lend the book that instructed me. When I came hither, intending to use my books, I found that I had lent and lost the very books which I most wanted. "I have been much pleased with the 'Irish Lyrics,' and am a thought richer for reading them, having contrived to steal a thought from one of them without robbing the author. ઃઃ "I hardly know whether Henry Sutton's book* or Fanny Wright's is the more extraordinary. May they ever continue to be singular exhibitions of talent, labouring to be absurd! He, I am happy to believe, will not be able to make man in the image of his conceit, nor she in that of her bigotry. "Puzzled by 'England the Civilizer,' I gave it, I am sorry to say, a second and very careful reading. Two-thirds of it, at least, consist of wearisome repetitions; explanations which do not explain; and pompous truisms not worth asserting. She exchanges one word for another, and thinks she has done something. Instead of government, she says, we are to have administration-government using things, and administration men; what the latter are to use, except things, I cannot see. The only point that she proves is, that (not England but) Italy, has been the civilizer; and she repudiates the only power that ever did, or can improve the condition of mankind; that power, whose last invented tool-the rail—has done more in ten years for the emancipation of the human race, than unaided agriculture (which means finger-grubbing for pig-nuts) could in ten thousand." "DEAR SIR, "Great Houghton, 2nd January, 1849. "A plague on all your houses! Your Hall of Science, your Chapel of Jabez, your Church of Peter, your House that Jack built, and the House that Martin stole. The result of Neddy's generalship will be a 6s. duty. For this end, (affirming the deadly principle of protection,) the monopolists have retained the ls. duty. That duty-though as a revenue duty it will only produce £400,000 a year, even if our yearly imports are 8,000,000 of quarters-will be a class-tax of £2,500,000 a year, and consequently a 6s. duty *It is but right to add here, that Elliott afterwards acknowledged he had been unjust to Sutton. C C will be a similar tax of £15,000,000. Lord, have mercy on us, or, ere long, England will be (for years to come) from sea to sea, a sea of blood and fire. Why fight a battle, useless if won-and if lost, fatal ?" "I thank you for your favour of the 2nd, covering the balance of account to 30th Sept. last, £20 2s. 6d. "Though I despise the nonsense of Communism, think not that I despair of man's federation. No, brother! read, as I have done, (for I have had the honour of reading the proof sheets,) in, I believe, the forthcoming number of the 'Westminster Review,' an article on 'Human Progress,' one of the most eloquent and encouraging productions ever written. The author is, perhaps, our greatest living mechanician, (and certainly one of our greatest living benefactors of his kind) a Communist, worthy of any good cause. "In his choice of an habitation he has proved the adaptability of communal principles to individual taste. Living in the kernel of London, he breathes a pure atmosphere, commanding from his windows perhaps the grandest and loveliest prospect in the world; and with all the advantages of the highest civilization, within a few yards around him, enjoys (for to him it is enjoyment) the absolute solitude of an anchorite! He lives on the eighth and highest landing of a huge pile of buildings, a portion of the roof of which is his yard: the infinite blue kisses his noble forehead; and beneath him flows the Thames, with its universe of life and motion. "If you will contrive to quote the above at a public meeting, you will advertise the book, and give the good cause a shove; for all your 'shorts' are reported-I grieve to find you spinning long yarns. "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." The four next letters were addressed to Mr. Paul Rodgers of Sheffield. "Hargate Hill, near Barnsley, 23rd Jan. 1849. "DEAR PAUL RODGERS, better man. "You know Mark Gregory, then? You cannot know a And so the son is gone before the sire. Well, it lifts me up to learn that he left love and means sufficient to bring his poor remains home for interment. Then God speed your 'Word for the Poor.' But why the poor? richest ! Nay, they are the rich! the "Your song is very pleasing, and if it will sing, you ought to crow! I cannot write anything that will sing, because, I am told, I will not suffer each succeeding stanza to be like the preceding in rhythm. But the truth is, head-work is not heart-work. "I think I have written some poems here which excel all my published doings. The last and best is a long narrative, or rather only a part of one, yet in itself complete. I have a capital knack of writing poems in three parts, and leaving two of them unbegun; the day of epics having gone by, and an abortive epic being the very thing I will not do. The scene is at Conisbrough, many centuries before the Christian era. I have taken the liberty to suppose that the Vale of Don and Dar, from Wath to Cadeby, was then a lake, with a little Niagara at the east end. I shall touch my "Give my respects to Mrs. R. and to all your family, and to John Fowler, our son by better ties than blood.' suppose he is by this time John Fowler, Esq. Never mind. hat to him, as I did to Jemmy Teapot, who nodded not again. To be sure, I had told him that he would go the carriage-road to God. "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, * "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." cr Hargate Hill, near Barnsley, 24th Aug. 1849. "DEAR SIR, "My master-critic says, 'your narrative has no characters, unless your Derbyshire emigrant is a character; and if he is, his dialect is his character. The story, however, is not, she thinks, less true to nature on that account; for, in her opinion, sacks stuffed with straw, if they could talk, and were numbered 1, 2, 3, or 3, 2, 1, might pass for men, as well as nineteen-twentieths of the human beings we meet with. If so, Carlyle is right, and we must wait not for circumstances, but the man, who is to make and be them." You've nae sic cricket i' your town. "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." "DEAR SIR, "Great Houghton, near Barnsley, 15th July, 1848. "It is a comfort to see again this hand-writing. To meet the writer, and the friends named, in Wentworth Park, would be a greater blessing still; but it is not to be. Not that it might not easily be. I should only have to take a teaspoonful or two of laudanum ; but I should suffer great pain afterwards-to say nothing of the horrid 'black-drop muddle.' "My present disease (the only serious one I ever had) is imputed to the influenza, which again and again attacked me some months ago. I believe it commenced before I left Sheffield. The feeling of suffocation which generally followed my speechifying there, was premonitory of it, and of the slow breaking up of my constitution. It will end either in apoplexy or consumption. "You say nothing how you and Fowler are, and what you are doing or meditating. No evil, I am sure. Has he left the Institution? "My "People's Anthem,' it seems, is printed. I wrote it at the request of one of Mr. Willowby Wood's brothers, who said he would set it to music. Perhaps 'People's Doings' have changed his mind. He suggested alterations essential to the tune; and I send you a corrected copy in the hope that Mr. Leader will print it for the note's sake. "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." "29th July, 1848. "KIND APOSTLE, "Do not suppose that you always go without me on your excursions: 'I inherit your wanderings, and am still.' Might I recommend to you, for a week-day out, a visit, by rail, to the Etherow Viaduct? On to Dunwell, that you may know what barrenness is, and be thankful! "Thank Mr. Fowler for me; but I did not fear that he or you would forget me. "The wording of my 'Home of Taste' might justify The Daily News in their interpretation. They have, however, misunderstood me. I did not mean to give the workman a Home of Taste, but to let him earn one; permission to do so being really all that is wanted. And this brings me back to the note appended to my 'People's Anthem,' in The Independent: it does not say all that I ought to have said. Add as follows, after me, whenever you have an opportunity; never mind whose thoughts they are—I would fain atone for original sin before I die : "The right to vote for members of parliament is founded on property and knowledge, that property and knowledge which every self-sustained person possesses in the labour and skill which enable him or her to live; and taxation and representation ought to be co-extensive, because taxes are paid by self-sustained persons alone. The pauper, be he palaced or hovelled, pays no taxes; the murderous protectionist, be he voter or legislator, none. Little knows the latter, if he is rich, for whom and what he has been an impoverisher; and woe be to him and his appropriations, if his folly and wickedness are to be much longer misruling forces.' "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, "EBENEZER ELLIOTT." The following letters, addressed to the Author of this volume, will explain themselves, although nothing but an anxious desire to place Elliott truly and faithfully before the public could have induced him to publish them. "Great Houghton, near Barnsley, 29th July, 1848. "DEAR SIR, "In the land of palaces and jails, where poverty is a crime, I would not say to everybody what I am about to tell you. If I could well make ends meet, you would not need to ask me to subscribe for your book.* I should have done so already, for you have * The book alluded to is called "Essays, Poems, Allegories, Fables; with an Elucidation and Analysis of the 'Bhagavat Geeta.'" John Chapman, Strand, London. |