And groat per diem, if his patron frown.
The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp
Were character'd on every statesman's door,
"BATTER'D AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES
HERE."

These are the charms that sully and eclipse
The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe
That lean hard-handed Poverty inflicts,
The hope of better things, the chance to win,
The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused,
That at the sound of winter's hoary wing
Unpeople all our counties of such herds

MENDED

Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose,
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

O thou resort and mart of all the Earth,
Checker'd with all complexions of mankind,
And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see
Much that I love, and more that I admire,
And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair,
That pleasest and yet shock'st me, I can laugh,
And I can weep, can hope, and can despond,
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee!
Ten righteous would have saved a city once,
And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee-
That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else,
And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour,
Than Sodom in her day had power to be,

For whom God heard his Abraham plead in vain.

MARCH 25.1825.

THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

THE WINTER EVENING.

The post comes in.-The newspaper is read.-The World contemplated at a distance.-Address to Winter.-The rural amusements of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones.-Address to evening. A brown study.-Fall of snow in the evening.-The waggoner. -A poor family piece.-The rural thief.-Public houses.-The multitude of them censured.-The farmer's daughter: what she was -what she is.-The simplicity of country manners almost lost.Causes of the change.-Desertion of the country by the rich.-Neglect of magistrates.-The militia principally in fault.-The new recruit and his transformation.-Reflection on bodies corporate.— The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be totally extinguished.

HARK! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close pack'd load behind,