EBENEZER ELLIOTT
(1781 - 1849)

Some Early Reviews of Elliott's Poetry

    This article begins with some early reviews of the work of the Corn Law Rhymer. The reviews are helpful not only through seeing how people reacted to his poetry in the early days, but also because the reviews would help shape how Elliott developed as a poet, since the bard would avidly study any reviews he could get hold of. Some of the reviews  were found in Sheffield newspapers, thus throwing some light on how Elliott's poetry was received in his native town.  The article finishes with short reviews of the poet's lectures on poetry.

 1824 Criticism of Elliott's First Poems

    This article appeared in the Cambridge Quarterly Review for October 1824, so it stands as a very early review of the poet's work. The article was reprinted in the Sheffield Daily Independent of Jan 8th 1825, where it was discovered by Diane Gascoyne.  In 1824, the Poet of the Poor was 43 years old, he was living in Sheffield & had yet to write his major poems.

Sheffield Poetry

    Mr. ELLIOTT - with whom, in our literary ramble we next become acquainted, - is a good subject for criticism, and might furnish matter for a separate article. He is defective in taste; but, for originality of genius, for real powerful poetry, he stands deservedly high. The first work of this poet, entitled "The Vernal Walk," was printed at Cambridge, when in the eighteenth year of his age.

The poem was highly praised by the Reviews at the time, and passed through three editions. "Night, A Descriptive Poem," was his next performance. The merits and defects of this poem, both in the plan and the execution, are of the most striking kind. With abundant evidences of power, to command not only respect but admiration, there is excess of effort, as well as redundancy of ornament.

In 1822, which was two years after the appearance of the preceding poem, followed, "Peter Faultless to his Brother Simon, Tales of Night in Rhyme, and other Poems. By the Author of Night." Here we again have to complain of numerous faults, while we witness the same vigour of conception and expression; and, as he writes best when he is most serious, we have also to complain of an adaptation of talent to that, in which - though not without considerable merit, - he is the least successful; for it must be apparent to all, that the higher he plumes his wings for flight, the better he succeeds. Notwithstanding he has full power to put in motion all our risible faculties, and possesses satire sufficient to cut and to penetrate anything but a heart of adamant, yet we love to see him for the most part muffled up in the solemnity of night - or to hear him warbling in the breeze with the songsters of the grove.

The last publication by which he is known, and to which he affixed his name, is "Love, a Poem, in three parts:" to which added is ""the Giaour, a Satirical Poem." In the latter, which is addressed to Lord Byron, there are, to employ a pugilistic term - of which we are half ashamed while we permit it to pass from the pen - "some terrible hits;" and, had not the ashes of the noble bard been still warm in our recollection, we should have indulged in a few remarks on the retributive justice of some, and the vengeance of others. Since our readers will be a little solicitous to listen to the strains of Mr. Elliott, that they may judge for themselves, we select the following favourable specimen, which forms the introduction to the Second Part of his poem on 'Love:" -

(There follows the first 50 lines from Part 2 of "Love."  Elliott was to re-use all these lines again in "They Met Again," a poem he dedicated to the noted Sheffielder, Thomas Asline Ward).

    Two reviews appear in this section.

   The review below of the 2nd edition was found by Diane Gascoyne in the Sheffield Independent newspaper for 18th June 1831. The Independent had extracted the review from The Athenaeum:-

CORN LAW RHYMES. Printed by order of the Sheffield Anti-Bread-Tax Committee. 2nd edition.

The Athenaeum of last week, in noticing the "Corn Law Rhymes," has the following remarks:-

To the three names, Burns, Cunningham, Hogg, already enumerated, we now add "the Sheffield Mechanic;" and say a brief phrase, that, from the specimen of his powers now before us, it will be his own fault, and that fault will be perverseness, if he does not win his own place in literature, and keep it. His "Corn Law Rhymes," - a mere twopenny pamphlet, - are conceived in the hottest strain of radicalism, and give us an idea that a revolutionary tribunal and reign of terror - an avator of plague, pestilence and famine - should be considered "quite refreshing." So much for his politics. Of his poetry, we do not scruple to assert, that it contains more bold, vigorous, sculptured, and correct versification, greater grasp of mind, and apposite while daring fancy, than could be distilled from all the volumes of all the prodigies that ever were brought out. The Westminster Review has eulogized Tennyson as the future poet of the day: the Sheffield Mechanic is more decidedly original in his manner; and he writes his own language fifty times better than most of our picked authors, with more power free from pretence, and with more harmony devoid of unmeaning variations. We are not now speaking of his sentiments; - but we give the following from a strangely fierce thing called "The Black Hole of Calcutta," and say, that it reminds us of Coleridge's "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter."

What for Saxon, Frank, or Hun,
What hath England's bread tax done?
Ask the ruin it hath made,
Ask of bread-tax-ruin'd trade;
Ask the struggle and the groan
For the shadow of a bone:
Like a strife of life for life,
Hand to hand, and knife to knife.

    *    *    *    *
England! what for mine and me -
What hath bread-tax done for thee?
It hath shown what kinglings are,
Stripp'd thy odious idols bare,
Sold thy greatness, stained thy name,
Struck thee from the rolls of fame,
Given thy fields to civil strife,
Changed thy falchion for the knife;
To th'invading knout consigned
Basest back and meanest mind;
Curst thy harvest, curst thy land,
Hunger-stung thy skill'd right hand,
Sent thy riches to thy foes,
Kick'd thy breech, and tweak'd thy nose,
And beneath the western skies
Sown the worm that never dies.
Man of Consols hark to me!
What shall bread-tax do for thee?
Rob thee for the dead alive,
Pawn thy thousands ten for five,
And ere yet its work be done,
Pawn thy thousands five for one.

There are in "The Ranter" one or two masterly passages, and one or two desriptions fraught with manly sweetness.

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 humbling 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, mirror'd on the bay,
Roll like the shadows of lost worlds away,
When bursts through broken gloom the startled light.
Grand are the waves, that like that broken gloom,
Are smitten into splendour by its might;
And glorious is the storm's tremendous boom,
Although it waileth o'er a watery tomb,
And is a dreadful ode on oceans drown'd.

 

The whole is powerfully written; but the sermon is too much in the style of Ephraim Mucklewrath, to be either perfect as poetry or as theology. Indeed the entire pamphlet leads us to imagine that the Sheffield Mechanic considers poetry a mere vehicle for politics; if our conjecture is right, we have nothing more to say of him. He may be the poet as well as the secretary of his "Anti-Bread-Tax Committee," and should new political regulations render that society needless, he may espouse some other cause, and manifest equal power in support of it; but he will thereby part with all prospect of a purer and nobler fame. If politics are to continue the burthen of his song, the faults now passed over in his first essay, of coarse invective, technical allusions, and fierce denunciations, will mar his claim to the title of poet; for the true poet is a freeman of no city - even a city founded on the rock of Universal Sympathy, garrisoned by Love and Joy, Truth and Hope, Gentleness and Veneration, wherein enters nothing that can offend, neither whatsoever loveth or maketh discord - a city that is at unity with itself.

The intention of poetry is, like that of sorrow, to make the human heart better - to strengthen its energies and purify its emotions. Political poetry, however powerful, does not do this: it appeals to our bitter passions - it stirs our blood, but it does not calm our tempers: let us have the Corn Laws, and the Tithes, and the Game question, and every other disputed point mooted into prose; - there is a parliament for M.P.s, and there are newspapers for others; but let no man trouble our poetry - we will not sell that vineyard to make a herb-garden even for the King.

    The second edition of the "Corn Law Rhymes", printed by order of the Sheffield Mechanic's Anti-Bread Tax Society, was published in 1831, but contained only 28 pages - "a mere twopenny pamphlet" as described above.  The third edition was published by B. Steill of Paternoster Row (London) & was greatly expanded to 116 pages plus 12 pages of preliminaries.  We can conclude from this that there was a huge demand for the book, and the publisher was therefore keen to include extra poems. Interestingly, the extent of the print run is not known, nor how much cash Elliott earned. The section below reviews the third edition of the "Corn Law Rhymes" published in London in 1831.

    The Sheffield Independent newspaper was the source of the article below, which was found by Diane Gascoyne, in the issue for 24th September 1831.  Some interesting remarks are made in the article by the editor who would clearly have known Elliott as a local character.  However the article omits to mention the poet by name.  The review concludes with "The Death Feast," one of the poems from the "Corn Law Rhymes."

    The author of "Corn Law Rhymes" has learnt, by bitter experience, how hard it is for the poet or the prophet to command attention or honour amongst his brethren.  For years has this extraordinary writer begged corners in the "valuable journals" of this town, and through his humble supplications for such publicity as they could afford his lucubrations, were seldom refused, yet his contributions were received with little grace, and perhaps were never valued.  At length, however, the light of genius hath drawn towards it the eyes of strangers, and they have bowed to its brilliancy, and we also, thus instructed, are called upon to pay our long deferred adoration.

    To speak plainly, the author of the "Corn Law Rhymes" is a genius of so large a stature, that if we mistake not, he will in a little time cease to be the boast of this his home town (Sheffield) only, but will take his place amongst those gifted men whose writings make the glory of the country and the age.  While, however, we admit that his harp resounded amongst us for years, and few listened, - and that even now we are brought to consider its melody, because a few public and generous critics have declared that he indeed has been taught of Apollo, yet the waywardness and singularity in which his genius evinced itself amonst us, may form some excuse for our neglect, though it may prove little in favor of our  discernment.  As the author, with that sincerity which is "part and parcel" of wisdom, declares,

          ---- my notes uncouth I try,
          And chaunt my rugged English ruggedly, and few readers are disposed to consider beauties or sublimities of thought, at the moment when some harsh, or common expression frightens them from the regions of poetry.     Another cause of the early neglect of our poet, is to be found in the "gloomy themes" he sung.  He struck his lyre "unseen, unknown;" his chords harmonised with the cries of the poor and the wretched; he raised his song of the death of the neglected and the oppressed; and the elegant, the happy, and the rich of the world to him were deaf.  He was besides a "Reformer," and one who when he condescended to give "a reason for his faith" did so with words of fire, which made tyranny tremble, and scathed its ministers, whether found in a manufacturing town, or in the great metropolis and its gorgeous court.     But the time of his reception has arrived, and we now but follow the example of several of the least improperly influenced, and consequently most beneficially influential periodicals, in calling public attention to the writings of the author of the "Corn Law Rhymes."  There is a portion of the reading public, and no mean one, which is most heartily tired of the "pouring out of one vial into the other" system, which now characterises poetry and light literature of the day.  Let them turn to the "well of English" which this author presents.  If it be not literally "pure and undefiled," yet it will be found sharp, bracing, and refreshing.  It is, besides, a new spring, and it possesses some quality and taste yet unnamed, which will reward him who journeys far to drink thereof.  In a word, the author of these rhymes is an original writer, and whoever sits down to their perusal, must conclude his task amidst feelings of delight, surprise, or it may be, disgust, - considering the obliquities of taste and judgement which are to be found in the world, - which will arise from poetry original in its subject, in its expression, and in the general manner in which it is treated.     Before giving the extract which we purpose, we premise, that the author of the "Corn Law Rhymes" has already published, "Love," the "Village Patriarch" and other poems, the remembrance of which have more particularly called for, and probably do more to justify, the approbation we have expressed than the little book before us.  The "Death Feast," which we subjoin, is a tolerable specimen of the writer's beauties, peculiarities, and defects.  These will easily be remarked by the reader, and we will make free to tell him, that if he arrive at the concluding stanza with a still heart and a bright eye, Parnassus is no fairy mount for him to roam upon, and that the gentle muses abhor him as they would a Russian slave.

            

                 THE DEATH FEAST

    The birth-day, or the wedding-day, 
       Let happier mourners keep: 
    To Death my vestal vows I pay, 
       And try in vain to weep. 
    Some griefs the strongest soul might shake, 
       And I such griefs have had; 
    My brain is hot---but they mistake 
       Who deem that I am mad. 
    My father died---my mother died--- 
       Four orphans poor were we; 
    My brother John work'd hard, and tried 
       To smile on Jane and me. 
    But work grew scarce, while bread grew dear, 
       And wages lessen'd too; 
    For Irish hordes were bidders here, 
       Our half-paid work to do. 
    Yet still he strove, with failing breath 
       And sinking cheek, to save 
    Consumptive Jane from early death--- 
       Then join'd her in the grave. 
    His watery hand in mine I took, 
       And kiss'd him till he slept; 
    Oh, still I see his dying look! 
       He tried to smile, and wept! 
    I bought his coffin with my bed, 
       My gown bought earth and prayer; 
    I pawn'd my mother's ring for bread--- 
       I pawn'd my father's chair. 
    My Bible yet remains to sell, 
       And yet unsold shall be; 
    But language fails my woes to tell--- 
       Even crumbs were scarce with me. 
    I sold poor Jane's grey linnet then--- 
       It cost a groat a-year; 
    I sold John's hen---and miss'd the hen, 
       When eggs were selling dear: 
    For autumn nights seem'd wintry cold, 
       While seldom blazed my fire; 
    And eight times eight no more I sold 
       When eggs were getting higher. 
    But still I glean the moor and heath; 
       I wash, they say, with skill; 
    And Workhouse bread ne'er cross'd my teeth--- 
       I trust it never will. 
    But when the day on which John died 
       Returns with all its gloom, 
    I seek kind friends, and beg, with pride, 
       A banquet for the tomb. 
    One friend, my brother James, at least, 
       Comes then with me to dine; 
    Let others keep the marriage-feast, 
       The funeral feast is mine.
   For then on them I fondly call, 
       And then they live again! 
    To-morrow is our festival 
       Of Death, and John, and Jane. 
    E'en now, behold! they look on me, 
       Exulting from the skies, 
    While angels round them weep to see 
       The tears gush from their eyes! 
    I cannot weep---why can I not? 
       My tears refuse to flow: 
    My feet are cold---my brain is hot--- 
       Is fever madness?---No. 
    Thou smilest, and in scorn---but thou, 
       Couldst thou forget the dead? 
    No common beggar courtsies now, 
       And begs for burial bread.

This poem was first published under the title "Byron and Napoleon," ("They Met In Heaven" was the subtitle).

The poem appeared in the New Monthly Magazine in 1831 and was preceded by a review of Elliott's work. The text of the review is printed below:-

New Monthly Magazine was the first journal that attracted the attention of the Public to the genius of the poem called "Corn-Law Rhymes." The example thus set, was soon followed, and other periodicals, to which the Poem had been sent long before, but in so uninviting a type and shape, that in all probability, curiosity stopped at the outside - struck with the singular strength and beauty of the extracts we gave - took up the poem, hitherto neglected, and, to the honour be it said, were no less lavish, viz - no less just in their encomiums* than ourselves. We have now the pleasure of presenting our readers with another poem by the same author. We are sure that those characteristics that stamped the "Corn-Law Rhymes" will be equally recognised in the verses we subjoin - the same nerve, vigour and originality on the one hand - the same roughness and obscurity on the other. We think two or three lines, especially that containing the curious objurgation "cat but not vulture" as bad as lines can well be. We think the description of Napoleon, as fine as anything in the language. We are sure that every man of a pure and genuine knowledge of criticism will unite with us in hailing the rise of a poet of so great promise, from the lower ranks of life and the heart of a manufacturing town - and in trusting that powers of so high an order will be exerted in a flight more lofty and sustained, than those in which they have, as yet, toyed with their own strength.

 * encomiums =  a speech or a piece of writing that praises someone or something highly

    The review first appeared in the New Monthly Magazine and was reprinted in the Sheffield Independent newspaper for April 7th 1832. The poem itself is generally accepted with a publication date of 1833.

Ebenezer Elliott, the author of "Corn Law Rhymes," a man whose name cannot be written in Sheffield without some feeling of shame, or pronounced [  ?  ]  elsewhere but in a tone of triumph, has enriched, as a leading London paper justly observes, the pages of the New Monthly with his latest poem, "The Splendid Village."  Had this production appeared in any other of our magazines, the writer might justly have been accused of an unwise expenditure of his talents, seeing that in these times, while literature and trade unblushingly go hand in hand together, any other mode of publication would have been equally productive of fame, and much more fruitful of substantial reward.  But the character of the New Monthly, and the fine talents and liberal principles of its editor, sufficiently excuse the prodigality of the poet; and doubtless he felt that his patriot muse could find no fitter station, than amongst a class of writers whose efforts are devoted to the sacred cause of public liberty and public happiness.  The season has not perhaps yet arrived, when a critical essay on the varied powers shown by Mr. Elliott in "The Splendid Village," and in his earlier works, would tend to interest or instruct the public.  The world of letters has yet but discovered the poet of Sheffield; when it is better acquainted with his wayward genius, the work of judgement may be commenced.  One truth may, however, be told - Ebenezer Elliott has developed in his writings a new moral power.  He believes that Apollo is no less the god of physics, than of imagination, melody, and taste, and in the whole of his verses he betrays an ardent longing to cure the bodily pains of his fellow-men, and support the weak against the pressure of evil governments, while to the superficial he may seem but to versify after the ordinary fashion.  No man could prophecy what would be the effect of the diffusion of a hundred thousand of some of our author's "Rhymes," illustrative of the system which compels a Sheffield cutler to eat bread at a price double that which the German and French artisan, employed in the same manner, pays the corn grower.

    But to return to "The Splendid Village."

    The machinery of the poem is simple.  "A lonely, mateless, childless, homeless man," returns to his native village, and seeks for the beings and the objects which were dear and pleasing  to him, "e'er hot youth's and manhood's pulses cooled."  He finds them not, or finds them so changed, that his heart disowns them.  He laments the wasted time of his travels:-

          Too long I paced the ocean and the wild,
          Clinging to nature's breast, her petted child;
          But only ploughed the seas, to sow the wind,
          And chased the sun, to leave my soul behind.

From the contemplation of the wastes and changes which most grieve and affect the soul of the "Wanderer," the hero of the poem recurs to the altered aspect of the village, and with sad and wailing song, describes the mock splendour of his native hamlet, and the unnatural changes which the unnatural conventions of bad government have brought about.  The following, the eighth stanza, is full of beauty, and (if a word may be altered, to express some new power in a poet) particularity :-

          Broad Beech! thyself a grove! five hundred years
          Speak in thy voice, of bygone hopes and fears;
          And mournfully, how mournfully! the breeze
          Sighs through thy boughs, and tells of cottages
          That, happy once, beneath they shadow gaz'd
          On poor men's fields, which poor men's cattle graz'd;
          Now, where three cotters and their children dwelt,
          The lawyer's pomp alone is seen and felt;
          And the park-entrance of his acres three
          Uncrops the ground which fed a family.
          What then?  All see, he is a man of State,
          With his three acres, and his park-like gate!
          Oh, then, let trade wear chains, that toil may find
          No harvests on the barren sea and wind;
          Nor glean, at home, the fields of every zone.
          Nor make the valleys of all climes his own:
          But with the music of his hopeless sigh
          Charm the blind worm that feeds on poverty!

    In a folowing stanza, the traveller marks the lost field path.  The lines have so much to recommend them, that though they explain no part of the action of the poem, it is impossible to help quotation:-

          Path of the quiet fields!  that days of yore
          Call'd me at morn, on Shenstone's page to pore;
          Oh, poor man's footpath!  where, "at evening's close,"
          He stopp'd, to pluck the woodbine and the rose,
          Shaking the dew-drops from the wild-briar bowers,
          Then eyed the west, still bright with fading flame,
          As whistling homeward by the wood he came;
          Sweet, dewy, sunny, flowery footpath, thou
          Art gone for ever, ----

    The first part concludes with a few lines of extraordinary power.  The Wanderer is chaffed and vexed with the sight of a menial of a new name and fashion, and infers that the moral and social revolution, which produced him, will be accompanied by fearful changes throughout the whole world of our country:-

          ---  in thy fierce eyes
          Fire-flooded towers, and pride, that shrieks and dies!
          The red-foamed deluge, and the sea-wide tomb;
          The grin of millions o'er the shock of all -
          A people's wreck, an empire's funeral !

    The second portion of the poem shews us "the Wanderer departed."  He but drags, however, "a lengthened chain," and turns back his sight and his heavy thoughts on the scenes and customs which are altered and changed.  The "feast of the village," the "poor man's commons," and the "tax ploughed waste," by turns command the sorrow and the anger of the author.  In the eleventh stanza, the secret grief of the Wanderer is confessed.  He pines for the absence of one, whom we learn from earlier passages of the poem, he loved, injured, and deserted.  The entire passage can neither give nor lose by criticism.  Lovers and poets can alone judge how faithfully the Wanderer has described that pain of the heart, which none but lovers and poets are unfortunate enough to experience:-

          I dream'd I saw her, heard her - but she fled!
          In vain I seek her - is she with the dead?
          No meek blue eye, like hers, hath turn'd to me,
          And deign'd to know the pilgrim of the sea.
          I have not nam'd her - no - I dare not name!
          When I would speak, why burns my cheek with shame?
          I join'd the schoolboys, where the road is wide,
          I watch'd the women to the fountain's side;
          I read their faces, as the wise read books,
          And look'd for Hannah in their wondering looks;
          But in no living aspect could I trace
          The sweet May morning of my Hannah's face,
          No, nor its evening, fading into night:
          Oh, Sun, my soul grows weary of thy light!

    The Wanderer learns the death of his beloved, and the manner of it maddens him.  He charges our rulers with despoiling the moral as well as the physical beauty of the land, - he laments:  "Her blasted homes, and much enduring men," and turns himself in very bitterness of heart again to "voyage o'er the briny wave."

    The two concluding stanzas are probably the most vigorous of any in the whole composition.  The following is conceived in a feeling of bitter grief:-

          Oh, welcome once again black ocean's foam!
          England?  Can this be England? this my home?
          This country of the crime without a name,
          And men who know no mercy, hope, nor shame?
          Oh, Light!  that cheer'st all life, from sky to sky,
          As with a hymn, to which the stars reply!
          Canst thou behold this land, oh, Holy Light!
          And not turn black with horror at the sight?
          Fall'n country of my fathers! fall'n and foul!
          Thy body still is here, but where the soul?
          I look upon a corpse - 'tis putrid clay -
          And fiends possess it!  Vampires quit your prey!
          Or vainly tremble, when the dead arise,
          Clarion'd to vengeance by shriek-shaken skies,
          And cranch your hearts, and drink your blood for ale!
          Then, eat each other -

    It is hard to part with the writer of the "Corn Law Rhymes," without taking him by the hand and presenting him to the public as the author of "Love," "The Village Patriarch," and "Tales of Night."  They contain a world of beauty, originality, and pathos.  They must be dear to every yeoman of Hallamshire, for they pay tribute to its fine scenery, and are in every page pregnant wiAth happy phrases, which all lovers of nature will recognise as the genuine coinage of perfect truth and fine imagination combined.

          --- Cloud-rolling Sheffield-
          The blissful country, where this childhood ran
          A race with infant rivers,

he sings; nor forgets "Winco in dusky cap," "blue Kinderscout," "startling Snailsden," and the "lonest Rivelin."  To repeat once more the name of EBENEZER ELLIOTT, we commend him to the world with a proud confidence, and participate in the honour which his genius has conferred on Sheffield.

The Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott - an essay by John Wilson

A Brief Review of the Collected Poems vol 3 1835

The review below was found by Diane Gascoyne in the Sheffield Independent newspaper for May 23rd 1835.  Volumes 1 & 2 were published in 1834.  Elliott's publisher, Benjamin Steill of London, was now sufficiently sure of the interest in Elliott to print the "collected" poems in 3 volumes.  At this time, each volume had its own individual name:  volume 3 was released as "KERHONAH, The Vernal Walk, Win Hill, and Other Poems."

    We gladly hail another volume of poems from the pen of Mr. Elliott, on whom fame has cast her mantle, and whom she has proclaimed, far or near, a true poet, "born not made."  Had he lived in Milton's day, the acknowledgement of his merits, denied during life, might have been ostentatiously offered at his grave; had he lived in the last century, he might have shared the miseries and the cold neglect of many hapless sons of song: but happier than they, he has fallen upon a time when the patrons of literature are not the noble and the great, but the people, - the great substratum of industry, intelligence, and wealth, on which rests secure the whole structure of society.  In the preface, Mr. Elliott warmly acknowledges his obligations to the periodical press for the notice which has been taken of his works.  Certainly, the approbation of the public press has been more general and unaminous than in almost any similar case.  In England and America, in the Edinburgh and Westminster, in Tait and Blackwood, Mr. Elliott has been pointed out, and his works have been applauded, as the genuine emanations of the spirit of poesy.

    The leading impression which the perusal of his writings produces, is that of power.  His emotions of sublimity, tenderness, contempt, or anger, are all intense, and find vent in expressions which startle like a sudden clap of thunder.  He is a lover of nature, and finds her charms, not only in flowers, and breeze, and sunshine, but on the bleak moor, and amid the howling of the wild storm. -  Thus he sings -

          Dear children! when the flowers are full of bees;
          When sun-touched blossoms shed their fragrant snow;
          When song speaks like a spirit, from the trees
          Whose kindled greenness hath a golden glow;
          When, clear as music, rill and river flow,
          With trembling hues, all changeful, tinted o'er
          By that bright pencil which good spirits know

          Alike in earth and heaven:- 'tis sweet, once more,
          Above the sky-tinged hills, to see the storm-bird soar.

                                                                              (from "The Excursion")

    But Mr. Elliott is not one of those pseudo naturalists who can see the hand of the Creator everywhere but in man, his crowning work.  Let those who think it philanthropic to decry machinery, and unpoetical to listen to the teachings of political science, read "Steam at Sheffield," which is not less noble in its poetry than true in its philosophy, and unites benevolence with common sense.