— 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 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 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. 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. —— —— — Oh! ye gods! [Aside.
[Footnote 1: A tragical exclamation.]
Thumb. When I’m not thank’d at all, I’m thank’d enough. 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 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. 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?
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, With much ado, have made a shift to hawl Within the town: 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. —— 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. 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.
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. 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, — 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. —— —— Be still, my soul. [Aside.
[Footnote 1: A tragical phrase much in use.]
Thumb. 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! 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. Then by our royal self we swear you lie.
[Footnote 1: No by myself. — Anna Bullen.]
Queen. Who but a dog, who but a dog Would use me as thou dost? Me, who have lain 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, 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. 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. 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. 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.) 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. 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! 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, Thy voice, like twenty screech-owls, wracks my brain.
&
nbsp; [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; 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 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:
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 253
