May yet be foul; so witty, yet not wise.
It is not seemly, nor of good report,

That she is slack in discipline; more prompt
T'avenge than to prevent the breach of law:
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:

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740

That thieves at home must hang; but he, that puts
Into his overgorg'd 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 presum'd t' annul
And abrogate, as roundly as she may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing fashion to the post of truth,
And cent'ring all authority in modes
And customs of her own, till sabbath rites
Have dwindled into unrespected forms,

And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorc'd.

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 threaten'd in the fields and groves? Possess ye, therefore, ye, who, borne about In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue But that of idleness, and taste no scenes But such as art contrives, possess ye still Your element; there only can ye shine, There only minds like your's can do no harm. Our groves were planted to console at noon The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve The moon-beam, 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 Scar'd, and th' offended nightingale is mute. There is a public mischief in your mirth;

760

It plagues your country. Folly such as your's, 770
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire, stedfast but for you,

A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

758 ye can 1785-1788.

BOOK II

THE TIME-PIECE

ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.-Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former book-Peace among the nations recommended, on the ground of their common fellowship_in sorrow-Prodigies enumerated-Sicilian earthquakes-Man rendered obnoxious to these calamities by sin-God the agent in them--The philosophy that stops at secondary causes reproved-Our own late miscarriages accounted for-Satirical notice taken of our trips to Fontainbleau But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine of reformation-The reverend Advertiser of engraved sermons- Petit-maitre parson-The good preacher-Pictures of a theatrical clerical coxcombStory-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved-Apostrophe to popular applause-Retailers of ancient philosophy expostulated with-Sum of the whole matter-Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement on the laity-Their folly and extravaganceThe mischiefs of profusion-Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its principal cause, to the want of discipline in the universities.

Oн 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 pain'd,
My soul is sick, with ev'ry day's report

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 sever'd

as

the flax

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own; and, having pow'r
T'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 interpos'd
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 deplor'd,
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,
Argument 11 Picture 1785-1788.

10

20

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 earn`d.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd 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 loos'd.

30

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 40
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 ev'ry vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's pow'r
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

50

Sure there is need of social intercourse, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, Between the nations, in a world that seems To toll the death-bell of its own decease, And by the voice of all its elements To preach the gen'ral 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, unexplain❜d,

3

Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th' old
And crazy earth has had her shaking fits
More frequent, and forgone 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, unaccomplish'd yet;
Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak
Displeasure in his breast who smites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.
And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve
And stand expos'd by common peccancy
To what no few have felt, there should be peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.

Alluding to the calamities at Jamaica [C.].
August 18, 1783 [C.].

60

70

Alluding to the fog that covered Both Europe and Asia during the summer of 1783 [C.].

Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now
Lie scatter'd 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,
Her sweetest flow'rs, her aromatic gums,
Disclosing paradise where'er he treads?

She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb,
Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps
And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot.

90

The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, For he has touch'd them. From th' extremest

point

Of elevation down into th' abyss,

His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt.

The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rise,

The rivers die into offensive pools,

And, charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a gross
And mortal nuisance into all the air.

What solid was, by transformation strange,
Grows fluid; and the fixt and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and swells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
And agonies of human and of brute
Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry side,
And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene
Migrates uplifted; and, with all its soil
Alighting in far distant fields, finds out
A new possessor, and survives the change.
Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought

To an enormous and o'erbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Resistless. Never such a sudden flood,

Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge,

100

110

Possess'd an inland scene. Where now the throng
That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart,
Look'd to the sea for safety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-
A prince with half his people! Ancient tow'rs,

120

And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes
Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume
Life in the unproductive shades of death,
Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth,
And, happy in their unforeseen release
From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day that sets them free.
Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast,
Freedom! whom they that lose thee so regret, 130
That ev'n a judgment, making way for thee,
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake.

Such evil sin hath wrought; and such a flame
Kindled in heav'n, that it burns down to earth,
And, in the furious inquest that it makes
On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minister of man, to serve his wants,

140

Conspire against him. With his breath he draws
A plague into his blood; and cannot use
Life's necessary means, but he must die.
Storms rise t' o'erwhelm him: or, if stormy winds
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And, needing none assistance of the storm,

Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there.
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds,
Or make his house his grave: nor so content,
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulphs.
What then!-were they the wicked above all, 150
And we the righteous, whose fast anchor'd isle
Mov'd not, while their's was rock'd, like a light skiff,
The sport of ev'ry wave? No: none are clear,
And none than we more guilty. But, where all
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark:
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn
The more malignant. If he spar'd not them,
Tremble and be amaz'd at thine escape,
Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee!
Happy the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend

The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate); could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose

160