tted to shoot
out unrestrained, while they are themselves barren and useless,
diminish considerably the vigour of the parent stock. Ovid had more
genius but less judgment than Virgil; Dryden more imagination but less
correctness than Pope; had they not been deficient in these points the
former would certainly have equalled, the latter infinitely outshone
the merits of his countryman. Our author was undoubtedly possessed of
that power which they wanted, and was cautious not to indulge too far
the sallies of a lively imagination. Omitting, therefore, any mention
of sultry Sirius, sylvan shade, sequestered glade, verdant hills,
purling rills, mossy mountains, gurgling fountains, &c., he simply
tells us that it was "All on a summer's day". For my own part I confess
that I find myself rather flattered than disappointed, and consider the
poet as rather paying a compliment to the abilities of his readers,
than baulking their expectations. It is certainly a great pleasure to
see a picture well painted; but it is a much greater to paint it well
oneself. This, therefore, I look upon as a stroke of excellent
management in the poet. Here every reader is at liberty to gratify his
own taste, to design for himself just what sort of "summer's day" he
likes best; to choose his own scenery, dispose his lights and shades as
he pleases, to solace himself with a rivulet or a horse-pond, a shower
or a sunbeam, 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,