SCENE XI.--MONEYWOOD, HARRIOT, JACK.

_Jack_. Oh, madam! the man whom you took for a bailiff is

certainly some great man; he has a vast many jewels and other fine

things about him; he offered me twenty guineas to shew him my master,

and has given away so much money among the chairmen, that some folks

believe he intends to stand member of parliament for Westminster.

_Money_. Nay, then, I am sure he is worth inquiring into. So,

d'ye hear, sirrah, make as much haste as you can before me, and desire

him to part with no more money till I come.

_Har_. So, now my mother is in pursuit of money, I may securely

go in pursuit of my lover: and I am mistaken, good mamma, if e'en you

would not think that the better pursuit of the two.

In generous love transporting raptures lie,

Which age, with all its treasures, cannot buy.

THE

TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES;

OR, THE

LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM THUMB

THE GREAT.

WITH THE ANNOTATIONS OF H. SCRIBLERUS

SECUNDUS

FIRST ACTED IN 1730, AND ALTERED IN 1731.

H. SCRIBLERUS SECUNDUS,

HIS PREFACE.

THE town hath seldom been more divided in its opinion than concerning

the merit of the following scenes. While some publickly affirmed that

no author could produce so fine a piece but Mr P----, others have with

as much vehemence insisted that no one could write anything so bad but

Mr F----.

Nor can we wonder at this dissension about its merit, when the learned

would have not unanimously decided even the very nature of this

tragedy. For though most of the universities in Europe have honoured

it with the name of "Egregium et maximi pretii opus, tragoediis tam

antiquis quam novis longe anteponendum;" nay, Dr B---- hath

pronounced, "Citius Maevii Aeneadem quam Scribleri istrus tragoediam

hanc crediderium, cujus autorem Senecam ipsum tradidisse haud

dubitarim:" and the great professor Burman hath styled Tom Thumb

"Heroum omnium tragicorum facile principem:" nay, though it hath,

among other languages, been translated into Dutch, and celebrated with

great applause at Amsterdam (where burlesque never came) by the title

of Mynheer Vander Thumb, the burgomasters receiving it with that

reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep

tragedy. Notwithstanding all this, there have not been wanting some

who have represented these scenes in a ludicrous light; and Mr D----

hath been heard to say, with some concern, that he wondered a tragical

and Christian nation would permit a representation on its theatre so

visibly designed to ridicule and extirpate everything that is great

and solemn among us.

This learned critick and his followers were led into so great an error

by that surreptitious and piratical copy which stole last year into

the world; with what injustice and prejudice to our author will be

acknowledged, I hope, by every one who shall happily peruse this

genuine and original copy. Nor can I help remarking, to the great

praise of our author, that, however imperfect the former was, even

that faint resemblance of the true Tom Thumb contained sufficient

beauties to give it a run of upwards of forty nights to the politest

audiences. But, notwithstanding that applause which it received from

all the best judges, it was as severely censured by some few bad ones,

and, I believe rather maliciously than ignorantly, reported to have

been intended a burlesque on the loftiest parts of tragedy, and

designed to banish what we generally call fine things from the stage.

Now, if I can set my country right in an affair of this importance, I

shall lightly esteem any labour which it may cost. And this I the

rather undertake, first, as it is indeed in some measure incumbent on

me to vindicate myself from that surreptitious copy before mentioned,

published by some ill-meaning people under my name; secondly, as

knowing myself more capable of doing justice to our author than any

other man, as I have given myself more pains to arrive at a thorough

understanding of this little piece, having for ten years together read

nothing else; in which time, I think, I may modestly presume, with the

help of my English dictionary, to comprehend all the meanings of every

word in it.

But should any error of my pen awaken Clariss. Bentleium to enlighten

the world with his annotations on our author, I shall not think that

the least reward or happiness arising to me from these my endeavours.

I shall waive at present what hath caused such feuds in the learned

world, whether this piece was originally written by Shakspeare, though

certainly that, were it true, must add a considerable share to its

merit, especially with such who are so generous as to buy and commend

what they never read, from an implicit faith in the author only: a

faith which our age abounds in as much as it can be called deficient

in any other.

Let it suffice, that THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; or, THE LIFE AND DEATH

OF TOM THUMB, was written in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Nor can the

objection made by Mr D----, that the tragedy must then have been

antecedent to the history, have any weight, when we consider that,

though the HISTORY OF TOM THUMB, printed by and for Edward M----r, at

the Looking-glass on London-bridge, be of a later date, still must we

suppose this history to have been transcribed from some other, unless

we suppose the writer thereof to be inspired: a gift very faintly

contended for by the writers of our age. As to this history's not

bearing the stamp of second, third, or fourth edition, I see but

little in that objection; editions being very uncertain lights to

judge of books by; and perhaps Mr M----r may have joined twenty

editions in one, as Mr C----l hath ere now divided one into twenty.

Nor doth the other argument, drawn from the little care our author

hath taken to keep up to the letter of this history, carry any greater

force. Are there not instances of plays wherein the history is so

perverted, that we can know the heroes whom they celebrate by no other

marks than their names? nay, do we not find the same character placed

by different poets in such different lights, that we can discover not

the least sameness, or even likeness, in the features? The Sophonisba

of Mairet and of Lee is a tender, passionate, amorous mistress of

Massinissa: Corneille and Mr Thomson give her no other passion but the

love of her country, and make her as cool in her affection to

Massinissa as to Syphax. In the two latter she resembles the character

of queen Elizabeth; in the two former she is the picture of Mary queen

of Scotland. In short, the one Sophonisba is as different from the

other as the Brutus of Voltaire is from the Marius, jun., of Otway, or

as the Minerva is from the Venus of the ancients.

Let us now proceed to a regular examination of the tragedy before us,

in which I shall treat separately of the Fable, the Moral, the

Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction. And first of the

Fable; which I take to be the most simple imaginable; and, to use the

words of an eminent author, "one, regular, and uniform, not charged

with a multiplicity of incidents, and yet affording several

revolutions of fortune, by which the passions may be excited, varied,

and driven to their full tumult of emotion."--Nor is the action of

this tragedy less great than uniform. The spring of all is the love

of Tom Thumb for Huncamunca; which caused the quarrel between their

majesties in the first act; the passion of Lord Grizzle in the second;

the rebellion, fall of Lord Grizzle and Glumdalca, devouring of Tom

Thumb by the cow, and that bloody catastrophe, in the third.

Nor is the Moral of this excellent tragedy less noble than the Fable;

it teaches these two instructive lessons, viz., that human happiness

is exceeding transient; and that death is the certain end of all men:

the former whereof is inculcated by the fatal end of Tom Thumb; the

latter, by that of all the other personages.

The Characters are, I think, sufficiently described in the dramatis

personae; and I believe we shall find few plays where greater care is

taken to maintain them throughout, and to preserve in every speech

that characteristical mark which distinguishes them from each

other. "But (says Mr D----) how well doth the character of Tom Thumb,

whom we must call the hero of this tragedy, if it hath any hero, agree

with the precepts of Aristotle, who defineth 'Tragedy to be the

imitation of a short but perfect action, containing a just greatness

in itself'? &c. What greatness can be in a fellow whom history

relateth to have been no higher than a span?" This gentleman seemeth

to think, with serjeant Kite, that the greatness of a man's soul is in

proportion to that of his body; the contrary of which is affirmed by

our English physiognomical writers. Besides, if I understand Aristotle

right, he speaketh only of the greatness of the action, and not of the

person.

As for the Sentiments and the Diction, which now only remain to be

spoken to; I thought I could afford them no stronger justification

than by producing parallel passages out of the best of our English

writers. Whether this sameness of thought and expression, which I

have quoted from them, proceeded from an agreement in their way of

thinking, or whether they have borrowed from our author, I leave the

reader to determine. I shall adventure to affirm this of the

Sentiments of our author, that they are generally the most familiar

which I have ever met with, and at the same time delivered with the

highest dignity of phrase; which brings me to speak of his

diction. Here I shall only beg one postulatum, viz., That the greatest

perfection of the language of a tragedy is, that it is not to be

understood; which granted (as I think it must be), it will necessarily

follow that the only way to avoid this is by being too high or too low

for the understanding, which will comprehend everything within its

reach. Those two extremities of stile Mr Dryden illustrates by the

familiar image of two inns, which I shall term the aerial and the

subterrestrial.

Horace goes farther, and sheweth when it is proper to call at one of

these inns, and when at the other:

Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,

Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.

That he approveth of the sesquipedalia verba is plain; for, had not

Telephus and Peleus used this sort of diction in prosperity, they

could not have dropt it in adversity. The aerial inn, therefore (says

Horace), is proper only to be frequented by princes and other great

men in the highest affluence of fortune; the subterrestrial is

appointed for the entertainment of the poorer sort of people only,

whom Horace advises,

--dolere sermone pedestri.

The true meaning of both which citations is, that bombast is the

proper language for joy, and doggrel for grief; the latter of which is

literally implied in the sermo pedestris, as the former is in the

sesquipedalia verba.

Cicero recommendeth the former of these: "Quid est tarn furiosum vel

tragicum quam verborum sonitus inanis, nulla subjecta sententia neque

scientia." What can be so proper for tragedy as a set of big sounding

words, so contrived together as to convey no meaning? which I shall

one day or other prove to be the sublime of Longinus. Ovid declareth

absolutely for the latter inn:

Omne genus scripti gravitate tragoedia vincit.

Tragedy hath, of all writings, the greatest share in the bathos; which

is the profound of Scriblerus.

I shall not presume to determine which of these two stiles be properer

for tragedy. It sufficeth, that our author excelleth in both. He is

very rarely within sight through the whole play, either rising higher

than the eye of your understanding can soar, or sinking lower than it

careth to stoop. But here it may perhaps be observed that I have given

more frequent instances of authors who have imitated him in the

sublime than in the contrary. To which I answer, first, Bombast being

properly a redundancy of genius, instances of this nature occur in

poets whose names do more honour to our author than the writers in the

doggrel, which proceeds from a cool, calm, weighty way of

thinking. Instances whereof are most frequently to be found in authors

of a lower class. Secondly, That the works of such authors are

difficultly found at all. Thirdly, That it is a very hard task to read

them, in order to extract these flowers from them. And lastly, it is

very difficult to transplant them at all; they being like some flowers

of a very nice nature, which will flourish in no soil but their own:

for it is easy to transcribe a thought, but not the want of one. The

EARL OF ESSEX, for instance, is a little garden of choice rarities,

whence you can scarce transplant one line so as to preserve its

original beauty. This must account to the reader for his missing the

names of several of his acquaintance, which he had certainly found

here, had I ever read their works; for which, if I have not a just

esteem, I can at least say with Cicero, "Quae non contemno, quippe quae

nunquam legerim." However, that the reader may meet with due

satisfaction in this point, I have a young commentator from the

university, who is reading over all the modern tragedies, at five

shillings a dozen, and collecting all that they have stole from our

author, which shall be shortly added as an appendix to this work.

DRAMATIS PERSONAe.

MEN.

_King Arthur_, a passionate sort of king, |

husband to queen Dollallolla, of whom he |

stands a little in fear; father to Huncamunca,| Mr MULLART.

whom he is very fond of, and in love with |

Glumdalca. |

_Tom Thumb the Great_, a little hero |

with a great soul, something violent in his | YOUNG

temper, which is a little abated by his | VERHUYCK.

love for Huncamunca. |

_Ghost of Gaffer Thumb_, a whimsical sort | Mr LACY.

of ghost. |

_Lord Grizzle_, extremely zealous for the |

liberty of the subject, very cholerick in his | Mr JONES.

temper, and in love with Huncamunca. |

_Merlin_, a conjurer, and in some sort | Mr HALLAM.

father to Tom Thumb. |

_Noodle, Doodle,_ courtiers in place, and | Mr REYNOLDS,

consequently of that party that is uppermost | Mr WATHAN.

_Foodle_, a courtier that is out of place, |

and consequently of that party that is | Mr AYRES.

undermost |

_Bailiff, and Follower,_ of the party of | Mr PETERSON,

the plaintiff. | Mr HICKS.

_Parson_, of the side of the church. | Mr WATSON.

WOMEN.

_Queen Dollallolla_, wife to king Arthur, |

and mother to Huncamunca, a woman intirely | Mrs MULLART.

faultless, saving that she is a little given |

to drink, a little too much a virago towards |

her husband, and in love with Tom Thumb. |

_The Princess Huncamunca_, daughter to |

their majesties king Arthur and queen |

Dollallolla, of a very sweet, gentle, and | Mrs JONES.

amorous disposition, equally in love with |

Lord Grizzle and Tom Thumb, and desirous to |

be married to them both. |

_Glumdalca_, of the giants, a captive |

queen, beloved by the king, but in love with | Mrs DOVE.

Tom Thumb. |

_Cleora, Mustacha,_ maids of honour in love with Noodle and

Doodle.--_Courtiers, Guards, Rebels, Drums, Trumpets,

Thunder and Lightning_.

SCENE, the court of king Arthur, and a plain thereabouts.

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_The Palace_. DOODLE, NOODLE.

_Doodle_. Sure such a [1]day as this was never seen!

The sun himself, on this auspicious day,

Shines like a beau in a new birth-day suit:

This down the seams embroidered, that the beams.

All nature wears one universal grin.

[Footnote 1: Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to

fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers

have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky,

or what we generally call a fine summer's day; so that, according to

this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which

are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as

Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, &c., begin with their observations on the

morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful

description of our author's:

The morning dawns with an unwonted crimson,

The flowers all odorous seem, the garden birds

Sing louder, and the laughing sun ascends

The gaudy earth with an unusual brightness;

All nature smiles.--_Caes. Borg_.

Massinissa, in the New Sophonisba, is also a favourite of the sun:

------The sun too seems

As conscious of my joy, with broader eye

To look abroad the world, and all things smile

Like Sophonisba.

Memnon, in the Persian Princess, makes the sun decline rising, that he

may not peep on objects which would profane his brightness:

----The morning rises slow,

And all those ruddy streaks that used to paint

The day's approach are lost in clouds, as if

The horrors of the night had sent 'em back,

To warn the sun he should not leave the sea,

To peep, &c.

]

_Nood_. This day, O Mr Doodle, is a day

Indeed!--A day, [1] we never saw before.

The mighty [2] Thomas Thumb victorious comes;

Millions of giants crowd his chariot wheels,

[3] Giants! to whom the giants in Guildhall

Are infant dwarfs. They frown, and foam, and roar,

While Thumb, regardless of their noise, rides on.

So some cock-sparrow in a farmer's yard,

Hops at the head of an huge flock of turkeys.

[Footnote 1: This line is highly conformable to the beautiful

simplicity of the antients. It hath been copied by almost every

modern.

Not to be is not to be in woe.--_State of Innocence_.

Love is not sin but where 'tis sinful love.--_Don Sebastian_.

Nature is nature, Laelius.--_Sophonisba_.

Men are but men, we did not make ourselves.--_Revenge_.

]

[Footnote 2: Dr B--y reads, The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr D--s, The

mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr T--d reads, Thundering. I think Thomas more

agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author.]

[Footnote 3: That learned historian Mr S--n, in the third number of

his criticism on our author, takes great pains to explode this

passage. "It is," says he, "difficult to guess what giants are here

meant, unless the giant Despair in the Pilgrim's Progress, or the

giant Greatness in the Royal Villain; for I have heard of no other

sort of giants in the reign of king Arthur." Petrus Burmannus makes

three Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the same person

whom the Greeks called Hercules; and that by these giants are to be

understood the Centaurs slain by that hero. Another Tom Thumb he

contends to have been no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the

antients. The third Tom Thumb he places under the reign of king

Arthur; to which third Tom Thumb, says he, the actions of the other

two were attributed. Now, though I know that this opinion is supported

by an assertion of Justus Lipsius, "Thomam illum Thumbum non alium

quam Herculem fuisse satis constat," yet shall I venture to oppose one

line of Mr Midwinter against them all:

In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live.

"But then," says Dr B--y, "if we place Tom Thumb in the court of king

Arthur, it will be proper to place that court out of Britain, where no

giants were ever heard of." Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, is of another

opinion, where, describing Albion, he says,

------Far within a savage nation dwelt

Of hideous giants.

And in the same canto:

Then Elfar, with two brethren giants had,

The one of which had two heads------

The other three.

Risum teneatis, amici.

]

_Dood_. When Goody Thumb first brought this Thomas forth,

The Genius of our land triumphant reign'd;

Then, then, O Arthur! did thy Genius reign.

_Nood_. They tell me it is [1]whisper'd in the books

Of all our sages, that this mighty hero,

By Merlin's art begot, hath not a bone

Within his skin, but is a lump of gristle.

[Footnote 1: "To whisper in books," says Mr D--s, "is arrant nonsense."

I am afraid this learned man does not sufficiently understand the

extensive meaning of the word whisper. If he had rightly understood

what is meant by the "senses whisp'ring the soul," in the Persian

Princess, or what "whisp'ring like winds" is in Aurengzebe, or like

thunder in another author, he would have understood this. Emmeline in

Dryden sees a voice, but she was born blind, which is an excuse

Panthea cannot plead in Cyrus, who hears a sight:

--------Your description will surpass

All fiction, painting, or dumb shew of horror,

That ever ears yet heard, or eyes beheld.

When Mr D--s understands these, he will understand whispering in

books.

]

_Dood_. Then 'tis a gristle of no mortal kind;

Some God, my Noodle, stept into the place

Of Gaffer Thumb, and more than [1]half begot

This mighty Tom.

[Footnote 1: Some ruffian stept into his father's place, And more than

half begot him.--_Mary Queen of Scots_]

_Nood_.--[1] Sure he was sent express

From Heaven to be the pillar of our state.

Though small his body be, so very small

A chairman's leg is more than twice as large,

Yet is his soul like any mountain big;

And as a mountain once brought forth a mouse,

[2] So doth this mouse contain a mighty mountain.

[Footnote 1: For Ulamar seems sent express from Heaven, To civilize

this rugged Indian clime.--_Liberty Asserted_]

[Footnote 2: "Omne majus continet in se minus, sed minus non in se

majus continere potest," says Scaliger in Thumbo. I suppose he would

have cavilled at these beautiful lines in the Earl of Essex:

----Thy most inveterate soul,

That looks through the foul prison of thy body.

And at those of Dryden:

The palace is without too well design'd;

Conduct me in, for I will view thy mind.--_Aurengzebe_.

]

_Dood_. Mountain indeed! So terrible his name,

[1]The giant nurses frighten children with it,

And cry Tom Thumb is come, and if you are

Naughty, will surely take the child away.

[Footnote 1: Mr Banks hath copied this almost verbatim:

It was enough to say, here's Essex come,

And nurses still'd their children with the fright.

--_Earl of Essex_.

]

_Nood_. But hark! [1]these trumpets speak the king's approach.

[Footnote 1: The trumpet in a tragedy is generally as much as to say,

Enter king, which makes Mr Banks, in one of his plays, call it the

trumpet's formal sound.]

_Dood_. He comes most luckily for my petition.

[_Flourish_.

SCENE II.--KING, QUEEN, GRIZZLE, NOODLE, DOODLE, FOODLE.

_King_. [1] Let nothing but a face of joy appear;

The man who frowns this day shall lose his head,

That he may have no face to frown withal.

Smile Dollallolla--Ha! what wrinkled sorrow

[2] Hangs, sits, lies, frowns upon thy knitted brow?

Whence flow those tears fast down thy blubber'd cheeks,

Like a swoln gutter, gushing through the streets?

[Footnote 1: Phraortes, in the Captives, seems to have been acquainted

with King Arthur:

Proclaim a festival for seven days' space,

Let the court shine in all its pomp and lustre,

Let all our streets resound with shouts of joy;

Let musick's care-dispelling voice be heard;

The sumptuous banquet and the flowing goblet

Shall warm the cheek and fill the heart with gladness.

Astarbe shall sit mistress of the feast.

]

[Footnote 2:

Repentance frowns on thy contracted brow.--_Sophonisba_.

Hung on his clouded brow, I mark'd despair.--_Ibid_.

--A sullen gloom

Scowls on his brow.--_Busiris_.

]

_Queen_. [1]Excess of joy, my lord, I've heard folks say,

Gives tears as certain as excess of grief.

[Footnote 1: Plato is of this opinion, and so is Mr Banks:

Behold these tears sprung from fresh pain and joy.

--_Earl of Essex_.

]

_King_. If it be so, let all men cry for joy,

[1]Till my whole court be drowned with their tears;

Nay, till they overflow my utmost land,

And leave me nothing but the sea to rule.

[Footnote 1: These floods are very frequent in the tragick authors:

Near to some murmuring brook I'll lay me down,

Whose waters, if they should too shallow flow,

My tears shall swell them up till I will drown.

--_Lee's Sophonisba_.

Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate,

That were the world on fire they might have drown'd

The wrath of heaven, and quench'd the mighty ruin.

--_Mithridates_.

One author changes the waters of grief to those of joy:

----These tears, that sprung from tides of grief,

Are now augmented to a flood of joy.--_Cyrus the Great_.

Another:

Turns all the streams of heat, and makes them flow

In pity's channel.--_Royal Villain_.

One drowns himself:

----Pity like a torrent pours me down,

Now I am drowning all within a deluge.--_Anna Sullen_.

Cyrus drowns the whole world:

Our swelling grief

Shall melt into a deluge, and the world

Shall drown in tears.--_Cyrus the Great_.

]

_Dood_. My liege, I a petition have here got.

_King_. Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day:

Let other hours be set apart for business.

To-day it is our pleasure to be [1]drunk.

And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.

[Footnote 1: An expression vastly beneath the dignity of tragedy, says

Mr D--s, yet we find the word he cavils at in the mouth of

Mithridates less properly used, and applied to a more terrible

idea:

I would be drunk with death.--_Mithridates_.

The author of the New Sophonisba taketh hold of this monosyllable, and

uses it pretty much to the same purpose:

The Carthaginian sword with Roman blood

Was drunk.

I would ask Mr D--s which gives him the best idea, a drunken king, or

a drunken sword?

Mr Tate dresses up King Arthur's resolution in heroick:

Merry, my lord, o' th' captain's humour right,

I am resolved to be dead drunk to-night.

Lee also uses this charming word:

Love's the drunkenness of the mind.--_Gloriana_.

]

_Queen_. (Though I already[1] half seas over am)

If the capacious goblet overflow

With arrack punch----'fore George! I'll see it out:

Of rum and brandy I'll not taste a drop.

[Footnote 1: Dryden hath borrowed this, and applied it improperly:

I'm half seas o'er in death.--_Cleomenes_

]

_King_. Though rack, in punch, eight shillings be a quart,

And rum and brandy be no more than six,

Rather than quarrel you shall have your will.

[_Trumpets_.

But, ha! the warrior comes--the great Tom Thumb,

The little hero, giant-killing boy,

Preserver of my kingdom, is arrived.

SCENE III.--TOM THUMB _to them, with_ Officers, Prisoners,

_and_ Attendants.

King. [1] Oh! welcome most, most welcome to my arms.

What gratitude can thank away the debt

Your valour lays upon me?

[Footnote 1: This figure is in great use among the tragedians:

'Tis therefore, therefore 'tis.--_Victim_.

I long, repent, repent, and long again.--_Busiris_.

]

_Queen_.----------[1] Oh! ye gods! [_Aside_.

[Footnote 1: A tragical exclamation.]

_Thumb_. When I'm not thank'd at all, I'm thank'd enough.

[1] I've done my duty, and I've done no more,

[Footnote 1: This line is copied verbatim in the Captives.]

_Queen_. Was ever such a godlike creature seen? [_Aside_.

_King_. Thy modesty's a [1]candle to thy merit,

It shines itself, and shews thy merit too.

But say, my boy, where didst thou leave the giants?

[Footnote 1: We find a candlestick for this candle in two celebrated

authors:

------Each star withdraws

His golden head, and burns within the socket.--_Nero_.

A soul grown old and sunk into the socket.--_Sebastian_.

]

_Thumb_. My liege, without the castle gates they stand,

The castle gates too low for their admittance.

_King_. What look they like?

_Thumb_. Like nothing but themselves.

_Queen_. [1]And sure thou art like nothing but

thyself. [_Aside_.

[Footnote 1: This simile occurs very frequently among the dramatic

writers of both kinds.]

_King_. Enough! the vast idea fills my soul.

I see them--yes, I see them now before me:

The monstrous, ugly, barb'rous sons of whores.

But ha! what form majestick strikes our eyes?

[1]So perfect, that it seems to have been drawn

By all the gods in council: so fair she is,

That surely at her birth the council paused,

And then at length cry'd out, This is a woman!

[Footnote 1: Mr Lee hath stolen this thought from our author:

This perfect face, drawn by the gods in council,

Which they were long a making.--_Luc. Jun. Brut_.

--At his birth the heavenly council paused,

And then at last cry'd out, This is a man!

Dryden hath improved this hint to the utmost perfection:

So perfect, that the very gods who form'd you wonder'd

At their own skill, and cry'd, A lucky hit

Has mended our design! Their envy hindered,

Or you had been immortal, and a pattern,

When Heaven would work for ostentation sake,

To copy out again.--_All for Love_.

Banks prefers the works of Michael Angelo to that of the gods:

A pattern for the gods to make a man by,

Or Michael Angelo to form a statue.

]

_Thumb_. Then were the gods mistaken--she is not

A woman, but a giantess----whom we,

[1] With much ado, have made a shift to hawl

Within the town:[2] for she is by a foot

Shorter than all her subject giants were.

[Footnote 1: It is impossible, says Mr W----, sufficiently to admire

this natural easy line.]

[Footnote 2: This tragedy, which in most points resembles the

ancients, differs from them in this--that it assigns the same honour

to lowness of stature which they did to height. The gods and heroes in

Homer and Virgil are continually described higher by the head than

their followers, the contrary of which is observed by our author. In

short, to exceed on either side is equally admirable; and a man of

three foot is as wonderful a sight as a man of nine.]

_Glum_. We yesterday were both a queen and wife,

One hundred thousand giants own'd our sway,

Twenty whereof were married to ourself.

_Queen_. Oh! happy state of giantism where husbands

Like mushrooms grow, whilst hapless we are forced

To be content, nay, happy thought, with one.

_Glum_. But then to lose them all in one black day,

That the same sun which, rising, saw me wife

To twenty giants, setting should behold

Me widow'd of them all.----[1]My worn-out heart,

That ship, leaks fast, and the great heavy lading,

My soul, will quickly sink.

[Footnote 1:

My blood leaks fast, and the great heavy lading

My soul will quickly sink.--_Mithridates_.

My soul is like a ship.--_Injured Love_.

]

_Queen_. Madam, believe

I view your sorrows with a woman's eye:

But learn to bear them with what strength you may,

To-morrow we will have our grenadiers

Drawn out before you, and you then shall choose

What husbands you think fit.

_Glum_. [1]Madam, I am

Your most obedient and most humble servant.

[Footnote 1: This well-bred line seems to be copied in the Persian

Princess:--

To be your humblest and most faithful slave.

]

_King_. Think, mighty princess, think this court your own,

Nor think the landlord me, this house my inn;

Call for whate'er you will, you'll nothing pay.

[1]I feel a sudden pain within my breast,

Nor know I whether it arise from love

Or only the wind-cholick. Time must shew.

O Thumb! what do we to thy valour owe!

Ask some reward, great as we can bestow.

[Footnote 1: This doubt of the king puts me in mind of a passage in the

Captives, where the noise of feet is mistaken for the rustling of

leaves.

------Methinks I hear

The sound of feet:

No; 'twas the wind that shook yon cypress boughs.

]

_Thumb_. [1] I ask not kingdoms, I can conquer those;

I ask not money, money I've enough;

For what I've done, and what I mean to do,

For giants slain, and giants yet unborn,

Which I will slay---if this be called a debt,

Take my receipt in full: I ask but this,--

[2] To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.

[Footnote 1: Mr Dryden seems to have had this passage in his eye in the

first page of Love Triumphant.]

[Footnote 2: Don Carlos, in the Revenge, suns himself in the charms of

his mistress:

While in the lustre of her charms I lay.

]

_King_. Prodigious bold request. [_Aside_.

_Queen_. --------[1] Be still, my soul. [_Aside_.

[Footnote 1: A tragical phrase much in use.]

_Thumb_. [1]My heart is at the threshold of your mouth,

And waits its answer there.--Oh! do not frown.

I've try'd to reason's tune to tune my soul,

But love did overwind and crack the string.

Though Jove in thunder had cry'd out, YOU SHAN'T,

I should have loved her still--for oh, strange fate,

Then when I loved her least I loved her most!

[Footnote 1: This speech hath been taken to pieces by several tragical

authors, who seem to have rifled it, and shared its beauties among

them.

My soul waits at the portal of thy breast,

To ravish from thy lips the welcome news.--_Anna Bullen_.

My soul stands list'ning at my ears.--_Cyrus the Great_.

Love to his tune my jarring heart would bring,

But reason overwinds, and cracks the string.--_D. of Guise_.

-------I should have loved,

Though Jove, in muttering thunder, had forbid it.

--_New Sophonisba_.

And when it (_my heart_) wild resolves to love no more,

Then is the triumph of excessive love.--_Ibid_.

]

_King_. It is resolv'd--the princess is your own.

_Thumb_. Oh! [1]happy, happy, happy, happy Thumb.

[Footnote 1: Massinissa is one-fourth less happy than Tom Thumb.]

Oh! happy, happy, happy!--_Ibid_.

]

_Queen_. Consider, sir; reward your soldier's merit,

But give not Huncamunca to Tom Thumb.

_King_. Tom Thumb! Odzooks! my wide-extended realm,

Knows not a name so glorious as Tom Thumb.

Let Macedonia Alexander boast,

Let Rome her Caesars and her Scipios show,

Her Messieurs France, let Holland boast Mynheers,

Ireland her O's, her Macs let Scotland boast,

Let England boast no other than Tom Thumb.

_Queen_. Though greater yet his boasted merit was,

He shall not have my daughter, that is pos'.

_King_. Ha! sayst thou, Dollallolla?

_Queen_.---------I say he shan't.

_King_. [1]Then by our royal self we swear you lie.

[Footnote 1: No by myself.--_Anna Bullen_.]

_Queen_. [1] Who but a dog, who but a dog

Would use me as thou dost? Me, who have lain

[2] These twenty years so loving by thy side!

But I will be revenged. I'll hang myself.

Then tremble all who did this match persuade,

[3] For, riding on a cat, from high I'll fall,

And squirt down royal vengeance on you all.

[Footnote 1: ----------Who caused

This dreadful revolution in my fate.

Ulamar. Who but a dog--who but a dog?--_Liberty As_.

]

[Footnote 2: ------------A bride,

Who twenty years lay loving by your side.--_Banks_.

]

[Footnote 3: For, borne upon a cloud, from high I'll fall,

And rain down royal vengeance on you all.--_Alb. Queens_.

]

_Food_. [1]Her majesty the queen is in a passion.

[Footnote 1: An information very like this we have in the tragedy of

Love, where, Cyrus having stormed in the most violent manner, Cyaxares

observes very calmly,

Why, nephew Cyrus, you are moved.

]

_King_. [1] Be she, or be she not, I'll to the girl

And pave thy way, oh Thumb--Now by ourself,

We were indeed a pretty king of clouts

To truckle to her will--For when by force

Or art the wife her husband over-reaches,

Give him the petticoat, and her the breeches.

[Footnote 1: 'Tis in your choice.

Love me, or love me not.--_Conquest of Granada_.

]

_Thumb_. [1] Whisper ye winds, that Huncamunca's mine!

Echoes repeat, that Huncamunca's mine!

The dreadful bus'ness of the war is o'er,

And beauty, heav'nly beauty! crowns my toils!

I've thrown the bloody garment now aside

And hymeneal sweets invite my bride.

So when some chimney-sweeper all the day

Hath through dark paths pursued the sooty way,

At night to wash his hands and face he flies,

And in his t'other shirt with his Brickdusta lies.

[Footnote 1: There is not one beauty in this charming speech but what

hath been borrow'd by almost every tragick writer.

]

SCENE IV.

_Grizzle_ (_solus_.) [1] Where art thou, Grizzle? where

are now thy glories?

Where are the drums that waken thee to honour?

Greatness is a laced coat from Monmouth-street,

Which fortune lends us for a day to wear,

To-morrow puts it on another's back.

The spiteful sun but yesterday survey'd

His rival high as Saint Paul's cupola;

Now may he see me as Fleet-ditch laid low.

[Footnote 1: Mr Banks has (I wish I could not say too servilely)

imitated this of Grizzle in his Earl of Essex:

Where art thou, Essex, &c.]

SCENE V.--QUEEN, GRIZZLE.

_Queen_. [1]Teach me to scold, prodigious-minded Grizzle,

Mountain of treason, ugly as the devil,

Teach this confounded hateful mouth of mine

To spout forth words malicious as thyself,

Words which might shame all Billingsgate to speak.

[Footnote 1: The countess of Nottingham, in the Earl of Essex, is

apparently acquainted with Dollallolla.]

_Griz_. Far be it from my pride to think my tongue

Your royal lips can in that art instruct,

Wherein you so excel. But may I ask,

Without offence, wherefore my queen would scold?

_Queen_. Wherefore? Oh! blood and thunder! han't you heard

(What every corner of the court resounds)

That little Thumb will be a great man made?

_Griz_. I heard it, I confess--for who, alas!

[1] Can always stop his ears?--But would my teeth,

By grinding knives, had first been set on edge!

[Footnote 1: Grizzle was not probably possessed of that glew of which

Mr Banks speaks in his Cyrus.

I'll glew my ears to every word.

]

_Queen_. Would I had heard, at the still noon of night,

The hallalloo of fire in every street!

Odsbobs! I have a mind to hang myself,

To think I should a grandmother be made

By such a rascal!--Sure the king forgets

When in a pudding, by his mother put,

The bastard, by a tinker, on a stile

Was dropp'd.--O, good lord Grizzle! can I bear

To see him from a pudding mount the throne?

Or can, oh can, my Huncamunca bear

To take a pudding's offspring to her arms?

_Griz_. Oh horror! horror! horror! cease, my queen,

[1] Thy voice, like twenty screech-owls, wracks my

brain.

[Footnote 1: Screech-owls, dark ravens, and amphibious monsters,

Are screaming in that voice.--_Mary Queen of Scots_.

]

_Queen_. Then rouse thy spirit--we may yet prevent

This hated match.

_Griz_.--We will[1]; nor fate itself,

Should it conspire with Thomas Thumb, should cause it.

I'll swim through seas; I'll ride upon the clouds;

I'll dig the earth; I'll blow out every fire;

I'll rave; I'll rant; I'll rise; I'll rush; I'll roar;

Fierce as the man whom[2] smiling dolphins bore

From the prosaick to poetick shore.

I'll tear the scoundrel into twenty pieces.

[Footnote 1: The reader may see all the beauties of this speech in a

late ode called the Naval Lyrick.]

[Footnote 2: This epithet to a dolphin doth not give one so clear an

idea as were to be wished; a smiling fish seeming a little more

difficult to be imagined than a flying fish. Mr Dryden is of opinion

that smiling is the property of reason, and that no irrational

creature can smile:

Smiles not allow'd to beasts from reason move.

--_State of Innocence_.

]

_Queen_. Oh, no! prevent the match, but hurt him not;

For, though I would not have him have my daughter,

Yet can we kill the man that kill'd the giants?

_Griz_. I tell you, madam, it was all a trick;

He made the giants first, and then he kill'd them;

As fox-hunters bring foxes to the wood,

And then with hounds they drive them out again.

_Queen_. How! have you seen no giants? Are there not

Now, in the yard, ten thousand proper giants?

_Griz_. [1]Indeed I cannot positively tell,

But firmly do believe there is not one.

[Footnote 1: These lines are written in the same key with those in the

Earl of Essex:

Why, say'st thou so? I love thee well, indeed

I do, and thou shalt find by this 'tis true.

Or with this in Cyrus:

The most heroick mind that ever was.

And with above half of the modern tragedies.

]

_Queen_. Hence! from my sight! thou traitor, hie away;

By all my stars I thou enviest Tom Thumb.

Go, sirrah! go, [1]hie away! hie!----thou art

A setting dog: be gone.

[Footnote 1: Aristotle, in that excellent work of his which is very

justly stiled his masterpiece, earnestly recommends using the terms of

art, however coarse or even indecent they may be. Mr Tate is of the

same opinion.

_Bru_. Do not, like young hawks, fetch a course about.

Your game flies fair.

_Fra_. Do not fear it.

He answers you in your own hawking phrase.

--_Injured Love_.

I think these two great authorities are sufficient to justify

Dollallolla in the use of the phrase, "Hie away, hie!" when in the

same line she says she is speaking to a setting-dog.

]

_Griz_. Madam, I go.

Tom Thumb shall feel the vengeance you have raised.

So, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,

With a third dog one of the two dogs meets,

With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,

And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

SCENE VI.

_Queen_ (_sola_). And whither shall I go?--Alack a day!

I love Tom Thumb--but must not tell him so;

For what's a woman when her virtue's gone?

A coat without its lace; wig out of buckle;

A stocking with a hole in't--I can't live

Without my virtue, or without Tom Thumb.

[1] Then let me weigh them in two equal scales;

In this scale put my virtue, that Tom Thumb.

Alas! Tom Thumb is heavier than my virtue.

But hold!--perhaps I may be left a widow:

This match prevented, then Tom Thumb is mine;

In that dear hope I will forget my pain.

So, when some wench to Tothill Bridewell's sent,

With beating hemp and flogging she's content;

She hopes in time to ease her present pain,

At length is free, and walks the streets again.

[Footnote 1: We meet with such another pair of scales in Dryden's King

Arthur:

Arthur and Oswald, and their different fates,

Are weighing now within the scales of heaven.

Also in Sebastian:

This hour my lot is weighing in the scales.

]

ACT II.

SCENE I.--_The street_. Bailiff, Follower.

[Footnote: Mr Rowe is generally imagined to have taken some hints from

this scene in his character of Bajazet; but as he, of all the tragick

writers, bears the least resemblance to our author in his diction, I

am unwilling to imagine he would condescend to copy him in this

particular.]

_Bail_. Come on, my trusty follower, come on;

This day discharge thy duty, and at night

A double mug of beer, and beer shall glad thee.

Stand here by me, this way must Noodle pass.

_Fol_. No more, no more, oh Bailiff! every word

Inspires my soul with virtue. Oh! I long

To meet the enemy in the street--and nab him:

To lay arresting hands upon his back,

And drag him trembling to the spunging-house.

_Bail_. There when I have him, I will spunge upon him.

Oh! glorious thought! by the sun, moon, and stars,

I will enjoy it, though it be in thought!

Yes, yes, my follower, I will enjoy it.

_Fol_. Enjoy it then some other time, for now

Our prey approaches.

_Bail_. Let us retire.

SCENE II.--TOM THUMB, NOODLE, Bailiff, Follower.

_Thumb_. Trust me, my Noodle, I am wondrous sick;

For, though I love the gentle Huncamunca,

Yet at the thought of marriage I grow pale:

For, oh!--[1] but swear thou'lt keep it ever secret,

I will unfold a tale will make thee stare.

[Footnote 1: This method of surprizing an audience, by raising their

expectation to the highest pitch, and then baulking it, hath been

practised with great success by most of our tragical authors]

_Nood_. I swear by lovely Huncamunca's charms.

_Thumb_. Then know--[1] my grandmamma hath often said,

Tom Thumb, beware of marriage.

[Footnote: Almeyda, in Sebastian, is in the same distress:

Sometimes methinks I hear the groan of ghosts,

This hollow sounds and lamentable screams;

Then, like a dying echo from afar,

My mother's voice that cries, Wed not, Almeyda;

Forewarn'd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime.

]

_Nood_. Sir, I blush

To think a warrior, great in arms as you,

Should be affrighted by his grandmamma.

Can an old woman's empty dreams deter

The blooming hero from the virgin's arms?

Think of the joy that will your soul alarm,

When in her fond embraces clasp'd you lie,

While on her panting breast, dissolved in bliss,

You pour out all Tom Thumb in every kiss.

_Thumb_. Oh! Noodle, thou hast fired my eager soul;

Spite of my grandmother she shall be mine;

I'll hug, caress, I'll eat her up with love:

Whole days, and nights, and years shall be too short

For our enjoyment; every sun shall rise

[1] Blushing to see us in our bed together.

[Footnote: "As very well he may, if he hath any modesty in him," says

Mr D--s. The author of Busiris is extremely zealous to prevent the

sun's blushing at any indecent object; and therefore on all such

occasions he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep out

of the way.

Rise never more, O sun! let night prevail,

Eternal darkness close the world's wide scene.--_Busiris_.

Sun, hide thy face, and put the world in mourning.--_Ibid_.

Mr Banks makes the sun perform the office of Hymen, and therefore not

likely to be disgusted at such a sight:

The sun sets forth like a gay brideman with you.

--_Mary Queen of Scots_.

]

_Nood_. Oh, sir! this purpose of your soul pursue.

_Bail_. Oh! sir! I have an action against you.

_Nood_. At whose suit is it?

_Bail_. At your taylor's, sir.

Your taylor put this warrant in my hands,

And I arrest you, sir, at his commands.

_Thumb_. Ha! dogs! Arrest my friend before my face!

Think you Tom Thumb will suffer this disgrace?

But let vain cowards threaten by their word,

Tom Thumb shall shew his anger by his sword.

[_Kills_ Bailiff _and_ Follower.

_Bail_. Oh, I am slain!

_Fol_. I am murdered also,

And to the shades, the dismal shades below,

My bailiff's faithful follower I go.

_Nood_. [1]Go then to hell, like rascals as you are,

And give our service to the bailiffs there.

[Footnote 1: Nourmahal sends the same message to heaven;

For I would have you, when you upwards move,

Speak kindly of us to our friends above.--_Aurengzebe_

We find another to hell, in the Persian Princess:

Villain, get thee down

To hell, and tell them that the fray's begun.

]

_Thumb_. Thus perish all the bailiffs in the land,

Till debtors at noon-day shall walk the streets,

And no one fear a bailiff or his writ.

SCENE III.----_The Princess _Huncamunca's_ Apartment_.

Huncamunca, Cleora, Mustacha.

_Hunc_. [1]Give me some music--see that it be sad.

[Footnote 1: Anthony gave the same command in the same words.]

CLEORA _sings_.

Cupid, ease a love-sick maid,

Bring thy quiver to her aid;

With equal ardour wound the swain,

Beauty should never sigh in vain.

Let him feel the pleasing smart,

Drive the arrow through his heart:

When one you wound, you then destroy;

When both you kill, you kill with joy.

_Hunc_. [1]O Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?

Why hadst thou not been born of royal race?

Why had not mighty Bantam been thy father?

Or else the king of Brentford, Old or New?

[Footnote 1: Oh! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius?

--_Olway's Marius_.

]

_Must_. I am surprised that your highness can give yourself a

moment's uneasiness about that little insignificant fellow,[1] Tom Thumb

the Great--one properer for a plaything than a husband. Were he my

husband his horns should be as long as his body. If you had fallen in

love with a grenadier, I should not have wondered at it. If you had

fallen in love with something; but to fall in love with nothing!

[Footnote 1: Nothing is more common than these seeming contradictions;

such as,

Haughty weakness.--_Victim_

Great small world.--_Noah's Flood_

]

_Hunc_. Cease, my Mustacha, on thy duty cease.

The zephyr, when in flowery vales it plays,

Is not so soft, so sweet as Thummy's breath.

The dove is not so gentle to its mate.

_Must_. The dove is every bit as proper for a husband. --Alas!

Madam, there's not a beau about the court looks so little like a

man. He is a perfect butterfly, a thing without substance, and almost

without shadow too.

_Hunc_. This rudeness is unseasonable: desist;

Or I shall think this railing comes from love.

Tom Thumb's a creature of that charming form,

That no one can abuse, unless they love him.

_Must_. Madam, the king.

SCENE IV.-KING, HUNCAMUNCA.

_King_. Let all but Huncamunca leave the room.

[Exeunt CLEORA and MUSTACHA.

Daughter, I have observed of late some grief.

Unusual in your countenance: your eyes!

[1]That, like two open windows, used to shew

The lovely beauty of the rooms within,

Have now two blinds before them. What is the cause?

Say, have you not enough of meat and drink?

We've given strict orders not to have you stinted.

[Footnote 1: Lee hath improved this metaphor:

Dost thou not view joy peeping from my eyes,

The casements open'd wide to gaze on thee?

So Rome's glad citizens to windows rise,

When they some young triumpher fain would see.

--_Gloriana_.

]

_Hunc_. Alas! my lord, I value not myself

That once I eat two fowls and half a pig;

[1]Small is that praise! but oh! a maid may want

What she can neither eat nor drink.

[Footnote 1: Almahide hath the same contempt for these appetites:

To eat and drink can no perfection be.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

The earl of Essex is of a different opinion, and seems to place the

chief happiness of a general therein:

Were but commanders half so well rewarded,

Then they might eat.--_Banks's Earl of Essex_.

But, if we may believe one who knows more than either, the devil

himself, we shall find eating to be an affair of more moment than is

generally imagined:

Gods are immortal only by their food.

--_Lucifer; in the State of Innocence_.

]

_King_. What's that?

_Hunc_. O[1] spare my blushes; but I mean a husband.

[Footnote 1: "This expression is enough of itself," says Mr D.,

"utterly to destroy the character of Huncamunca!" Yet we find a woman

of no abandoned character in Dryden adventuring farther, and thus

excusing herself:

To speak our wishes first, forbid it pride,

Forbid it modesty; true, they forbid it,

But Nature does not. When we are athirst,

Or hungry, will imperious Nature stay,

Nor eat, nor drink, before 'tis bid fall on?--_Cleomenes_.

Cassandra speaks before she is asked: Huncamunca afterwards.

Cassandra speaks her wishes to her lover: Huncamunca only to her

father.

]

_King_. If that be all, I have provided one,

A husband great in arms, whose warlike sword

Streams with the yellow blood of slaughter'd giants,

Whose name in Terra Incognita is known,

Whose valour, wisdom, virtue make a noise

Great as the kettle-drums of twenty armies.

_Hunc_. Whom does my royal father mean?

_King_. Tom Thumb.

_Hunc_. Is it possible?

_King_. Ha! the window-blinds are gone;

[1]A country-dance of joy is in your face.

Your eyes spit fire, your cheeks grow red as beef.

[Footnote 1:

Her eyes resistless magick bear;

Angels, I see, and gods, are dancing there

--_Lee's Sophonisba_.

]

_Hunc_. O, there's a magick-musick in that sound,

Enough to turn me into beef indeed!

Yes, I will own, since licensed by your word,

I'll own Tom Thumb the cause of all my grief.

For him I've sigh'd, I've wept, I've gnaw'd my sheets.

_King_. Oh! thou shalt gnaw thy tender sheets no more.

A husband thou shalt have to mumble now.

_Hunc_. Oh! happy sound! henceforth let no one tell

That Huncamunca shall lead apes in hell.

Oh! I am overjoy'd!

_King_. I see thou art.

[1] Joy lightens in thy eyes, and thunders from thy brows;

Transports, like lightning, dart along thy soul,

As small-shot through a hedge.

[Footnote 1: Mr Dennis, in that excellent tragedy called Liberty

Asserted, which is thought to have given so great a stroke to the late

French king, hath frequent imitations of this beautiful speech of king

Arthur:

Conquest light'ning in his eyes, and thund'ring in his arm,

Joy lighten'd in her eyes.

Joys like lightning dart along my soul.

]

_Hunc_. Oh! say not small.

_King_. This happy news shall on our tongue ride post,

Ourself we bear the happy news to Thumb.

Yet think not, daughter, that your powerful charms

Must still detain the hero from his arms;

Various his duty, various his delight;

Now in his turn to kiss, and now to fight,

And now to kiss again. So, mighty[1] Jove,

When with excessive thund'ring tired above,

Comes down to earth, and takes a bit--and then

Flies to his trade of thund'ring back again.

[Footnote 1:

Jove, with excessive thund'ring tired above,

Comes down for ease, enjoys a nymph, and then

Mounts dreadful, and to thund'ring goes again.--_Gloriana_.

]

SCENE V.--GRIZZLE, HUNCAMUNCA.

[1]_Griz_. Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!

Thy pouting breasts, like kettle-drums of brass,

Beat everlasting loud alarms of joy;

As bright as brass they are, and oh, as hard.

Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!

[Footnote 1: This beautiful line, which ought, says Mr W----, to be

written in gold, is imitated in the New Sophonisba:

Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!

Oh! Narva; Narva, oh!

The author of a song called Duke upon Duke hath improved it:

Alas! O Nick! O Nick, alas!

Where, by the help of a little false spelling, you have two

meanings in the repeated words.

]

_Hunc_. Ha! dost thou know me, princess as I am,

[1]That thus of me you dare to make your game?

[Footnote 1: Edith, in the Bloody Brother, speaks to her lover in the

same familiar language:

Your grace is full of game.

]

_Griz_. Oh! Huncamunca, well I know that you

A princess are, and a king's daughter, too;

But love no meanness scorns, no grandeur fears;

Love often lords into the cellar bears,

And bids the sturdy porter come up stairs.

For what's too high for love, or what's too low?

Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!

_Hunc_. But, granting all you say of love were true,

My love, alas! is to another due.

In vain to me a suitoring you come,

For I'm already promised to Tom Thumb.

_Griz_. And can my princess such a durgen wed?

One fitter for your pocket than your bed!

Advised by me, the worthless baby shun,

Or you will ne'er be brought to bed of one.

Oh take me to thy arms, and never flinch,

Who am a man, by Jupiter! every inch.

[1]Then, while in joys together lost we lie,

I'll press thy soul while gods stand wishing by.

[Footnote 1:

Traverse the glitt'ring chambers of the sky,

Borne on a cloud in view of fate I'll lie,

And press her soul while gods stand wishing by.

--_Hannibal_.

]

_Hunc_. If, sir, what you insinuate you prove,

All obstacles of promise you remove;

For all engagements to a man must fall,

Whene'er that man is proved no man at all.

_Griz_. Oh! let him seek some dwarf, some fairy miss,

Where no joint-stool must lift him to the kiss!

But, by the stars and glory! you appear

Much fitter for a Prussian grenadier;

One globe alone on Atlas' shoulders rests,

Two globes are less than Huncamunca's breasts;

The milky way is not so white, that's flat,

And sure thy breasts are full as large as that.

_Hunc_. Oh, sir, so strong your eloquence I find,

It is impossible to be unkind.

_Griz_. Ah! speak that o'er again, and let the[1] sound

From one pole to another pole rebound;

The earth and sky each be a battledore,

And keep the sound, that shuttlecock, up an hour:

To Doctors' Commons for a licence I

Swift as an arrow from a bow will fly.

[Footnote 1:

Let the four winds from distant corners meet,

And on their wings first bear it into France;

Then back again to Edina's proud walls,

Till victim to the sound th' aspiring city falls.

--_Albion Queens_.

]

_Hunc_. Oh, no! lest some disaster we should meet

'Twere better to be married at the Fleet.

_Griz_. Forbid it, all ye powers, a princess should

By that vile place contaminate her blood;

My quick return shall to my charmer prove

I travel on the [1]post-horses of love.

[Footnote 1: I do not remember any metaphors so frequent in the tragic

poets as those borrowed from riding post:

The gods and opportunity ride post.--_Hannibal_.

----Let's rush together,

For death rides post!--_Duke of Guise_.

Destruction gallops to thy murder post.--_Gloriana_.

]

_Hunc_. Those post-horses to me will seem too slow

Though they should fly swift as the gods, when they

Ride on behind that post-boy, Opportunity.

SCENE VI.--TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA.

_Thumb_. Where is my princess? where's my Huncamunca?

Where are those eyes, those cardmatches of Jove,

That[1] light up all with love my waxen soul?

Where is that face which artful nature made

[2] In the same moulds where Venus' self was cast?

[Footnote 1: This image, too, very often occurs:

--Bright as when thy eye

First lighted up our loves.--_Aurengzebe_.

'Tis not a crown alone lights up my name.--_Busiris_.

]

[Footnote 2: There is great dissension among the poets concerning the

method of making man. One tells his mistress that the mould she was

made in being lost, Heaven cannot form such another. Lucifer, in

Dryden, gives a merry description of his own formation:

Whom heaven, neglecting, made and scarce design'd,

But threw me in for number to the rest .--_State of Innocence_.

In one place the same poet supposes man to be made of metal:

I was form'd

Of that coarse metal which, when she was made

The gods threw by for rubbish.--_All for Love_.

In another of dough:

When the gods moulded up the paste of man,

Some of their clay was left upon their hands,

And so they made Egyptians.--_Cleomenes_.

In another of clay:

--Rubbish of remaining clay.--_Sebastian_.

One makes the soul of wax:

Her waxen soul begins to melt apace.--_Anna Bullen_.

Another of flint:

Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted

In former beings, or, struck out together,

One spark to Africk flew, and one to Portugal.--_Sebastian_.

To omit the great quantities of iron, brazen, and leaden souls, which

are so plenty in modern authors--I cannot omit the dress of a soul as

we find it in Dryden:

Souls shirted but with air.--_King Arthur_.

Nor can I pass by a particular sort of soul in a particular sort of

description in the New Sophonisba:

Ye mysterious powers,

--Whether thro' your gloomy depths I wander,

Or on the mountains walk, give me the calm,

The steady smiling soul, where wisdom sheds

Eternal sunshine, and eternal joy.

]

_Hunc_. [1]Oh! what is music to the ear that's deaf,

Or a goose-pie to him that has no taste?

What are these praises now to me, since I

Am promised to another?

[Footnote 1: This line Mr Banks has plunder'd entire in his Anna

Bullen.]

_Thumb_. Ha! promised?

_Hunc_. Too sure; 'tis written in the book of fate.

_Thumb_. [1]Then I will tear away the leaf

Wherein it's writ; or, if fate won't allow

So large a gap within its journal-book,

I'll blot it out at least.

[Footnote 1:

Good Heaven! the book of fate before me lay,

But to tear out the journal of that day.

Or, if the order of the world below

Will not the gap of one whole day allow,

Give me that minute when she made her vow.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

]

SCENE VII.--GLUMDALCA, TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA

_Glum_. [1]I need not ask if you are Huncamunca.

Your brandy-nose proclaims----

[Footnote 1: I know some of the commentators have imagined that Mr

Dryden, in the altercative scene between Cleopatra and Octavia, a

scene which Mr Addison inveighs against with great bitterness, is

much beholden to our author. How just this their observation is I will

not presume to determine.]

_Hunc_. I am a princess;

Nor need I ask who you are.

_Glum_. A giantess;

The queen of those who made and unmade queens.

_Hunc_. The man whose chief ambition is to be

My sweetheart hath destroy'd these mighty giants.

_Glum_. Your sweetheart? Dost thou think the man who once

Hath worn my easy chains will e'er wear thine?

_Hunc_. Well may your chains be easy, since, if fame

Says true, they have been tried on twenty husbands.

[1]The glove or boot, so many times pull'd on,

May well sit easy on the hand or foot.

[Footnote 1: "A cobling poet indeed," says Mr D.; and yet I believe we

may find as monstrous images in the tragick authors: I'll put down

one:

Untie your folded thoughts, and let them dangle loose as a

bride's hair.--_Injured Love_.

Which line seems to have as much title to a milliner's shop as our

author's to a shoemaker's.]

_Glum_. I glory in the number, and when I

Sit poorly down, like thee, content with one,

Heaven change this face for one as bad as thine.

_Hunc_. Let me see nearer what this beauty is

That captivates the heart of men by scores.

[_Holds a candle to her face_.

Oh! Heaven, thou art as ugly as the devil.

_Glum_. You'd give the best of shoes within your shop

To be but half so handsome.

_Hunc_. Since you come

[1]To that, I'll put my beauty to the test:

Tom Thumb, I'm yours, if you with me will go.

[Footnote 1: Mr L---- takes occasion in this place to commend the great

care of our author to preserve the metre of blank verse, in which

Shakspeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, were so notoriously negligent; and

the moderns, in imitation of our author, so laudably observant:

Then does

Your majesty believe that he can be

A traitor?--_Earl of Essex_.

Every page of Sophonisba gives us instances of this excellence.

]

_Glum_. Oh! stay, Tom Thumb, and you alone shall fill

That bed where twenty giants used to lie.

_Thumb_. In the balcony that o'erhangs the stage,

I've seen a whore two 'prentices engage;

One half-a-crown does in his fingers hold,

The other shews a little piece of gold;

She the half-guinea wisely does purloin,

And leaves the larger and the baser coin.

_Glum_. Left, scorn'd, and loathed for such a chit as this;

[1] I feel the storm that's rising in my mind,

Tempests and whirlwinds rise, and roll, and roar.

I'm all within a hurricane, as if

[2] The world's four winds were pent within my carcase.

[3] Confusion, horror, murder, guts, and death!

[Footnote 1: Love mounts and rolls about my stormy mind.

--_Aurengzebe_.

Tempests and whirlwinds thro' my bosom move.

--_Cleomenes_.

]

[Footnote 2:

With such a furious tempest on his brow,

As if the world's four winds were pent within

His blustering carcase.--_Anna Bullen_.

]

[Footnote 3: Verba Tragica.]

SCENE VIII.--KING, GLUMDALCA.

_King_. [1] Sure never was so sad a king as I!

[2] My life is worn as ragged as a coat

A beggar wears; a prince should put it off.

[3] To love a captive and a giantess!

Oh love! oh love! how great a king art thou!

My tongue's thy trumpet, and thou trumpetest,

Unknown to me, within me. [4] Oh, Glumdalca!

Heaven thee designed a giantess to make,

But an angelick soul was shuffled in.

[5] I am a multitude of walking griefs,

And only on her lips the balm is found

[6] To spread a plaster that might cure them all.

[Footnote 1: This speech has been terribly mauled by the poet.]

[Footnote 2:

----My life is worn to rags,

Not worth a prince's wearing.--_Love Triumphant_.

]

[Footnote 3:

Must I beg the pity of my slave?

Must a king beg? But love's a greater king,

A tyrant, nay, a devil, that possesses me.

He tunes the organ of my voice and speaks,

Unknown to me, within me.--_Sebastian_.

]

[Footnote 4:

When thou wert form'd, heaven did a man begin;

But a brute soul by chance was shuffled in.--_Aurengzebe_.

]

[Footnote 5:

I am a multitude

Of walking griefs.--_New Sophonisba_.

]

[Footnote 6:

I will take thy scorpion blood,

And lay it to my grief till I have ease.--_Anna Bullen_.

]

_Glum_. What do I hear?

_King_. What do I see?

_Glum_. Oh!

_King_. Ah!

[1]_Glum_. Ah! wretched queen!

_King_. Oh! wretched king!

[2]_Glum_. Ah!

_King_. Oh!

[Footnote 1: Our author, who everywhere shews his great penetration

into human nature, here outdoes himself: where a less judicious poet

would have raised a long scene of whining love, he, who understood the

passions better, and that so violent an affection as this must be too

big for utterance, chuses rather to send his characters off in this

sullen and doleful manner, in which admirable conduct he is imitated

by the author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr Young seems to

point at this violence of passion:

--Passion choaks

Their words, and they're the statues of despair.

And Seneca tells us, "Curse leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent." The

story of the Egyptian king in Herodotus is too well known to need to

be inserted; I refer the more curious reader to the excellent

Montaigne, who hath written an essay on this subject.]

[Footnote 2:

To part is death.

Tis death to part.

Ah!

Oh --_Don Carlos_.

]

SCENE IX.--TOM THUMB, HUNCAMUNCA, Parson.

_Par_. Happy's the wooing that's not long a doing;

For, if I guess right, Tom Thumb this night

Shall give a being to a new Tom Thumb.

_Thumb_. It shall be my endeavour so to do.

_Hunc_. Oh! fie upon you, sir, you make me blush.

_Thumb_. It is the virgin's sign, and suits you well:

[1] I know not where, nor how, nor what I am;

[2] I am so transported, I have lost myself.

[Footnote 1:

Nor know I whether

What am I, who, or where. --_Busiris_.

I was I know not what, and am I know not how.

--_Gloriana_.

]

[Footnote 2: To understand sufficiently the beauty of this passage, it

will be necessary that we comprehend every man to contain two selfs. I

shall not attempt to prove this from philosophy, which the poets make

so plainly evident.

One runs away from the other:

----Let me demand your majesty,

Why fly you from yourself? --_Duke of Guise_.

In a second, one self is a guardian to the other:

Leave me the care of me. --_Conquest of Granada_.

Again:

Myself am to myself less near. --_Ibid_.

In the same, the first self is proud of the second:

I myself am proud of me. --_State of Innocence_.

In a third, distrustful of him:

Fain I would tell, but whisper it in my ear,

That none besides might hear, nay, not myself.

--_Earl of Essex_.

In a fourth, honours him:

I honour Rome,

And honour too myself. --_Sophonisba_.

In a fifth, at variance with him:

Leave me not thus at variance with myself. --_Busiris_.

Again, in a sixth:

I find myself divided from myself. --_Medea_.

She seemed the sad effigies of herself. --_Banks_.

Assist me, Zulema, if thou would'st be

The friend thou seem'st, assist me against me.

--_Albion Queens_.

From all which it appears that there are two selfs; and therefore Tom

Thumb's losing himself is no such solecism as it hath been represented

by men rather ambitious of criticising than qualified to criticise.

]

_Hunc_. Forbid it, all ye stars, for you're so small.

That were you lost, you'd find yourself no more.

So the unhappy sempstress once, they say,

Her needle in a pottle, lost, of hay;

In vain she look'd, and look'd, and made her moan,

For ah, the needle was forever gone.

_Par_. Long may they live, and love, and propagate,

Till the whole land be peopled with Tom Thumbs!

[1] So, when the Cheshire cheese a maggot breeds,

Another and another still succeeds:

By thousands and ten thousands they increase,

Till one continued maggot fills the rotten cheese.

[Footnote 1: Mr F---- imagines this parson to have been a Welsh one

from his simile.]

SCENE X.--NOODLE, _and then_ GRIZZLE.

_Nood_. [1] Sure, Nature means to break her solid chain,

Or else unfix the world, and in a rage

To hurl it from its axletree and hinges;

All things are so confused, the king's in love,

The queen is drunk, the princess married is.

[Footnote 1: Our author hath been plundered here, according to custom

Great nature, break thy chain that links together

The fabrick of the world, and make a chaos

Like that within my soul.--_Love Triumphant_.

----Startle Nature, unfix the globe,

And hurl it from its axletree and hinges.

--_Albion Queens_.

The tott'ring earth seems sliding off its props.

]

_Griz_. Oh, Noodle! Hast thou Huncamunca seen?

_Nood_. I have seen a thousand sights this day, where none

Are by the wonderful bitch herself outdone.

The king, the queen, and all the court, are sights.

_Griz_. [1] D--n your delay, you trifler! are you drunk, ha!

I will not hear one word but Huncamunca.

[Footnote 1:

D--n your delay, ye torturers, proceed;

I will not hear one word but Almahide.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

]

_Nood_. By this time she is married to Tom Thumb.

_Griz_. [1] My Huncamunca!

[Footnote 1: Mr Dryden hath imitated this in All for Love.]

_Nood_. Your Huncamunca,

Tom Thumb's Huncamunca, every man's Huncamunca.

_Griz_. If this be true, all womankind are damn'd.

_Nood_. If it be not, may I be so myself.

_Griz_. See where she comes! I'll not believe a word

Against that face, upon whose [1] ample brow

Sits innocence with majesty enthroned.

[Footnote 1: This Miltonic style abounds in the New Sophonisba:

--And on her ample brow

Sat majesty.

]

GRIZZLE, HUNCAMUNCA.

_Griz_. Where has my Huncamunca been? See here.

The licence in my hand!

_Hunc_. Alas! Tom Thumb.

_Griz_. Why dost thou mention him?

_Hunc_. Ah, me! Tom Thumb.

_Griz_. What means my lovely Huncamunca?

_Hunc_. Hum!

_Griz_. Oh! speak.

_Hunc_. Hum!

_Griz_. Ha! your every word is hum:

[1] You force me still to answer you, Tom Thumb.

Tom Thumb--I'm on the rack--I'm in a flame.

[2]Tom Thumb, Tom Thumb, Tom Thumb--you love the name;

So pleasing is that sound, that were you dumb,

You still would find a voice to cry Tom Thumb.

[Footnote 1:

Your every answer still so ends in that,

You force me still to answer you Morat. --_Aurengzebe_.

]

[Footnote 2: Morat, Morat, Morat! you love the name.--_Aurengzebe_.]

_Hunc_. Oh! be not hasty to proclaim my doom!

My ample heart for more than one has room:

A maid like me Heaven form'd at least for two.

[1]I married him, and now I'll marry you.

[Footnote 1: "Here is a sentiment for the virtuous Huncamunca!" says

Mr D----s. And yet, with the leave of this great man, the virtuous

Panthea, in Cyrus, hath an heart every whit as ample:

For two I must confess are gods to me,

Which is my Abradatus first, and thee.--_Cyrus the Great_.

Nor is the lady in Love Triumphant more reserved, though not so

intelligible:

I am so divided,

That I grieve most for both, and love both most.

]

_Griz_. Ha! dost thou own thy falsehood to my face?

Think'st thou that I will share thy husband's place?

Since to that office one cannot suffice,

And since you scorn to dine one single dish on,

Go, get your husband put into commission.

Commissioners to discharge (ye gods! it fine is)

The duty of a husband to your highness.

Yet think not long I will my rival bear,

Or unrevenged the slighted willow wear;

The gloomy, brooding tempest, now confined

Within the hollow caverns of my mind,

In dreadful whirl shall roll along the coasts,

Shall thin the land of all the men it boasts,

[1] And cram up ev'ry chink of hell with ghosts.

[2] So have I seen, in some dark winter's day,

A sudden storm rush down the sky's highway,

Sweep through the streets with terrible ding-dong,

Gush through the spouts, and wash whole crouds along.

The crouded shops the thronging vermin skreen,

Together cram the dirty and the clean,

And not one shoe-boy in the street is seen.

[Footnote 1: A ridiculous supposition to any one who considers the great

and extensive largeness of hell, says a commentator; but not

so to those who consider the great expansion of immaterial

substance. Mr Banks makes one soul to be so expanded, that

heaven could not contain it:

The heavens are all too narrow for her soul.

--_Virtue Betrayed_.

The Persian Princess hath a passage not unlike the author of this:

We will send such shoals of murder'd slaves,

Shall glut hell's empty regions.

This threatens to fill hell, even though it was empty; Lord Grizzle,

only to fill up the chinks, supposing the rest already full.

]

[Footnote 2: Mr Addison is generally thought to have had this simile

in his eye when he wrote that beautiful one at the end of the third

act of his Cato.]

_Hunc_. Oh, fatal rashness! should his fury slay

My helpless bridegroom on his wedding-day,

I, who this morn of two chose which to wed,

May go again this night alone to bed.

[1] So have I seen some wild unsettled fool,

Who had her choice of this and that joint-stool,

To give the preference to either loth,

And fondly coveting to sit on both,

While the two stools her sitting-part confound,

Between 'em both fall squat upon the ground.

[Footnote 1: This beautiful simile is founded on a proverb which does

honour to the English language:

Between two stools the breech falls to the ground.

I am not so well pleased with any written remains of the ancients as

with those little aphorisms which verbal tradition hath delivered down

to us under the title of proverbs. It were to be wished that, instead

of filling their pages with the fabulous theology of the pagans, our

modern poets would think it worth their while to enrich their works

with the proverbial sayings of their ancestors. Mr Dryden hath

chronicled one in heroick;

Two ifs scarce make one possibility.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

My lord Bacon is of opinion that whatever is known of arts and

sciences might be proved to have lurked in the Proverbs of Solomon. I

am of the same opinion in relation to those above-mentioned; at least

I am confident that a more perfect system of ethicks, as well as

oeconomy, might be compiled out of them than is at present extant,

either in the works of the ancient philosophers, or those more

valuable, as more voluminous ones of the modern divines.

]

ACT III.

SCENE I.--KING ARTHUR'S _Palace_.

[1] _Ghost (solus)_. Hail! ye black horrors of midnight's

midnoon'

Ye fairies, goblins, bats, and screech-owls, hail!

And, oh! ye mortal watchmen, whose hoarse throats

Th' immortal ghosts dread croakings counterfeit,

All hail!--Ye dancing phantoms, who, by day,

Are some condemn'd to fast, some feast in fire,

Now play in churchyards, skipping o'er the graves,

To the [2]loud music of the silent bell,

All hail!

[Footnote 1: Of all the particulars in which the modern stage falls

short of the ancient, there is none so much to be lamented as the

great scarcity of ghosts Whence this proceeds I will not presume to

determine Some are of opinion that the moderns are unequal to that

sublime language which a ghost ought to speak One says, ludicrously,

that ghosts are out of fashion, another, that they are properer for

comedy, forgetting, I suppose, that Aristotle hath told us that a

ghost is the soul of tragedy, for so I render the [Greek text:

psychae o muythos taes tragodias], which M. Dacier, amongst others,

hath mistaken, I suppose, misled by not understanding the Fabula of

the Latins, which signifies a ghost as well as fable.

"Te premet nox, fabulaeque manes"--_Horace_

Of all the ghosts that have ever appeared on the stage, a very learned

and judicious foreign critick gives the preference to this of our

author. These are his words speaking of this tragedy--"Nec quidquam

in illa admirabilius quam phasma quoddam horrendum, quod omnibus abis

spectris quibuscum scatet Angelorum tragoedia longe (pace D--ysn V

Doctiss dixerim) praetulerim."

]

[Footnote 2: We have already given instances of this figure.]

SCENE II.--KING, GHOST.

_King_. What noise is this? What villain dares,

At this dread hoar, with feet and voice profane,

Disturb our royal walls?

_Ghost_. One who defies

Thy empty power to hurt him; [1] one who dares

Walk in thy bedchamber.

[Footnote 1: Almanzor reasons in the same manner:

A ghost I'll be;

And from a ghost, you know, no place is free.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

]

_King_. Presumptuous slave!

Thou diest.

_Ghost_. Threaten others with that word:

[1] I am a ghost, and am already dead.

[Footnote 1: "The man who writ this wretched pun," says Mr D., "would

have picked your pocket:" which he proceeds to shew not only bad in

itself, but doubly so on so solemn an occasion. And yet, in that

excellent play of Liberty Asserted, we find something very much

resembling a pun in the mouth of a mistress, who is parting with the

lover she is fond of:

_Ul_. Oh, mortal woe! one kiss, and then farewell.

_Irene_. The gods have given to others to fare well.

O! miserably must Irene fare.

Agamemnon, in the Victim, is full as facetious on the most solemn

occasion--that of sacrificing his daughter:

Yes, daughter, yes; you will assist the priest;

Yes, you must offer up your vows for Greece,

]

_King_. Ye stars! 'tis well, Were thy last hour to come,

This moment had been it; [1] yet by thy shroud

I'll pull thee backward, squeeze thee to a bladder,

Till thou dost groan thy nothingness away.

Thou fly'st! 'Tis well. [_Ghost retires_.

[2] I thought what was the courage of a ghost!

Yet, dare not, on thy life--Why say I that,

Since life thou hast not?--Dare not walk again

Within these walls, on pain of the Red Sea.

For, if henceforth I ever find thee here,

As sure, sure as a gun, I'll have thee laid--

[Footnote 1:

I'll pull thee backwards by thy shroud to light,

Or else I'll squeeze thee, like a bladder, there,

And make thee groan thyself away to air.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

Snatch me, ye gods, this moment into nothing.

--_Cyrus the Great_.

]

[Footnote 2:

So, art thou gone? Thou canst no conquest boast.

I thought what was the courage of a ghost.

--_Conquest of Granada_.

King Arthur seems to be as brave a fellow as Almanzor, who says most

heroically,

In spite of ghosts I'll on.

]

_Ghost_. Were the Red Sea a sea of Hollands gin,

The liquor (when alive) whose very smell

I did detest--did loathe--yet, for the sake

Of Thomas Thumb, I would be laid therein.

_King_. Ha! said you?

_Ghost_. Yes, my liege, I said Tom Thumb,

Whose father's ghost I am--once not unknown

To mighty Arthur. But, I see, 'tis true,

The dearest friend, when dead, we all forget.

_King_. 'Tis he--it is the honest Gaffer Thumb.

Oh! let me press thee in my eager arms,

Thou best of ghosts! thou something more than ghost!

_Ghost_. Would I were something more, that we again

Might feel each other in the warm embrace.

But now I have th' advantage of my king,

[1] For I feel thee, whilst thou dost not feel me.

[Footnote 1: The ghost of Lausaria, in Cyrus, is a plain copy of this,

and is therefore worth reading:

Ah, Cyrus!

Thou may'st as well grasp water, or fleet air,

As think of touching my immortal shade.

--_Cyrus the Great_.

]

_King_. But say, [1] thou dearest air, oh! say what dread,

Important business sends thee back to earth?

[Footnote 1:

Thou better part of heavenly air.

--_Conquest of Granada,_.

]

_Ghost_. Oh! then prepare to hear--which but to hear

Is full enough to send thy spirit hence.

Thy subjects up in arms, by Grizzle led,

Will, ere the rosy-finger'd morn shall ope

The shutters of the sky, before the gate

Of this thy royal palace, swarming spread.

[1] So have I seen the bees in clusters swarm,

So have I seen the stars in frosty nights,

So have I seen the sand in windy days,

So have I seen the ghosts on Pluto's shore,

So have I seen the flowers in spring arise,

So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall,

So have I seen the fruits in summer smile,

So have I seen the snow in winter frown.

[Footnote 1: "A string of similes," says one, "proper to be hung up in

the cabinet of a prince."]

_King_. D--n all thou hast seen!--dost thou, beneath the shape

Of Gaffer Thumb, come hither to abuse me

With similes, to keep me on the rack?

Hence--or, by all the torments of thy hell,

[1] I'll run thee through the body, though thou'st none.

[Footnote 1: This passage hath been understood several different ways

by the commentators. For my part, I find it difficult to understand it

at all. Mr Dryden says--

I've heard something how two bodies meet,

But how two souls join I know not.

So that, till the body of a spirit be better understood, it will be

difficult to understand how it is possible to run him through it.

]

_Ghost_. Arthur, beware! I must this moment hence,

Not frighted by your voice, but by the cocks!

Arthur, beware, beware, beware, beware!

Strive to avert thy yet impending fate;

For, if thou'rt kill'd to-day,

To-morrow all thy care will come too late.

SCENE III.--KING (_solus_).

_King_. Oh! stay, and leave me not uncertain thus!

And, whilst thou tellest me what's like my fate,

Oh! teach me how I may avert it too!

Curst be the man who first a simile made!

Curst ev'ry bard who writes!--So have I seen

Those whose comparisons are just and true,

And those who liken things not like at all.

The devil is happy that the whole creation

Can furnish out no simile to his fortune.

SCENE IV.--KING, QUEEN.

_Queen_. What is the cause, my Arthur, that you steal

Thus silently from Dollallolla's breast?

Why dost thou leave me in the [1] dark alone,

When well thou know'st I am afraid of sprites?

[Footnote 1: Cydaria is of the same fearful temper with Dollallolla.

I never durst in darkness be alone.

--_Indian Emperor_.

]

_King_. Oh, Dollallolla! do not blame my love!

I hop'd the fumes of last night's punch had laid

Thy lovely eyelids fast.--But, oh! I find

There is no power in drams to quiet wives;

Each morn, as the returning sun, they wake,

And shine upon their husbands.

_Queen_. Think, oh think!

What a surprise it must be to the sun,

Rising, to find the vanish'd world away.

What less can be the wretched wife's surprise

When, stretching out her arms to fold thee fast,

She found her useless bolster in her arms.

[1] Think, think, on that.--Oh! think, think well on that.

I do remember also to have read

[2] In Dryden's Ovid's Metamorphoses,

That Jove in form inanimate did lie

With beauteous Danae: and, trust me, love,

[3] I fear'd the bolster might have been a Jove.

[Footnote 1:

Think well of this, think that, think every way.--_Sophon_.]

[Footnote 2: These quotations are more usual in the comick than in the

tragick writers.]

[Footnote 3: "This distress," says Mr D--, "I must allow to be

extremely beautiful, and tends to heighten the virtuous character of

Dollallolla, who is so exceeding delicate, that she is in the highest

apprehension from the inanimate embrace of a bolster. An example

worthy of imitation for all our writers of tragedy."]

_King_. Come to my arms, most virtuous of thy sex!

Oh, Dollallolla! were all wives like thee,

So many husbands never had worn horns.

Should Huncamunca of thy worth partake,

Tom Thumb indeed were blest.--Oh, fatal name,

For didst thou know one quarter what I know,

Then would'st thou know--Alas! what thou would'st

know!

_Queen_. What can I gather hence? Why dost thou speak

Like men who carry rareeshows about?

"Now you shall see, gentlemen, what you shall see."

O, tell me more, or thou hast told too much.

SCENE V.--KING, QUEEN, NOODLE.

_Nood_. Long life attend your majesties serene,

Great Arthur, king, and Dollallolla, queen!

Lord Grizzle, with a bold rebellious crowd,

Advances to the palace, threat'ning loud,

Unless the princess be deliver'd straight,

And the victorious Thumb, without his pate,

They are resolv'd to batter down the gate.

SCENE VI.--KING, QUEEN, HUNCAMUNCA, NOODLE.

_King_. See where the princess comes! Where is Tom Thumb?

_Hunc_. Oh! sir, about an hour and half ago

He sallied out t' encounter with the foe,

And swore, unless his fate had him misled,

From Grizzle's shoulders to cut off his head,

And serve't up with your chocolate in bed.

_King_. 'Tis well, I found one devil told us both.

Come, Dollallolla, Huncamunca, come;

Within we'll wait for the victorious Thumb;

In peace and safety we secure may stay,

While to his arm we trust the bloody fray;

Though men and giants should conspire with gods,

[1] He is alone equal to all these odds.

[Footnote 1:

"Credat Judaeus Appella,

Non ego,"

says Mr D--. "For, passing over the absurdity of being equal to odds,

can we possibly suppose a little insignificant fellow--I say again, a

little insignificant fellow--able to vie with a strength which all the

Samsons and Herculeses of antiquity would be unable to encounter?" I

shall refer this incredulous critick to Mr Dryden's defence of his

Almanzor; and, lest that should not satisfy him, I shall quote a few

lines from the speech of a much braver fellow than Almanzor, Mr

Johnson's Achilles:

Though human race rise in embattled hosts,

To force her from my arms--Oh! son of Atreus!

By that immortal pow'r, whose deathless spirit

Informs this earth, I will oppose them all.--_Victim_.

]

_Queen_. He is, indeed,[1] a helmet to us all;

While he supports we need not fear to fall;

His arm despatches all things to our wish?

And serves up ev'ry foe's head in a dish.

Void is the mistress of the house of care,

While the good cook presents the bill of fare;

Whether the cod, that northern king of fish,

Or duck, or goose, or pig, adorn the dish,

No fears the number of her guests afford,

But at her hour she sees the dinner on the board.

[Footnote 1: "I have heard of being supported by a staff," says Mr

D., "but never of being supported by a helmet." I believe he never

heard of sailing with wings, which he may read in no less a poet than

Mr Dryden:

Unless we borrow wings, and sail through air.

--_Love Triumphant_.

What will he say to a kneeling valley?

----I'll stand

Like a safe valley, that low bends the knee

To some aspiring mountain. --_Injured Love_.

I am ashamed of so ignorant a carper, who doth not know that an

epithet in tragedy is very often no other than an expletive. Do not

we read in the New Sophonisba of "grinding chains, blue plagues, white

occasions, and blue serenity?" Nay, it is not the adjective only, but

sometimes half a sentence is put by way of expletive, as, "Beauty

pointed high with spirit," in the same play; and, "In the lap of

blessing, to be most curst," in the Revenge.

]

SCENE VII.--_Plain_.--GRIZZLE, FOODLE, Rebels.

_Griz_. Thus far our arms with victory are crown'd;

For, though we have not fought, yet we have found

[1] No enemy to fight withal.

[Footnote 1: A victory like that of Almanzor:

Almanzor is victorious without fight.--_Conq. of Granada_.

]

_Food_. Yet I,

Methinks, would willingly avoid this day,

[1] This first of April, to engage our foes.

[Footnote 1: Well have we chose an happy day for fight;

For every man, in course of time, has found

Some days are lucky, some unfortunate.--_King Arthur_.

]

_Griz_. This day, of all the days of th' year, I'd choose,

For on this day my grandmother was born.

Gods! I will make Tom Thumb an April-fool;

[1] Will teach his wit an errand it ne'er knew,

And send it post to the Elysian shades.

[Footnote 1: We read of such another in Lee:

Teach his rude wit a flight she never made,

And send her post to the Elysian shade.--_Gloriana_.

]

_Food_. I'm glad to find our army is so stout,

Nor does it move my wonder less than joy.

_Griz_. [1] What friends we have, and how we came so strong,

I'll softly tell you as we march along.

[Footnote 1: These lines are copied verbatim in the Indian Emperor.]

SCENE VIII.--_Thunder and Lightning_.--TOM THUMB,

GLUMDALCA, _cum suis_.

_Thumb_. Oh, Noodle! hast thou seen a day like this?

[1] The unborn thunder rumbles o'er our heads,

[2] As if the gods meant to unhinge the world,

And heaven and earth in wild confusion hurl;

Yet will I boldly tread the tott'ring ball.

[Footnote 1:

Unborn thunder rolling in a cloud.--_Conq. of Granada_.

]

[Footnote 2:

Were heaven and earth in wild confusion hurl'd,

Should the rash gods unhinge the rolling world,

Undaunted would I tread the tott'ring ball,

Crush'd, but unconquer'd, in the dreadful fall.

--_Female Warrior_.

]

_Merl_. Tom Thumb!

_Thumb_. What voice is this I hear?

_Merl_. Tom Thumb!

_Thumb_. Again it calls.

_Merl_. Tom Thumb!

_Glum_. It calls again.

_Thumb_. Appear, whoe'er thou art; I fear thee not.