EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

THE

HE recent abolition of the laws which gave our landed proprietors a monopoly in the supply of food for the teeming millions of these islands is not a subject to which we would willingly allude in the language of exultation. The event is past, and let it go: all of us, we suppose, would now gladly bury the remembrance of the struggle in oblivion. And yet the subject of the late corn-laws cannot be so tossed aside; for if they did nothing else, they gave birth to sentiments which survive in the literature of the nation, and will not soon be forgotten. The bread-tax, as it was emphatically called, had many expositors among the middle classes; beginning of course cautiously and reverently, walking gingerly among the vested interests' of the aristocracy, and professing much respect for a monopoly, which they wished to curtail only so far as would enable the people to live and work. But among the people themselves it commenced with a man whose part it was not to expound, but to feel-not to reason, but to sing. The prophetess Poetry is ever sure to make her appearance in troublous times; and her voice is ever heard the richest and wildest amid the clash of arms. Her words are truth: for a feeling is a fact, and her direct action is upon the heart, moving through that the mind and the will. Her knowledge is intuitive, her convictions inspirations, and she will therefore hear of no compromise: caution with her is a coward, and expediency a knave. The people had not by this time begun to submit to other influences. The winged ministers of civilisation had not yet commenced their flight, scattering a cheap and wholesome literature, like vivifying dew, throughout the land. Lecturers were few, mechanics' institutions none; and the sons of poverty and toil would not have comprehended any other than the voice which spoke to them, as of old, in songs and ballads. But the voice came: it always comes when wanted. It is born of nature and necessity; for it is a cry from a stricken breast-so true it is that men (whether they understand the cause of the befalling evil or not)—— 'Are cradled into poetry by wrong,

And learn in suffering what they teach in song.'

It was the voice of Ebenezer Elliott, an individual who was specially born and bred for the occasion. If in another class of society, he would have been heard with suspicion; if possessing more refinement, he would have been unintelligible. Coarse in the external coarseness of his degree, wrathful, bitter, presumptuous, intolerant, and unreasoning, he was exactly the man to

does one ma nemrin: bat soft, gentle, 1 2-1 meting without the pale of political 125 msg sympathies, and full The maps is nes v now command amus sen as 10 interest in its events Kosug fem the suggies I abject poverty Sus memar & Wice crying in the LISA VII sing the obscurities saying its own source. ng of amazity, we must try

of society, and zeng dumaan mu Yet, in obedience to vic sets & Brim to draw from the seas the come ʼn rvy some portraiture or outline of the imád man, and aserram. I jessica by what process of circumstances be was stuget, mOT & TUNE II IH JE ÇİZ. We are enabled to do this chiefy by an ammonog ser part of his life, which Elliott placed in the hands of William L. the bookseller of Edinburgh; embodying the substance of a secus feners addressed by the Rhymer to his friend Dr Holand, as with the view of their serving as the basis of a posthumous memor in the event of such being wanted.*

Ebenezer Elliott was born on the 17th March 2751 at the New Foundry, Masborough, in the parish of Rotherham, where he was probably baptized by a tinker of Barnesly, a co-religionist of his father, who belonged to the Berean denomination. This father was a brave man come of a line, as the poet loved to believe, of stout Border thieves, although he was himself apprenticed, with a premium of £50, to the house of Landell and Chambers, wholesale ironmongers of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The grandsire who provided 80 well for his son was a tinsmith, married to a Scotchwoman of the peaceful and pastoral name of Sheepshanks-a person of vigorous and selfwilled character, but yet whom her husband lamented with tears long after her death, and even until his own-especially when he was drunk. Miss Sheepshanks appears in history as the first of her race; for her ancestry never could be ascertained-a circumstance which the poet regretted, his great difficulty in drawing up the memoir being a want of materials. When his father left Landell and Chambers, he became a clerk at Masborough, where he first saw his destined wife, one of the daughters of a yeoman at Oazins, near Penistone, where his ancestors had lived time out of mind on their fifty or sixty acres of land. 'I think, then, quoth the autobiographer, I have made out my descent, if not from very fine folks, certainly from respectables, as (getting every day comparatively scarcer) they are called in those days of ten dogs to one bone.'

Ebenezer was first sent to a dame's school, and then to the Hollis School, where he learned little more than to write, partly, it would seem, owing to the nervous temperament and constitutional awkwardness he derived from his mother. The life of this poor woman was a continuous disease, although she reared eight out of her eleven children to adult age. The father, however, is a more interesting character, and he conferred upon

This sketch has been printed in the Athenæum,' but only partially, the editor omitting (and generally with good taste) such passages as the critic would require to condemn, but which furnish pregnant materials for the biographer.

2

that of his son a tone which, working upon the maternal timidity, made him eventually a poet and a politician. In the memoir he makes his first appearance in a vision related to her son by the mother, who was a firstrate dreamer, and a firm believer in dreams. 'I had placed under my pillow,' she said, 'a shank-bone of mutton to dream upon; and I dreamed that I saw a little, broad-set, dark, ill-favoured man, with black hair, black eyes, thick stob nose, and tup shins: it was thy father.' This father was a fanatic in religion and politics, but a brave, strong-minded man. In bathing his children in the canal, he made it a rule to duck them three times, and to keep them the third time some seconds under the water, which produced in Ebenezer a horror of suffocation that only increased with his years. To avoid this infliction, the boy bathed without his father's assistance, and in consequence was on one occasion nearly drowned —‘the more the pity, I have often said since.' His father, he tells us, had much humorous and satiric power, and would have made a good comic actor; yet his political sagacity was such that he was popularly known as 'Devil Elliott.'

The family changed their abode at Masborough, Mr Elliott having obtained a clerkship in the employment of Messrs Walker of the New Foundry, with a salary of £60 or £70 a year, and house, candles, and coal. 'Well do I remember some of those days of affluence and pit-coal fires-for glorious fires we had no fear of coal bills in those days. There, at the New Foundry, under the room where I was born, in a little parlour like the cabin of a ship, yearly painted green, and blessed with a beautiful thoroughfare of light-for there was no window-tax in those days-he used to preach every fourth Sunday to persons who came from distances of twelve and fourteen miles to hear his tremendous doctrines of ultraCalvinism (he called himself a Berean), and hell hung round with span-long children! 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, explained the glories of "The glorious. victory of His Majesty's forces over the Rebels at Bunker's Hill!" Here the reader has a key which will unlock all my future politics.' Mr Elliott became eventually nominal proprietor of the foundry, the partners having sold him their shares on credit; but the new dignity was far from being attended by pecuniary advantage.

Touching the 'bravery' of Elliott senior an absurd story is told, in which he is represented as thrashing a cavalry officer with a stick, his antagonist being at the time on horseback, sword in hand! After receiving his chastisement, the officer took to flight, and never afterwards met the victor without touching his hat, and saying, 'How do you do, Mr Elliott ?' The affairs of the stout iron-founder, however, went wrong, and he died in poverty, yet self-sustained, and not in distress.

During his father's scene with the dragoon, Ebenezer, then in his fifteenth year, was 'terribly frightened,' although he must have been sufficiently familiar with such disturbances, it being the custom of the cavalry to back their horses so as to break the windows of the Jacobin's shop. 'But I, alas!' says he, 'am the son of my mother; yet on emergencies, and in the hour of calamity, the single drop of northern blood which my father put into my heart has more than once befriended me.'

be listened to by the working-classes of his own generation; but soft, gentle, and kindly-because a poet-in everything without the pale of political warfare, elevated by noble aspirings and humanising sympathies, and full of the taste of nature and the fire of genius, his rhymes will now command a wider audience. The life of this person has no interest in its events -not even the interest arising from the struggles of abject poverty and seemingly hopeless ignorance. He is merely a Voice crying in the wilderness of the undistinguished world-a Light rising in the obscurities of society, and throwing illumination upon everything but its own source. Yet, in obedience to what seems a natural craving of humanity, we must try to draw from the scanty materials that come in our way some portraiture or outline of the individual man, and ascertain, if possible, by what process of circumstances he was shaped into a poet of the people. We are enabled to do this chiefly by an autobiographic sketch of the earlier part of his life, which Elliott placed in the hands of Mr William Tait, the bookseller of Edinburgh; embodying the substance of a series of letters addressed by the Rhymer to his friend Dr Holland, expressly with the view of their serving as the basis of a posthumous memoir in the event of such being wanted.*

Ebenezer Elliott was born on the 17th March 1781 at the New Foundry, Masborough, in the parish of Rotherham, where he was probably baptized by a tinker of Barnesly, a co-religionist of his father, who belonged to the Berean denomination. This father was a brave man, come of a line, as the poet loved to believe, of stout Border thieves, although he was himself apprenticed, with a premium of £50, to the house of Landell and Chambers, wholesale ironmongers of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The grandsire who provided so well for his son was a tinsmith, married to a Scotchwoman of the peaceful and pastoral name of Sheepshanks—a person of vigorous and selfwilled character, but yet whom her husband lamented with tears long after her death, and even until his own— especially when he was drunk.' Miss Sheepshanks appears in history as the first of her race; for her ancestry never could be ascertained-a circumstance which the poet regretted, his great difficulty in drawing up the memoir being a want of materials. When his father left Landell and Chambers, he became a clerk at Masborough, where he first saw his destined wife, one of the daughters of a yeoman at Ozzins, near Penistone, where his ancestors had lived time out of mind on their fifty or sixty acres of land. 'I think, then,' quoth the autobiographer, 'I have made out my descent, if not from very fine folks, certainly from respectables, as (getting every day comparatively scarcer) they are called in these days of ten dogs to one bone.'

Ebenezer was first sent to a dame's school, and then to the Hollis School, where he learned little more than to write, partly, it would seem, owing to the nervous temperament and constitutional awkwardness he derived from his mother. The life of this poor woman was a continuous disease, although she reared eight out of her eleven children to adult age. The father, however, is a more interesting character, and he conferred upon

*This sketch has been printed in the Athenæum,' but only partially, the editor omitting (and generally with good taste) such passages as the critic would require to condemn, but which furnish pregnant materials for the biographer.

that of his son a tone which, working upon the maternal timidity, made him eventually a poet and a politician. In the memoir he makes his first appearance in a vision related to her son by the mother, who was a firstrate dreamer, and a firm believer in dreams. 'I had placed under my pillow,' she said, 'a shank-bone of mutton to dream upon; and I dreamed that I saw a little, broad-set, dark, ill-favoured man, with black hair, black eyes, thick stob nose, and tup shins: it was thy father.' This father was a fanatic in religion and politics, but a brave, strong-minded man. In bathing his children in the canal, he made it a rule to duck them three times, and to keep them the third time some seconds under the water, which produced in Ebenezer a horror of suffocation that only increased with his years. To avoid this infliction, the boy bathed without his father's assistance, and in consequence was on one occasion nearly drowned -'the more the pity, I have often said since.' His father, he tells us, had much humorous and satiric power, and would have made a good comic actor; yet his political sagacity was such that he was popularly known as 'Devil Elliott.'

:

The family changed their abode at Masborough, Mr Elliott having obtained a clerkship in the employment of Messrs Walker of the New Foundry, with a salary of £60 or £70 a year, and house, candles, and coal. 'Well do I remember some of those days of affluence and pit-coal fires-for glorious fires we had no fear of coal bills in those days. There, at the New Foundry, under the room where I was born, in a little parlour like the cabin of a ship, yearly painted green, and blessed with a beautiful thoroughfare of light-for there was no window-tax in those days-he used to preach every fourth Sunday to persons who came from distances of twelve and fourteen miles to hear his tremendous doctrines of ultraCalvinism (he called himself a Berean), and hell hung round with span-long children! 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, explained the glories of "The glorious victory of His Majesty's forces over the Rebels at Bunker's Hill!" Here the reader has a key which will unlock all my future politics.' Mr Elliott became eventually nominal proprietor of the foundry, the partners having sold him their shares on credit; but the new dignity was far from being attended by pecuniary advantage.

Touching the bravery' of Elliott senior an absurd story is told, in which he is represented as thrashing a cavalry officer with a stick, his antagonist being at the time on horseback, sword in hand! After receiving his chastisement, the officer took to flight, and never afterwards met the victor without touching his hat, and saying, 'How do you do, Mr Elliott?' The affairs of the stout iron-founder, however, went wrong, and he died in poverty, yet self-sustained, and not in distress.

During his father's scene with the dragoon, Ebenezer, then in his fifteenth year, was 'terribly frightened,' although he must have been sufficiently familiar with such disturbances, it being the custom of the cavalry to back their horses so as to break the windows of the Jacobin's shop. 'But I, alas!' says he,' am the son of my mother; yet on emergencies, and in the hour of calamity, the single drop of northern blood which my father put into my heart has more than once befriended me.'