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-Man 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 FontaineBleau.--But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine of reformation--The Reverend Advertiser of engraved sermons.-Petit-maître 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. THE TASK. BOOK II. THE TIME-PIECE. O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd, My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report 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 Like kindred drops been mingled into one. I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. Of all your empire; that, where Britain's pow'r To toll the death bell of its own decease, To preach thegen 'ral doom*. When were the winds Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now Lie scatter'd, where the shapely column stood. *Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica. August 18, 1783. Alluding to the fog, that covered both Europe and Asia during the whole summer of 1783. |