To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs;

To monarchs dignity, to judges fenfe,

To artifts ingenuity and skill;

To me an unambitious mind, content

In the low vale of life, that early felt

A wifh for eafe and leifure, and ere long
Found here that leifure and that ease I wifh'd.

THE

THE

TAS K.

воок V.

N 2

ARGUMENT of the FIFTH BOOK.

A frosty morning. The foddering of cattle.-The woodman and his dog.-The poultry.-Whimsical effects of froft at a waterfall.-The Empress of Ruffia's palace of ice.-Amufements of monarchs.-War, one of them. —Wars, whence—And whence monarchy.—The evils of it.-English and French loyalty contrafted.-The Baftile, and a prifoner there.-Liberty the chief recommendation of this country.-Modern patriotism queftionable, and why.-The perishable nature of the best buman inftitutions.-Spiritual liberty not perishable.— The flavish state of man by nature.- Deliver him, Deift, if you can.-Grace must do it.-The refpective merits of patriots and martyrs ftated.—Their different treatment.-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free. His relifh of the works of God.-Addrefs to the Creator.

'Tis morning; and the fun with ruddy orb Afcending, fires the horizon: while the clouds.

That crowd away before the driving wind,

More ardent as the disk emerges more,

Refemble most fome city in a blaze,

Seen through the leaflefs wood. His flanting ray

Slides ineffectual down the fnowy vale,

And tinging all with his own rofy hue,

From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of fhadow o'er the field.
Mine, fpindling into longitude immense,

In spite of gravity, and fage remark

That I myself am but a fleeting fhade,

Provokes me to a fiile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean fhank. The fhapeless pair,
As they defign'd to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaister'd wall,
Prepoft'rous fight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarfer grafs upfpearing o'er the reft,

Of late unfightly and unseen, now shine
Confpicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod fuperb.
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrify'd to sleep
In unrecumbent fadnefs. There they wait
Their wonted fodder, not like hung'ring man
Fretful if unfupply'd, but filent, meek,