THE TASK.

BOOK II.

ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.

Reflections fuggefted by the conclufion of the former book.-Peace among the nations recommended, on the ground of their common fellowship in forrow. -Prodigies enumerated.—Sicilian earthquakes. Man rendered obnoxious to thefe calamities by fin. -God the agent in them.-The philofophy that Rops at fecondary caufes reproved.-Our own late mifcarriages accounted for.—Satirical notice taken of our trips to Fontainbleau.—But the pulpit, not fatire, the proper engine of reformation.—The Reverend Advertifer of engraved fermons.-Petit maitre parfon.-The good preacher.—Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcomb.-Story-tellers and jefters in the pulpit reproved.—Apostrophe to popular applaufe.-Retailers of ancient philofophy expoftulated with.-Sum of the whole matter.-Effects of facerdotal mifmanagement on the laity.-Their folly and extravagance.-The mischiefs of profufion.Profufion itself, with all its confequent evils, afcribed, as to its principal cause, to the want of dif cipline in the univerfities.

THE TASK.

BOOK II.

THE TIME-PIECE.

OH for a lodge in fome vaft wilderness,
Seme boundless contiguity of fhade,

Where rumour of oppreffion and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or fuccefsful war,

Might never reach me more. My ear is pained,
My foul is fick, with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,

It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is fevered as the flax,
That falls afunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not coloured like his own; and having power

To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey.
Lands interfected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpofed
Make enemies of nations, who had elfe
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and defiroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his fweat
With ftripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps, when the fees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, feeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a flave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I fleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth,
That finews bought and fold have ever earned.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,

I had much rather be myself the slave,

4

And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.

We have no flaves at home.-Then why abroad?