Not to keep my readers longer in suspense, the subject of the poem is "The Reformation of the Knave of Hearts." It is not improbable, that some may object to me that a Knave is an unworthy Hero for an Epic Poem; that a Hero ought to be all that is great and good. The objection is frivolous. The greatest work of this kind that the World has ever produced, has "The Devil" for its hero; and supported as my author is by so great a precedent, I contend, that his Hero is a very decent Hero; and especially as he has the advantage of Milton's, by reforming at the end, is evidently entitled to a competent share of celebrity.
I shall now proceed in the more immediate examination of the poem in its different parts. The beginning, say the Critics, ought to be plain and simple; neither embellished with the flowers of poetry, nor turgid with pomposity of diction. In
this how exactly does our Author conform to the established opinion! he begins thus,
“The Queen of Hearts
“She made some Tarts”—
Can any thing be more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity! Here are no tropes,—no figurative expressions,—not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution; by unnecessarily informing them, what he is going to sing; or still more unnecessarily enumerating what he is not going to sing: but according to the precept of Horace,
——————in medias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit,——
That is, he at once introduces us, and sets us on the most easy and familiar footing imaginable, with her Majesty of Hearts, and interests us deeply in her domestic concerns. But to proceed,
“The Queen of Hearts