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1837.]

ELLIOTT.

Sparks from the hoof of death's pale steed-
Worlds flash and perish in thy sight.

The daring will to thee alone

The will and power are given to thee-
To lift the veil of the unknown,

The curtain of eternity

To look uncensured, though unbidden,
On marvels from the seraph hidden!
Alone to be-where none have been!
Alone to see what none have seen!
And to astonish'd reason tell

The secrets of the Unsearchable!

THE GRINDER.1

Where toils the mill, by ancient woods embraced,
Hark how the cold steel screams in hissing fire!
But Enoch sees the grinder's wheel no more,
Couched beneath rocks and forests, that admire
Their beauty in the waters, ere they roar,
Dash'd in white foam, the swift circumference o'er.
There draws the grinder his laborious breath;
There, coughing, at his deadly trade he bends.
Born to die young, he fears nor man nor death;
Scorning the future, what he earns he spends;
Debauch and riot are his bosom friends.
He plays the Tory, sultan-like and well:
Woe to the traitor that dares disobey

The Dey of Straps! as rattan'd tools shall tell.
Full many a lordly freak by night, by day,
Illustrates gloriously his lawless sway.

Of

"A grinder sits on a block of wood, which he calls his grinding-horse, and his grindstone is before him, turned on an axle by steam or water. To this he applies the article to be ground, and a spray of fire rises at every touch. But the fire is not the worst. The grindstone itself wears away in the foamlike surges that fill the lungs, and in a certain number of years, calculated by statistics to a nicety, kill the principle of life. A dry-grinder does not reach thirty-five, but a wet-grinder may defy death for nearly ten years more. the former is the grinder of table-knives-of the latter the grinder of tableforks. See what a trifle involves ten years of a man's life! We do not think, while sitting at table, that the knives and forks before us are guilty of more human blood than swords and spears! Why should we? The men themselves-and they number between two and three thousand in Sheffield-like their fate rather than otherwise. This is a fact proved by the Report of Government Commissioners,' and alluded to in the poem; for the Abraham and Elliot named there were the inventors of a preservative which the grinders will not use, although it is nothing more than a flue introduced into the wheel to carry off the dust. The men insist on their trade retaining its fatal noxiousness, because, if this were removed, there would be a greater competition of hands, their high wages would come down, and their deep drinking be cut short."

Behold his failings! hath he virtues too?

He is no pauper, blackguard though he be.

Full well he knows what minds combined can do-
Full well maintains his birthright-he is free!
And, frown for frown, outstares monopoly!
Yet Abraham and Elliot, both in vain,
Bid science on his cheek prolong the bloom;
He will not live! he seems in haste to gain
The undisturbed asylum of the tomb,
And, old at two-and-thirty, meets his doom!

APOSTROPHE TO FUTURITY.

Ye rocks! ye elements! thou shoreless main,
In whose blue depths, worlds, ever voyaging,
Freighted with life and death, of fate complain!
Things of immutability! ye bring

Thoughts that with terror and with sorrow wring
The human breast. Unchanged, of sad decay
And deathless change ye speak, like prophets old,
Foretelling evil's ever-present day;

And, as when Horror lays his finger cold
Upon the heart in dreams, appal the bold.
O thou Futurity! our hope and dread,
Let me unveil thy features, fair or foul!
Thou who shalt see the grave untenanted,
And commune with the re-embodied soul!
Tell me thy secrets, ere thy ages roll

Their deeds, that yet shall be on earth, in heaven,
And in deep hell, where rabid hearts with pain
Must purge their plagues, and learn to be forgiven!
Show me the beauty that shall fear no stain,
And still, through age-long years, unchanged remain !
As one who dreads to raise the pallid sheet
Which shrouds the beautiful and tranquil face
That yet can smile, but never more shall meet,
With kisses warm, his ever fond embrace;
So I draw nigh to thee, with timid pace,
And tremble, though I long to lift thy veil.

A POET'S PRAYER.

Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold—
A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled,

Let him live usefully, and not die old!

Let poor men's children, pleased to read his lays,
Love, for his sake, the scenes where he hath been.

And when he ends his pilgrimage of days,
Let him be buried where the grass

green,

Where daisies, blooming earliest, linger late
To hear the bee his busy note prolong;
There let him slumber, and in peace await

The dawning morn, far from the sensual throng,

Who scorn the windflower's blush, the redbreast's lonely song. Elliott's publications are-1, "Corn-Law Rhymes;" 2, "Love, a Poem;" 3, "The Village Patriarch," a poem; 4, "Poetical Works ;" 5, "More Verse and Prose by the Corn-Law Rhymer," in two volumes. The last, though prepared by the poet himself, is a posthumous publication.'

FRANCIS JEFFREY, 1773-1850.

FRANCIS (LORD) JEFFREY, the great Coryphæus of English critics, was born in the city of Edinburgh on the 23d of October, 1771. He was the eldest son of Mr. George Jeffrey, who, being bred to the law, had attained to the position of clerk of sessions. From his infancy he evinced the greatest quickness of apprehension and lively curiosity; and could read well when only in his fourth year. He was sent to the High School of Edinburgh in 1781, where he remained six years. He then went to the University of Glasgow, where he had the benefit of the instruction of some of the best professors in the kingdom. He stayed there, however, but two sessions, when in 1791 he entered Queen's College, Oxford. But the atmosphere of Oxford did not agree with his Scottish tastes and feelings, and he remained there but one session, when he returned to Edinburgh, and resumed his legal studies.

In December, 1792, Mr. Jeffrey became a member of the "Speculative Society" an extra-academical school of oratory and debate, and of literary composition, connected with the University of Edinburgh. On this intellectual arena he met and contended with Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, James Mackintosh, Francis Horner, John Archibald Murray, and others, who afterwards became distinguished in the literary or political world; and through life he delighted to recall his connection with this society, which, while it had contributed greatly to his pleasure, had done so much to prepare him for the higher contests of the world. In December, 1794, he was called to the bar, and applied himself with his usual energy to his profession. But success in the law is seldom attained until after years of dreary toil and perseverance, and Mr. Jeffrey wrote to his brother so late as 1803 that he had not made £100 in any one year by his profession. In

Read a good article on Elliott in "Chambers' Papers for the People," vol. i. to which I am much indebted for the above notice.

1801 he was married to Miss Catherine Wilson, daughter of the Rev. Charles Wilson, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews.

It was obvious that the intellectual activity of Jeffrey and his associates, urged by ambition and conscious power, could not long be restrained within the narrow professional channels to which it was then confined. Their social circle received a valuable addition, in 1797, by the arrival in Edinburgh of the Rev. Sydney Smith, who, in the preface to his Essays, has given some account of his genial associates, and of the establishment of the "Edinburgh Review." Of this event, so important in our author's life, and which in its results placed him at the head of the literary world, I will give his own account, somewhat abridged, as communicated to Mr. Robert Chambers, in November, 1846.

“I cannot say, exactly, where the project of the ‘Edinburgh Review' was first talked of among the proprietors. But the first serious consultations about it—and which led to our application to a publisher-were held in a small house where I then lived, in Buccleuch Place. They were attended by Sydney Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisherhe taking the risk, and defraying the charges. There was then no indi vidual editor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Wilson's printing-office, in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me."2

See the account in the biography of Sydney Smith, page 473.

That most liberal and enterprising publisher, Archibald Constable-the Maecenas of Scottish authors-remunerated the editor on a scale of princely liberality. From 1803 to 1809, a sum of two hundred guineas was given for editing each number: and from 1813 to 1826, seven hundred pounds a number. The fraternity of critics were, Sydney Smith, then thirty-four years old; Jeffrey, twenty-nine; Dr. Thomas Brown, twenty-four; Horner, twenty-four; Brougham, twenty-three; Allen, thirty-two; Dr. John Thomson, thirty-eight; and Thomas Thomson, thirty-two. The following fine remarks on the influence of this journal are from Stanton's "Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland:" "In estimating the literary influences which have contributed to the cause of Progress and Reform in Great Britain, during the present century, a high place should be assigned to the EDINBURGH REVIEW.' "This celebrated periodical appeared at an era when independence of thought and manliness of utterance had almost ceased from the public journals and councils of the kingdom. The terrors of the French Revolution had arrested the march of liberal opinions. The declamation of Burke and the ambition of Napoleon had frightened the isle from its propriety. Tooke had barely escaped the gallows through the courageous eloquence of Erskine. Fox had withdrawn from the contest in despair, and cherished in secret the fires of freedom, to burst forth in happier times.

"Previous to 1802, the literary periodicals of Great Britain were mere repositories of miscellanies, relating to art, poetry, letters, and gossip, partly ori

The first number of the "Edinburgh Review" appeared on the 1st of November, 1802. The number of copies printed was seven hundred and fifty. The demand, however, exceeded this limited supply: seven hundred and fifty more were thrown off, and successive editions, still more nume. rous, were called for. In 1808, the quarterly circulation had risen to about nine thousand: it is thought to have reached its maximum about 1813, when twelve or thirteen thousand copies were printed.

"Never again perhaps will one generation of critics have such a splendid harvest to reap-such a magnificent vintage to gather in. Could the editor have surveyed the thirty years' produce that lay before him, awaiting his critical distribution, he must have been overwhelmed by its prodigality and richness. There was the poetry of Crabbe, of Campbell, Moore, Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth-types of different schools; there was the gorgeous chivalry of Scott, with his long file of novels and romances, like an endless procession of the representatives of all ages, conditions, and countries; there was the oriental splendor and grace of Byron, alternat ing with his fierce energy and gloomy philosophy-the still more erring and extravagant genius of Shelley-and the youthful bloom of Keats; there were the tales of Maria Edgeworth, of Miss Austen, Galt, Wilson, and other not unworthy associates; the histories of Hallam, and the historical pictures of Macaulay; innumerable biographies of great contemporaries who had gone before-the Sheridans, Currans, Wilberforces, and Hebers; innumerable books of travels, that threw open the world to our ginal and partly selected, huddled together without system, and making up a medley as varied and respectable as a first class weekly newspaper of the present day. The criticisms of books were jejune in the extreme, consisting chiefly of a few smart witticisms, and meagre connecting remarks, stringing together ample quotations from the work under review. They rarely ventured into deep water on philosophical subjects, and as seldom pushed out upon the tempestuous sea of political discussion. Perhaps one or two journals might plead a feeble exception to the general rule; but the mass was weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable.

"The Edinburgh Review' appeared. It bounded into the arena without the countenance of birth or station, without the imprimatur of the universities or literary clubs. Its avowed mission was to erect a higher standard of merit, and secure a bolder style and a purer taste in literature, and to apply philosophical principles and the maxims of truth and humanity to politics, aiming to be the manual of the scholar, the monitor of the statesman. As in its advent it had asked permission of no one to be, so as to its future course it asked no advice as to what it should do. Soliciting no quarter, promising no favors, its independent bearing and defiant tone broke the spell which held the mind of a nation in fetters. Its first number revived the discussion of great political principles. The splendid diction and searching philosophy of an essay on the causes and consequences of the French Revolution at once arrested the public eye, and stamped the character of the journal. Pedants in the pulpit, and scribblers of Rosa-Matilda verses in printed albums, saw, from other articles in the manifesto, that exterminating war was declared on their inanities and sentimentalities. The new journal was perused with avidity, and produced a sensation in all classes of readers, exciting admiration and envy, love and hatred, defiance and fear. It rapidly obtained a large circulation, steadily rose to the highest position ever attained by any similar publication, reigned supreme in an empire of its own creation for a third of a century, accomplishing vast good mingled with no inconsiderable evil.”

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