 | The Tragedy of Tragedies ; Or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great |  |
SCENE X.
Noodle, and then Grizzle.Nood.
Sure Nature means to break her solid Chain,
Or else unfix the World, and in a Rage,
To hurl it from its Axle-tree and Hinges;
All things are so confus'd, the King's in Love,
The Queen is drunk, the Princess married is.
Griz.
Oh! Noodle, hast thou Huncamunca seen?
Nood.
I've seen a Thousand Sights this day, where none
The King, the Queen, and all the Court are Sights.
Griz.
D---n your Delay, you Trifler, are you drunk, ha?
I will not hear one Word but Huncamunca.
Nood.
By this time she is married to Tom Thumb.
Griz.
My Huncamunca.
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 my self.
Griz.
See where she comes! I'll not believe a Word
Against that Face, upon whose ample Brow,
Sits Innocence with Majesty Enthron'd.
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.
You force me still to answer you Tom Thumb.
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.
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,
I married him, and now I'll marry you.
Griz.
Ha! dost thou own thy Falshood 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 unreveng'd the slighted Willow wear;
The gloomy, brooding Tempest now confin'd,
Within the hollow Caverns of my Mind.
In dreadful Whirl, shall rowl along the Coasts,
Shall thin the Land of all the Men it boasts,
And cram up ev'ry Chink of Hell with Ghosts.
A sudden Storm rush down the Sky's High-Way,
Sweep thro' the Streets with terrible ding dong,
Gush thro' the Spouts, and wash whole Crowds along.
The crowded Shops, the thronging Vermin skreen,
Together cram the Dirty and the Clean,
And not one Shoe-Boy in the Street is seen.
Hunc.
Oh! fatal Rashness should his Fury slay,
My hapless Bridegroom on his Wedding Day;
I, who this Morn, of two chose which to wed,
May go again this Night alone to Bed;
So have I seen some wild unsettled Fool,
Who had her Choice of this, and that Joint Stool;
And fondly coveting to sit on both:
While the two Stools her Sitting Part confound,
Between 'em both fall Squat upon the Ground.
Our Author hath been plunder'd 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 Axle-tree and Hinges.
Albion Queens. The tott'ring Earth seems sliding off its Props
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 reserv'd, tho' not so intelligible;
—I am so divided,That I grieve most for both, and love both most.
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 Betray'd.
The Persian Princess hath a Passage not unlike the Author of this;
We will send such Shoals of murther'd Slaves,Shall glut Hell's empty Regions.
This threatens to fill Hell even tho' it were empty; Lord Grizzle only to fill up the Chinks, supposing the rest already full.
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.
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 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 chronicl'd 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 mention'd: 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 Antient Philosophers, or those more valuable, as more voluminous, ones of the modern Divines.
| The Tragedy of Tragedies ; Or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great | |