To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs;
To monarchs, dignity; to judges, sense;
To artists, ingenuity and skill;

To me, an unambitious mind, content
In the low vale of life, that early felt

A wish for ease and leisure, and, ere long,

Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd.

THE TASK.

BOOK V.-THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

ARGUMENT.

A frosty morning. The foddering of cattle. The woodman and his dog. The poultry. Whimsical effects of frost at a waterfall. The Empress of Russia's palace of ice. Amusements of monarchs:―war, one of them. Wars, whence; and whence monarchy. The evils of it. English and French loyalty contrasted. The Bastille, and a prisoner there. Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. Modern patriotism questionable, and why. The perishable nature of the best human institutions. Spiritual liberty not perishable. The slavish state of man by nature. Deliver him, Deist, if you can. Grace must do it. The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated. Their different treatment. Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free. His relish of the works of God. Address to the Creator.

'Tis morning; and the Sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more,

Resemble most some city in a blaze,

Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray