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.
Merl. Thou hast no cause to fear—I am thy friend, Merlin by name, a conjuror by trade, And to my art thou dost thy being owe.
Thumb. How!
Merl. Hear, then, the mystick getting of Tom Thumb.
[1] His father was a ploughman plain,
His mother milk'd the cow;
And yet the way to get a son
This couple knew not how,
Until such time the good old man
To learned Merlin goes,
And there to him, in great distress,
In secret manner shows
How in his heart he wish'd to have
A child, in time to come,
To be his heir, though it may be
No bigger than his thumb:
Of which old Merlin was foretold
That he his wish should have;
And so a son of stature small
The charmer to him gave.
Thou'st heard the past—look up and see the future.
[Footnote 1: See the History of Tom Thumb, page 2.]
Thumb. [1] Lost in amazement's gulf, my senses sink; See there, Glumdalca, see another [2] me!
[Footnote 1:
Amazement swallows up my sense,
And in the impetuous whirl of circling fate
Drinks down my reason.—Persian Princess.
]
[Footnote 2:
I have outfaced myself.
What! am I two? Is there another me?—King Arthur.
]
Glum. Oh, sight of horror! see, you are devour'd By the expanded jaws of a red cow.
Merl. Let not these sights deter thy noble mind, [1] For, lo! a sight more glorious courts thy eyes. See from afar a theatre arise; There ages, yet unborn, shall tribute pay To the heroick actions of this day; Then buskin tragedy at length shall chuse Thy name the best supporter of her muse.
[Footnote 1: The character of Merlin is wonderful throughout; but most so in this prophetick part. We find several of these prophecies in the tragick authors, who frequently take this opportunity to pay a compliment to their country, and sometimes to their prince. None but our author (who seems to have detested the least appearance of flattery) would have past by such an opportunity of being a political prophet.]
Thumb. Enough: let every warlike musick sound, We fall contented, if we fall renown'd.
SCENE IX.—LORD GRIZZLE, FOODLE, Rebels, on one side; TOM THUMB, GLUMDALCA, on the other.
Food. At length the enemy advances nigh, [1] I hear them with my ear, and see them with my eye.
[Footnote 1:
I saw the villain, Myron; with these eyes I saw him.
—Busiris.
In both which places it is intimated that it is sometimes possible to see with other eyes than your own. ]
Griz. Draw all your swords: for liberty we fight, [1] And liberty the mustard is of life.
[Footnote 1: "This mustard," says Mr D., "is enough to turn one's stomach. I would be glad to know what idea the author had in his head when he wrote it." This will be, I believe, best explained by a line of Mr Dennis:
And gave him liberty, the salt of life.—Liberty Asserted.
The understanding that can digest the one will not rise at the other.]
Thumb. Are you the man whom men famed Grizzle name?
Griz. [1] Are you the much more famed Tom Thumb?
[Footnote 1:
Han. Are you the chief whom men famed Scipio call?
Scip. Are you the much more famous Hannibal?
—Hannibal.
]
Thumb. The same.
Griz. Come on; our worth upon ourselves we'll prove; For liberty I fight.
Thumb. And I for love.
[A bloody engagement between the two armies here; drums beating, trumpets sounding, thunder and lightning. They fight off and on several times. Some fall. GRIZ. and GLUM. remain.
Glum. Turn, coward, turn; nor from a woman fly.
Griz. Away—thou art too ignoble for my arm.
Glum. Have at thy heart.
Griz. Nay, then I thrust at thine.
Glum. You push too well; you've run me through the guts, And I am dead.
Griz. Then there's an end of one.
Thumb_. When thou art dead, then there's an end of two, [1] Villain.
[Footnote 1: Dr. Young seems to have copied this engagement in his
Busiris:
Myr. Villain! Mem. Myron! Myr. Rebel! Mem. Myron! Myr. Hell! Mem. Mandane! ]
Griz. Tom Thumb!
Thumb. Rebel!
Griz. Tom Thumb!
Thumb. Hell!
Griz. Huncamunca!
Thumb. Thou hast it there.
Griz. Too sure I feel it.
Thumb. To hell then, like a rebel as you are, And give my service to the rebels there.
Griz. Triumph not, Thumb, nor think thou shalt enjoy, Thy Huncamunca undisturb'd; I'll send [1] My ghost to fetch her to the other world; [2] It shall but bait at heaven, and then return. [3] But, ha! I feel death rumbling in my brains: [4] Some kinder sprite knocks softly at my soul, And gently whispers it to haste away. I come, I come, most willingly I come. [5] So when some city wife, for country air, To Hampstead or to Highgate does repair, Her to make haste her husband does implore, And cries, "My dear, the coach is at the door:" With equal wish, desirous to be gone, She gets into the coach, and then she cries—"Drive on!"
[Footnote 1: This last speech of my lord Grizzle hath been of great service to our poets:
I'll hold it fast As life, and when life's gone I'll hold this last; And if thou tak'st it from me when I'm slain, I'll send my ghost, and fetch it back again. —Conquest of Granada. ]
[Footnote 2: My soul should with such speed obey,
It should not bait at heaven to stop its way.
Lee seems to have had this last in his eye:
'Twas not my purpose, sir, to tarry there; I would but go to heaven to take the air.—Gloriana. ]
[Footnote 3: A rising vapour rumbling in my brains.—Cleomenes. ]
[Footnote 4:
Some kind sprite knocks softly at my soul,
To tell me fate's at hand.
]
[Footnote 5: Mr Dryden seems to have had this simile in his eye, when he says,
My soul is packing up, and just on wing. —Conquest of Granada. ]
Thumb. With those last words [1] he vomited his soul,
Which, [2] like whipt cream, the devil will swallow down.
Bear off the body, and cut off the head,
Which I will to the king in triumph lug.
Rebellion's dead, and now I'll go to breakfast.
[Footnote 1: And in a purple vomit pour'd his soul —Cleomenes. ]
[Footnote 2: The devil swallows vulgar souls Like whipt cream. —Sebastian. ]