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 these calamities by fin.—God the agent in them.-The philofophy that steps 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 Advertiser of engraved fermons.-Petit-maitre parfon.-The good preacher.-Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcomb. Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved.—ApoStrophe to popular applaufe.-Retailers of ancient philofophy expoftulated with.-Sum of the whole matter.-Effects of facerdotal mismanagement on the laity. Their folly and extravagance.-The mischiefs of profufion.-Profufion itself, with all its confequent evils, afcribed, as to its principal caufe, to the want of difcipline in the univerfities. THE TASK. BOOK II. THE TIME-PIECE. Он for a lodge in some vaft wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of fhade, Where rumour of oppreffion and deceit, Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd, Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd. It does not feel for man; the natʼral bond He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colour'd like his own; and, having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for fuch a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. Lands interfected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd Make enemies of nations, who had elfe, (Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And, worse than all, and most to be deplor'd, As human nature's broadeft, fouleft blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat Then what is man? And what man, feeing this, No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's I had much rather be myself the flave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. Of all your empire; that where Britain's pow'r Sure there is need of focial intercourse, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, Between the nations, in a world that seems To toll the death-bell of its own decease, |