Biography:

Ebenezer Elliott (17 March 1781–1 December 1849) was born at the New Foundry, Masbrough, in Rotherham Parish, Yorkshire. At seventeen, Elliott composed his first poem, “Vernal Walk,” written in imitation of James Thomson. Throughout his life, his work was influenced by Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and George Crabbe. In 1806, he married Frances Gartside, and they would have thirteen children together. 

Throughout his life, he faced financial hardship. Elliott was declared bankrupt after his father’s iron foundry failed. However, in 1819, he began a new business venture as an iron dealer in Sheffield, which eventually prospered, making him a successful steel manufacturer and iron merchant by 1829. 

Elliott would become famous during his time for his work to repeal the Corn Laws, and his collection of poems called The Corn Law Rhymes, published in 1831, earned him the nickname of The Corn-Law Rhymer. 

The Corn Laws were regulations that governed the importation and exportation of grain. While some records show that the Corn Laws may have been implemented in England as early as the 12th century, the laws became politically contentious in the late 18th and early 19th centuries because Britain’s population increased, and the Napoleonic wars created grain shortages. The Corn Laws benefited landowners and farmers because they encouraged exportation and limited the importation of grain into Britain. Together, these factors caused grain prices to rise, and after several bad harvests between 1795–1813 and continual frustration with the laws, the Anti-Corn Law League was founded in Manchester in 1839. Because of his familiarity with hardship, Elliott took up the cause through poetry. His work, the Anti-Corn Law League, and the failure of Irish potato crops in 1845 influenced British prime minister Sir Robert Peel to repeal the Corn Laws in 1846. Elliott would pass away three years later at the age of 68.

Background on John James Audubon and The Birds of America:

John James Audubon (26 April 1785–27 January 1851) was born in Haiti and moved to France in 1789 after his mother’s death, where he spent time outside drawing. Eventually, he moved back to America, and after various failed business attempts, he decided to draw the country’s birds around 1820. When he decided to pursue the publication of his drawings, Audubon sought publishers in Europe in 1826, finding success in Britain. Engraver Robert Havell published Audubon’s The Birds of America in four volumes, consisting of 435 hand-colored plates. 

Introduction to “Lines Written After Seeing, at Mr. John Reppenstall’s of Upperthorpe, Near Sheffield, the Plates of Audubon’s Birds of America”:

“Lines Written After Seeing, at Mr. John Reppenstall’s of Upperthorpe, Near Sheffield, the Plates of Audubon’s Birds of America” turns away from Elliott’s more politically charged and activist poetry, instead focusing on art, nature, and God. While the date of composition is unavailable, it was first published in 1840 in The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott, The Corn-Law Rhymer, and its shortened title, “On Seeing Audubon’s ‘Birds of America,’” first appeared in an 1853 collection of Elliott’s poems. 

In this poem, Elliott contemplates how Audubon’s paintings of American birds reveal God’s power and creativity. Little information is available on this poem or Elliott’s experience seeing the plates. However, in Memoirs of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer, with Criticisms Upon His Writings, Elliott biographer January Searle refers to the first line of this poem, which says, “Painting is silent music,” to describe how Elliott’s poetic style imitated music. While other poets like Coleridge and Tennyson also used “melody and rhythm” in their work, theirs was “more of the melody of the inner soul than that conquest of the elements of harmonious expression in external nature which Elliott has effected” (Searle 220). Searle goes on to explain how “the gentle to the terrible all sounds in nature are made in unison with [Elliott’s] spirit,” and this poem encapsulates his skill with rhythm and sound. For example, in lines 10–12, he uses assonance to create a rolling, swelling, rhythmic feel to emphasize his description of the ocean. His use of alliteration in line 23 picks up the poem’s pace, highlighting both the speed of the bird and the vibrancy of God’s creativity. Through couplets and the occasional tercet, Elliott’s rhyme and rhythm draw the reader into his message. He describes what God thinks about Audubon’s work through a monologue near the middle of the poem and uses vibrant imagery and descriptions of the birds throughout.

Like the Romantics, nature, albeit a representation, inspires Elliott poetically. The poem could be read more broadly as the power of art, whether poetry, painting, or some other form, to communicate God’s glory. It also adds to the interesting intercontinental story of these plates. While they are engravings of American birds, they were published in England, and this poem, written in England, demonstrates how the nature of a specific place does not have to be confined within physical boundaries but can inspire individuals on the other side of the world. While Elliott and his work have since been left out of many modern anthologies, and he is now remembered only for his political poetry, “Lines Written After Seeing, at Mr. John Reppenstall’s of Upperthorpe, Near Sheffield, the Plates of Audubon’s Birds of America” demonstrates his poetic skill and ability to engage with nature and art in ways that engage the reader and reveal the interconnectivity of the two. 

“Lines Written After Seeing, at Mr. John Reppenstall’s of Upperthorpe, Near Sheffield, the Plates of Audubon’s Birds of America”

by Ebenezer Elliott

"Painting is silent music.” So said one
Whose prose is sweetest painting.¹ Audubon!
Thou Raphael² of great Nature's woods and seas!
Thy living forms and hues, thy plants, thy trees,
Bring deathless music from the houseless waste—             (line 5)
The immortality of truth and taste.
Thou giv’st bright accents³ to the voiceless sod:
And all thy pictures are mute hymns to God.
Why hast thou power to bear th’ untravell’d soul
Through farthest wilds, o’er ocean’s stormy roll;                 (line 10)
And, to the prisoner of disease, bring home
The homeless birds of ocean's roaring foam;
But that thy skill might bid the desert sing
The sun-bright plumage of th’ Almighty’s wing?
With his own hues thy splendid lyre is strung;                     (line 15)
For genius speaks the universal tongue.
“Come,” cries the bigot,⁴ black with pride and wine—
“Come and hear me—the Word of God is mine!”
“But I,” saith He, who paves with suns his car, ⁵
And makes the storms his coursers⁶ from afar,                    (line 20)
And, with a glance of his all-dazzling eye,
Smites into crashing fire the boundless sky
“I speak in this swift sea-bird’s speaking eyes,
These passion-shiver’d⁷ plumes, these lucid dyes:
This beauty is my language! in this breeze                            (line 25)
I whisper love to forests and the seas;
I speak in this lone flower—this dew-drop cold—
That hornet’s sting—yon serpent's neck of gold:
These are my accents. Hear them! and behold
How well my prophet-spoken truth agrees                           (line 30)
With the dread truth and mystery of these
Sad, beauteous, grand, love-warbled mysteries!”
Yes, Audubon! and men shall read in thee
His language, written for eternity;
And if, immortal in its thoughts, the soul                              (line 35)
Shall live in heaven, and spurn the tomb’s control,
Angels shall retranscribe, with pens of fire,
Thy forms of Nature’s terror, love, and ire,
Thy copied words of God—when death-struck suns expire.

1840

Annotation:

1. The 1840 publication of this poem attributes this quote to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712–2 July 1778). However, further research does not find any place where Rousseau said or wrote this. Rousseau was a Swiss-French philosopher who promoted the idea of social contract, and his work inspired the Romantics and leaders of the French Revolution.

2. Raphael (April 6, 1483–April 6, 1520) was an Italian Renaissance painter known for his Madonnas and works for the Vatican. Major works include School of Athens, Madonna in the Meadow, and The Transfiguration.

3. A significant tone or sound.

4. A religious hypocrite.

5. A chariot especially of war, triumph, splendor, or pageantry.

6. A large powerful horse, ridden in battle, in a tournament; a charger.

7. Broken, shattered.

Bibliography:

Audubon and “Birds of America”:

“Birds of America by John James Audubon.” Video. YouTube. Posted by Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library, March 4, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=7gozLgMAq38.

“John James Audubon.” Art in Embassies: U.S. Department of State. https://art.state.gov/ personnel/john_james_audubon/.

“John J. Audubon's Birds of America.” Audubon. Accessed November 12, 2022. https:// www.audubon.org/birds-of-america.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “John James Audubon.” In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Last modified April 22, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-James- Audubon.

Ebenezer Elliott:

“Ebenezer Elliott.” In Nineteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets, edited by John Goodridge, 177-85. N.p.: Taylor & Francis Group, 2005. https:// ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unwsp/detail.action?docID=1699734.

“Ebenezer Elliott-The Corn Law Rhymer.” Writing Sheffield. Accessed November 12, 2022. https://writingsheffield.com/locations/ebenezer-elliott-the-corn-law-rhymer.

Elliott, Ebenezer. The Poems of Ebenezer Elliott, with an Introduction by Rufus W. Griswold. New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1853. https://books.google.com/books?id=cgQzAQAA MAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Elliott, Ebenezer. The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer. Edinburgh: William Tait, 1840. https://books.google.com/books? id=ubtcAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Searle, January. Memoirs of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer, with Criticisms upon His Writings. London: Whittaker & Co., 1852. https://books.google.com/books? id=i_n3wsLTbh0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=audubon&f=false.

Watkins, John. Life, Poetry, and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer: With an Abstract of His Politics. London: John Mortimer, 1850. https://books.google.com/books? id=-O5piZDPSo8C&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

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