THE

TA S K.

BOOK II.

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 thefe calamities by fin.-God the agent in them.-The philofophy that stops 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-maître parfon.-The good preacher.-Picture of a theatrical clerical coxcomb.Story-tellers and jefters in the pulpit reproved.-Apoftrophe to popular applaufe.-Retailers of ancient philofophy expoftulated with.-Sum of the whole ·Effects of facerdotal mifmanagement 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 Universities.

matter.

ОH 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 ev'ry day's report

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

It does not feel for man; the natʼral bond

Of brotherhood is fever'd as the flax

That falls afunder at the touch of fire.

4

He

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
T' inforce the wrong, for fuch a worthy caufe
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 deplored
As human nature's broadeft, fouleft blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his fweat
With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps when the fees inflicted on a beast.

Then what is man? And what man seeing 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 fleep,

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That finews bought and fold have ever earn'd.

5

No:

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 part 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 power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

Sure there is need of social 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