68 entitled to the munificent sum of £100,000 per annum, an income which enabled her to do much good, in accordance with her generous and benevolent disposition, and which she put it to a good and salutary use; but the sum was extravagant, and will never be again repeated. On account of her weak state of health, even before the death of the King, she found frequent change of residence necessary. Soon after her accession to the throne, her Majesty visited her relatives in Germany, travelling under the title of the Duchess of Lancaster. For a long time after the King's death her Majesty suffered severely from an attack of bronchitis. This compelled her to go abroad, and she returned in 1839; the first visit that she paid upon her landing in England being to her Majesty Queen Victoria, in Buckingham Palace. In the autumn of the same year she enjoyed better health than she had for many years, and she visited several of the nobility at their country seats; amongst others, the Earl of Denbigh, Earl Howe, and the Duke of Rutland. She also visited the same year, Sir Robert Peel, at Drayton Manor. In 1844 she paid another visit to her relatives in Germany. every LORD COLVILLE OF CULROSS. December, in his 82d year, the Right Honourable Admiral Lord THE EARL OF CARNARVON. On the 10th of December, at Pusey, the residence of his brother-in-law, in Wales, the Right Hon. HENRY GEORGE HERBERT, third Earl of Carnarvon, in his fiftieth year. He was the son of the second Earl, by the daughter of Colonel John Dyke Acland, of Killerton, Devonshire, and was born in London, on the Sth of June, 1800. When Lord Porchester, he made himself known as a traveller, a poet, and a dramatist. He was educated at Eton, and at Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1820 he commenced his travels. While in Italy, in 1821, he witnessed the revolutions which took place there in that year, which Byron, in his "Vision of Judgment," calls "the first year of freedom's second dawn." Not long afterwards, he visited the Peninsula ; and, having taken an active part in favour of Don Carlos, he fell into the hands of the Christino party, with whom he redis-mained for some time a prisoner. His lordship afterwards travelled through a considerable portion of Germany, and visited Morocco and other parts of Africa, as well as spent some time in Greece. On his return to England he published his travels and adventures in Portugal and Gallicia. He was also the author of a poem entitled "The Moor," and of a tragedy called "Don Pedro." In 1830 he was elected M.P. for Wooton In search of health she also went to Madeira and to Malta, both of which places her Majesty made her temporary residence. In the latter island she founded and endowed the beautiful church of Valetta. Her latter years were spent in England, and whilst the extent of her private benevolence was unknown, she contributed to almost every public charity, and to the funds of nearly all the societies engaged in the advancement of religion. It was her practice also to subscribe largely to all the charities in place where she happened, even for a time, to reside, especially to those of the parish of St. Martin, London, in which her town mansion is situated, the portals of which were opened once every season to receive her Majesty, when very few receptions took place. Her Majesty never remained long in her town mansion, as the state of her health prevented her from ever spending much time in London. The latter part of her life was one long ease. Early last summer, while resident at Bushy Park, the incipient symptoms of dropsy manifested themselves. For change of air and scene she repaired first to Worthing, where she remained a fortnight, and afterwards went for a short time to Tunbridge Wells. After a visit, while there, from the Queen and Prince Albert, Queen Adelaide returned, on the 28th of June, to Bushy Park. On the 1st of September her Majesty and her bousehold removed to Bentley Priory, near Stanmore, which she had engaged as her winter residence, where she breathed her last. The directions which she left for her funeral afford additional proof of the exalted picty and unfeigned humility of her late Majesty. They are also remarkable for the touching proof which they furnish of the respect she entertained for the memory of her royal husband, in desiring that her body should be borne to the tomb by sailors. Her dying wishes were thus expressed: "I die in all humility, knowing well that we are all alike before the throne of God; and I request, therefore, that my mortal remains be conveyed to the grave without any pomp or state. They are to be moved to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where I request to have as private and quiet a funeral as possible. I particularly desire not to be laid out in state, and the funeral to take place in daylight, and no procession. The coffin to be carried by sailors to the chapel. All those of my friends and relations, to a limited number, who wish to attend me, to do so; my nephew, Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, Lord Howe, and Lord Denbigh, the Rev. Mr. Wood, Sir Andrew Barnard, and Sir David Davies, with those of my ladies who may wish to attend. and wish to be carried to the tomb in peace, and free from the vanities and pomp of this world. I request not to be dissected or embalmed, and desire to give as little trouble as possible." I die in peace, On the 13th of December, 1849, the remains of Queen Adelaide were consigned to the tomb, in the Royal Chapel of St. George, at Windsor, in the simple and unostentatious manner which she herself expressly desired. Her blameless life, her many eminent virtues, and her munificent deeds of public and private charity, will long preserve her memory. As has been well remarked, the twelve years that have elapsed since the death of her royal husband were passed by Queen Adelaide in the most exemplary man ner. The munificent grant which she enjoyed from the nation has been munificently expended, not in an ostentatious splendour, which she declined, but in works of charity and religion that became well the widow of a British King, and will embalm her name with a quiet and unpretending, but lasting remembrance in the annals of the kings and queens of England. Basset, which he represented till his elevation to the Peerage, early in 1833. He distinguished himself in the House of CoinImons on the Conservative side; and one of the speeches which he delivered against the Reform Bill was considered so effective by Sir R. Peel, that he declared he should be perfectly contented to rest the whole cause at issue upon the arguments contained in that single speech. But it required something more than the arguments of Lord Porchester, and of Sir Robert Peel, and all his party combined, to arrest the progress of reform. The only mistake was-and this was a mistake committed by the Whigs under Finality John-that that measure was considered the end, instead of the means to an end, or the beginning of the end; both phrases have an objectionable acceptation, the one on religious, and end, in this instance, is the object and the necessity of all the other on political grounds. But our meaning by the word Governmental progress and improvement. On the death of his father, in April, 1833, he became Earl of Carnarvon, when he was removed to the Upper House, where there was less exercise for those peculiar talents with which he was gifted; and, as he married, on the 4th of August, 1830, Henrietta Anna, eldest was a high Tory, perhaps there was the less regret. He had daughter of the late Lord Henry Molyneux Howard, neice of the late Duke of Norfolk, by whom he had a numerous issue. He is succeeded by his eldest son, Henry Howard Molyneux, Viscount Porchester-now in the 17th year of his age-the fourth Earl of Carnarvon. SIR ISAMBART BRUNEL. Isambart Brunel, the celebrated engineer. He was the second At London, on the 12th December, in his S1st year, Sir Marc son of Jean Charles Brunel, of Hacqeville, in Normandy, where longed have held that estate since the 12th century, and the name Sir Isambart was born, in 1769. The family to which he beof Brunel is found constantly mentioned in the ancient archives of the province. He was first intended for the church, and sent decided a predilection for the physical sciences, and so great a at an early age to a seminary at Rouen, but he soon evinced so genius for mathematics, that the idea of educating him for the clerical profession was soon abandoned. His father accordingly || the Genereux and Guillaume Tell, when he was wounded, and determined that he should join the naval service; and, at the landed in Egypt. As lieutenant of the Osprey, he served on proper age he entered the navy of his country, being indebted shore at the taking of St. Lucia and Tobago; and when in charge for his appointment to the Mareschal de Castries, then the of a prize, with 15 men, he captured a privateer of one gun and Minister of the French Marine. On one occasion he surprised 45 men. He distinguished himself in a gallant action with his captain by producing a sextant and quadrant of his own L'Egyptienne, French privateer of 36 guns, and subsequently construction, which he used for making observations. He made captured Le Tremeuse, French schooner. While commanding the several voyages to the West Indies, and returned to France in Circe, assisted by the Amaranthe and Stork, he destroyed the 1792, when the first terrible French Revolution was at its height.|| Cygne, French brig-of-war of 18 guns, and two armed schooners, As he entertained Royalist opinions, which he was not very under the batteries of Martinique, in 1808. For this he was careful to conceal, his life was more than once in danger, and, promoted to his post rank in December of that year. In 1809, like many others at that time, he was forced to seek safety in he commanded the Star, in the operations against Martinique. fight. He emigrated to the United States, where he followed In 1815 he was made a Companion of the Bath. In 1819 he the natural bent of his genius, and adopted the profession of a was Commodore of the successful expedition against the pirates of civil engineer. He was first engaged to survey a large tract of the Persian Gulf, and was Commodore and Commander-in-Chief land near Lake Erie. He was afterwards employed in building on the coast of Africa from 1827 to 1830, during which period the Bowery Theatre in New York, which not many years ago was 36,000 slaves were released. He was appointed a naval aide-deburnt down. He furnished plans for canas, and for various camp in 1832, and in 1833 was created a Knight Commander of machines connected with a cannon foundry, then in course of the order of the Guelphs of Hanover. In 1838 he was nomibeing established in the State of New York. About the year nated to 66 a good service pension," and appointed Commissioner 1799 he had matured his plans for making ship blocks by ma- of the Pembroke Dockyard in December, 1841. He became chinery. He had fled from a Republic to take refuge in a Rear-Admiral of the White in 1848. The mercantile commuRepublic; but he achieved his greatest triumphs under a nity were under great obligations to Sir Francis Collier for the monarchy. Finding America not the proper field for him, he ready protection which he at all times afforded to British comdetermined upon visiting England, and offering his services to merce; and an address was handed to him only a few days before the British Government. Lord Spencer, then First Lord of the his death, thanking him for the energy displayed by him in the Admiralty, became his friend, and he was a frequent guest at extirpation of piracy in the Chinese seas. Spencer House. From this time he continued to reside constantly in England. After much opposition to his plans, he was employed to execute them in Portsmouth dockyard. To perfect his designs, and to erect the machinery, was the arduous labour of many years. With a true discrimination, he selected Mr. Henry Maudslay to assist in the execution of the work, and thus was laid the foundation of perhaps the most extensive engineering establishments in the kingdom. The block machinery was finished in 1806, and has continued ever since to supply our fleets with blocks of a very superior description, at a large annual saving to the public. It was estimated at the time that the saving in the first year amounted to £24,000 per annum, and about two-thirds of that sum were awarded to Mr. Brunel. A few years afterwards he was employed by Government to erect saw-mills, upon a new principle, in the dockyards of Chatham and Woolwich. He was also the constructor of many other works of great public utility. But his greatest achievement was the Thames Tunnel, which was commenced in 1824, a company having been formed, and the project supported by the Duke of Wellington, who took, from first to last, a deep interest in the ποτές. The progress of this great undertaking was stopped more than once by the breaking in of the river; and the exhausted finances of the company, which never extended beyond the command of £180,000, put a suspension to the work for many years. By a special Act of Parliament a loan was sanctioned the Exchequer Loan Commissioners advanced the requisite funds--and this stupendous and magnificent work was at last finished, and opened to the public in 1843. In 1841, during Lord Melbourne's administration, Mr. Brunel received the honour of knighthood, on the recommendation of Lord Spencer, then Lord Althorp. He was a vice-president of the Royal Society, a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and & vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers he was also a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He died in his 81st year, after a long illness, which first visited him soon after the completion of the Thames Tunnel. He had married in 1799 the daughter of William Kingdom, Esq., of Plymouth; and besides his widow, he has left one son, the eminent engineer, and two daughters-the eldest married to Mr. Hawes, UnderSecretary of State for the Colonies; and the youngest to the Rev. Mr. Harrison, vicar of New Brentford. REAR-ADMIRAL SIR FRANCIS COLLIER. At Hong Kong, on the 28th October, of apoplexy, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Augustus Collier, C.B., Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty's naval force in the East. He was the third son of the late Vice-Admiral Sir George Collier, K.B. He entered the navy in 1798, under the immortal Nelson, on board the Vanguard, and was present, as a midshipman, at the battle of the Nile. He was midshipman of the Foudroyant, at the capture of SIR THOMAS GIBSON CARMICHAEL, BART. At Naples, on the 13th December, Sir Thomas Gibson CarHouse, Edinburghshire. He was the son of the eighth baronet, michael, Bart.,of Skirling and Castle Craig, Peebleshire, and Hailes' and was born in 1778. His grandfather was John Gibson, Esq., of Durie. He succeeded in 1803, on the death of his brother, the ninth baronet, who assumed the name of Carmichael. He was a deputy-lieutenant of Peebles-shire, and was twice married, first to Janet, daughter of the late Major-General Dundas, of Fingask; and secondly, in June, 1816, to the Hon. Anne Napier, daughter of Francis, eighth Lord Napier. He is succeeded by his eldest son, now Sir Alexander Gibson Carmichael, born in 1812. PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, ESQ. At Malvern, on the 24th December, Patrick Fraser Tytler, Esq., advocate, author of the History of Scotland, Lives of Scottish Worthies, and other works. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. By his death a literary pension reverts to the Crown. The intelligence of his death reached us as our last sheets were going to press. We shall give a memoir of him next month. EBENEZER ELLIOTT. Elliott, the celebrated corn-law rhymer. In 1840, the Rev. Jacob Brettel, of Rotherham, one of Ebenezer Elliott's earliest literary friends, delivered a series of lectures on his life and poetry, in the course of which he introduced the following interesting account of the poet's early days, written by himself in the third person, as the composition of another. The world is always anxious to know all about the birth, parentage, education, and youthful habits and pursuits of its great men, passed away; and no one could depict his own deficiencies and shortcomings as a boy and as a youth, with the feelings and regrets arising therefrom, more truly or more acutely than the poet himself. Thus runs the record of his early years :"Ebenezer Elliott, in childhood, boyhood, and youth, was remarkable for good nature, as it is called, and a sensitiveness exceeded only by his extreme dullness and inability to learn anything that required the least application or intellect. His good nature made him rather a favourite in his childhood with servant-girls, nurses, and old women. One of the latter was a particular favourite with him-Nanny Far, who kept the (York Keelman) pub lic-house, near the Foundry, at Masbrough, where he was born. She was a walking magazine of old English prejudices and superstitions. To her he owed his fondness for ghost stories. When he was about ten years old, he fell in love with a young girl, now Mrs. Woodcock, of Munsber, near Greasbrough, to whom he never to this day spoke one word. She then lived with her father, Mr. Ridgeway, a butcher and publican, close to the bridge, on the Masbrough side of the river Don. Such was his sensitiveness, that if he happened to see her as he passed, and especially if she seemed to look at him (which he now believes she never did), he was suddenly deprived almost of the power of moving. He describes the effect produced on him by comparing it to that produced on a greyhound, when pursued by a mastiff, which strains his tail between his legs, and, instead of being urged to speed by his terror, is chained by it, and compelled, as it were, to lift the earth at every step. [There was nothing very striking or singular about this calf-love' of Elliott's. It is only what almost every boy, whether poetically gifted or not, feels towards some particular fair specimen of girlhood, as he approaches the boundary of his boyish years.] His unconquerable dullness was improved into absolute stupidity by the help he received from an uncommonly clever boy, named John Ross, who did him his sums. He got into the rule of three without having learned numeration, addition, subtraction, and division. Old Joseph Ramsbotham, seemed quite convinced-gave him up in despair; and at rule of three the bard jumped all at once to decimals, where he stuck. At this time, he was examined by his father, who discovered that the boy scarcely knew that two and one are three. He was then put to work in the foundry, on trial whether hard labour would not induce him to learn his 'counting,' as arithmetic is called in Yorkshire. Now, it happened that nature, in her vagaries, had given him a brother, called Giles, of whom it will be said by any person who knew him, that never was there a young person of quicker or brighter talents. There was nothing which he could not learn; but the praise he received ruined him in the end. His superiority produced no envy in Ebenezer, who almost worshipped him. The only effect it produced on him was a sad sense of humiliation, and a confirmed conviction that he himself was an incurable dunce. The sense of his deficiencies oppressed him, and in private he wept bitterly. When he saw Giles seated in the counting-house, writing invoices, or posting the ledger; or when he came dirty out of the foundry, and saw Giles showing his drawings, or reading aloud to the circle, whose plaudits seemed to have no end, his resource was solitude, of which, from his infancy, he was fond; he would go and fly his kite, always aloue, and he was the best kite-maker of the place; or he would saunter along the canal bank, swimming his ships, or anchoring them be-it fore his fortresses--and he was a good shipbuilder-[just what a thousand children would have done under similar circumstances.] His sadness increased; he could not post books; he could not write invoices; he could not learn to do what almost any boy could learn, namely, to do a sum in single division; yet, by this time he had discovered that he could do 'men's work,' for he could make a frying pan. It ought to be observed here, that the assistance he received from John Ross accompanied him, like his double, to every school to which his parents, in their despair, had sent him, and they had sent him to two, besides Mr. Ramsbotham's. When it was found that he could not do decimals, he was put back to the rule of three, and then pronounced incurable. Labour, however, and the honour paid to his brother, at length made him try one effort more. He had an aunt in Masbrough, one of whose sons was studying botany. He was buying, in monthly numbers, a book called 'Sowerby's English Botany,' with beautiful coloured plates. They filled him with delight; and she showed him that, by holding the plates before a pane of glass, he might take exact sketches of them. Dunce though he was, he found he could draw, and, with such ease, that he almost thought he was a magician. He became a botanist, or rather a hunter of flowers; but, like his cousin Ben (though not Greek learned like him), he too had his Hortus Siccus. He does not re "A primrose by a river's brim, There is not a good passage in his writing which he cannot To the readers of Toil's Magazine the name of Ebenezer Elliott is familiar as a household word. Besides contributing many of his best pieces for years to this periodical, he furnished to its pages, in 1840, an interesting sketch, principally regarding himself, entitled, "Random Thoughts and Reminiscences, by the Corn-Law Rhymer:" it will be found in the number for July of that year. In the number for the May previous, there is inserted a graphically-written prose piece from his pen, entitled, "Defence of Modern Poetry," intended for the Sheffield Mechanics' Institution; but we are not aware if it was ever delivered. Notwithstanding his deficiencies in arithmetic, Mr. Elliott's mind was peculiarly of a practical as well as of a poetical cast. The placing him in the foundry at the very juvenile age at which that event took place, had a most important influence on his after life. He early resolved to be in business for himself, and first commenced on his own account in the town of Rotherham. He did not succeed, however, and in 1821, when forty years of age, he went to Sheffield, and with a capital of £100 Mr. Elliott's first published work was "The Vernal Walk," when he was seventeen years of age. It was printed by Mr. Flower, of Cambridge, and in the last edition of his works, he says of this juvenile performance :-"It is now printed as origi of borrowed money, he commenced business again, as a bar-iron merchant. At this time he was married and had a young family growing up around him. After much exertion and endurance, and the exercise of great prudence, fortune began to faYour him. The rapid rise of prices which took place soon afternally written. All my local and domestic critics made it the butt his settlement in Sheffield, enabled him to sell the iron in his warehouse for twice its original cost. His superior intelligence and business habits were well known; and at one time, so successful were his operations, that, as he told Mr. Howitt, he used to sit in his chair and make his £20 a-day, without even seeing the iron he sold; for it came to the wharf, and was sold again thence without ever coming into his warehouse, or under his eye. In reality, a very small portion of his life was spent in manual labour. As a merchant, his dealings came to be extensive, and, in the long-run, successful. Trade and literature, in spite of the common but mistaken idea, are not incompatible with each other, and Ebenezer Elliott has furnished an example that a successful poet may also be an enterprising and prosperous trader. for ridicule, before its publication; and it was frightfully castigated, on its first appearance in print, by one of the dispensers of public praise and blame. Why then reprint it? Because it is endeared to me by the persecution it has suffered. The idiot of the family is sometimes a favourite; and Byron doggedly wrote dramas because he was told he could not write them." 66 66 His next publication was "Night," of which only a portion has been republished under the name of the "Legend of Wharncliffe." Love," with another poem, and a letter to Lord Byron, appeared in 1823, nine years before his "Corn-Law Rhymes" were published. Elliott's early publications were all doomed to severe censure, and nothing but a consciousness of his own innate pewers could have carried him forward in his poetical career. "Night" was unmercifully abused in the Monthly Review, then one of the His first warehouse, it may prove interesting to future bio-principal oracles of literary criticism, and the Monthly Magazine. graphers and admirers to know, was in Burgess Street, which is "The Tales of Night," comprising "Bothwell," "The Exile,” now shown to strangers as one of the "sights" of Sheffield. "Second Nuptials," &c., followed, but did not succeed. His When his business had increased, he removed to Gibraltar Street, spirit was roused by the condemnation which the critics had passed Shalesmoor. In the suburbs of Upper Thorpe he built a hand- upon his former work; and he prefixed to his "Tales" a most some villa for his private residence. Although he achieved a defiant preface in reply to the reviewers, under the name of a letfortune at his business, he yet had his losses, and he was ulti- ter from "Peter Faultless to his brother Simon." Southey, with mately glad to get out of trade with part of his gains. The whom he was at that time in communication, wrote to him the great panie of 1837 swept away some £4000 worth of his pro- consolatory assurance that "There is power in the least of these perty. His counting-house was adorned with the figures of tales, but the higher you pitch your tone the better yon succeed. Ajax and Achilles; and among the massive bars which enclosed Thirty years ago they would have made your reputation, thirty him, he wrote his poetry, under the shadow of Shakespeare, and years hence the world will wonder that they did not do so." They Raleigh, and the classic heroes of antiquity already named. are already all but forgotten. The "Corn-Law Rhymes" were what first made the name of Ebenezer Elliott known far and wide, and will preserve it in the list of English poets, when most of his early publications, and even the "Corn-Law Rhymes" themselves, are remembered only by their names. In the article in Tait's Magazine for July, 1840, above referred to, there occurs the following passage:-"I do not remember the time when I was not dissatisfied with the condition of society. Without ever envying any man his wealth or power, I have always wondered why the strong oppress the weak." This furnishes an index to his whole character, and was the main motive of his strongest and boldest effusions of poetry. The Corn Laws stirred the depths of his spirit, and he wrote against them in verse, with all the fervour and indignation of his earnest mind. He had been educated in the school of labour, and his views and his writings partook of the sternness of his experience. His admiration, and his study, such as it was, of Thomson, Shenstone, Milton, and Shakspeare, did not, in the slightest degree, tend to refine his mind. His genius was great, but his taste was deficient. The harshness of some of his expressions in his Corn-Law rhymes could only be equalled by the daring boldness of his ap: peals to the Deity on the subject of the bread-tax, now removed from the statute book of our country. Many who were disposed to admire the beauty and fervour of his lines, were shocked at the dubious taste and seeming profanity which sometimes disfigured the passionate and burning emanations of his muse. His sympathy for the working-classes led him away, in the ardour of his feelings, to the use of phrases and sentiments, which on any other subject he would have considered unpardonable and unnecessary. There can be no doubt that he is entitled to the praise of being the pioneer to the Corn-Law League; and his work being done when that active and influential combination was formed, he took but little personal part in their proceedings, although he still continued to aid the cause by his writings. He was at all times an ardent politician, and a Radical in the extreme meaning of the word. At one period he supported Chartist views. In September, 1838, he attended a conference in London, and in the same month he presided at a Chartist meeting in Sheffield; but the opposition of the Chartist party at Anti-Corn-Law meetings, and their violent and desperate proceedings, soon completely disgusted him, and about the beginning of 1840, he withdrew himself entirely from them. While the fit was on him, however, he had become bail for a person of the name of Peter Foden, who had been arrested for sedition in August, 1839; and as the said Foden deemed it advisable to abscond, Mr. Elliot had to pay for his indiscretion, in thus backing such a specimen of the party. The repeal of the Corn-Law was his master object; and he got up a local society for promoting this object, which was formed, flourished, decayed, and died, long before the great Anti-Corn-Law League commenced its operations. He made eager efforts for fame; but none of his pieces previous to his "Corn-Law Rhymes," had the effect of bringing him into notice. He even had recourse to satire for this purpose. Among other things of this kind, he published a piece called "The Giaour," being a vehement attack on Lord Byron, intended to provoke his lordship to take some notice of him; but it is very likely that the noble poet never saw this unamiable production, or that he despised it if he did, for the author was never honoured in any way by his recognition. || The strong vein of indignation, the fervent warmth of the poetry, and the resolute spirit for which the Corn-Law Rhymes" were remarkable, had done but little to give him anything more than a mere local reputation; when their merits came under the notice of Dr. Bowring, and Mr. Bulwer, now Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, who straightway set themselves to make these wonderful emanations of a strong, but uncultivated genius, extensively known to the public. The Corn-Law Rhymes" and "The Ranter" were published in one volume, which was noticed in the Eclectic and Blackwood. It appears that in 1830, or 1831 Dr. Bowring being on a visit to T. A. Ward, Esq., of Sheffield, was shown this volume, and approving highly of its merits, was introduced by Mr. Ward to ; Mr. Elliott. On his way to London, he visited Mr. W. Howitt, who then resided at Nottingham, where he met Wordsworth, to whom he mentioned both Elliott and his poems. When he returned to the metropolis, he showed the work to Bulwer, who, in an anonymous letter in the New Monthly Magazine, addressed to Dr. Southey, and dated March 19, 1831, introduced Elliott's name and Free Trade poetry honourably to the literary world. The author was styled "a mechanic," and his extraordinary energy, and eloquence, and power, were spoken of in high terms. but at this time Mr. Elliott was a prosperous merchant, and could in no sense be considered a mechanic. There can be no doubt that his being represented as belonging to the working classes, and endowed with the qualities which he possessed so highly, and which were so emphatically dwelt upon, was one of the main causes of his poems being taken up so patronisingly by such a man as Bulwer. We are not very sure if a person of talent among what is usually styled the educated classes, would have received from him the same high eulogiums. Ebenezer Elliott's claims on the admiration of his countrymen, could not fail to have been sooner or later acknowledged, whether Bulwer had interfered in his behalf or not. The current, however, being thus directed towards the CornLaw Rhymer, it is astonishing how strongly the tide at last flowed in his favour. He was considered a perfect prodigy; and Miss Jewsbury, Mrs. Hofland, and others of that class of writers, in contemporary publications, extolled him as a greater poet than Burns and Byron in all their glory. Eiliott's merits are his own, and no one who can appreciate true poetry, will ever deny him the genuine distinction of a true poet, but it cannot serve any good purpose to arrogate for him more than what he is absolutely entitled to; and Mrs. Hofland, when, in an article on "Sheffield and its poets," she thus wrote, "It is at least certain Burns never equalled him, and Byron never exceeded him, in those particular qualities, wherein both have been deemed admirable," showed that she, at least, knew little or nothing of what “those particular qualitics" are, and that her friendship for Elliot was the ground of his preference in her mind over Burns. || The following obituary notice was intended for last month's a At York, on the 13th November, of disease of the heart, William Etty, Esq., Royal Academician, one of the most eminent of modern English artists. He was born at York, on the 10th of March, 1787; and, like Rembrandt and Constable, he was the son of a miller, who also carried on business as a confectioner. Almost before he was able to walk, he "had developed a taste for art, by scribbling designs in chalk on the floor, tables, and walls of his home." He says, himself," My first panels on which I drew were the boards of my father's shop floor, and my first crayon farthing's worth of white chalk." His parents were singularly blind to the bent of his genius. Before he was twelve years of age, he was bound apprentice to the printing business, at Hull, with the late Mr. Robert Peck, upon the Hull Packet; and he pub-served out his seven years faithfully, although the occupation of a letter-press printer was altogether uncongenial to him. Some of the rough sketches and draughts which he attempted during this time have been preserved, and afford abundant evidence of. a skilful hand in drawing, the lines being remarkable for their freedom, decision, and accuracy. On the expiry of his apprenticeship the natural bias of his mind became irresistible, and he determined to be a painter instead of a printer. To make up for lost time, he went to London, being enabled to do so by the aid of an uncle, a merchant in Lombard Street, who subsequently bequeathed to him, by will, a legary of £1,000. His power as Mr. Elliott's collected poems appeared in three volumes, lished successively in 1:33, 1834, and 1835. In the preface to the latter volume he expressed himself as "sufficiently rewarded if his poetry had led one poor despairing victim of misrule from the alehouse to the fields; if he had been chosen of God to show his desolated heart that though his wrongs have been heavy, and his fall deep, and though the spoiler is yet abroad, still in the green lanes of England the primrose is blowing, and on the mountain top the lonely fir is pointing with her many fingers to our Father in Heaven." Another edition of his poems, in one volume, was published in 1840. For many years his most popular and esteemed pieces were contributed to Tail's Magazine; he also occasionally inserted poems in the local prints, particularly the Sheffield Independent and the Sheffield Iris. success. a colourist soon began to be noticed, and, throughout his professional career it was the most distinguished element of his His ruling and predominating feeling was for the beautiful and sublime, as evinced in the whole range of his immortal Mr. Elliott retired from business in 1841. Leaving Sheffield, pictures. Well do we remember the effect of his "Judith and he spent his last years at Great Houghton, near Barnsley, where Holofernes," in the exhibition of the Scottish Academy, at Edinhe built a house on a small estate of his own. He there deburgh, twenty years ago. Soon after his arrival in London, he voted much of his time to rural engagements, and abandoned obtained an introduction to Opie, and through him to Fuseli, to all active interference in politics, in which he had once taken both of whom he ever acknowledged his obligations for their enso prominent a part. His last illness was of some weeks' couragement of his earlier efforts, and their advice. He was for duration, and was attended with extreme pain. A very affecting incident took place towards the close of his life. The marriage he mentions as his "beloved master." In 1822 he proceeded to twelve months a pupil in the studio of Sir Thomas Lawrence, whom of his daughter to John Watkins, Esq., of Clapham, had been fixed for Christmas; but Mr. Elliott was anxious that it should Italy, and, with the partiality of a colourist, felt most at home in Venice. At Rome, we are told, he partook of Reynolds' admirabe solemanised during his life, and it therefore took place on the 17th November, a fortnight before his death. When the newly-sketches of the Sextine Chapel in the blank leaves of his Italian tion for Michael Angelo, and was wont to relate how he made married pair lett Argilt Hill, Mr. Elliott was raised up in bed to sce them pass the window, and desired that he might be buried at Darfield Church, where his daughter had been married. Ac cording to his wish, the funeral was of a strictly private racter. Besides a widow and two daughters, he has left five. sons, of whom two conduct the iron and steel business, and two are clergymen of the Church of England. Grammar. He also visited Florence, and made a careful copy of Titian's "Venus," in the Tribune of that city. Such was the cha-fidelity of its execution, that Wilkie, on beholding it, exclaimed that it would astonish our colourists. Etty's first picture, after his return from Italy in 1824, "Pandora formed by Vulcan,” which he painted in a few weeks, and for which the Royal Academy elected him an associate, was purchased by his old master, Sir Thomas Lawrence. During the French Revolution of July, 1830, he was in Paris, and he somewhat humorously described his sensations at the visit of a shell while studying in the gallery of the Louvre. His pencil was very prolific, and the large prices which he received for his pictures enabled him to realise a considerable fortune. He died worth forty thousand pounds. His A love of truth and hatred of oppression are the ruling principles of Ebenezer Elliot's political poems. In his hearty vindication of the rights of man, he had the spirit if he had not always the power of Burns, and a Crabbe-like skill and graphic earnestness in depicting the political and social miseries of the poor. His frequent and constant use of the strongest ex pressions with which the English language could furnish him, rendered them to many persons highly repulsive, and caused him to be decried as a poet by others, whose souls are ever awake to the truth and beauty of real poetry. In these, as in his other productions, he wrote from genuine feelings and impulses, and was not particular as to the phraseology used for the conveyance of his sentiments. As a descriptive poet he stands upon far higher ground. Na tural beauty had ever a predominant claim upon his affections, and his genius has hallowed the hills and valleys, the rivers and moors, around Sheffield, in words of immortal eloquence, which will endear his name to that district as long as its native scenery endures. At the time of his death, Mr. Elliot was occupied in collecting for the press an enlarged edition of his poems. The ex residence in London was in Buckingham Street, Adelphi; but PRINTED BY GEORGE TROUP, 29, DUNLOP STREET, GLASGOW. |