In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL R.A. ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM FINDEN: PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE PICCADILLY. OCT. 1. 1817. THE TASK. BOOK II. THE TIMEPIECE. 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.-Opr 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.-Picture 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 profusion.-Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its principal cause, to the want of discipline in the universities. FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, |