time-we shall not assume the office of moral censor, but leave it to some other Cato-feeling that "true knowledge leads to love."

Why all the secular concerns of this life are inextricably bound up with Politics and Political Economy -and we devoutly wish they were all of the right sort-that we knew assuredly what are the right sort and that we had power to bring them and keep them into everlasting play. Would you have a man like this to heat forge and furnace, and hammer with his own hands, and begrime his face with soot till it is almost as black as his hair, and the sweat runs from his brow like ink-and to work on short commons too-and to refuse with no grudging but a grieved heart playthings to his pretty children, because too expensive for his means, and smile sadly to see on his wife's head too plain a cap, when his conjugal soul would have rejoiced

to see top-knots and side-knots too of iris-like ribands, which even a sober matron may not ungracefully wear, when a friend or two, that forenoon invited, sit down to a frugal but hospitable board-would you have, we ask, such a man as this, and thus acting and behaving, abjure all thought of the causes affecting his condition, and that of his millions of brethren, and keep perpetually pratling of flowers, and "babbling o' green fields," or missyfying misery till it looks like a gaudy doll staring with bead-eyes and purple cheeks upon the critic pausing before the window of a hairdresser's shop, to admire how most abominably art imitateth nature in her happiest efforts to make women of wood? Shame! Let the Sheffielder speak for himself-and his verse against your prose-pounds to shillingsfor a thousand.

"But hark! what accents, of what slave, enquire
Why rude mechanics dare to wield the quill?
He bids me from the scribbler's desk retire,
Rehoof my fingers, and forget my skill

In railing foully, and in writing ill.
Oh, that my poesy were like the child
That gathers daisies from the lap of May,
With prattle sweeter than the bloomy wild!
It then might teach poor wisdom to be gay
As flowers, and birds, and rivers all at play,
And winds, that make the voiceless clouds of morn
Harmonious. But distemper'd, if not mad,
I feed on Nature's bane, and mess with scorn.
I would not, could not, if I would, be glad,
But, like shade-loving plants, am happiest sad.
My heart, once soft as woman's tear, is gnarl'd
With gloating on the ills I cannot cure.
Like Arno's exiled bard, whose music snarl'd,
I gird my loins to suffer and endure,

And woo contention, for her dower is sure.
Tear not thy gauze, thou garden-seeking fly,

On thorny flowers that love the dangerous storm,

And flourish most beneath the coldest sky!
But ye who honour truth's enduring form,
Come! there are heath-flowers, and the fanged worm,
Clouds, gorse, and whirlwind, on the gorgeous moor!"

The country, from time immemorial, has had its bands of poets-and they have had it all their own way -too much so, perhaps-till at last one of the most pious among them all-and the most Christian tooexclaimed as a clencher-"God made the country, and man made the town." God made all things-red houses as well as green trees-and the church

towers and spires of a crowded city surely meet from heaven's free smiles as gracious welcome as any of God's houses in the solitude of the mountains. Clouds, whether of coal-smoke or vapours flower-exhaled, intercept not the glad beams of the Sun of Righteousness. There is more innocence we have often thought, and may have said-in rural dwellings—

but in city or suburban more virtue. Force is estimated by resistance over come-and how hard to keep-how high to have kept religion that is, all that is good and best in man's being-among all the hideous hubbub of Sin-Alley-the doors of two adjacent houses-leading-the one into a quiet heaven-the other into a noisy hell!

Sheffield has been long famous for its cutlery and hardware-but shew us another town in England that has produced—or at least educated-two such poets as James Montgomery and Ebenezer Elliott. Away floats the mild Moravian-Moravian at least in spirit, if not in profession-to the pure World before the Flood, or the coral Pelican Island, where all is peace. The stern Covenanter - Covenanter at least in spirit if not in professionforsakes not far the dancing din on anvil, the forge's blast, and the roar of the furnace. For that fervent heat is crowded with human and with christian life; and when he sings of them, "his thoughts are passions that rush burning from my mind like white-hot bolts of steel." Yet, though often too stern-too fierce the strain-there are wanting not "gleams of redeeming tenderness"music like the singing of birds in the storm-pause-whisperings like the prattle of children that cannot be kept silent in the house of mourning -nay, from smiling-from laughing in the very room where the body of their father or their mother is laid out;-in a darksome lane, from some holy nook, the sound of Psalms!

"The Splendid Village" is, perhaps, as a whole, Mr Elliott's best poem; but "The Village Patriarch" -imperfect in plan, and unequal in execution-desultory and rambling -is more original, more impressive, and far more pleasing-though we could have wished that much were away-and have missed still more that should have been there, and might easily have been, had it so pleased the wayward poet. The whole poem hangs upon, about, and around one character-Enoch Wray -once a powerful and skilful man with his hands at many a manner of work-but now a man of a hundred years-who has been ever so long blind-ever so long a widower-ever so long childless-but one daugh

ter, a wife and mother, survives→→
and her hand finally shuts his eyes.
We need not say that he is poor.
Yet old, blind, poor, he is a majestic
being-a seer rather than a prophet
-for he re-lives the past-and in
his anger with the present-scorns
to look-but with now and then a
glance-into the future. His cottage
is not located anywhere-and we
hardly know whether it be in town,
suburb, village, or country; but we
see him issuing from a door on a
clear frosty morning, and are told
that he takes the townward road.
"Our poor blind father grasps his staff
again

Oh! heaven protect him on his way alone!
Of things familiar to him, what remain?
The very road is changed; his friend, the

stone,

On which he wont to sit and rest, is gone!"

But with all the old roads of the country that yet remain he is familiar; his perplexity begins in the town-with its numerous new streets -some of them having rural names that awaken sad recollections in the old man's heart. Unreasonable but not unnatural sorrow-not unmixed with very anger-that the town-during his blindness-should have unfeelingly and unlawfully protruded itself into the country, and encamped with its hovels on the green fields, so beautiful long ago, before it pleased God to make him blind! He pays a visit to a country-born widow and her consumptive boy-a touching scene-leaving her garden, he hears, in passing by, female artisans singing hymns at their labour-and then steps in upon a brother in misfortune-an old and sightless sawyer, once a workman of his own-and "though aged but eighty years, bedrid and blind." That but coversEnoch all over with hoariest time. He prays fervently by his bed-and implores high heaven to let them two humble friends, when their dust shall be divorced from sin, pain, and fear, remain in blessed communion with powers' that know not death, "warbling to heavenly airs the grateful soul." And so ends Book I., containing the simple history of one winter's day.

The opening of Book II. shews us Enoch seated in the sunshine at his

cottage-door, his neglected garden exhibiting saddest symptoms of poverty.

"Yet here, even yet, the florist's eye may view,

Sad heirs of noble sires, once dear to thee; And soon faint odours, o'er the vernal dew,

Shall tempt the wanderings of the earliest

bee

Hither, with music sweet as poetry."

The Poet takes occasion to mourn

over the condition of the poor, chang-
ed so much for the worse since the
Patriarch was young, and alludes to
great events of his time-invasion
of England by the Pretender-Ame-
rican war-French Revolution-Na-
poleon. Fine lines are interspersed
through to us a somewhat heavy
narrative. But the Third Book
makes ample amends, and on a fine
Sabbath morning we see Enoch
going to church.

"Why then is Enoch absent from my side?
I miss the rustle of his silver hair;
A guide no more, I seem to want a guide,
While Enoch journeys to the house of prayer!
Ah! ne'er came Sabbath-day, but he was there!
Lo! how like him, erect and strong, though grey,
Yon village-tower, time-touch'd, to God appeals!
But hark! the chimes of morning die away!
Hark! to the heart the solemn sweetness steals,
Like the heart's voice, unfelt by none who feels
That God is love, that man is living dust;
Unfelt by none, whom ties of brotherhood
Link to his kind; by none who puts his trust
In nought of earth that hath survived the flood,
Save those mute charities, by which the good
Strengthen poor worms, and serve their Maker best."

Some very affecting incidental touches occur here and there, and there is power in the passages descriptive of the desecration of the Sabbath. After them how pleasant the picture of an old English hall!

"Behold his home that sternly could withstand

The storm of more than twice a hundred years!

With ivy, ever green amid the grey!"

But we are not long allowed to lose sight of Enoch Wray, and he comes again most impressively be

In such a home was Shakspeare's Hamlet fore us, seized suddenly in his blindplann'd, ness with some grief of mind.

"Why, Enoch, dost thou start, as if in pain?

The sound thou hear'st the blind alone could hear:
Alas! Miles Gordon ne'er will walk again;
But his poor grandson's footstep wakes thy tear,
As if indeed thy long lost friend were near.
Here oft, with fading cheek, and thoughtful brow,
Wanders the youth-town-bred, but desert-born.
Too early taught life's deepening woes to know,
He wakes in sorrow with the weeping morn,
And gives much labour for a little corn.
In smoke and dust, from hopeless day to day,
He sweats, to bloat the harpies of the soil,
Who jail no victim, while his pangs can pay.
Untaxing rent, and trebly taxing toil;
They make the labour of his hands their spoil,
And grind him fiercely; but he still can get
A crust of wheaten bread, despite their frowns;
They have not sent him like a pauper yet
For workhouse wages, as they send their clowns ;
Such tactics do not answer yet, in towns.

Nor have they gorged his soul, Thrall though he be
Of brutes who bite him while he feeds them, still
He feels his intellectual dignity,

Works hard, reads usefully, with no mean skill
Writes, and can reason well of good and ill.
He hoards his weekly groat. His tear is shed
For sorrows which his hard-worn hand relieves.
Too poor, too proud, too just, too wise to wed,
(For slaves enough already toil for thieves,)
How gratefully his growing mind receives
The food which tyrants struggle to withhold!
Though hourly ills his every sense invade
Beneath the cloud that o'er his home is roll'd,
He yet respects the power which man hath made,
Nor loathes the despot-humbling sons of trade.
But, when the silent Sabbath-day arrives,
He seeks the cottage, bordering on the moor,
Where his forefathers pass'd their lowly lives,

Where still his mother dwells, content, though poor,
And ever glad to meet him at the door.

Oh, with what rapture he prepares to fly

From streets and courts, with crime and sorrow strew'd,
And bids the mountain lift him to the sky!
How proud, to feel his heart not all subdued!
How happy to shake hands with Solitude!
Still, Nature, still he loves thy uplands brown,
The rock, that o'er his father's freehold towers!
And strangers, hurrying through the dingy town,
May know his workshop by its sweet wild-flowers.
Cropp'd on the Sabbath from the hedge-side bowers,
The hawthorn blossom in his window droops;
Far from the headlong stream and lucid air
The pallid alpine rose to meet him stoops,
As if to soothe a brother in despair,
Exiled from Nature and her pictures fair.
E'en winter sends a posy to his jail,
Wreathed of the sunny celandine—the brief
Courageous wind-flower, loveliest of the frail-
The hazel-crimson star-the woodbine's leaf--
The daisy with its half-closed eye of grief-
Prophets of fragrance, beauty, joy, and song!"

Spring is just about to venture among the melting snow, and in Book Fourth we find Enoch listening to the recitation of poetry from the works of some of our greatest living bards. He had always loved poetry-and the first poem that stir

red his soul from all its depths, was Schiller's Robbers. He had read it about the time of the French Revolution-and, just after, lost his eyes. His wife died during his darkness; and here is a passionate picture, that, of itself, stamps Elliott a poet.

"Then hither, Pride, with tearless eyes, repair!-
Come, and learn wisdom from unmurmuring woe,
That reft of early hope, yet scorns despair.
Still in his bosom light and beauty glow,
Though darkness took him captive long ago.
Nor is the man of five score years alone:
A heavenly form, in pity, hovers near;
He listens to a voice of tenderest tone,
Whose accents sweet the happy cannot hear;
And, lo! he dashes from his cheek a tear,
Caught by an angel shape, with tresses pale.
He sees her, in his soul. How fix'd he stands!-

But, oh! can angels weep? Can grief prevail

O'er spirits pure? She waves her thin white hands;
And, while her form recedes, her eye expands,
Gazing on joys which he who seeks shall find.

There is an eye that watches o'er the blind;
He hath a friend-' not lost, but gone before'—
Who left her image in his heart behind.

But when his hands, in darkness, trembled o'er
Her lifeless features, and he heard no more

The voice whose last tone bless'd him, frenzy came!—
Blindness on blindness! Midnight thick and deep,
Too heavy to be felt!-Then pangs, like flame,
That sear'd the brain-sorrow, that could not weep-
Fever, that would have barter'd worlds for sleep !—
He had no tears, but those that inly pour,

And scald the heart-no slumbers, but the doze
That stuns the mourner, who can hope no more!—
But he had shudderings-stupor-nameless woes!—
Horror, which only he that suffers knows.

But frenzy did not kill. His iron frame,

Though shaken, stood. The mind's night faded slow.
Then would he call upon his daughter's name,
Because it was her mother's!—And his woe
Waned into resignation, pleased to show

A face of peace, without the smile it wore.-
Nor did the widower learn again to smile,
Until his daughter to her Albert bore
Another Mary; and on yonder stile

He nursed the babe, that sweetly could beguile,
With looks unseen,' all sadness but despair.'

Ebenezer Elliott is a Radical. Would that all Radicals would take from him their religion! We know not-nor care-to what church he belongs; sufficient for us to know that it is the church of Christ. He elsewhere says

"Spirits should make the desert their abode.

The meekest, purest, mightiest, that e'er

wore

Dust as a garment, stole from crowds unblest

To sea-like forests, or the sea-beat shore, And utter'd, on the star-sought mountain's breast,

The holiest precepts e'er to dust address'd."

its agony, seeks succour from God. He never appeals lightly-for that would be irreverently-to religion. But the whole course of the Village Patriarch bears testimony to its efficacy in all affliction-nor is its gentle spirit inapparent through the still air of joy. Would that at all times it tempered his feelings when they are too vehemently excited by the things that are temporal-but another hour may come for reproof-if not from us-perhaps from a wiser man, "the master who taught him the art of poetry," and whom all good men love and reverence.

Enoch, as he stands in the churchyard, thinking of her who is in heaven, is a melancholy image. But

Throughout all his poetry, grief, in his companion, the poet, says to him,

And flings bright lightnings from his helm abroad:
Let us drink deep the pure and lucid air,

Ere darkness call thee to her damp abode.

Hark, how the titling whistles o'er the road!

Holm, plume thy palms! and toss thy purple torse,
Elm but, Wood Rose, be not a bride too soon!
Snows yet may shroud alive the golden gorse:
Thou, early green, deem not thy bane a boon;
Distrust the day that changeth like the moon.
But still our father weeps. Ah! though all hues
Are dead to him, the floral hours shall yet
Shed o'er his heart their fragrance-loving dews!
E'en now, the daisy, like a gem, is set,
Though faint and rare, in winter's coronet.

Thy sisters sleep, adventurous wind-flower pale;