Of fluttering, loitering, 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,
Checquer'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 pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh
And I can weep, can hope, and can despond,
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee!
Ten righteous would have saved a city once,
And thou hast many righteous.-Well for thee,-
That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else,
And therefore more obnoxious at this hour,
Than Sodom in her day had power to be,

For whom God heard his Abraham plead in vain.

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840

845

THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

S. C.-9.

M

ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

The post comes in. The newspaper is read. The world contemplated at a distance. Address to Winter. The amusements of a rural winter evening compared with the fashionable ones. Address to Evening. A brown study. Fall 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 she was. What she is. The simplicity of country manners almost lost. Causes of the change. Desertion of the country by the rich. Neglect of magistrates. 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 extinguished.

THE TASK.

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,

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With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering 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 destined inn,
And having dropp'd the expected bag-pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some,
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet

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With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.

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