ARGUMENT of the SECOND BOOK. Which opens with reflections fuggefted by the conclufion of the former.-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 causes, reproved.-Our own late mifcarriages accounted for.-Satyrical 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.-Picture of a theatrical clerical coxcomb.— Story-tellers and jefters in the pulpit reproved.-ApoStrophe to popular applaufe.-Retailers of ancient philofophy expoftulated with.- Sum of the whole matter.-Effects of facerdotal mismanagement 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 Univerfitics. on the T A S K. Ο BOOK II. THE TIME-PIECE. H for a lodge in fome vaft wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of fhade, Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd. That falls afunder at the touch of fire, He He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Abhor each other. Mountains interpofed, No: No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's I had much rather be myself the flave And wear the bonds, than faften them on him. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs And jealous of the bleffing. Spread it then, Of all your empire. That where Britain's power Sure there is need of focial intercourse, Benevolence and peace and mutual aid Between the nations, in a world that feems To toll the death-bell of its own decease, And And by the voice of all its elements * To preach the gen'ral doom. When were the winds Let flip with fuch a warrant to destroy, Fires from beneath, and meteors † from above Have kindled beacons in the skies, and th' old A longer refpite, unaccomplished yet; *Alluding to the late calamities at Jamaica. + August 18, 1783. Still Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fummer of 1783. |