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Sent through the trav'ller's temples! He that finds
One drop of heav'n's sweet mercy in his cup,
Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content,
So he may wrap himself in honest rags

At his laft gafp; but could not for a world
Fish up his dirty and dependent bread

From pools and ditches of the commonwealth,
Sordid and fick'ning at his own success.

Ambition, av'rice, penury incurr'd

By endless riot, vanity, the luft
Of pleasure and variety, dispatch,

As duly as the swallows disappear,

The world of wand'ring knights and fquires to town.
London ingulphs them all! The fhark is there,
And the shark's prey; the spendthrift and the leech
That fucks him. There the fycophant, and he
Who, with bare-headed and obfequious bows,
Begs a warm office, doom'd to a cold jail
And groat per diem, if his patron frown.

The levee fwarms, as if, in golden pomp,

Were character'd on ev'ry ftateman's door,

"BATTER'D AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDER

HERE."

Thefe are the charms that fully and eclipfe

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 fhine, the thirst to be amus'd,
That at the found of winter's hoary wing
Unpeople all our counties of fuch herds
Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, loofe
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaft
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

Oh thou, refort and mart of all the earth, Chequer'd with all complexions of mankind, And fpotted with all crim s; in whom I fee Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, That pleaseft and yet shock'ft me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can defpond, Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee ! Ten righteous would have fav'd a city once, And thou haft many righteous.-Well for theeThat falt preferves thee; more corrupted elfe, And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour Than Sodom in her day had pow'r to be,

For whom God heard his Ab'ram plead in vain.

THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

The poft comes in.-The news paper is read.-The world contemplated at a diftarce. Address to Winter. The rural amufements of a winter's evening compared with the fashionable ones.Addrefs to evening.-A brown Study.-Fall of Snow in the evening -The waggoner. -A poor family-piece.-The rural thief-Public boufes. The multitude of them cenfured.-The far. mer's daughter: what she was what he is.-The fimplicity of country manners almoft loft.—Caufes of the change --Defertion of the country by the rich.Neglect of magiftrates.-The militia principally in fault. The new recruit and his transformation.Reflection on bodies corporate.-The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be totally extin guished.

THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

THE WINTER EVENING.

HARK! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearifome but needful length
Beftrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;-
He comes, the herald of a noify world,

With fpatter'd boots, ftrapp'd waift, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumb'ring at his back.
True to his charge, the clofe-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern

Is to conduct it to the deftin'd inn;

And, having dropp'd th' expected bag, pafs on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful: meffenger of grief

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