Hail, hallow'd evening! sacred hour to me! Thy clouds of grey, thy vocal melody, Thy dreamy silence oft to me have brought A sweet exchange from toil to peaceful thought. Ye purple heavens! how often has my eye, Wearied with its long gaze on drudgery, Look'd up and found refreshment in the hues That gild thy vest with colouring profuse! O, evening grey! how oft have I admired Thy airy tapestry, whose radiance fired The glowing minstrels of the olden time, Until their very souls flow'd forth in rhyme. And I have listened, till my spirit grew Familiar with their deathless strains, and drew From the same source some portion of the glow Which fill'd their spirits, when from earth below They scann'd thy golden imagery. And I Have consecrated _thee_, bright evening sky My fount of inspiration; and I fling My spirit on thy clouds--an offering To the great Deity of dying day. Who hath transfused o'er thee his purple ray. * * * * * After all, our dreams do little harm to the rich. Those who consider Chartism as synonymous with devil-worship, should bless and encourage them, for the very reason for which we working men ought to dread them; for, quickened into prurient activity by the low, novel-mongering press, they help to enervate and besot all but the noblest minds among us. Here and there a Thomas Cooper, sitting in Stafford gaol, after a youth spent in cobbling shoes, vents his treasures of classic and historic learning in a "Purgatory of Suicides"; or a Prince becomes the poet of the poor, no less for having fed his boyish fancy with "The Arabian Nights" and "The Pilgrim's Progress." But, with the most of us, sedentary and monotonous occupations, as has long been known, create of themselves a morbidly-meditative and fantastic turn of mind. And what else, in Heaven's name, ye fine gentlemen--what else can a working man do with his imagination, but dream? What else will you let him do with it, oh ye education-pedants, who fancy that you can teach the masses as you would drill soldiers, every soul alike, though you will not bestir yourselves to do even that? Are there no differences of rank--God's rank, not man's--among us? You have discovered, since your schoolboy days, the fallacy of the old nomenclature which civilly classed us altogether as "the snobs," "the blackguards"; which even--so strong is habit--tempted Burke himself to talk of us as "the swinish multitude." You are finding yourselves wrong there. A few more years' experience not in mis-educating the poor, but in watching the poor really educate themselves, may teach you that we are not all by nature dolts and idiots; that there are differences of brain among us, just as great as there is between you; and that there are those among us whose education ought not to end, and will not end, with the putting off of the parish cap and breeches; whom it is cruelty, as well