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To feel, and courage to redrefs 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 with for ease and leisure, and ere long
Found here that leifure and that ease I wifh'd.

T

THE

A S K.

BOOK V.

ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH BOOK.

A frosty morning.-The foddering of cattle.-The woodman and his dog.—The poultry.—Whimsical effects of froft at a waterfall.-The Empress of Ruffia's palace of ice.-Amusements of monarchs.-War, one of them. -Wars, whence-And whence monarchy.-The evils of it.-English and French loyalty contrafted.-The Baftille, and a prifoner there.-Liberty the chief recommendation of this country.-Modern patriotifm queftionable, and why.-The perishable nature of the best buman inftitutions.-Spiritual liberty not perishable.— The flavish state of man by nature.-Deliver him, Deift, if you can.-Grace must do it.-The refpective merits of patriots and martyrs ftated.-Their different treatment.-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free.-His relish of the works of God.-Addrefs to the Creator.

THE

TAS K.

BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Afcending, fires th' horizon; while the clouds,

That crowd away before the driving wind,

More ardent as the difk emerges more,

Resemble most some city in a blaze,

Seen through the leaflefs wood. His flanting ray

Slides ineffectual down the fnowy vale,

And, tinging all with his own rofy hue,

From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, fpindling into longitude immense,

In fpite of gravity, and fage remark

That I myself am but a fleeting fhade,

Provokes me to a fmile. With eye afkance
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean fhank. The fhapeless pair,
As they defign'd to mock me, at my fide
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,
Prepoft'rous fight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarfer grafs, upfpearing o'er the rest,
Of late unfightly and unfeen, now shine
Confpicuous, and, in bright apparel clad
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod fuperb.
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and feem half petrified to fleep
In unrecumbent fadnefs. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hung'ring man,
Fretful if unfupplied; but filent, meek,

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