The Works of Henry Fielding Part 18

_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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 st.u.r.dy 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s; The milky way is not so white, that's flat, And sure thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 shuttlec.o.c.k, 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds, 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 coa.r.s.e metal which, when she was made The G.o.ds threw by for rubbish.--_All for Love_.

In another of dough:

When the G.o.ds 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 quant.i.ties 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_.