Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση
[ocr errors]

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 philo-
fophy that flops at fecondary caufes reproved.-Our own
late mifcarriages accounted for.-Satirical notice taken of
our trips to Fontainbleau.-But the pulpit, not fatirer
the proper engine of reformation.-The Reverend Adver-
tifer of engraved fermons.-Petit-maitre parfon.-The
good preacher.-Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcomb.
--Story-tellers and jefters in the pulpit reproved.--Apo-
Atrophe to popular applause.—Retailers of ancient philo-
Sophy expoftulated with.-Sum of the whole matter.—
Effects of farcedotal mifmanagement on the laity.-Their
folly and extravagance.-The mischiefs of profufion.-
Profufion itself, with all its confequent evi's, afcribed,
as to its principal caufe, to the want of difcipline in the
univerfities.

THE TASK.

Он

BOOK II.

THE TIME-PIECE.

H for a lodge in fome vaft wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of fhade, Where rumour of oppreffion and deceit, Of unfuccessful or fuccefsful war,

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

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

It does not feel for man; the nat❜ral bond
Of brotherhood is fever'd as the flax

That falls afunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colour'd like his own; and, having pow's

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
With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when the fees inflicted on a beaft.
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 sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That finews bought and, fold have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's.
Juft eftimation priz'd above all price,

I had much rather be myself the flave,
And wear the bonds, than faften them on him.
We have no flaves at home-Then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their fhackles fall,
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the bleffing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein

Of all your empire; that where Britain's pow'r
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

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, And by the voice of all its elements

To preach the genʼral doom *. When were the winds Let flip with fuch a warrant to destroy?

When did the waves fo haughtily o'erleap

Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry?

Fires from beneath, and meteors + from above,

Portentous, unexampled, unexplain❜d,

Have kindled beacons in the fkies; and th' old

And crazy earth has had her shaking fits

More frequent, and foregone her usual rest.

Alluding to the calamities at Jamaica,

August 18, 1783.

Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet seem to fail,
And Nature with a dim and sickly eye

To wait the clofe of all? But grant her end
More distant, and that prophecy demands
A longer respite, unaccomplish'd yet;
Still they are frowning figuals, and bespeak
Displeasure in his breast who fmites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.
And 'tis but feemly, that, where all deserve
And ftand expos'd by common peccancy

To what no few have felt, there should be peace,:
And brethren in calamity should love.

Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now
Lie scatter'd where the shapely column stood.
Her palaces are duft. In all her streets
The voice of finging and the sprightly chord
Are filent. Revelry, and dance, and show
Suffer a fyncope and solemn pause;

While God performs upon the trembling stage
Of his own works his dreadful part alone.

How does the earth receive him?-With what figns

Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fummer of 1783.

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »