Elliott says of himself, in the 'Autobiography' already quoted : " There is not in my poetry one good idea that has not been suggested to me by some real occurrence, or by some object actually before my eyes, or by some remembered object or occurrence, or by tho thoughts of other men, heard or read." And this is evidently true. All his poetry—all the true and living part of it at least—was suggested by some passing event, or was written to serve some temporary purpose. None of it is the result of a long meditated design, or the completely formed issue of a vivid and vigorous imagination; or, on the other hand, the unpremeditated melody of a heart imbued with happy thoughts and fancies—singing as the wild-bird eings. Nevertheless it is true, albeit often very harsh and rugged, poetry. It is the passionate protest against wrong—the fiery remonstrance with the wrongdoer —spurning the' cold iooumbrance of prose, and finding its only suf ficient utterance in the unrestrained flow of poetry. The great public evil that came nearest home to hie own hearth, that, as it seemed to him, which was inflicting dire mischief on the labouring classes of his own neighbourhood, and which was undermining the prosperity of the manufactures of his native place, and as he believed of the country generally, was the Corn-laws ; and he resolved to set forth the mischiefs those laws were producing, and the greater dangers they were threatening. He had not been long settled at Sheffield when hie ' Corn-law Rhymes' began to appear in a local paper, and their effect on the hard Yorkshire artisans was immediate and lasting. And their influence was assuredly well-earned. Rade and rugged in lan guage, intensely bitter, oven savage in their indignation, often, as might be expected, inconsiderate and sometimes unjust in their denunciations, they yetshowed everywhere a thoroughly honest hatred of oppression, and fellow-feeling with the oppressed and suffering. With quite a Crabbe-like familiarity with the poverty of the poor, they displayed a far warmer, deeper, and more genial sympathy. The wrath and the pathos, too, uttered in the most impassioned and the most direct words, were yet conveyed in genuine music, which made its way at once to the heart. When from a local they appealed to the general public: they were equally succeaafuL Tho ' Cora-law Rhymes.' published in a single volume with The
Ranter; at once made Elliott's name famous. Men of all shades of opinion joined is the admiration. The language was occasionally objected to, but. it was generally felt that the language was really a part of the man. Noticing the objection in the preface to a new edition of the Rhymes, Elliott asked, " Is it strange that my language is ferrest as a welding bee, when my thoughts are passions that rush burning from my mind, like white-hot belie of steel I" But thin, while.* sufficient explanation of what reads so like excessive vehemence, acmes really to take off the edge of his poetic' declamation, while it destroys the impression of his prose, as placing within the category of passion what ought to be the result of reason. Elliott followed his ' Corn law Rhymes' by publishing in 1829 the ' Village Patriarch,' another but longer corn-law rhyme, much the best of his longer pieces, and one which, with many faults, shows that be was capable of producing a great work, could he have subjected his mind to the necessary ' Love," They Met Again, ' Withered Wild-Flowers," Ker honah,' a dramatic fragment, and numerous beautiful little pieces, in which descriptions of the scenery of his much-loved Yorkshire formed ' the moat attractive part, followed ; and in 1834 he published his collected works In three volumes. Three or four more editions of his poetry were called for during his life, and to the last he continued to write rhymes, epigrams, songs, and short snatches of verse, which usually appeared from time to time in the corner of a local newspaper or the pages of Tait'a Magazine.' Since his death two volumes of his inedited remains have appeared under the title of ' More Prose and Verse, by the Corn-law Rhymer,' but they contain nothing that can materially add to his reputation. Two memoirs of him have been published, written by Sheffield friends : but his biography remains to be written ; and it is greatly to be desired that a fitting biography should be written of one who is emphatically the poet of Yorkshire —of its moors and streams, its towns gad townsmen—the poet of the cora-law struggle, and the poet of the poor.