esq., of Park House, 
 his warmest advocate and weightiest supporter, 
 a vacancy occurred in the office of post-master, 
 at Barnsley, his native town. The appointment 
 of a successor rested with Lord Morpeth. His 
 lordship, remembering the Yorkshire bard who 
 had been introduced to him during the election 
 for Yorkshire, generously nominated him to the 
 office, and was seconded in his choice by the 
 principal inhabitants of the town. But an in- 
 superable obstacle prevented the fulfilment of 
 his wishes : an oath was then, by law, required, 
 previous to an instalment in a Government office. 
 Though the contrast between the management 
 of a horse and cart (which was then Lister's 
 occupation,) and that of a profitable situation, 
 was greatly in favour of the latter, yet Lister 
 could only fill this post by sacrificing his principle. 
 He had been trained up under the eye of honest 
 and revered parents, in the principles of the 
 Society of Friends, and hence his objection to 
 taking an oath." 
 
 I may add that a very interesting corres- 
 pondence took place between the young poet 
 and Lord Morpeth upon this subject of the oath, 
 which ended in mutual regrets on the part of 
 the writers ; for as Lister could riot violate his 
 
APPENDIX. 161 
 
 conscience by taking the required oath, neither 
 could the noble and generous Lord suspend the 
 existing law, in the objector's favour. Lister, 
 therefore, lost the situation and kept his con- 
 science, like a brave and truthful man. 
 
 A subsequent alteration in the law, enabled 
 him, however, when the office became again 
 vacant, to accept the appointment, which he 
 still retains. The "'warblings wild" alluded to 
 in the previous extracts, were published in a 
 volume called " The Rustic Wreath" and had a 
 sale of upwards of 3,000 copies. Some of the 
 poems are beautiful ; and they are all far above 
 mediocrity. In character they are simple, and 
 descriptive ; sometimes pathetic and humorous. 
 The " Yorkshire Hirings" is full of fun, and hits 
 off the provincial dialect in admirable style. 
 Since his duties commenced as post-master, Mr. 
 L. has written no more poems. He has devoted 
 himself, however, to science and scientific pur- 
 suits ; and is a good botanist, ornithologist, and 
 geologist. If he would write a description of 
 his own neighbourhood, after the manner of 
 " White's Natural History of Melbourne" (for 
 which he is well qualified,) he would produce a 
 book that would add considerably to his reputa- 
 tion, and give pleasure and instruction to all, 
 
162 APPENDIX. 
 
 THOMAS LISTER TO JANUARY 8EARLE. 
 
 "Post Office, Barnsley, 4th mo. 21s, 1850. 
 
 "DEAR FBIEND, 
 
 ft I was at Leeds yesterday, and was re- 
 minded (from certain matters which then transpired) 
 of thy request, for me to furnish a few particulars of 
 the literary life of our lamented friend, Ebenezer 
 Elliott. Although, at the time, I had no intention of 
 undertaking this duty, to any extent, partly from a 
 cause which operates in both of ua, though diversely 
 that is, a dread of taking up the pen for lengthy com- 
 munications and partly, because the experiences I 
 had known of Elliott's literary life were too much con- 
 nected with myself, to be either generally interesting, 
 or even desirable to be made public ; yet, notwith- 
 standing these objections, I had previously formed a 
 resolve to collect, from my manifold reminiscences of 
 the last fifteen years, a few choice souvenirs of my 
 wanderings, conversations, and correspondence, with 
 Elliott. That task has proceeded no farther than the 
 opening step ; and I cannot answer for my morbid 
 indolence so far as writing is concerned when I 
 shall be able to bring it to a conclusion. I have seen 
 nothing, yet, to satisfy me, either in delineations of 
 the life and character, or criticisms on the writings, 
 recently ushered into the world, of this extraordinary 
 man ; nor is it in my power to supply the desideratum. 
 His ' More Prose and Verse* was reviewed by the 
 'Examiner;' many of the poetic excellencies con- 
 tained therein were ably pointed out ; but I differ 
 greatly with them in their under estimate of his capa- 
 bility for prose composition ; witness the beauty and 
 strength combined in his Lectures on the English 
 Poets, three of which now appear in the second volume, 
 just issued. This volume, the ' Spectator* of yesterday 
 reviews. I think the editor's discriminating notice of 
 
APPENDIX. 1 63 
 
 the merits, and demerits, of the poetry therein, is just 
 even the severer portions thereof, which condemn 
 the unreflecting manner in which everything, good, 
 bad, or indifferent, that has proceeded from Elliott's 
 pen for the last few years, gleanings from " Tail" the 
 Sheffield Papers, and innumerable periodicals have 
 been issued in these posthumous volumes. The critic 
 supposes the blame to rest with the over anxiety of 
 survivors ; it was not so. Elliott's own deliberate will 
 has resolved, and his own uncontrolled act has accom- 
 plished, their publication ; every line was sent to the 
 publisher before his death ; and it was only the last 
 few proofs that his energy scarce vanquished by the 
 gripe of Death failed to overlook. Even that coarse- 
 ness, and virulence towards the landed gentry, mani- 
 fested in his style, when those vexatious questions were 
 touched, was adopted by him on principle. When I 
 have contended the point with him, as to marring the 
 beauty of a fine passage, or a whole poem, by some vio- 
 lent or unpoetic expression, he always had a reason to 
 offer for such violation of the poetic proprieties. Take 
 the following as an example of what I mean ; the pas- 
 sage occurs at the close of the ' Splendid Village ;' 
 
 " ' Path of the quiet fields, which oft, of yore, 
 Led me at morn o'er Shenstone's page to pore ; 
 * * * * 
 
 Sweet, dewy, sunny, flowery footpath, thou 
 Art gone for ever like the poor man's cow. 
 No more the pious youth, with book in hand, 
 Spelling the words he fain would understand, 
 Shall bless thy mazes, while the evening bell 
 Sounds o'er the valley, softened, up the dell, 
 But, from the window of the loyal inn, 
 The great unpaid, who cannot err or sin, 
 Well pleas'd, shall see the pomp of LAWYER RIDGE, 
 And poor SQUIRE GRUB'S starv'd maids and dandy bridge, ' 
 &c., &c. 
 
 " Again, in that noble delineation of mountain gran- 
 
164 APPENDIX. 
 
 deur and desolate sterility the scenery of which is em 
 bodied in that picture of him which hangs in the par- 
 lour at Hargate Hill : 
 
 "'I thank ye, billows of a granite sea ! 
 
 That the brib'd plough, defeated, halts below, 
 
 And thanks, majestic barrenness! to thee, 
 
 For one grim region, in a land of woe, 
 
 Where tax-sown wheat, and paupers will not growS 
 
 "To my objections as to having so rich a draught of 
 pleasure so rudely dashed from my lips, he would reply, 
 ' I always endeavour to use words which express 
 my meaning. I wish to stir up indignation against 
 Lawyer Ridge, and Squire Grub/ Again, in the other 
 passage, I name the ' bribed plough? because it is so in 
 effect ; and ' tax-sown ivheat' because the land is sown in 
 taxes.' 
 
 " To this I should acquiesce in silence ; I could not 
 gainsay the logic, whatever I might advance as to the 
 poetry. But 1 by no means admit the supposition of 
 the 'Spectator? that the cause of this coarse violence has 
 been the narrowness of his education ; not intended by 
 the ' Spectator 1 to be considered as such, perhaps, as to 
 book learning, but with respect to a certain low pro- 
 vincial range of association, and acquaintance, and 
 an evident manifestation from his writings, for him 
 to be the head of the company. To speak from what I 
 know, I have almost always had the pleasure to meet 
 him, when in company with minds of a superior stamp, 
 to the ordinary run of society. For instance I met 
 him first with Pemberton ; after one of the spirited 
 delineations of Shakespere, given by the latter, in a 
 manner that I have never seen excelled ; (and Pember- 
 ton was able to give two hours' talk after that effort) 
 on which occasion Elliott as well as myself were the in- 
 terested listeners of the company. On another occa- 
 sion I have met him, with the same party and others, 
 at the house of Thomas Asline Ward, then M.P. for 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 Sheffield to whom as ' The Man of the People,' one of 
 Elliott's poems is dedicated. I have met him also often 
 with Mr. Stannus, an eloquent minister of the Unita- 
 rian persuasion; with John Fowler, President of the 
 Sheffield Institute, and Editor of the ' Remains of C. 
 Pemberton / with Spencer Hall, &c. &c. 
 
 " Then there are the interviews and communications 
 of our humble selves, with this inestimable bard ; and, 
 spite of the ' Spectator/ we will not class ourselves 
 either with the narrow or vulgar. In addition to all 
 these, there are numerous distinguished men that 
 Elliott, at home and abroad, has met and communicated 
 with ; amongst others Southey, to whom he gives the 
 credit of having * taught him the art of Poetry;' and 
 Dr. Bowring, both of whom had a main hand in making 
 his talents more widely known. Also Colonel Thomp- 
 son and O'Connell, at great meetings, both in Man- 
 chester and London. Adams, (Junius Eedivivus) who 
 often visited him at Sheffield and Hargate Hill ; Mont- 
 gomery and John Holland, fellow townsmen and co- 
 labourers in the wide, pleasant fields of poesy : enough, 
 amply so, to prove the superior class of his companion- 
 ship. Then as to his 'seeking to be ike head of the 
 company? the contrary was the case. Though he was 
 civil and amiable to all, gentle and simple, that came 
 across him, or with whom he came in contact, he rather 
 shunned than sought company or public notice. To 
 any conversation of interest he was always a willing 
 listener; and never assumed to be the Oracle of the 
 circle. On Corn- Law and monied subjects, we grant 
 he was allowed to discourse, ad libitum. In all my 
 intercourse with him, I never observed in him an 
 ungenerous action, nor heard except of factions an 
 unkind word. My first interview, detailed in an accom- 
 panying extract, was followed by many others, before 
 he left Sheffield. I accompanied him to one or two 
 sites in that neighbourhood, but he did not fix on one, 
 eligible as a residence. About ten years ago he bought, 
 at great advantage, a plot often acres, at Hargate Hill, 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 on Hough ton Common. He has since told me, that 
 more than the purchase money was soon made of the 
 bark and a portion of the wood. I walked over with 
 him to view the spot, through the vale of the Dearne, 
 whose sylvan pastoral scenes delighted him greatly. 
 There was nothing on the estate but a small cottage, 
 which now forms the kitchen of the poet's house. At 
 a second visit with him, J. Fowler, and other Sheffield 
 friends, something in the way of planning the building 
 and grounds was accomplished. The neighbouring 
 farmers laughed at the idea of a comfortable spot and 
 productive grounds being made on a mere ' fox cover ;' 
 and prophesied him a plentiful succession of crops of 
 whins and brackens. Even his Sheffield friends 
 augured great discomfort, almost approaching to starva- 
 tion, in the probability that he would have everything 
 to fetch from Barnsley ; and Fowler humorously re- 
 marked, that he had better affix a board at the end of 
 his house, inscribed ' Eoenezer Elliott, Common Carrier.' 
 What the result of his patient toils and well-executed 
 plans prove, I need not say, it is a most delightful 
 home for a retired poet, and up to the last few weeks 
 before his death, he busied himself with projects to 
 make the grounds still more pleasant and pictures- 
 que. 
 
 " I have made it a point to visit him at least once 
 every season ; and many and delightful are the ram- 
 bles we have taken in that richly- diversified locality, 
 to which Howitt, with all his descriptive powers, has 
 done nothing like justice in his unsatisfactory account 
 of a visit to Elliott's abode. 
 
 " New Park Spring, conjoined to Lady Cross Wood ; 
 the bold stretch of billowy woodland which his resi- 
 dence commands ; with the Dearne valley and wooded 
 slopes beyond, on the Barnsley side, were frequently 
 explored by us. The Lady-Cross was pointed out by 
 him amid these woods separating two domains. Then, 
 in the opposite direction, was the delightful walk over 
 the common, blossoming with gorse and broom, to 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 Howell Wood a walk thou wilt remember well, being 
 taken on our memorable first visit. 
 
 "At another time we should diverge by Howell 
 Spring, a small fountained glen, abounding with the 
 freshest and "purest water, by Clayton-in the Clay 
 through Hooton Pagneli Park to Watchley Crags, re- 
 turning by Frichley Hall. Another rich and com- 
 manding scene was found in prolonging the route, over 
 Houghton Common to Kirby Common, examining the 
 sole remaining oak of the colossal couple, * Adam and 
 Eve,' one of which sheltered Nevison during his sojourn 
 at Kingston e Hill. Then descending the elevated 
 slopes, by Brierley Manor, we took the field path to 
 Griinethorpe, and returned through Lady Cross Wood. 
 In these rambles, Elliott's intense love for all natural 
 objects was continually manifested : and his marvellous 
 power of depicting them vividly. Though presuming 
 on no scientific skill, he had considerable knowledge of 
 trees, flowers, and birds, by their common names, and 
 was always glad to increase his stock of information, 
 from those who had gone more minutely into the 
 various walks of natural history and science. To me 
 the most interesting journey we took was in his small 
 pony-gig through Thurnscoe, Bolton-on Dearne, to 
 Conisborough Castle. The spacious valley of the Don, 
 (a rich alluvial bed lying between the magnesian lime* 
 stone beds on the one hand, stretching in a bold con- 
 tinuous ridge from Hickleton Park to Sprotborough, 
 and the first swell of the coal measures on the side of 
 Conisborough and Dennaby) the neat village of Conis- 
 borough where we dined, the frowning keep of the old 
 Saxon Castle towering above town and river and 
 above all the locality itself, stamped with the ineffacable 
 triumphs of Scott's genius, in his incomparable * Ivan- 
 hoe,' made a permanent impression on Elliott's mind ; 
 though his years did not permit him to mount the 
 keep with me, and enjoy the commanding scene from 
 that elevation. Our return by the flourishing village 
 of Wath upon-Dearne and Darfield, was an agreeable 
 
168 APPENDIX. 
 
 variation of our route. In one of the treasured scraps 
 received from him, he says * If I live till summer, I 
 could like to revisit Conisborough with you. A result 
 of our visit is a long poem, which I think my best. 
 Edlington Wood, I am told, is worth a visit.' The 
 Poem alluded to is 'Etheline.' A loose remark of 
 mine, about the Don valley appearing like the bed of an 
 ancient lake, he told me, originated the conception of 
 the poem. None of the newspaper critics, not even 
 the local ones, admit any merit in this poem. I know 
 none, with the fatal facility of the octosyllabic measure, 
 of more sustained strength and beauty. On my last 
 visit he spoke of his probable Biography for which he 
 has collected much matter. He had heard of the life 
 of poor Keats by E. M. Milnes fortunately, I had 
 secured the work, and sent it and the mode of allow- 
 ing Keats's correspondence and writings to tell the tale 
 of his life, met his approbation. 
 
 " T. LlSTKR." 
 
 I subjoin the following extract from Mr. Lis- 
 ter's note-book, for the year 1836 : 
 
 " I was first introduced to Elliott by Charles Pember- 
 ton, the graceful elocutionist, the fiery-souled patriot. 
 Since that time, months elapsed without my seeing 
 Elliott again. However, I took the privilege of kin- 
 dred feeling, though low in its stamp, and made bold 
 to visit him in his own abode. Our presuppositions of 
 a person's character, from his works, are often falla- 
 cious; one would hardly expect, from the bold and 
 fiery spirit stamped on his writings, to meet a man of 
 mild speech and urbane manners. But when his heart 
 glows with his subject, especially in recitation, whether 
 of his own impassioned lines, or the strains of some of 
 those worthies whom he worships as stars of song, his 
 features kindle into energy ; his eyes, otherwise some- 
 what sunken and grey, glisten with rapture ; and his 
 voice assumes a rich and tuneful accent, characterizing 
 
APPENDIX. 169 
 
 expressly the subject, on which his powers are awa- 
 kened. One of his themes was ' Ribbledin,' or ' The 
 Christening ;' Kibbleden being a small mountain 
 stream, near Sheffield, tumbling down a darkly-shaded 
 ravine, and falling into the Rivilin, after a short but 
 beautiful and romantic course ; and he read the poem 
 with great effect. I have seen Ribbleden, and other 
 scenes celebrated in his poems, with the poet himself, 
 and shall never forget it. The conversation on these 
 occasions was fully equal to his best compositions. It 
 was, in fact, a second edition of his poetry. His lan- 
 guage does not flow either in swift or copious streams ; 
 but always with precision and force ; conveying solid, 
 enlightened sentiments, strongly condensed, yet full 
 and well denned ; so that at this distance of time I can 
 give a slight delineation of them. 
 
 " Walking up Shirecliff Wood, where in a few mo- 
 ments, from the full glare of the town, we found our- 
 selves as much shut out from the world as in the he^rt 
 of the New Forest, these remarks fell from him : 'No 
 one could have dreamed of a seclusion like this within 
 bow- shot of the town. What a treat to the inhabitants, 
 did they but know it ! This scene is worth thousands 
 of pounds to Sheffield. Money can be no equivalent 
 for pure pleasures like these. You surely would not 
 part with your present tastes and feelings for a mine of 
 wealth. I shall never forget the last time I came here 
 with Charles Pemberton ; that tree which overlooks 
 the summit he climbed with as much agility, as if the 
 act were as familiar to him as walking is to us. He 
 clasped the stem with his sinewy limbs, set his toil- 
 strung muscles in motion, and went up like a man of 
 wire. How the view delighted him ! I, too, have my 
 predilections for the spot. It is the scene of my 
 " Ranter" From that tree I made my observations of 
 the bold, striking scene around. I am attached to the 
 place, from the associated idea. I know not that the 
 " Ranter" is my best poem ; but it is the first that 
 brought me into notice, and I am grateful to it, on that 
 
170 APPENDIX. 
 
 account.' At another time the conversation turned on 
 books most worthy to be read. ' Have you seen aught 
 of Joanna Baillie's ]' (No ! I had no notion of her 
 merits as a writer.) ' Oh ! sir, you should read " De 
 Montford ;" it only wants a little to equal Shakespere, 
 and that is almost as much as to say we have seen ano- 
 ther god. It wants originality though ; the leading 
 idea, the plot of the story, is Southey's. Have you 
 read any German work?' (No.) 'Well, you have a 
 new country to open upon you. Eead Schiller's " Wai* 
 lenstein," translated by Coleridge. Such an original, 
 and such a translation ! Have you read any of Hazlitt V 
 (Only the choice specimens of him in ' Tait.') ' Not 
 read Hazlitt, nor De Stael, nor Godwin, nor Schiller ! 
 I wonder how you got your taste to the standard it 
 now reaches, and that ifc is not narrow and grovelling. 
 The reading of Hazlitt was an epoch to me.' " 
 
 Note to Page 92 : 
 
 T have not been able to procure a Bight of either of 
 these poems, and am indebted to my friend Mr. John 
 Fowler, of Sheffield, for the following extract from the 
 ' Scotch Nationality* a poem, I am told, which viru- 
 lentlv attacked the Scotch character, and of which 
 Mr. Elliott was so heartily ashamed in latter times, 
 that he bought up and destroyed all the copies that fell 
 in his way. 
 
 A DAY DREAM. 
 
 WHILE keenly blew the biting North, 
 lie dream'd, his spirit wander'd forth. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 He seem'd to trudge, beneatli the pall 
 
 Of darkness supernatural. 
 
 The wind, that hurried sullenly, 
 
 Not o'er, but through a starless ocean , 
 (Like sxvift Time in Eternity.") 
 
APPENDIX. 171 
 
 Whisper'd alone of life, or motion ; 
 And soon that wind, like one grown old, 
 Expir'd, and all was gloom and cold. 
 Long then he roam'd the realms of night, 
 
 * * his only light, 
 
 Which, glimmering pale on shadows, show'd 
 That death had pav'd with ice the road ; 
 And o^er a gulph of darkness lay 
 That narrow, strange, and dismal way. 
 He seem'd to move, with hollow tread. 
 O'er countless fragments of the dead, 
 
 Yet could not trace 
 
 Or limb, or face ; 
 No bone, no frozen winding-sheet, 
 
 Crackled beneath his feet; 
 No sound was there, no flutter'd wing, 
 No leaf, no form, no living thing, 
 No beating heart but his, no air ; 
 But cold that pierc'd the soul was there ; 
 And horror which no tongue can tell, 
 And silence insupportable. 
 'Twas depth unplum'd, 'twas gloom untrod, 
 'Twas shuddering thought alone with God ! 
 And on he went alone, alone 
 And felt like life froz'n into stone; 
 Or life, in earth and gloom laid low, 
 With pangs untold, with speechless woe, 
 With buried soul ; that living death, 
 That direst life, which heaves no breath, 
 Which would, but cannot, move or moan, 
 Yet feels, and bears, too weak to groan, 
 (While the worm pauses, as in awe,) 
 What life, unburied, hath not known, 
 And e'en abhors in thought to bear. 
 
 His tears were frozen in his heart : 
 He knew he was, but knew not where ; 
 
 He felt he was a thing apart 
 From all companionship, a bird 
 That wings th' eternal calm unheard ; 
 On death's wide waste the conscious one; 
 A flag above the waves, with none 
 To tell that ship and crew are gone; 
 A sad memorial, never read ; 
 
172 APPENDIX. 
 
 A meteor in the eyeless gloom ; 
 A blind, endang-er'd wretch, unlecl, 
 Who would have flown on the lightning's wing 
 To clasp earth's foulest living thing. 
 
 He fear'd no worse, but curs'd his doom, 
 And mutter'd, in his dreary mood, 
 There is no hell but solitude 1' " 
 
 As a specimen of Elliott's prose composition I 
 subjoin the following passage from his printed 
 lectures, upon 
 
 COWPER AND BURNS. 
 
 " I must now conclude, with a few observations on the 
 lives and characters of the two great founders of the 
 Modern School of Poetry. Perhaps no falsehood has 
 been more frequently repeated, than that men of genius 
 are less fortunate and less virtuous than other men ; 
 but the obvious truth, that they who attempt little are 
 less liable to failure than they who attempt much, will 
 account for the proverbial good luck of fools. In our 
 estimate of the sorrows and failings of literary men, we 
 forget that sorrow is the common lot ; we forget, too, 
 that the misfortunes and the errors of men of genius 
 are recorded : and that, although their virtues may be 
 utterly forgotten, their minutest faults will be sure to 
 find zealous historians. And this is as it should be. 
 Let the dead instruct us. But slanderers blame, in in- 
 dividuals, what belongs to the species. ' We women/ 
 says Clytemnestra, in JEschylus, when meditating the 
 murder of her husband, and in reply to an attendant 
 who was praising the gentleness of the sex, ( We 
 women are what we are.' So is it with us all. Then, 
 let every fault of men of genius be known ; but let not 
 hypocrisy come with a sponge, and wipe away their 
 virtues. 
 
 "Of the misfortunes of Cowper, we have all heard, 
 
APPENDIX. 173 
 
 and certainly lie was unfortunate, for he was liable to 
 fits of insanity. But it might be said of him, that he 
 was tended through life by weeping angels. Warm- 
 hearted friends watched and guarded him with intense 
 and unwearied solicitude ; the kindest hearted of the 
 softer sex, the best of the best, seem to^have been bora 
 only to anticipate his wants. A glance at the world, 
 will show us that his fate, though sad, was not saddest : 
 for how many madmen are there, and how many men 
 still more unfortunate than madmen, who have no Jiving 
 creature to aid, or soothe, or pity them ! Think of 
 Milton ' blind among enemies !' 
 
 " But the saddest incident in the life of Cowper re- 
 mains to be told. In his latter days, he was pensioned 
 by the crown a misfortune which I can forgive to 
 him, but not to destiny. It is consoling to think, that 
 he was not long conscious of his degradation after the 
 cruel kindness was inflicted on him. But why did not 
 his friends if weary of sustaining their kinsman 
 stricken by the arrows of the Almighty, suffer him to 
 perish in a beggars' madhouse ! Would he had died in 
 a ditch rather than this shadow had darkened over his 
 grave ! Burns was more fortunate in his death than 
 Cowper : he lived self supported to the end. Glorious 
 hearted Burns! Noble, but unfortunate Cowper ! 
 
 " Burns was one of the few poets fit to be seen. It 
 has been asserted that geaius is a disease, the malady 
 of physical inferiority. It is certain, that we have 
 heard of Pope, the hunchback : of Scott and Byron, the 
 cripples: of the epileptic Julius Caesar, who, it is said, 
 never planned a great battle without going into fits : 
 and of Napoleon, whom a few years of trouble killed : 
 while Cobbett (a man of talent, not of genius) would 
 have melted St. Helena, rather than have given up the 
 ghost with a full belly. If Pope could have leaped 
 over five-barred gates, he probably would not have 
 written his inimitable sofa-and-lap dog poetry ; but it 
 does not follow, that he would not have written the 
 Essay on Man ;' and they who assert that genius is a 
 L 
 
174 APPENDIX. 
 
 physical disease, should remember that, as true critics 
 are more rare than true poets (we have only one in our 
 language, William Hazlitt), so very tall and complete 
 men are as rare as genius itself, a fact well known to 
 persons who have the appointment of constables. And 
 if it is undeniable that God wastes nothing, and that we, 
 therefore, perhaps seldom find a gigantic body com- 
 bined with a soul of JEolian tones : it is equally un- 
 deniable, that Burns was an exception to the rule a 
 man of genius, tall, strong, and handsome, as ( any man 
 that could be picked out of a thousand at a country 
 fair. 
 
 " But he was unfortunate we are told. Unfortunate ! 
 He was a tow-hackler who cleared six hundred pounds 
 by the sale of his poems , of which sum he left two 
 hundred pounds behind him, in the hands of his 
 brother Gilbert : two facts which prove that he 
 could neither be so unfortunate, nor so imprudent, as 
 we are told he was." 
 
 The following characteristic letters, by Elliott, 
 were addressed to Mr. George Tweddell, editor 
 of the " Yorkshire Miscellany" and are amongst 
 the very few which I have seen of his of suffi- 
 cient general interest to be printed at present. 
 The time has not yet come to collect the poet's 
 letters, although, in the meanwhile, these are 
 welcome. 
 
 " Great Houghton Common, near Barnsley, 
 
 \Wi August, 1844. 
 " DEAR SIB, 
 
 I feel honoured by the receipt of a letter from 
 such a man as George Tweddell. Bat it grieves me to 
 say that I have no unpublished non-political poem, 
 except one, which is 300 lines too long for any maga- 
 zine, and having been written as an experiment to 
 
APPENDIX. 175 
 
 combine the humorous and the beautiful, by a writer 
 destitute of humour, is, of course, a failure. I will 
 send you something soon, if I can bring my drape of a 
 muse to her milk again. But what can you expect 
 from an old bitch past bearing ? I set her to work for 
 you last night, and she conceived and brought forth 
 certain glimmerings of moonshine, but of such a red, 
 ferrety, anti corn-law hue, that I put them into the 
 fire, without at all meekening the flame. She is like 
 the painter who could paint nothing but red lions ; if 
 she tries to paint angels, it is plain at a glance that 
 they come of the red lions, let the lady say what she 
 will. Perhaps, the truth is, that I am humbled by the 
 excellence of the poetry in your magazine. Who is 
 Sylvan? I have long suspected that I am nobody in 
 such company. The author of ' The Island of Demons,' 
 gone to the Capulets, was assuredly somebody. 
 
 ' Why should futurity give me or thee hopes, 
 When not a pinch of dust is left of Cheopes?' 
 
 Could we persuade some other great folks to suspect 
 that they are not gods, but mortals of the useless 
 species, our bread taxers would be much wiser and 
 happier devils than they are. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Your's very truly, 
 
 " EBENEZER ELLIOTT." 
 
 " I am unwilling to depress you, yet I must in honesty 
 say, that you cannot succeed without a miracle, and 
 miracles are no longer wrought, except for the strong. 
 No town out of London (Edinburgh excepted) has been 
 able to support a magazine ; not Manchester, nor 
 Liverpool : it is whispered, not Dublin, though, like 
 Edinburgh, a metropolis. 
 
 E. E." 
 
176 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Great HougJdon, near fiarnsley, Sth Jan., 1845 
 "DEAR SIR, 
 
 " If I have not sent you a contribution, it IP 
 because I have not been able to write one likely to be 
 of service to you. The only things I have sent to the 
 press during the last three years, are failures, extreme 
 in their politics. Indeed, 1 did not leave Sheffield 
 before my energies had left me. I need no bookseller, 
 and have none, for the only book I buy is a weekly 
 newspaper at second hand. Bat that I have read a few 
 articles in the Westminster Review, I might say that I 
 am newspaper-taught, and after passing a very active 
 life, I cannot read without being ill. I am sorry you 
 blame the people for not helping you : famine is helping 
 hundreds of thousands of them into the grave, and the 
 survivors will be more to be pitied than the dead. 
 * * * I have tried in vain to obtain a subscriber or 
 two for you. I live surrounded by several hundred 
 acres of wood, nine miles from the nearest market- town, 
 with three neighbours in the circuit of a mile, reading 
 no book but Old Moore. With Roseberry with the 
 whole district of Hambleton, Helmsley, Guisbrough, 
 Rosedale, Eskdale, I am much better acquainted than 
 1 dare try to be with these police-haunted woods, and 
 farmsteads tenanted by unliveried dependants of palaced 
 paupers. Alter or omit the lines in your poem which 
 refer to your detractors. Why stand on your defence 
 without occasion 1 ? Live them down, or die them 
 down. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 " Your's truly, 
 
 "EBENEZKR ELLIOTT.'* 
 
 " Great Houghton, 25th Feb., 1845, 
 
 "DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I thank you for your favour of the 20th 
 instant, and gladly subscribe for your friend's * Songs 
 
APPENDIX. 177 
 
 of the Heart,' heartily wishing him success, though the 
 days of verse are numbered. My Sonnet on the Dearne 
 is utterly worthless. In Tait there are one or two good 
 ones of mine, addressed to our friend Thomas Lister. 
 You will find him in many respects remarkable a 
 courageous, energetic, gristle-bodied man, with a bump 
 of * I'll have my own way,' bigger than a hen's egg, on 
 his summit-ridge ; his face is handsome, except the 
 eyes, or rather their position, which is cavernous ; the 
 eyes themselves are keen and characteristic ; his lips 
 are beautiful. If there is truth in phrenology, his 
 observant faculties should be strong and active, as his 
 writings seem to prove. If I had known such a man 
 forty years earlier, I could have climbed Ben Lomond 
 with him ; for, with the assistance of my hands, I could 
 then have sprung over such a man. But well-a-day ! 
 
 ' My hair is grey, my blood is cold, 
 The minstrel is infirm and old.' 
 
 " I am, dear sir, 
 
 " Your's very truly, 
 
 " EBBNEZER ELLIOTT." 
 
 " I shall be glad to see you in my den, but home- 
 brewed I have none. When I married ' Ar Hester,' 
 she agreed that we would have two bairns, a lad and a 
 lass, and the best home brewed ale in England. She 
 more than kept her promise as to the bairns, for they 
 came so fast that they stopped the brewing." 
 
 The subsequent letters addressed to Mr. Isaac 
 Ironsides, the leading Socialist of Sheffield, will 
 shew how determined was the hatred with 
 which Elliott regarded the Communistic ideas 
 and Communism. I will insert them according 
 to their dates. 
 L 2 
 
178 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sheffield, IQth March, 1834. 
 " SIB, 
 
 -' My son Ben advises me to have nothing to do 
 with your meeting. Why, he asks, should it be called ? 
 If your object is to prove me wrong and Owen right, 
 why did you not do so long since, before all England ] 
 Instead of doing so, what have you done 1 You have 
 used the worst fallacies, and the worst language, of your 
 worst enemies, the Tories, for the purpose of bullying a 
 man whom you cannot refute, and whom you would 
 not attempt to bully, if you were not dupes. And who 
 are now your allies ? The Patrons of Blackwood the 
 bread-tax-eaters themselves ! * Why/ my son asks, 
 'should Ebenezer Elliott encourage a set of hulking 
 idlers to come here with the money of the Charles- 
 Street Gang under their tongues, and an endless farrago 
 of abuse and commonplace plausibilities at the end of 
 them, all got by rote V Is it worth a public meeting 
 to give certain geese an opportunity of crowing like 
 cocks, if a man, who so far from being a public speaker, 
 despises both the babble and the babblers, should not 
 be able, or willing, to outgabble half a dozen deluded 
 fools, and perhaps half a dozen vile hirelings beside ? 
 Hirelings ] Yes. You say your parent society has now 
 plenty of money. Whence comes it 1 If you are sold, 
 who bought you ] Where are the accounts ? I don't 
 like mystery. My conduct in your society has been 
 straightforward and undisguised, and you have suffered 
 it to be misrepresented. But my opinions are before 
 the public ! And your barrister the greatest goose of 
 Manchester and Salford has taken good care not to 
 republish them. As to your plan of what you call 
 Regeneration, the more impracticable it is the better, 
 provided you act upon it, instead of talking about it. 
 In all the circumstancesa late motion in the Com- 
 mons on the Corn Laws, included perhaps you cannot 
 do better for all England, than follow the advice of 
 Owen and Fielding. Do so, in sufficient numbers, and 
 
APPENDIX. 179 
 
 the bread -tax- eaters, whose dupes you are, will awake 
 with a start ! There will be no occasion then to ask, 
 either you or them, to rid the Corn Laws ; they will be 
 got rid of, with a vengeance." 
 
 In after years, Mr. Ironsides, who is a man 
 of great integrity, and moreover the Diogenes of 
 Sheffield, became Elliott's business agent, and 
 was on friendly terms with the Poet as long as 
 he lived, which the following letters will 
 prove : 
 
 " Great Houghton, 29*A Septemler,\Wl . 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Your favour of the 21st. instant, with your cor- 
 respondent's article on * Railways and Bullionism,' 
 reached me in a parcel from Sheffield on the 28th inst., 
 and my house being full of visitors, I cannot give it at 
 present the consideration which the vast importance 
 of the subject demands. But 1 have attentively read 
 the paper, and find that the writer is wrong from be- 
 ginning to end. An issue of the stuff, which he is 
 pleased to call money, might increase Railway specula- 
 tion, and would enable some speculators to get out of 
 their dirt-holes ; but it is capital, not what is called 
 money that is wanted to complete Railways. A few 
 years ago, railways offered the only feasible investment 
 for surplus capital in Food-taxed-Britain ; but so slowly 
 was that surplus produced, that even the Midland was 
 executed with difficulty. Yet now when the compa- 
 rative safety with which accommodation bills, endorsed 
 by Joint Stock Banks, can be rediscounted, has facili- 
 tated undue speculation, he would increase the evil ! 
 He talks too, of one pound notes, circulating with sov- 
 ereigns ! Can you tell me where the sovereigns would 
 be found, and at what price purchaseable in six months 
 after the appearance of the notes ? I can tell you who 
 
180 . APPENDIX. 
 
 would take good care of them, and sell them at a profit 
 (30 per cent, perhaps), especially if Tony Lumpkina' 
 cousins wanted, (what they always want) a foreign war. 
 Thank God the notes would not do much throat-cutting 
 out of Britain ! It is painful to think that the only 
 use he makes of his free-trade argument is to sustain a 
 sham. Now free-trade means ' Something fur Some- 
 thing,' but accommodation bills, if receivable by the 
 taxgatherer (which is all that your friend's security 
 implies), means an increase of taxation ! and finally 
 ' Nothing for Something/ as poor Louis XVIth's red 
 necklace dismally proved. But the fact suggest* a very 
 important question.*' 
 
 " Great Hougtiton, 20^ September , 1848. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I shall never be able to repay your kind- 
 ness. You have behaved like a father to me, and 
 whenever I speak of you in future, my speech shall be 
 in this wise, ' Our Father Ironsides !' 
 
 " I have delayed answering your favour of the 10th 
 August, in the hope that I should have good news to 
 tell you, and give my opinion of ' England the Civil- 
 izer,' the brave, wise, and most tolerant authoress of 
 which extraordinary book, deserves and shall have a 
 re-perusal before I presume to pronounce on its 
 merits (! !) 
 
 " If you can spare the bath please place it at my 
 debit, as it will be useful to my family. I ceased to 
 use it on Saturday last. It has driven the blood, accu- 
 mulated by the straining, from the seat to the back, 
 whence I hope the constitution will be able to distri- 
 bute it through the system. I shall recover I am told. 
 The truth is, I improve desperately. I suffer great 
 pain, and after losing more than twenty- ei^ht pounds 
 in weight, I continue to lose weight at the rate of 
 about one pound weekly. You cannot fatten calves ia 
 
APPENDIX. 181 
 
 that way. If I am not removed suddenly, 1 shall last 
 till April next. 
 
 " I wish to be buried in my skin, at the foot of Lord 
 Galway's ash tree here ; my folks are all for holy ground 
 and costs. Rotherham church yard being full of cor- 
 ruption, and one of our clergymen happening to be 
 here, I have been trying to bargain with him for a 
 grave at Darfield. Could you think it] Sinking the 
 offal, it will cost ten shillings for the use of the ground 
 alone. 
 
 " If you know any poor devil who meditates rusti- 
 cide, (or death by living in the country,) kill him with 
 his granted wish ; sell him the estate you have bought. 
 Though as a country residence near Sheffield, it must 
 be dog-cheap at the price you are to pay for it, you 
 will not like it. The approach to it is a thoroughfare 
 crossing your threshold ! If you have bought the rising 
 ground beyond the wall, in front of the cottage, you 
 may enclose a portion for lawn, &c., and so remove the 
 road a few yards from you, and be able, right and left, 
 to see approaching rascal ry, which will be a great satis- 
 faction ! Help-seeking friends, also, will visit you, 
 under pretence of seeing Wiming, and desolation be- 
 yond it ; but you will not be able to say, with the 
 earnestness of the smoke dried rhymer 
 
 " ' I thank ye, billows of a granite sea. 
 
 That the bribed plough, defeated, halts below! 
 
 And thanks, majestic Barrenness, to thee, 
 
 For one grim region in a world of woe, 
 
 Where tax-grown wheat, and paupers will not grow.' 
 
 "I have before me a wood-cnt of great George the 
 Man ! Stephenson. The expression of the countenance 
 is more than beautiful ; almost divine godlike, in its 
 calm and thoughtful simplicity. If Phidias had left 
 us such a head and face of Jupiter, the world would 
 never have tired of praising it. 
 
 " Remember us to your excellent wife ; and if you 
 
182 APPENDIX. 
 
 see sweet sister Kate, tell her she will hear from me in 
 a few days." 
 
 " Great Houghton, 20th November, 1848. 
 
 " DEA& Sin, 
 
 " I return your three books, and show my 
 gratitude by advising you to lend no more. At Shef- 
 field, I made it a rule to lend the book that instructed 
 me. When I came hither, intending to use my books, 
 1 found that I had lent and lost the very books which 
 I most wanted. 
 
 " I have been much pleased with the ' Irish Lyrics/ 
 and am a thought richer for reading them, having 
 contrived to steal a thought from one of them without 
 robbing the author. 
 
 "I hardly know whether Henry Button's book or 
 Fanny Wrights' is the more extraordinary. May they 
 ever continue to be singular exhibitions of talent, 
 labouring to be absurd ! He, I am happy to believe, 
 will not be able to make man in the image of his 
 conceit, nor she in that of her bigotry. 
 
 " Puzzled by ' England the Civilizer,' I gave it, I am 
 sorry to say, a second and very careful reading. Two- 
 thirds of it, at least, consist of wearisome repetitions; 
 explanations, which do not explain, and pompous 
 truisms, not worth asserting. She exchanges one word 
 for another, and thinks she has done something. In- 
 stead of government, she says, we are to have adminis- 
 tration government using things, and administration, 
 men, : what the latter are to use, except things, I cannot 
 see. The only point that she proves is, that (not 
 England but) Italy, has been the civilizer ; and she 
 repudiates the only power that ever did, or can improve 
 the condition of mankind ; that Power, whose last 
 invented tool, the rail, ha* done more in ten years 
 for the emancipation of the human race, than unaided 
 agriculture (which means finger-grubbing for pig-nut?) 
 could in ten thousand." 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 " Great Houghton, 2nd January, 1849. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, 
 
 " A plague on all your houses ! Your Hall of 
 Science, your Chapel of Jabez, your Church of Peter, 
 your House that Jack built, and the House that Martin 
 etole. The result of Neddy's generalship will be a 6s. 
 duty. For this end, (affirming the deadly principle of 
 protection) the monopolists have retained the one 
 shilling duty. That duty, though as a revenue duty 
 it will only produce 400,000 a year, even if our yearly 
 imports are 8,000,000 of quarters will be a class-tax 
 of 2,500,000 a year ; and consequently a six shillings 
 duty will be a similar tax of 15,000,000 ! Lord have 
 mercy on us, or ere long England will be (for years to 
 come) from sea to sea, a sea of blood and fire. Why 
 fight a battle, useless if won, and, if lost fatal ?" 
 
 "Hargate Rill) Barnsley, 5ik Oct., 1849. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I thank yon for your favour of the 2nd., 
 covering the balance of account, to 30th of Sept. last, 
 20 2s. 6d. 
 
 "Though I despise the nonsense of Communism, 
 think not that I despair of man's federation. No, 
 brother ! read, as I have done, (for I have had the 
 honour of reading the proof sheets), in, I believe, the 
 forthcoming number of the Westminster Review, an 
 article on ' Human Progress/ one of the mosfc eloquent 
 and encouraging productions ever written. Tha 
 author is perhaps our greatest living mechanician, 
 (and certainly one of our greatest living benefactors, 
 of his kind) a Communist, worthy of any good cause. 
 
 " In his choice of an habitation, he has proved the 
 adaptability of communal principles to individual 
 taste. Living in the kernel of London, he breathes a 
 pure atmo?phere, commanding from his windows, per 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 haps, the grandest, and loveliest prospect in the world ; 
 and with all the advantages of the highest civilization, 
 within a few yards around him, enjoys (for to him it is 
 enjoyment) the absolute solitude of an anchorite ! He 
 lives on the eighth and highest landing, of a huge pile 
 of buildings, a portion of the roof of which is hU yard ; 
 the infinite blue kisses his noble forehead ; and be- 
 neath him flows the Thames, with its universe of life 
 and motion. 
 
 "If you will contrive to quote the above, at a public 
 meeting, you will advertise the book, and give the 
 
 food cause a shove ; for all your 'shots' are reported 
 grieve to find you spinning long yarns. 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 '* Yours very truly 
 
 " EBENEZER ELLIOTT." 
 
 Tin: END. 
 
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