vina Commedia_, published in
1814, is not only one of the best verse translations in English, but,
after the lapse of eighty years, during which the study of Dante has
been constantly increasing in England, in which poetic ideas have
changed not a little, and in which numerous other translations have
appeared, still attracts admiration from all competent scholars for its
combination of fidelity and vigour. Heber, born in 1783 and educated at
Brasenose, gained the Newdigate with _Palestine_, a piece which ranks
with _Timbuctoo_ and a few others among unforgotten prize poems. He took
orders, succeeding to the family living of Hodnet, and for some years
bid fair to be one of the most shining lights of the English Church,
combining admirable parochial work with good literature, and with much
distinction as a preacher. Unfortunately he thought it his duty to take
the Bishopric of Calcutta when it was offered him; and, arriving there
in 1824, worked incessantly for nearly two years and then died. His
_Journal in India_ is very pleasant reading, and some of his hymns rank
with the best in English.

Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer," was born in Yorkshire on 7th
March 1781. His father was a clerk in an iron-foundry. He himself was
early sent to foundry work, and he afterwards became a master-founder at
Sheffield. From different points of view it may be thought a
palliation--and the reverse--of the extreme virulence with which Elliott
took the side of workmen against landowners and men of property, that he
attained to affluence himself as an employer, and was never in the least
incommoded by the "condition-of-England" question. He early displayed a
considerable affection for literature, and was one, and about the last,
of the prodigies whom Southey, in his inexhaustible kindness for
struggling men of letters, accepted. Many years later the Laureate wrote
good-naturedly to Wynn: "I mean to read the Corn-Law Rhymer a lecture,
not without some hope, that as I taught him the art of poetry I may
teach him something better." The "something better" was not in Elliott's
way; for he is a violent and crude thinker, with more smoke than fire in
his violence, though not without generosity of feeling now and then, and
with a keen admiration of the scenery--still beautiful in parts, and
then exquisite--which surrounded the smoky Hades of Sheffield. He
himself acknowledges the influence of Crabbe and disclaims that of
Wordsworth, from wh