THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

The post comes in.-The news-paper is read.-The world contemplated at a distance.-Address to winter.-The rural amusements of a 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,

With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen

locks;

News from all nations lumb'ring 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 destin'd inn;

And, having dropp'd th' 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 indiff'rent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,

Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charg'd with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh th' important budget! usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have our troops awak'd?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugg'd,
Snore to the murmurs of th' Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plum'd

And jewell'd turban with a smile of

peace,

Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,

The popular harangue, the tart reply,

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,