every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion
to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his hero,
that by thus amply satisfying their resentment they may be the more
easily reconciled to him afterwards.

"The King of Hearts
Called for those tarts,
And beat the Knave full sore."

Here ends the second part, or middle of the poem, in which we see the
character and exploits of the hero portrayed with the hand of a master.

Nothing now remains to be examined but the third part, or end. In the
end it is a rule pretty well established that the work should draw
towards a conclusion, which our author manages thus:--

"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts".

Here everything is at length settled; the theft is compensated, the
tarts restored to their right owner, and poetical justice, in every
respect, strictly and impartially administered.

We may observe that there is nothing in which our poet has better
succeeded than in keeping up an unremitted attention in his readers to
the main instruments, the machinery of his poem, viz. the _tarts_;
insomuch that the afore-mentioned Scriblerus has sagely observed that
"he can't tell, but he doesn't know, but the tarts may be reckoned the
heroes of the poem". Scriblerus, though a man of learning, and
frequently right in his opinion, has here certainly hazarded a rash
conjecture. His arguments are overthrown entirely by his great
opponent, Hiccius, who concludes by triumphantly asking, "Had the tarts
been eaten, how could the poet have compensated for the loss of his
heroes?"

We are now come to the _denouement_, the setting all to rights: and our
poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his
great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they
have, is so interwoven with the main body of their work, that in
endeavouring to unravel it we should tear the whole. Our author has
very properly preserved his whole and entire for the end of his poem,
where he completes his main design, the reformation of his hero, thus--

"And vowed he'd steal no more".

Having in the course of his work shown the bad effects arising from
theft, he evidently means this last moral reflection to operate with
his readers as a gentle and polite dissuasive from stealing.

"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts,
And vowed he'd steal no more!"

Thus have I industrio