That she is rigid in denouncing death
On petty robbers, and indulges life

And liberty, and oft-times honour too,

To peculators of the public gold;

735

That thieves at home must hang, but he that puts

Into his overgorged and bloated purse

The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor is it well, nor can it come to good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ, she has presumed to annul
And abrogate, as roundly as she may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth,
And centering all authority in modes

740

745

And customs of her own, till sabbath-rites
Have dwindled into unrespected forms,

And knees and hassocks are well nigh divorced.

God made the country, and man made the town.) What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts

750

That can alone make sweet the bitter draught

That life holds out to all, should most abound

And least be threatened in the fields and groves?

Possess ye, therefore, ye who, borne about

In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue

755

But that of idleness, and taste no scenes

But such as Art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only ye can shine,
There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare
The splendour of your lamps; they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;

760

765

It plagues your country. Folly such as yours
Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

770

BOOK II.

THE TIME-PIECE.

ARGUMENT:-Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former Book, 1-Peace among the nations recommended on the ground of their common fellowship in sorrow, 48-Prodigies enumerated, 53-Sicilian earthquakes, 75-Man rendered obnoxious to these calamities by sin, 133-God the agent in them, 161-The philosophy that stops at secondary causes reproved, 174—Our own late miscarriages accounted for, 206-Satirical notice taken of our trips to Fontainbleau, 255-But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine of reformation, 285-The reverend advertiser of engraved sermons, 351-Petit-maître parson, 372 -The good preacher, 395-Picture of a theatrical clerical coxcomb, 414-Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved, 463-Apostrophe to popular applause, 481-Retailers of ancient philosophy expostulated with, 499-Sum of the whole matter, 531-Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement on the laity, 545-Their folly and extravagance, 574The mischiefs of profusion, 667-Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its principal cause, to the want of discipline in the Universities, 699.

OH 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 pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report

5

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man. The natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax

ΙΟ

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not coloured like his own, and having power
To 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 interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else
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 broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees 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 slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home:-Then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

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

50

To toll the deathbell of its own decease,

And by the voice of all its elements

To preach the general doom. When were the winds
Let slip with such a warrant to destroy?

When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap
Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry?
Fires from beneath, and meteors from above
Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,

55

Have kindled beacons in the skies, and the old

And crazy earth has had her shaking fits

60

More frequent, and foregone her usual rest.

Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet seem to fail,

And Nature, with a dim and sickly eye,

To wait the close of all? But grant her end
More distant, and that prophecy demands
A longer respite, unaccomplished yet;

65

Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak
Displeasure in his breast who smites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.

70

And 'tis but seemly, that where all deserve
And stand exposed by common peccancy

To what no few have felt, there should be peace,

And brethren in calamity should love.
Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now

75

Lie scattered where the shapely column stood.

Her palaces are dust. In all her streets

The voice of singing and the sprightly chord

Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show,

Suffer a syncope and solemn pause,

80

While God performs, upon the trembling stage

Of his own works, his dreadful part alone.

How does the earth receive him?-with what signs

Of gratulation and delight, her King?

Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad,

85

Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums,