DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL R.A.ENGRAVED BY CHARLES ROLLS: PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, LONDON. MARCH 25.1825. 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. Our 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. O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd, My soul is sick, with every day's report Of wrong and outrage, with which Earth is fill'd. It does not feel for man; the natural 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 power I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. vein Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power Sure there is need of social intercourse, To preach the general doom*. When were the winds Have kindled beacons in the skies; and the' old * Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica. + August 18, 1783. |