Samuel Smiles, William Howitt & Elliott

 

 

                    Most sketches of the Corn Law Rhymer show him at the height of his fame in the early 1830s, but Samuel Smiles of “Self-Help” fame gives us a different view of the poet - right at the end of his life.

 

                    Smiles (1812-1904) trained as a doctor & worked in railway management, though from 1838-42 he had a spell as editor of the Leeds Times. Always interested in writing, he became famous for his biographies & for his celebrated “Self-Help” which was translated into many languages.

 

                    Smiles first saw Elliott in London in September 1838 when they both attended the great Chartist Meeting in New Palace Yard. Smiles revealed that Elliott was on the platform of the meeting. This gave Elliott a much greater role in this historic meeting than ever suspected; hitherto, Elliott had simply been described as the Sheffield delegate.

 

                    Elliott & Smiles were to meet later in the same month, this time in Sheffield. Smiles actually travelled from London to Sheffield by sea!  The good doctor took a boat to Hull, another to Thorne, then a carriage through Rotherham to Sheffield. Here he met John Bridgeford, owner of the Sheffield Iris, who introduced him to James Montgomery, poet & hymn writer. The latter took Smiles to meet Elliott at his warehouse where: “I was taken up a flight of wooden stairs to his office in Gibraltar Street, and there I found him behind the counter. The place was somewhat dingy – fit enough for iron and steel dealing, but scarcely giving one the indication of a poet’s study.” Elliott started off conversing quietly but was soon pacing up & down talking bitterly of “those dirt kings, the tax-gorged lords of land.”

 

                    In the next few years, Smiles gave lectures to literary societies & mechanics institutes throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire dealing with the need for libraries, for education, for political reform & for repeal of the Corn Laws. All matters dear to the Corn Law Rhymer’s heart – and it is most likely that the two soul mates kept in touch.

 

                    William Howitt (1792-1879) was a well known literary figure who was a friend of Samuel Smiles & of Elliott. In April 1846, Howitt was associated with the People’s Journal, but after a row he left the magazine & set up his own venture called Howitt’s Journal. He made two visits to interview Elliott: the first visit was in 1846 for his book “Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets” published in 1847; the other visit was in 1847 for an article in Howitt’s Journal. He was accompanied by Margaret Gillies, the artist.

 

                    On the first visit to Elliott’s home near Barnsley, Howitt did not announce himself initially & he upset Elliott by referring to certain important people as being “aimable.” This of course sparked off a scene which is recorded in Howitt’s “Homes and Haunts” book. An indignant Elliott thundered: “Amiable men! amiable robbers! thieves! and murderers! Sir! I do not like to hear thieves, robbers and murderers, called amiable men!” After this rocky start, the conversation flowed for several hours, and Howitt concluded: “Ebenezer Elliott is one of the gentlest, and most tender-hearted of men; and however strange it may seem, it is this very character, this compassion for the unhappy, this lively and soft sympathy for human suffering, that has roused him to his loftiest pitch of anger, and put into his mouth his most terrible words.”

 

                   This first visit by Howitt was in response to a recently discovered letter sent to Howitt by the Corn Law Rhymer:-

 

 

 

Letter addressed to “Wm Howitt Esq, The Elms, Clapton, near London”

 

Great Houghton nr Barnesley

18^th November 1845

Dsir,

 

                    Much that is true has been said of me in several periodicals & little that is false; Yet if I could now have it all unsaid, I would, “because I am not dead, you know” – and alas, my poetry is. Now the narrative in Mr Taits hand must not be published yet if ever; for I doubt whether anyone, a fortnight after I am gone, will ask a question about me? However, I send you an account of one manifestly written by a person who knows me so well that if he were to write the sketch you request, I could not do it better or so well.

 

                    I have not yet seen Cooper’s poem, but have seen some striking extracts from it. I suspect he is a poet, and if is, then God help him, poor devil! He had better be a poacher “and feed on turnips because bread is taxed.”

 

                    We shall be but too proud & happy to see you & your Mary under our humble roof, on your return from Liverpool, or at any other time. I think we could amuse you, keep you wick* for a week. How long would you do with eggs & bacon? Two days. Well. Then let us be. We will suppose you arrive on the Wednesday just when the weekly joint is eaten. Two days, eggs & bacon. Third day the old hen, that gave up laying the year before last. Fourth day, boiled knuckle of mutton. Fifth day, rost fillet of mutton. Sixth day (Lent) tapioca pudding, and the cock tench out of the pond, if we can catch him. Seventh day. Hare – if in my despair, I venture to shoot one, on my own stone heap – penalties £27.10.0! The Lord have mercy upon us! Let us all turn pensioners. Some folk say we are poets already.

 

 

I am, Sir, Yours very truly,

 

 

Ebenezer Elliott

 

* wicked = lodged

 

                    Howitt’s second visit to see Elliott was in January 1847. Howitt took with him Margaret Gillies, who was to do a drawing for Howitt’s Journal magazine. The drawing is reproduced below – the first time this picture of the poet has surfaced in many many years. According to Howitt, the white haired Rhymer (aged 65) was pictured reading “things new and old” from “his great manuscript folio.” Gillies & Howitt sat & listened “to the fountains of poetry thus musically welling forth” from the bard.

 

                    Gillies (1803-87) was a highly regarded painter who exhibited many times at the Royal Academy. Both Wordsworth & Dickens sat for her – so Ebenezer was in good company!

 

                    Howitt was most impressed with the force & brevity of Elliott’s “Spartan oratory, they are words of fire.” The elderly & declining Elliott presented quite a picture as Howitt imaginatively described: “In argument every muscle of his countenance is eloquent; and when his cold blue eye is fired with indignation, it resembles a wintry sky flashing with lightning, his dark bushy brows writhing above it like the thunder-cloud torn by the tempest.”

 

Elliott by Margaret Gillies

 

 

                    Samuel Smiles had been very disappointed that he could not accompany Howitt & Gillies on their visit to see the Corn Law Rhymer. They reported back that the venerable poet was ailing & passed on an invitation for Smiles to visit Hargate Hill.

 

                   In October 1849 Smiles was working for the Leeds & Thirsk Railway when he heard that William Bridges Adams, a railway engineer, was going to see Elliott. Smiles decided to join him. They were shocked when they saw the poet: “Elliott looked the invalid that he was; for he was suffering from the fatal disease that soon after carried him off. He was pale and thin, and his hair was almost white.” Yet as the conversation flowed, Elliott brightened and “his heart beat as warm and true as ever to the cause of human fellowship and universal good.”

 

                    Elliott told Smiles he had a volume of prose & poetry ready for publication & opined that his prose was better than his poetry. He also revealed great pride in his rural surroundings & a keen interest in local history. Smiles presented Elliott with a copy of Longfellow’s “Evangeline” which Elliott mentions in the newly discovered letter below. Charmingly, we also hear how spare beds were kept aired in those days before central heating!

 

 

Hargate Hill, near Barnsley

3rd November 1849

 

My Dear Sir, -

 

 

-      I am, yours very truly,

Ebenezer Elliott

 

 

* wicked = lodged

 

                    Four weeks later the Corn Law Rhymer died, and Smiles made some eloquent comments about his friend: “There was a mixture of fierceness and yet of tenderness in Elliott’s poetical writings. When he felt himself the champion of an oppressed class, he wrote with a welding heat, and threw out thoughts full of burning passion, ‘like white hot bolts of steel.’ Such verses sprang out of a truly noble wrath, but better thoughts came to him in quieter times, and then he overflowed with sympathy for his fellow-men. While denouncing his opponents so hotly in political strife, he had all the while a deep well of tenderness in his heart.” Smiles added that he hoped someone would write a biography “of this good man and true poet.” He summed up the Rhymer admiringly: “Elliott was on the whole, one of the most interesting and remarkable men of modern times.”

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