The Works of Henry Fielding Part 22

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 G.o.ds! 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 c.h.i.n.k of h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l, 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 pa.s.sage not unlike the author of this:

We will send such shoals of murder'd slaves, Shall glut h.e.l.l's empty regions.

This threatens to fill h.e.l.l, even though it was empty; Lord Grizzle, only to fill up the c.h.i.n.ks, 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 t.i.tle 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 traG.o.dias], 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 quibusc.u.m 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 h.o.a.r, 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 a.s.serted, 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sist 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--