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Surely, never were poetry and pence united together in such a scene before! You may imagine Robert Bloomfield stitching away at ladies' shoes, and tagging rhymes at the same time, in great peace and bodily comfort; being a journeyman for a long time, and when he had got his work from his master, being liable to very little interruption. You may imagine him thumping away on his last in poetic ardour, and in the midst of his enthusiasm hammering out a superior piece of soling leather and a triumphant verse at the same instant; but imagine Ebenezer Elliott, in the midst of all this iron wilderness, in the midst of bustling and clanging Sheffield, and the constant demands of little cutlers and the like-for constant they must have been for him to accumulate a fair fortune out of nothing,-imagine him in the midst of all this confusion of dusty materials, and the demands of customers, and the din and jar of iron rods and bars, as they were dragged out of their stations for examination and sale, and were flung into the scales to be weighed; imagine this, and that the man achieved a fortune and a fame at the same time-weighed out iron and ideas-took in gold and glory-cursed corn-laws, and blessed God, and man, and nature; established a large family, two sons as clergymen of the Church of England-three in trade-two of them his successors in steel, though not in stanzas, in iron, though not in irony; and then retired to his own purchased land, built his house on a hill-top, and looked down on the world in philosophical ease, at little more than sixty years of age; and you may look a good while for a similar man and history.

Quitting this singular retreat of the Muses, under the guidance of my worthy friend, Mr. John Fowler, an old friend of the poet's, I proceeded to visit the Rhymer's haunts in the country round. And first we ascended the hills to the east of the town, above Pittsmoor and Shirecliffe hall, to the place where Elliott makes his most interesting field-preacher, Miles Gordon, the Ranter, go to his last Sabbath service in the open air. As we went, all the beautiful imagery of that exquisitely pathetic poem came before me; the opening of the poem breathing such a feeling of Sabbath rest to the weary, such a feeling of the actual life of the pious poor in the manufacturing towns.

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

Breathe on the bread-taxed 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 morn 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 the 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 orphaned 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."

That lovely passage, where the widow wakes her eldest son, who wishes to accompany the preacher, one of the most beautiful things in poetry, recurred with fresh vividness :

"Like sculpture, or like death, serene he lies;
But no, that tear is not a marble tear!
He names in sleep his father's injuries;
And now in silence wears a smile severe.
How like his sire he looks, when drawing near
His journey's close, and that fair form bent o'er
His darkening cheek, still faintly tinged with red,
And fondly gazed,-too soon to gaze no more!-
While her long tresses o'er the seeming dead
Streamed in their black profusion from the head
Of matron loveliness-more touchingly,
More sadly beautiful, and pale, and still-
A shape of half-divine humanity,

Worthy of Chantrey's steel, or Milton's quill

Or heaven-taught Raphael's soul-expressing skill!
And must she wake that poor o'erlaboured 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."

I seemed then to hear the trumpet-voice of the poet exclaiming :

"Up, sluggards, up! the mountains, one by one,
Ascend in light, and slow the mists retire
From vale and plain. The cloud on Stannington
Beholds a rocket-no! 'tis Morthen spire!

The sun is risen! cries Stanedge, tipped with fire:
On Norwood's flowers the dew-drops shine and shake
Up, sluggards, up! and drink the morning breeze.
The buds on cloud-left Osgathorpe awake;
And Wincobank is waving all his trees

O'er subject towns, and farms, and villages;

And gleaming streams, and wood, and waterfalls.

Up! climb the oak-crowned summit! Hoober stand

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 angels' 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."

This striking scene is on the ridge of the hill, about the highest point, and the Gospel-tree is an ash-tree standing there. From this

point, the view all round the country is most extensive.
has finely described it :

"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 grove are glittering;
And round him press his flock, a woe-worn crowd.
To other words, while forest echoes ring-

Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon,' they sing;
And far below, the drover, with a start
Awaking, listens to the well-known strain,
Which brings Shihallian'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!"

The poet

Such was the view to the eye of the poet; to that of the stranger there are features in it that give it a peculiar picturesqueness. Below you, the town of Sheffield, on one hand, partly stretching along the valley of the Don, partly stretching upwards towards the Mount; its various churches, and its multitude of tall engine chimneys, rearing themselves above the mass of houses, as poplars ascend above the rest of the wood; and from these chimneys, and from innumerable shops and forges, volumes of smoke and steam poured forth in clouds over the whole wilderness of brick, and with the distant sounds of forge hammers, and roar of the forge bellows and fires, give you a lively feeling of the stir of industry. In the other direction, you look into far-off plains, over many a distant ridge, and upon fine and broad masses of wood dotting the bold hills. Wincobank and Keppel's column in the more remote woods of Wentworth, and church spires at vast distances, attest the truth of the poet's lines; and in a third direction, you look down into the converging valleys of the Don, the Loxley, and the Rivelin, running between high, wide-lying, and round hills, on which the whole country is mapped out as in many parts of Lancashire, or the Peak. With their very green fields, thinly scattered trees, with clumps of copse, or a long range of black fir wood here and there; their grey, flag-roofed houses, and a good portion of stone walls, the similarity is striking. From the valleys, full of woods, shine out winding waters, and peep forth tall chimneys, and roll up volumes of smoke, betraying the busy life of industry where all looks, from the distance, wooded silence; while some manufacturer's great stone house stands amid its flourishing woods and fronting open lawns, in stately solemnity of cutler-aristocracy.

On the topmost centre of this unique scene has Elliott fixed his Ranter on the Sunday morning; and on the piece of table-land fenced in with woods, over whose heads you still for the most part look, has congregated his flock, gathered from the cottages of the neighbouring hamlets, and the smoky wilderness of the great city of knives and hammers below. The tree stands now in the line of

a stone wall, and upon a little precipice of sandstone, four or five feet high, so that it would really be-as it no doubt has been, for Elliott, as he tells us, draws from the life-a capital position for a preacher. Into the tree Elliott has driven a nail, about four feet from the ground, so that any of his friends who visit the spot can at once identify it. He advises you to climb to the top of the tree, on account of the splendid uninterrupted view, an exploit not likely to be very often performed, and which yet has been done more than once, and was done by poor Charles Pemberton, the Miles Gordon of social improvement.

Close by, on the hill, two or three men were working in a stone quarrel, as they called it, where huge blocks of freestone seemed to have been dug for many and many a year. I asked them why people visited this tree. They said they could not conceive, except "it was for th' view." I asked them if they never heard that Thomas à Becket preached under it in Henry VIII's time; at which they set up a perfect shriek of delight at the joke. A Sheffield quarrel man is not to be mystified like a Jerry Chopstick.

Our next visit was to the valley of the Rivelin, so often named in Elliott's poetry. The Rivelin is one of the five rivers that run from the moorland hills, and join near Sheffield; and the scenery is very peculiar, from the singular features which art and trade have added to those of nature. The river is one of those streams that show their mountain origin by their rapid flow over their rugged beds, scattered with masses of stone. It has a tinge of the peat-moss, and is overhung by woods and alternate steep banks of sandstone rock, clothed with the bilberry-plant. But what gives to a stranger the most striking character, are the forges and grinding-wheels, as they are called, scattered along them. Formerly these stood chiefly out amongst the neighbouring hills, being turned by the streams that descend from them, and you still find them in all the neighbouring valleys; the rivulets and rivers which run along them being dammed up into a chain of ponds, which give a peculiar character to the scene. These ponds look dark brown, as from the rust of iron, which is ground off with the water, and are generally flanked by dark alders, or are overhung by the woods which clothe the side of the valleys; and you now come to a forge, where the blast roars, and the flame glances out from the sooty chimney-tops, and the hammers resound and tinkle in various cadences from within; and now to low mill-like buildings, with huge wheels revolving between two of them, or beside one of them; and these are the grinding-mills, or wheels, as they are termed. Formerly, they were all turned by those streams, which are conveyed in channels cut for them, and in spouts, and let fall on those great wheels; but now steam is applied, as to everything else, and large grinding-wheels, as they are still called,—that is, mills,meet you along all the lower parts of the town, as they still require a good supply of water for their engines and for their wet-grindingthat is, to keep their grindstones wet for some particular articles. Owing to this introduction of steam, as you advance farther up amongst the moorland hills and streamlets, you find the old and

picturesque grinding-wheels falling to decay. Such is the scenery of Rivelin. Far up, solitude and falling wheels give a pleasing melancholy to the scene; but as you return nearer to Sheffield, you see the huge hammers of forges put in motion by stream or steam, thumping away at the heated bars of iron, while water is kept trickling upon their great handles to keep them cool.

The external appearance of the great steam grinding-wheels in the town is very singular. Amid the other swarthy buildings these look tawny with sand, which has flown out through the numerous windows, and coated the whole of the walls, and even roof; and the windows, which are often, I believe, of paper, are broken in, just as if the mills had been stormed by a mob.

No person who has read Elliott's description of the reckless race of grinders, or the account of them in the Report of the Commissioners to inquire, in 1841, into the condition of the people in mines and factories, can see these places without a lively interest. At this deadly trade the workmen sit at work astride of rounded blocks of wood, which they call grinding-horses, in front of their grindstones, which are fixed on axles or spindles turned by the steam or water; and fixing the knife or other steel article in a sort of case which covers the upper side of it, and enables them to grind it more regularly as it cannot give way unequally, they make the most brilliant posies of sparks stream from them at every pressure on the stone. Others polish the articles ground, by holding them to the edges of small wooden wheels covered with leather.

Grinders never live long; but the dry grinders perish soonest, because the particles of sandstone are driven in whole clouds from the grindstones, and fill the whole air and the grinder's lungs. Five minutes in a dry-grinding room is quite sufficient to satisfy you of its nature and effects. We have seen Ebenezer Elliott's character of the grinder :

'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."

The Commissioners state, on the authority of Dr. Knight of Sheffield, that a dozen years ago the number of grinders was 2,500; the life of a wet grinder seldom reached forty-five years; that of the dry grinder not more than thirty-five. The number is now larger, and the average of life, according to other evidence, is shorter. Table-knife grinders work on wet stones, and are the longer lived; the forkgrinders work on dry stones, and are the short-lived ones. Children are put to this fatal trade at fourteen years old usually, but to some lighter branches as early as eight or nine years of age. They who have good constitutions seldom experience much inconvenience till they are about twenty years old, when the symptoms of their peculiar complaint begin to show themselves. They are affected with a terrible species of asthma, followed by a train of physical sufferings, which drag them piecemeal to the grave. Flues to carry off the dust have been introduced into the wheels, but the men refuse to use

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