ax, and Napoleon, suggestive of
the presidency of literature over the materialism of commerce which
marked the career of this singular being. By dint of great industry he
began to flourish in business, and, at one time, could make a profit of
L20 a-day without moving from his seat. During this prosperous period he
built a handsome villa-residence in the suburbs. He now had leisure to
brood over the full force and effect of the Corn Laws. The subject was
earnestly discussed then in all manufacturing circles of that district.
Reverses now arrived. In 1837, he lost fully one-third of all his
savings, getting out of the storm at last with about L6,000, which he
wrote to Mr. Tait of Edinburgh, he intended, if possible, to retain. The
palmy days of L20 profits had gone by for Sheffield, and instead, all
was commercial disaster and distrust. Elliott did well to retire with
what little he had remaining. In his retreat he was still vividly
haunted by the demon "Bread Tax." This, then, was the period of the
Corn-Law Rhymes, and these bitter experiences lent to them that tone of
sincerity and earnestness--that fire and frenzy which they breathed, and
which sent them, hot, burning words of denunciation and wrath, into the
bosoms of the working classes--the toiling millions from whom Elliott
sprang. "Bread Tax," indeed, to him was a thing of terrible import and
bitter experience: hence he uses no gentle terms or honeyed phrases
when dealing with the obnoxious impost. Sometimes coarse invective and
angry assertion take the place of convincing reason and calm philosophy.
At others, there is a true vein of poetry and pathos running through the
rather unpoetic theme, which touches us with its Wordsworthian feeling
and gentleness. Then he would be found calling down thunders upon the
devoted heads of the monopolists, with all a fanatic's hearty zeal, and
in his fury he would even pursue them, not merely through the world, but
beyond its dim frontiers and across the threshold of another state. Take
them, however, as they stand--and more vigorous, effective, and
startling political poetry has not graced the literature of the age.

It was not to be supposed but that this trumpet-blast of defiance, and
shrill scream of "war to the knife," should bring down upon him much
obloquy, much vituperation: but all this fell harmlessly upon him; he
rather liked it. When people began to bear with the turbid humor and
angry utterances of the "Corn Law Rh