While all beside was voiceless, breathless fear;
And, lo, the foam was human agony,
Alive with curses, horrible to hear!

The waves were men! a deluge wide and drear !
And while, all raving, all at once, they came,
Heap'd on each other, to devour the shore,

The flash of eyes made heaven's red vengeance tame!
The thunder dared not whisper to the roar;
When, with their multitudinous hands, they tore
The rocks, that seem'd to live in bestial forms.'

6

The miscellaneous poems are on the whole inferior, and of more unequal execution. Mr Elliott appears, by a note to The 'Letter,' to be of opinion, that it is only the pedantic insignificance of genteel poetics, which supposes that general or accidental associations, whether influencing thought, style, or particular words, may require to be consulted, before a poet can be said to be dealing fully and fairly with the universal capabilities which belong to whatever is true in nature. We had marked some offences of this kind for observation. They are sometimes committed on principle; at other times apparently from the necessities of rhyme yet his versification is so rich and flowing, that we should not wonder, if, on the whole, he found, like Dryden, rhyme rather an assistance than a restraint. His extensive intermingling of the couplet with alternate rhymes is almost the invention of a new measure; in which the breadth and diversified pauses of blank verse are combined with the satisfied expectation of the returning cadences of rhyme. The effect is often very visible in greater freedom of movement and fulness of expression. We need hardly assure Mr Elliott, that we are none of those who expect more vulgarity (meaning, by vulgarity, paltry and commonplace associations) from the writings of cobbler poets and inspired ploughmen,' than from the automatons of artificial and conventional existence, waiting for inspiration in the drawingrooms of London. Our sympathies are not with the exotics of the hothouse. They are all with his hawthorn hedgerows and his cottage gardens.

We promised to return to Miles Gordon; and will keep our word. He is the hero of a poem called The Ranter.' If our readers, after perusing it, feel as we did, they will think that Ranter parsons may be very different persons from what, it is probable, it hitherto has occurred to them as possible that they could be. A long continuous extract is necessary to show the Ranter's portrait. At the same time it will show what is the nature of the defects which strike like a flaw across the whiteness of the marble on which Mr Elliott works.

Miles Gordon sleeps; his six days' labour done,
He dreams of Sunday, verdant fields, and prayer:
Oh, rise, blest morn, unclouded! Let thy sun
Shine on the artisan,-thy purest air

Breathe on the bread-tax'd labourer's deep despair!
Poor sons of toil! I grudge them not the breeze
That plays with Sabbath flowers, the clouds that play
With Sabbath winds, the hum of Sabbath bees,
The Sabbath walk, the skylark's Sabbath lay,
The silent sunshine of the Sabbath day.

The stars wax pale, the moon is cold and dim :
Miles Gordon wakes, and grey dawn tints the skies:
The many-childed widow, who to him

Is as a mother, hears her lodger rise,

And listens to his prayer with swimming eyes.
For her, and for her orphans poor, he prays,
For all who earn the bread they daily eat:-
"Bless them, O God, with useful happy days,
With hearts that scorn all meanness and deceit ;
And round their lowly hearths let freemen meet!"
This morn, betimes, she hastes to leave her bed,
For he must preach beneath th' autumnal tree :
She lights her fire, and soon the board is spread
With Sabbath coffee, toast, and cups for three.
Pale he descends; again she starts to see
His hollow cheek, and feels they soon must part;
But they shall meet again-that hope is sure;
And, oh! she venerates his mind and heart,
For he is pure, if mortal e'er was pure !
His words, his silence, teach her to endure;
And then, he helps to feed her orphan'd five.
O God! thy judgments cruel seem to be!
While bad men biggen long, and cursing thrive,
The good, like wintry sunbeams, fade and flee—
That we may follow them, and come to Thee.

'In haste she turns, and climbs the narrow stair,
To wake her eldest born, but pausing stands,
Bent o'er his bed; for on his forehead bare,
Like jewels ring'd on sleeping beauty's hands,
Tired labour's gems are set in beaded bands;
And none, none, none, like bread-tax'd labour know'th
How more than grateful are his slumbers brief.
Thou dost not know, thou pamper'd son of sloth!—
Thou canst not tell, thou bread-tax eating thief!-

How sweet is rest to bread-tax'd toil and grief!

Like sculpture, or like death, serene he lies.
But no that tear is not a marble tear—

And must she wake that poor, o'erlabour'd youth?
Oh, yes! or Edmund will his mother chide;
For he this morn would hear the words of truth
From lips inspired, on Shirecliffe's lofty side,
Gazing o'er tree and tower on Hallam wide.-
Up, sluggards, up! the mountains one by one
Ascend in light; and slow the mists retire
From vale and plain. The cloud on Stanington
Beholds a rocket-no, 'tis Morthen spire!

The sun is risen! cries Stanedge, tipp'd with fire;
On Norwood's flowers the dewdrops shine and shake;
Up, sluggards, up! and drink the morning breeze;
The birds on cloud-left Osgathorpe awake;
And Wincobank is waving all his trees
O'er subject towns, and farms, and villages,
And gleaming streams, and woods, and waterfalls.
Up, climb the oak-crown'd summit! Hooberstand,
And Keppel's Pillar, gaze on Wentworth's Halls,
And misty lakes, that brighten and expand,

And distant hills, that watch the western strand.
Up! trace God's foot-prints, where they paint the mould
With heavenly green, and hues that blush and glow
Like angel's wings; while skies of blue and gold
Stoop to Miles Gordon on the mountain's brow.
Behold the Great Unpaid! the prophet, lo!
Sublime he stands beneath the gospel tree,
And Edmund stands on Shirecliffe at his side;
Behind him sinks, and swells, and spreads a sea
Of hills, and vales, and groves; before him glide
Don, Rivelin, Loxley, wandering in their pride
From heights that mix their azure with the cloud;
Beneath him, spire and dome are glittering;
And round him press his flock, a woe-worn crowd.
To other words, while forest echoes ring,
"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon," they sing;
And far below, the drover, with a start
Awaking, listens to the well-known strain,
Which brings Shihallion's shadow to his heart,
And Scotia's loneliest vales; then sleeps again,
And dreams, on Loxley's banks, of Dunsinane.
The hymn they sing is to their preacher dear;
It breathes of hopes and glories grand and vast,
While on his face they look, with grief and fear;
Full well they know his sands are ebbing fast;
But, hark! he speaks, and feels he speaks his last !-

"Woe be unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, Who eat the widow's and the orphan's bread, And make long prayers to hide your villanies," Said He who had not where to lay his head, And wandering forth, while blew the Sabbath breeze, Pluck'd ears of corn, with humble men, like these. God blames not him who toils six days in seven, Where smoke and dust bedim the golden day, If he delight, beneath the dome of heaven, To hear the winds, and see the clouds at play, Or climb his hills, amid their flowers to pray. Ask ye, if I, of Wesley's followers one,

Abjure the house where Wesleyans bend the knee?
I do because the spirit thence is

gone;
And truth, and faith, and grace, are not, with me,
The Hundred Popes of England's Jesuistry.
We hate not the religion of bare walls;
We scorn not the cathedral'd pomp of prayer;
For sweet are all our Father's festivals,

If contrite hearts the heavenly banquet share,
In field or temple: God is everywhere!
But we hate arrogance and selfishness,

Come where they may-and most beneath the roof
Sacred to public worship.

What are the deeds of men call'd Christian, now?
They roll themselves in dust before the great;
Wherever Mammon builds a shrine, they bow,
And would nail Jesus to their cross of hate,
Should he again appear in mean estate.
Their Bibles for the heathen load our fleets;
Lo, gloating eastward, they enquire," What news?”
We die, we answer, foodless, in the streets.
And what reply your men of gospel-views?
Oh, they are sending bacon to the Jews! . .
Oh, for a saint, like those who sought and found,

For conscience' sake, sad homes beyond the main !—
The Fathers of New England, who unbound,
In wild Columbia, Europe's double chain;
The men whose dust cries, "Sparta, live again!"
The slander'd Calvinists of Charles's time
Fought, and they won it, Freedom's holy fight.
Like prophet-bards, although they hated rhyme,
All incorruptible as heaven's own light,
Spoke each devoted preacher for the right.
With zeal they preach'd, with reverence they heard;
For in their daring creed, sublime, sincere,
Danger was found, that parson-hated word!
They flatter'd none-they knew nor hate nor fear,
But taught the will of God-and did it here.

Even as the fire-wing'd thunder rends the cloud,
Their spoken lightnings, dazzling all the land,
Abash'd the foreheads of the great and proud,
Still'd faction's roar, as by a God's command,
And meeken'd Cromwell of the iron hand.'

6

The men of Sheffield were not more wanting in discernment than in a proper pride in their townsman, when they preferred, at the last election, the speeches of Mr Buckingham to the sterling merits of the Bentham of Hallamshire.' For the sake of Montgomery and Elliott, we trust that its poets have a better chance than its metaphysicians and political economists of being prophets in their own country. Mr Elliott's picture of his home is a proof that Sheffield is under obligations to him for prose as well as poetry, for actions as well as words. The example of domestic virtues, especially in men of masculine and commanding character, is perhaps the most valuable of all examples. It is one which genius, under a variety of excuses, sometimes appears to think it is not called upon to give.

Bless'd is the hearth, when daughters gird the fire,
And sons, that shall be happier than their sire,
Who sees them crowd around his evening chair,
While Love and Hope inspire his wordless pray'r.
Oh, from their home paternal may they go,
With little to unlearn, though much to know!
Them may no poison'd tongue, no evil eye
Curse for the virtues that refuse to die ;
The generous heart, the independent mind,
Till truth, like falsehood, leaves a sting behind!

May temperance crown their feast, and friendship share !

May pity come, Love's sister spirit, there!

May they shun baseness, as they shun the grave!
May they be frugal, pious, humble, brave!
Sweet peace be theirs, the moonlight of the breast,
And occupation, and alternate rest,

And, dear to care and thought, the rural walk!
Theirs be no flower that withers on the stalk,
But roses cropp'd, that shall not bloom in vain,
And hope's bless'd sun, that sets to rise again!
Be chaste their nuptial bed, their home be sweet,
Their floor resound the tread of little feet;

Bless'd beyond fear and fate, if bless'd by thee,

And heirs, oh, Love, of thine eternity!'

We cannot take leave of Mr Elliott without repeating our protest, (made both in sorrow and in anger, but most in sorrow,) at the temper of fierce hostility with which he has brought himself to regard great portions of his countrymen. The habit appears