LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 303 



Yes ; it has the wings of a dove, and flees away — and is at rest! 

 Where are the heaven-kissing hills in Hallamshire ? Here, and 

 there, and everywhere — for the sky stoops down to kiss them — and 

 the presence of a poet scares not away, but consecrates their em- 

 braces 



' Under the opening eyelids of the morn.' 



Of such kind is the love of nature that breaks out in all the com- 

 positions of this town-bred poet. Nature to hira is a mistress whom 

 he cannot visit when he will, and whom he woos, not stealthily, 

 but by snatches — snatches torn from time, and shortened by joy 

 that ' thinks down hours to moments.' Even in her sweet com- 

 panionship he seems scarcely ever altogether forgetful of the place 

 from which he made his escape to rush into her arms, and clasp her 

 to his breast. He knows that his bliss must be brief, and that au 

 iron voice, like a knell, is ringing him back to dust and ashes. So he 

 smothers her with kisses — and tearing himself away — again with 

 bare arms he is beating at the anvil, and feels that man is born to 

 trouble as the sparks fly upwards. For Ebenezer Elliot, gentle 

 reader, is a worker in iron ; that is — to use his own words — ' a 

 dealer in steel, working hard every day ; literally laboring with my 

 head and hands, and alas, with my heart too! If you think the 

 steel-trade, in these profitless days, is not cc heavy, hard-working 

 trade, come and break a ton? 



" We have worked at manual labor for our amusement, but, it 

 was so ordered, never for bread ; for reefing and reeving can hardly 

 be called manual labor — it comes to be as facile to the fingers as the 

 brandishing of this present pen. We have ploughed, sowed, reaped, 

 mowed, pitchforked, threshed ; and put heart and knee to the gave- 

 lock hoisting rocks. But not for a day's darg, and not for bread. 

 Now here lies the effectual and vital distinction between the condi- 

 tion of our poet and his critic — between the condition of Ebenezer 

 Elliot and that of all our other poets, except Robert Burns."* 



The next letter is from Mr. Audubon \\ — 



" My dear Friend : — The first hour of this new year was ushered 

 to me surrounded by my dear flock, all comfortably seated around 



* Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1S34. 



t J. -J. Audubon, author of 77te Birds of America, die., died in 1S3L 



