TTE

AND BANKR

PT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.

London ingulphs them all! The shark is there,
And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the leech
That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he
Who, with bare-headed and obsequious bows,
Begs a warm office, doom'd to a cold jail
And groat per diem, if his patron frown.
The levee swarms, as if, in golden pomp,
Were character'd on ev'ry statesman's door,
56 BATTER'D AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.”
These are the charms that fully and eclipse
The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe
That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts,
The hope of better things, the chance to win,
The wish to shine, the thirst to be amus’d,
That at the sound of winter's hoary wing
Unpeople all our counties of such herds
Of futt'ring, loitring, cringing, begging, loose
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

Oh thou, resort and mart of all the earth, Chequer'd with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, That pleasest and yet shock'ít me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can deípond, Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee ! Ten righteous would have sav'd a city once, And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee That falt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour Than Sodom in her day had pow'r to be, For whom God heard his Abr’am plead in vain.

Τ Η Σ

TA S K.

Boo K IV.

ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

un

The post comes in. The news-paper is read.-The world

contemplated at a distance. --Address to Winter. -The rural amuseinents of a winter evening compared with the fajhionable ones.— Address to evening. --Abrown study. -Fell of snow in the evening.---The waggoner.

- A poor family-piece.-The rural thief.-Public houses.-The multitude of them censured.—The farmer's daughter: what the was-what she is.—The Simplicity of country manners almost lofi.--Causes of the change. —Desertion of the country by the rich.Negleet of indgiftrates. The militia principally in fault.—The new recruit and his transformation, Refletion on bodies corporate.-The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be totally extinguished,

THE

TA S K.

BOOK IV.

THE WINTER EVENING.

Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks ; News from all nations lumb’ring at his back. True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destin'd inn;