ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK, 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.— Mau 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 For taine-Bleau.-But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine of refor.ation.-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 it's consequent evils, ascribed, as to it's principal cause, to the wand of discipline in the universities THE TASK. BOOK II. THE TIME-PIECE. FOR a lodge in se vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression 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 That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, Of all your empire; that, where Britain's pow'r Sure there is need of social intercourse, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, Between the nations in a world, that seems To toll the deathbell of it's own decease, And by the voice of all it's elements To preach the gen'ral doom*. When were the winds Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th' old * Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica. ↑ August 18, 1783. ↑ Alluding to the fog, that covered both Europe and Asia during the whole summer of 1789. |