THE CORN-LAW RHYMER.

IT is long since England possessed a poet forced into being by a period of national stress. For such a voice to be heard it is necessary that earnestness be in the air, and just now we are passing through a phase of scepticism ; deep feeling is uncommon; the comfort of the individual having become a more preciously guarded thing than it was even twenty years ago, ere self-consciousness had been cultivated as it now is, altruism is far less simple. Again, if a poet is to be born of national stress, it is necessary that a period of stress be undergone ; and we have known no period of real stress for two or three generations. The late war was too far from home, and, in spite of reverses, too unequal in character, to produce a poet of the kind we are contem- plating.

Whether the present conflict over Mr. Chamberlain's fiscal proposals will be waged with the passionate interest that alone can produce a poet, it is difficult to say. We sincerely hope that it may not, and we base this hope on the want of sufficient earnestness and persistence in the advocates of the new Pro-

tection. If, however, we should be unhappily condemned to a great division of opinion, history may repeat itself and give us a popular poet. England produced her last great natural orator and her last impassioned ballad-maker--John Bright and Ebenezer Elliott—during an economic controversy that stirred the nation to its depths. The coincidence suggests that a few words on Elliott may not be out of place at this season.

"The Corn-law Rhymer," as he was called, was born in 1781, the remote descendant of Border raiders, and the son of a Calvinist iron-worker. As a child he was delicate, retiring, and studious : with one friend, a green snake, which waited for him (he has told us) every Sunday morning in a lane on the outskirts of Masborough, in Yorkshire. At the age of sixteen Elliott began to work at his father's trade, and fell early into bad ways. From these, however, he was rescued in a moment by glancing one day at the picture of a primrose in Sowerby's "Botany," which reminded him

poignantly of Nature's influence upon him in his younger years, and turned his thoughts back to her. Thereafter to the end of his life he filled all his spare time by studying botany, by reading, and by writing verse, beginning with "The Vernal Walk" in 1798 (the year of the "Lyrical Ballads ").

Dramatic poems, descriptive poems, epics, odes, and lyrics followed, not one of which could be read to-day without extreme tedium, while their author was toiling in an uphill fight against commercial depression and becoming, for he

married young, the father of a large family. Until 1821 Elliott was a failure both as a poet and a man of business ; in

that year, however, his wife's relations subscribed the money to establish him in the iron trade in Sheffield, where he at once began to prosper, and ten years later, when he was fifty and a wealthy man (unique situation in literature!), he found himself as a poet, and under the name of "The Corn-law Rhymer" became for a while the most influential writer in England.

Elliott's true inspiration came from his intense sympathy with the sufferings of the Sheffield poor in particular and the English poor in general, incident upon the Corn-law of 1815, with its various developments, all of which bore so hardly upon the labouring classes. Hitherto he had found only in other writers his stimulus to write, and had therefore pro- duced merely tame derivative work of no value. He was now, in the grip of an authentic first-hand emotion, to make genuine burning ballads, which if not the best literature, were certainly the best polemics; for to the moral effect on the country of Elliott's rhymes was due probably quite as much as to Cobden and Bright the repeal of the obnoxious measure.

Since no one reads Elliott to-day, we may give some specimens of the white-hot stanzas which this meek-looking, pock-marked little man flung at the legislators of his time. Elliott, as every people's-poet must do, wrote with the utmost clarity, often choosing some well-known air to which to mate his words. Thus the following poem, one of his simplest and most pathetic efforts, is written to the tune of "Robin Adair"

"Child, is thy father dead P 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 !

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 breath, Groan'd to be gone : Now he is with the blest— Mother says death is best ! We have no place of rest.' Yes, ye have one !'"

The case was probably overstated to some extent, although Elliott may honestly not have thought so ; yet think of the inevitable effect of such words sung to such music as "Robin idair " ! In the same vein is this stan7a --

"Child, what hast thou with sleep to do ?

Awake, and dry thine eyes ! Thy tiny hands must labour too ; Our bread is tax'd—arise!

Arise, and toil long hours twice seven,

For pennies two or three;

Thy woes make angels weep in Heaven—

But England still is free.'

That is the surest road to the hearts of the people,—by sympathy. Another, and an easier, but often a less admirable one, is by scornful abuse of the other side. Elliott never lacked words when in this mood, but his more temperate verses are better, and wake no sense of unfairness or exaggera- tion as do his fiercer polemics. Take, for example :— "What is bad government, thou slave, Whom robbers represent?

What is bad government, thou knave, Who lov'st bad government?

It is the deadly Will, that takes What labour ought to keep;

It is the deadly Power, that makes

Bread dear, and labour cheap."

Reading these verses to-day with cool eyes, it is possible to wonder at Elliott's influence. He had, we see, little mastery in the poetic art, little wit, small power of ridicule, no abundance. Compared with the greatest of all people's-poets, Burns, he is thin and acrid. But what we have to consider is that he was forced into song by national stress, that he was the spokesman of the suffering majority. Indignation took

the pen from his hand and wrote for him. His readers came to him only for articulateness and sincerity ; rhetoric, wit, they did not need; they needed a champion, and Elliott served them. In judging his verse we must remember these things. If it seems barren, it is because its time is past: the conditions are changed ; there is, at present at any rate, no

electricity in the air, and we devoutly hope there will not be any; we read as literary critics rather than as partisans or enemies.

In 1830 a "Corn-law Rhyme" was not merely a rhyme, but a tocsin, a battle-cry.

Elliott lived until 1849,—long enough to see his work done and the hated law repealed. .A statue to his memory was erected by the working men of Sheffield in 1854. Landor wrote an ode for the unveiling, which contains these lines, in that fine vein of eulogy of which Mr. Swinburne is to-day the only possessor:—

" Three ELLtorrs there have been, three glorious men,

Each in his generation. One was doom'd By despotism and prelacy to pine In the damp dungeon, and to die for Law, Back'd by slow tortures ere he reacht the grave. A second hurled his thunderbolt and flame When Gaul and Spaniard moor'd their pinnaces, Screaming defiance at Gibraltar's frown, Until one moment more, and other screams, And other writhings rose above the wave From sails afire and hissing where they fell, And men half burnt along the buoyant mast.

A third came calmly on and askt the rich To give laborious hunger daily bread,

As they in childhood had been taught to pray

By God's own Son, and sometimes have prayed since. God heard; but they heard not. God sent down bread; They took it, kept it all, and cried for more, Hollowing both hands to catch and clutch the crumbs."

Of Elliott's non-political poetry there is little to say. Only now and then did he stumble upon a felicity. Among the many four-lined thoughts which Elliott included in his "Rambles in Rhyme," this is as memorable as any :—

"Companionship in toil or sorrow Makes every man a brother:

Till we have work'd or wept together We do not know each other.'

As we have said, it is to be hoped that the day has gone by for a new singer with Ebenezer Elliott's intensity of feeling; nor, indeed, were Elliott alive to-day, would the battle of preferential duties be likely to call from him such scalding words. For the time being we are more disposed to ridicule than to direct vitriolic censure. Our next people's-poet will probably less resemble Ebenezer Elliott than "Hosea Biglow."