The second part, or middle, is the proper place for bustle and business; for incident and adventure.
“The Knave of Hearts
“He stole those Tarts.”
Here attention is awakened; and our whole souls are intent upon the first appearance of the
Hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at his making his entré in so disadvantageous a character as that of a thief. To this I plead precedent.
The Hero of the Iliad, as I observed in a former paper, is made to lament very pathetically,—that "life is not like all other possessions, to be acquired by theft."—A reflection, in my opinion, evidently shewing, that, if he did refrain from the practice of this ingenious art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember too, that in Virgil's poem, almost the first light in which the Pious Æneas appears to us, is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him, that the deer were wandering without keepers; for however he might, from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property they were; he might, I think, have been pretty well assured that they were not his.
Having thus acquitted our Hero of misconduct, by the example of his betters, I proceed to what I think the Master-Stroke of the Poet.
“The Knave of Hearts
“He stole those Tarts,
“And——took them——quite away!!”