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"All this preparation is made for the father of the family, the poor mechanic, who has got to the end of his week of toil, and is coming-home! not to look like a king, but to be a king for two nights and a day. Do we say the poor mechanic? Why, there is no king in Europe so rich! He has earned his otium cum dignitate, (which they have not;) it is his right, not inherited from dead men, but the achievement of his own power and will; and for the bows and grimaces and lip-service of hollow courtiers, he is surrounded by loving looks, and sympathizing hearts, and willing hands."

RUB OR RUST.

Idler, why lie down to die?

Better rub than rust.

Hark! the lark sings in the sky-
"Die when die thou must!

Day is waking, leaves are shaking,
Better rub than rust."

In the grave there's sleep enough--
"Better rub than rust:

Death, perhaps, is hunger-proof,
Die when die thou must;

Men are mowing, breezes blowing,
Better rub than rust."

He who will not work shall want;
Naught for naught is just-
Won't do, must do, when he can't;
"Better rub than rust.

Bees are flying, sloth is dying,
Better rub than rust."

THE PRESS.

God said "Let there be light!"
Grim darkness felt his might,
And fled away;

Then startled seas and mountains cold
Shone forth, all bright in blue and gold,
And cried-"'Tis day! 'tis day!"

"Hail, holy light!" exclaim'd

The thunderous cloud that flamed
O'er daisies white;

And lo! the rose, in crimson dress'd,

Lean'd sweetly on the lily's breast;

And, blushing, murmur'd-" Light!"

Then was the skylark born;
Then rose the embattled corn;
Then floods of praise
Flow'd o'er the sunny hills of noon;
And then, in stillest night, the moon
Pour'd forth her pensive lays.
Lo, heaven's bright bow is glad!
Lo, trees and flowers, all clad

In glory, bloom!

And shall the mortal sons of God
Be senseless as the trodden clod,

And darker than the tomb ?
No, by the mind of man!
By the swart artisan!

By God, our sire!

Our souls have holy light within;
And every form of grief and sin
Shall see and feel its fire.
By earth, and hell, and heaven,
The shroud of souls is riven!
Mind, mind alone

Is light, and hope, and life, and power!
Earth's deepest night, from this bless'd hour,
The night of minds, is gone!
"The Press!" all lands shall sing;
The Press, the Press we bring,
All lands to bless:

Oh, pallid Want! Oh, Labor stark!
Behold we bring the second ark!

The Press! the Press! the Press!

FOREST WORSHIP.

Within the sun-lit forest,

Our roof the bright blue sky,

Where fountains flow, and wild flowers blow,
We lift our hearts on high;

Beneath the frown of wicked men

Our country's strength is bowing; But, thanks to God, they can't prevent The lone wild flowers from blowing!

High, high above the tree-tops,

The lark is soaring free;

Where streams the light through broken clouds His speckled breast I see;

Beneath the might of wicked men

The poor man's worth is dying;
But, thank'd be God, in spite of them,
The lark still warbles flying!

The preacher prays, "Lord, bless us!"
"Lord, bless us!" echo cries;
"Amen!" the breezes murmur low;
"Amen!" the rill replies:

The ceaseless toil of woe-worn hearts
The proud with pangs are paying;
But here, O God of earth and heaven!
The humble heart is praying!

How softly in the pauses

Of song re-echoed wide,

The cushat's coo, the linnet's lay,

O'er rill and river glide!

With evil deeds of evil men

The affrighted land is ringing;
But still, O Lord! the pious heart
And soul-toned voice are singing!
Hush! hush! the preacher preacheth:
"Woe to the oppressor, woe!"
But sudden gloom o'ercasts the sun
And sadden'd flowers below;
So frowns the Lord!-but, tyrants, ye
Deride his indignation,

And see not in the gather'd brow
Your days of tribulation!

Speak low, thou heaven-paid teacher!
The tempest bursts above:

God whispers in the thunder: hear
The terrors of his love!

On useful hands and honest hearts,
The base their wrath are wreaking;
But, thank'd be God! they can't prevent
The storm of heaven from speaking.

A POET'S PRAYER.

Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold-
A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled,

Let him live usefully, and not die old!

Let poor men's children, pleased to read his lays,
Love, for his sake, the scenes where he hath been

And when he ends his pilgrimage of days,

Let him be buried where the grass is green,
Where daisies, blooming earliest, linger late
To hear the bee his busy note prolong;

There let him slumber, and in peace await

The dawning morn, far from the sensual throng,

Who scorn the windflower's blush, the redbreast's lonely song.

Elliott's publications are-1, "Corn-Law Rhymes;" 2, "Love, a Poem;" 3, "The Village Patriarch," a poem; 4, "Poetical Works;" 5, "More Verse and Prose by the Corn-Law Rhymer," in two volumes. The last, though prepared by the poet himself, is a posthumous publication.

FRANCIS JEFFREY, 1773-1850.

FRANCIS (LORD) JEFFREY, the great coryphæus of English critics, was born in the city of Edinburgh on the 23d of October, 1773. He was the eldest son of Mr. George Jeffrey, who, being bred to the law, had attained to the position of

Read an article on Elliott in "Chambers' Papers for the People," vol. I.; also, an interest ing Autobiographical Memoir, in the "London Athenæum" for January, 1850, dated Sheffield, June 21, 1841.

clerk of sessions. From his infancy he evinced the greatest quickness of apprehension and lively curiosity, and could read well when only in his fourth year. He was sent to the High School of Edinburgh in 1781, where he remained six years. He then went to the University of Glasgow, where he had the benefit of the instruction of some of the best professors in the kingdom. He stayed there, however, but two sessions, when, in 1791, he entered Queen's College, Oxford. But the atmosphere of Oxford did not agree with his Scottish tastes and feelings, and he remained there but one session, when he returned to Edinburgh, and resumed his legal studies.

In December, 1792, Mr. Jeffrey became a member of the "Speculative Society” -an extra-academical school of oratory and debate, and of literary composition, connected with the University of Edinburgh. On this intellectual arena he met and contended with Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, James Mackintosh, Francis Horner, John Archibald Murray, and others, who afterward became distinguished in the literary or political world; and through life he delighted to recall his conneetion with this society, which, while it had contributed greatly to his pleasure, had done so much to prepare him for the higher contests of the world. In December, 1794, he was called to the bar, and applied himself with his usual energy to his profession. But success in the law is seldom attained until after years of dreary toil and perseverance; and Mr. Jeffrey wrote to his brother, so late as 1803, that he had not made £100 in any one year by his profession. In 1801 he was married to Miss Catherine Wilson, daughter of the Rev. Charles Wilson, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's.

It was obvious that the intellectual activity of Jeffrey and his associates, urged by ambition and conscious power, could not long be restrained within the narrow professional channels to which it was then confined. Their social circle received a valuable addition, in 1797, by the arrival in Edinburgh of the Rev. Sydney Smith, who, in the preface to his Essays, has given some account of his genial associates, and of the establishment of the "Edinburgh Review." Of this event, so important in our author's life, and which in its results placed him at the head of the literary world, I will give his own account, somewhat abridged, as communicated to Mr. Robert Chambers, in November, 1846:

"I cannot say, exactly, where the project of the 'Edinburgh Review' was first talked of among the proprietors. But the first serious consultations about it— and which led to our application to a publisher-were held in a small house where I then lived, in Buccleuch Place. They were attended by Sydney Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisher-he taking the risk, and defraying the charges. There was then no individual editor; but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Wilson's printing-office, in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was

See the account in the biography of Sydney Smith, page 448.

soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me."

The first number of the "Edinburgh Review" appeared on the 1st of November, 1802. The number of copies printed was seven hundred and fifty. The demand, however, exceeded this limited supply: seven hundred and fifty more were thrown off, and successive editions, still more numerous, were called for. In 1808, the quarterly circulation had risen to about nine thousand: it is thought to have reached its maximum about 1813, when twelve or thirteen thousand copies were printed.

Never again, perhaps, will one generation of critics have such a splendid harvest to reap-such a magnificent vintage to gather in. Could the editor have surveyed the thirty years' produce that lay before him, awaiting his critical distribution, he must have been overwhelmed by its prodigality and richness. There was the poetry of Crabbe, of Campbell, Moore, Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth-types of different schools; there was the gorgeous chivalry of Scott, with his long file of novels and romances, like an endless procession of the representatives of all ages, conditions, and countries; there was the oriental splendor

That most liberal and enterprising publisher, Archibald Constable-the Mæcenas of Sco tish authors-remunerated the editor on a scale of princely liberality. From 1803 to 1809, No sum of two hundred guineas was given for editing each number; and from 1813 to 1826, seven hundred pounds a number. The fraternity of critics were, Sydney Smith, then thirtyfour years old; Jeffrey, twenty-nine; Dr. Thomas Brown, twenty-four; Horner, twenty-four; Brougham, twenty-three; Allen, thirty-two; Dr. John Thomson, thirty-eight; and Thomas Thomson, thirty-two. The following fine remarks on the influence of this journal are from Stanton's "Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland:"

"In estimating the literary influences which have contributed to the cause of Progress and Reform in Great Britain, during the present century, a high place should be assigned to the EDINBURGH REVIEW.'

"This celebrated periodical appeared at an era when independence of thought and manliness of utterance had almost ceased from the public journals and councils of the kingdom. The terrors of the French Revolution had arrested the march of liberal opinions. The declamation of Burke and the ambition of Napoleon had frightened the isle from its propriety. Tooke had barely escaped the gallows through the courageous eloquence of Erskine. Fox had withdrawn from the contest in despair, and cherished in secret the fires of freedom, to burst forth in happier times.

"Previous to 1802, the literary periodicals of Great Britain were mere repositories of miscellanies relating to art, poetry, letters, and gossip-partly original and partly selectedhuddled together without system, and making up a medley as varied and respectable as a first-class weekly newspaper of the present day. The criticisms of books were jejune in the extreme, consisting chiefly of a few smart witticisms and meagre connecting remarks, stringing together ample quotations from the work under review. They rarely ventured into deep water on philosophical subjects, and as seldom pushed out upon the tempestuous sea of political discussion. Perhaps one or two journals might plead a feeble exception to the general rule; but the mass was weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable.

"The Edinburgh Review' appeared. It bounded into the arena without the countenance of birth or station, without the imprimatur of the universities or literary clubs. Its avowed mission was to erect a higher standard of merit, and secure a bolder style and a purer taste in literature, and to apply philosophical principles and the maxims of truth and humanity to politics, aiming to be the manual of the scholar, the monitor of the statesman. As in its advent it had asked permission of no one to be, so, as to its future course, it asked no advice as to what it should do. Soliciting no quarter, promising no favors, its independent bearing and defiant tone broke the spell which held the mind of a nation in fetters. Its first number revived the discussion of great political principles. The splendid diction and searching philosophy of an essay on the causes and consequences of the French Revolution at once arrested the public eye, and stamped the character of the journal. Pedants in the pulpit, and scribblers of Rosa-Matilda verses in printed albums saw, from other articles in the manifesto, that exterminating war was declared on their inanities and sentimentalities. The new journal was perused with avidity, and produced a sensation in all classes of readers, exciting admiration and envy, love and hatred, defiance and fear. It rapidly attained a large circulation, steadily rose to the highest position ever attained by any similar publication, reigned supreme in an empire of its own creation for a third of a century, accomplishing vast good mingled with no inconsiderable evil."

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