The Works of Henry Fielding Part 14

[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 pa.s.sion.

[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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Ess.e.x: Where art thou, Ess.e.x, &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 Ess.e.x, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 Ess.e.x: