ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK. Reflections fuggefted by the conclufion of the former book.— Peace among the nations recommended, on the ground of their common fellowship in forrow.-Prodigies enumerated.-Sicilian earthquakes.-Man rendered obnoxious to thefe calamities by fin.-God the agent in them.-The philofophy that stops at fecondary caufes reproved.—Our own late miscarriages accounted for.-Satirical notice taken of our trips to Fontainbleau.-But the pulpit, not fatire, the proper engine of reformation.—The Reverend Advertiser of engraved fermons.-Petit-maitre parfon.-The good preacher.-Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcomb. Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved.—ApoStrophe to popular applaufe.-Retailers of ancient philofophy expoftulated with.-Sum of the whole matter.-Effects of facerdotal mismanagement on the laity. Their folly and extravagance.-The mischiefs of profufion.-Profufion itself, with all its confequent evils, afcribed, as to its principal caufe, to the want of difcipline in the universities. THE TIME-PIECE. OH for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Where rumour of oppreffion and deceit, Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd, Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, It does not feel for man; the nat❜ral bond Of brotherhood is fever'd as the flax That falls afunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a fkin Not colour'd like his own; and, having pow'r Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than faften them on him. Of all your empire; that where Britain's pow'r Sure there is need of focial intercourse, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, Between the nations, in a world that seems To toll the death-bell of its own decease, |