If fuch escape contagion, and emerge

Pure from fo foul a pool to fhine abroad,

And give the world their talents and themselves,
Small thanks to thofe, whofe negligence of floth
Exposed their inexperience to the snare,
And left them to an undirected choice.

See then the quiver broken and decayed,
In which are kept our arrows! Rufting there
In wild disorder, and unfit for use,

What wonder if, difcharged into the world,
They fhame their fhooters with a random flight,
Their points obtufe, and feathers drunk with wine!
Well may the church wage unsuccessful war
With fuch artillery armed. Vice parries wide
The undreaded volley with a sword of ftraw,
And stands an impudent and fearless mark.

Have we not tracked the felon home, and found His birth-place and his dam? The country mourns, Mourns because every plague, that can infest Society, and that faps and worms the base Of the edifice, that policy has raised,

Swarms in all quarters: meets the eye, the ear,

And fuffocates the breath at every turn.
Profufion breeds them; and the cause itself
Of that calamitous mifchief has been found:
Found too where moft offenfive, in the skirts
Of the robed pedagogue! Elfe let the arraigned
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge.
So, when the Jewish leader ftretched his arm,
And waved his rod divine, a race obscene,
Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth,
Polluting Egypt: gardens, fields, and plains,
Were covered with the peft; the streets were filled;
The croaking nuifance lurked in every nook 5;
Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scaped;

And the land ftank-fo numerous was the fry.

THE TASK.

BOOK III.

ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD BOOK.

Self-recollection and reproof-Address to domeftic happiness.-Some account of myfelf-The vanity of many of their pursuits who are reputed wife.Juftification of my cenfures.-Divine illumination necessary to the most expert philosopher.-The queftion, What is truth? anfwered by other questions. Domeftic happiness addreffed again.- Few lovers of the country.—My tame hare.-Occupations of a retired gentleman in his garden.—Pruning.—Framing.—Greenhouse.—Sowing of flowerfeeds.-The country preferable to the town even in the winter.-Reafons why it is deferted at that feafon.-Ruinous effects of gaming and of expenfive improvement.-Book concludes with an apof trophe to the metropolis.