And liberty, and oft-times honour too,

To peculators of the public gold;

That thieves at home muft hang; but he that puts
Into his overgorged and bloated purse

The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor is it well, nor can it come to good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ, the has prefumed to annul
And abrogate, as roundly as she may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing fashion to the post of truth,
And centering all authority in modes
And cuftoms of her own, till fabbath rites
Have dwindled into unrefpected forms,

And knees and haffocks are well-nigh divorced.

God made the country, and man made the town. What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, That life holds out to all, fhould most abound And leaft be threatened in the fields and groves? Poffefs ye therefore, ye who, borne about In chariots and fedans, know no fatigue But that of idlenefs, and tafte no scenes But fuch as art contrives, poffefs ye ftill Your element; there only can ye shine;

There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The penfive wanderer in their shades. At eve
The moon-beam, fliding foftly in between
The fleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the mufic. We can spare
The fplendour of your lamps; they but eclipse
Our fofter fatellite. Your fongs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth ;

It plagues your country.

Folly fuch as your's, Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan,

Has made, what enemies could never have done, Our arch of empire, ftedfaft but for you,

A mutilated structure, foon to fall.

THE TASK.

BOOK II.

Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former book.-Peace among the nations recommended on the ground of their common fellowship in sorrow.— Prodigies enumerated-Sicilian earthquakes.-Man rendered obnoxious to these calamities by sin.—God the agent in them.-The philosophy that stops at secondary causes reproved.-Our own late miscarriages accounted for.-Satirical notice taken of our trips to Fontainbleau.-But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine of reformation.-The Reverend Advertiser of engraved sermons.—Petit-maitre parson.-The good preacher.—Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcomb.-Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved.-Apostrophe to popular applause. -Retailers of ancient philosophy expostulated with. -Sum of the whole matter.-Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement on the laity―Their folly and extravagance.—The mischiefs of profusión.—Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its principal cause, to the want of discipline in the universities.

THE TASK.

BOOK II.

THE TIME-PIECE.

OH for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some 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