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Life, Poetry, and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, With an Abstract of His Politics
Life Poetry and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott With an Abstract of His Politics Author:John Watkins General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1850 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. FBOM THE PUBLICATION OF "LOVE," TO THE PUBLICATION Of The "corn-law Rhymes." " Love" is a poem sweet as love itself -- rich with ideas that are jewels and glow with delight -- round and smooth as the apple which Paris gave to Venus. All that love has done, can do, or will do in its various forms of youthful, conjugal, maternal, and heroic, is expressed in this poem, though it remained unnoticed and unknown, and "wasted its sweetness on the desert air," while many a gaudy plant was cherished in the conservatory of public favour. It is a poem not only good in its poetry but in its purpose. Dr. Holland had the honour to have it dedicated to him. It is written in what had become the author's favourite measure, the heroic couplet. Practice had now enabled him to perfect his style, yet something was still wanting to render it complete. He had at length obtained the mastery over his genius; his ideas came at his call, and he had learnt to condense them into words of force, even as water in the distiller's alembic is steamed into drops of spirit. Reading and observation had stored his mind. His fluent verse had its fountain in his heart, and ever flowed warm as his own blood -- deep, yet not smooth, somewhat confused, yet never feeble. If his poem of " Love " has a fault, it arises from the too uniform solidity of his thoughts, which make it somewhat accord with Shakspeare's description of that passion -- " heavy lightness, serious vanity." The following is a favourable specimen: -- " Blessed is the hearth when daughters gird the fire, . And sons that shall be happier than their sire, Who ...« less