They were not high-born, nor were they shining poets like the twin stars
of freedom whom I have quoted. Little scholarship was theirs, little
perfection of song. Some had taught themselves their letters at the
forge, some in the depths of the mine, some sang their most daring lines
in prison cells where they were not allowed even to write down the
words. Nearly all knew poverty and hunger at first hand; nearly all were
persecuted for righteousness' sake. For maintaining the cause of the
poor and the helpless they were mocked and reviled; scorn was their
reward. The governing classes whose comfort they disturbed wished them
dead; so did the self-righteous classes whose conscience they ruffled.
That is the common fate of any man or woman who probes a loathsome evil,
too long skimmed over. The peculiarity of these men was that, when they
were driven to speak, they spoke in lines that flew on wings through the
country. Indignation made their verse, and the burning memory of the
wrongs they had seen gave it a power beyond its own expression. Which
shall we recall of those ghostly poems, once so quick with flame? Still,
at moments of deep distress or public wrong-doing, we may hear the echo
of the Corn-law Rhymer's anthem:

"When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy! when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!"

Or if we read his first little book of rhymes, that may be had for
twopence now, we shall find the pictures of the life that was lived
under Protection--the sort of life the landlords and their theorists
invite us to enact again. From his "Black Hole of Calcutta" we take the
lines: