World's best

A Curious & Unpublished Poem by the Corn Law Rhymer

The poem below was sent in a letter to Michael Beale, a friend of the bard. (Note that the surname was often spelt Beal).The letter discussed buying a watch from Beale who was a watchmaker by trade.

The poem is not typical of Elliott's work. For once, the Poet of the Poor is not banging on about the Bread Tax or repealing the Corn Law. "The Apostle of Corn Law Repeal," as John Watkins once called Elliott, was in a differenent frame of mind. The writing is informal, flippant and attempts to be amusing; something only rarely seen in the Corn Law Rhymer. It would seem that the poem was a private thing, off the cuff and not meant for publication. For more information about Beale click on Friends & Acquaintances of the Corn Law Rhymer.

The poem is called "The World's Best" and contains many allusions which Beale would have appreciated. It's quite a long poem so we can conclude that Elliott enjoyed himself putting his thoughts down on paper. No date has been established for the poem.

Line No.

The World's Best

Said the world’s best of men (to the knowing, known well

As a fish that could swim with the stream)

Let us sing to the glory and praise of oursel'

My ninety-ninth hymn on that theme.

I cannot conceive how a wise man, (can you?)

Could differ from me and do well;

For my god, Prudence hight, is a god well to do,

Alias, Marry Tak’ Care o’ Mysel.

The best of all maxims is “Keep what you’ve got”

Says Marry Tak’ Care o’ Mysel;

So I keep to myself what I know, and know not,

Or they who know nothing, would tell.

While my tongue is as close as my fist, taking care

That I seem to know more than is known,

Who suspects that my treasures, pick’d up here and there,

Are bits of flos silk and stain’d bone?

God curse that John Fowler, and cobbling old Paul!

They would teach beggar’s boys to know more

Than your deep gifted men, who know nothing at all

About Freedom, and such beggar’s lore.

My servant mate. Kit, turns her nose up at me!

The tinner’s blear’d lad as I pass

Cries, “Who’ll buy a bag of sloe-leaves for bohea?

Here’s the elephant goose, in an ass!”

The Devil take Fisher and Lowe, with their zeal

For the love of the lovely and true!

And burn in his pit, Spencer Hall, and Mic’ Beale!

What have I with their rambles to do?

Yet I’m blamed by Hell-thunder the parson, who sees

That e’en Kitty comes seldom to pray:

I’d have her devout, as my mare’s broken knees,

Why is she not, d---n her? I say.

I ask’d her last night, “Why in duty so slack?”

“He calls us base scum!” she replied:

But we are as good as his master, and not quite so black,

And we don’t curse the chaise, if we ride.

Now, God in his mercy, confound squinting Sam,

For lending her “Nature Revealed!”

But they’d both be religious, as I myself am,

Were I king while two backs could be peeled

For they’re both gone astray from the fold to the den;

From the saints and salvation they’re flown;

From Wesley and Heaven, to the chapel of men,

Where the Devil is preached by his own.

Notes on the poem

Line 4. Ellliott did indeed write many hymns. Here he is being facetious.

Line 7. Note that god is spelt with lower case. If he was being serious, Elliott would use caps as in Line 36.

Line 8. "Marry Tak Care O Mysel." Like Prudence in the previous line, it's a fairly amusing personification.

Line 16. "Flos." Floss silk is a kind of thread used in embroidery and needlework.

Line 17. "Cobbling old Paul." Paul Rodgers was a great friend of the bard. As was John Fowler. Information on both is available at Friends & Acquaintances.

Line 20. Note the capital F in Freedom. An important concept in days of protest and reform.

Line 21. Kit or Kitty was the name for a pony at Elliott's home in Great Houghton. He moved there in 1841 which means the poem was written in the last few years of the poet's life when he had more time on his hands.

Line 23. Bohea is a black tea from China.

Line 25. Lowe was Rev John Lowe, a nonconformist minister with an interest in reform. Like Elliott, he was a member of the Shefield Mechanics' Institute. Francis Fisher, a young Unitarian minister was a close friend. See Friends & Acquaintances for more details.

Line 27. Spencer Hall was a writer friend of Elliott. Hall visited the bard at Great Houghton and the two men had a boisterous evening. Hall mentions Elliott in his book "Biographical Sketches of Temarkable People" published in 1873.

Line 36. Sam - could he just be Samuel Holberry, the Sheffield revolutinary who died in prison? This is a very wild guess! Can't find any books by him. Nor can I trace "Nature Reveaed" in Line 37. Perhaps it was a Chartist pamphlet that Holberry wrote?

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