“The queen of hearts
She made some tarts
All on a summer’s day,” &c[111]
“I cannot leave this line,” says the witty commentator, “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,’ alleging, in the 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 (most commonly known as Jack Shepherd), entitled, ‘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 wish of his own, he is going
“‘All hanged for to be
Upon that fatal Tyburn tree.’
“Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius’ opinion, and to consider the ‘All’ as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it, ‘elegans expletivum.’”
The other articles to which the boyish talent of the lad, destined to be so famous, may lay claim, are designated in the will of the supposed editor, Mr. Griffin (contained in the concluding number of the Microcosm), which, amongst special bequests assigns to “Mr. George Canning, now of the college of Eton, all my papers, essays, &c., signed B.”