Great towns o'erbrimming with their scum, great stews of plague and sin; Toil that should proudly bear itself, in grossness sunk and gin; Crime stored away to ripen in settlement and gaol; The rich for wealth, the poor for want, alike forpined and pale. Then think, my Lord, and you, his friends, who deem those overbold, That bid you move along the paths you entered on of old, Think how delay may order with anarchy combine, And to disaffection's vinegar turn loyalty's strong wine. Mistake me not for what I'm not, know me for what I am, The nursing mother of Reform, not Revolution's dam; Mine is the spirit that erst reared our England's throne on law, That never bore a lie it knew, or blinked a truth it saw. Nations or men, we may not rest--look round on Europe's thrones Shattered or shaken--hearken to her convulsive groans-- Ere you fool us with Finality, of all bad pleas the worst, Think 'tis _the Tenth_ of April you invoke, and not _the First_. [Sidenote: _Reform or Revolution?_] This may not be great poetry, but it is and remains sound political philosophy, and an apologia for Chartism as interpreted by the saner and nobler spirits who took part in the movement, endeavoured to control it, and were in some instances engulfed in it. The Rebecca Riots in South Wales in 1842-3 are little more than a name to most of the present generation. Few of those who connect them vaguely with resentment against the Turnpike Laws know that the name arose from the proclamations issued in the name of Rebecca, in allusion to the verse in _Genesis_ (xxiv. 60) in which it is promised to the wife of Isaac that her seed shall possess "the gate of her enemies." Six years later there were still 160 turnpikes in and about London, and _Punch_ declared that Rebecca was needed to sweep them away. "We laugh at the French for their passports; they may with equal justice laugh at us for our turnpikes. At all events the passports cost very little, whereas you cannot go three miles out of London without dipping your hand into your pocket two or three times."