own scenery; dispose his lights and shades as he pleases; to solace himself with a rivulet or a horse-pond,--a shower, or a sun-beam,--a grove, or a kitchen garden,--according to his fancy. How much more considerate this, than if the Poet had, from an affected accuracy of description, thrown us into an unmannerly perspiration by the heat of the atmosphere; forced us into a landscape of his own planning, with perhaps a paltry good-for-nothing zephyr or two, and a limited quantity of wood and water.--All this _Ovid_ would undoubtedly have done. Nay, to use the expression of a learned brother-commentator, "_quovis pignore decertem_" "I would lay any wager," that he would have gone so far as to tell us what the tarts were made of; and perhaps wandered into an episode on the art of preserving cherries. But _our Poet_, above such considerations, leaves every reader to choose his own ingredients, and sweeten them to his own liking; wisely foreseeing, no doubt, that the more palatable each had rendered them to his own taste, the more he would be affected at their approaching loss. "All on a Summer's Day." I cannot leave this line without remarking, that one of the _Scribleri_, a descendant of the famous _Martinus_, has expressed his suspicions of the text being corrupted here, and proposes, instead of "_All on_" reading "_Alone_," alledging, in favour of this alteration, the effect of Solitude in raising the passions. But _Hiccius Doctius_, a High Dutch commentator, one nevertheless well versed in British literature, in a note of his usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of _Scriblerus_. In support of the present reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated _Johannes Pastor_[*], intituled "_An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate_," wherein the gentleman declares, that rather indeed in compliance with an old custom, than to gratify any particular will of his own, he is going --------"All hanged for to be "Upon that fatal Tyburn tree."---- [Footnote *: More commonly known, I believe, by the appellation of "_Jack Shepherd_."] Now as nothing throws greater light on an author, than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of _Hiccius's_ opinion, and to consider the "_All_" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it "_elegans expletivum_." The passage therefore must stand thus, "The Queen of Hearts "She made some Tarts, "All on a Summer's Day." And thus ends the first part, or _beginning_; which is simple and unembellished; opens the subject in a natural and easy manner; excites, but does not too far gratify our curiosity: for a reader of accurate observation may easily discover, that the _Hero_ of the Poem has not, as yet, made his appearance.