The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12. Fielding Harold
1: Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky, or what we generally call a fine summer's day; so that, according to this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, &c., begin with their observations on the morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful description of our author's:
The morning dawns with an unwonted crimson,
The flowers all odorous seem, the garden birds
Sing louder, and the laughing sun ascends
The gaudy earth with an unusual brightness;
All nature smiles. —Caes. Borg.
Massinissa, in the New Sophonisba, is also a favourite of the sun:
– The sun too seems
As conscious of my joy, with broader eye
To look abroad the world, and all things smile
Like Sophonisba.
Memnon, in the Persian Princess, makes the sun decline rising, that he may not peep on objects which would profane his brightness:
– The morning rises slow,
And all those ruddy streaks that used to paint
The day's approach are lost in clouds, as if
The horrors of the night had sent 'em back,
To warn the sun he should not leave the sea,
To peep, &c.
]
Nood. This day, O Mr Doodle, is a day
Indeed! – A day, [1] we never saw before.
The mighty [2] Thomas Thumb victorious comes;
Millions of giants crowd his chariot wheels,
[3] Giants! to whom the giants in Guildhall
Are infant dwarfs. They frown, and foam, and roar,
While Thumb, regardless of their noise, rides on.
So some cock-sparrow in a farmer's yard,
Hops at the head of an huge flock of turkeys.
[Footnote 1: This line is highly conformable to the beautiful simplicity of the antients. It hath been copied by almost every modern.
Not to be is not to be in woe. —State of Innocence.
Love is not sin but where 'tis sinful love. —Don Sebastian.
Nature is nature, Laelius. —Sophonisba.
Men are but men, we did not make ourselves. —Revenge. ]
[Footnote 2: Dr B – y reads, The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr D – s, The mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr T – d reads, Thundering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author.]
[Footnote 3: That learned historian Mr S – n, in the third number of his criticism on our author, takes great pains to explode this passage. "It is," says he, "difficult to guess what giants are here meant, unless the giant Despair in the Pilgrim's Progress, or the giant Greatness in the Royal Villain; for I have heard of no other sort of giants in the reign of king Arthur." Petrus Burmannus makes three Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the same person whom the Greeks called Hercules; and that by these giants are to be understood the Centaurs slain by that hero. Another Tom Thumb he contends to have been no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the antients. The third Tom Thumb he places under the reign of king Arthur; to which third Tom Thumb, says he, the actions of the other two were attributed. Now, though I know that this opinion is supported by an assertion of Justus Lipsius, "Thomam illum Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat," yet shall I venture to oppose one line of Mr Midwinter against them all:
In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live.
"But then," says Dr B – y, "if we place Tom Thumb in the court of king Arthur, it will be proper to place that court out of Britain, where no giants were ever heard of." Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, is of another opinion, where, describing Albion, he says,
– Far within a savage nation dwelt
Of hideous giants.
And in the same canto:
Then Elfar, with two brethren giants had,
The one of which had two heads —
The other three.
Risum teneatis, amici. ]
Dood. When Goody Thumb first brought this Thomas forth, The Genius of our land triumphant reign'd; Then, then, O Arthur! did thy Genius reign.
Nood. They tell me it is [1]whisper'd in the books
Of all our sages, that this mighty hero,
By Merlin's art begot, hath not a bone
Within his skin, but is a lump of gristle.
[Footnote 1: "To whisper in books," says Mr D – s, "is arrant nonsense." I am afraid this learned man does not sufficiently understand the extensive meaning of the word whisper. If he had rightly understood what is meant by the "senses whisp'ring the soul," in the Persian Princess, or what "whisp'ring like winds" is in Aurengzebe, or like thunder in another author, he would have understood this. Emmeline in Dryden sees a voice, but she was born blind, which is an excuse Panthea cannot plead in Cyrus, who hears a sight:
– Your description will surpass
All fiction, painting, or dumb shew of horror,
That ever ears yet heard, or eyes beheld.
When Mr D – s understands these, he will understand whispering in books. ]
Dood. Then 'tis a gristle of no mortal kind;
Some God, my Noodle, stept into the place
Of Gaffer Thumb, and more than [1]half begot
This mighty Tom.
[Footnote 1: Some ruffian stept into his father's place, And more than half begot him. —Mary Queen of Scots]
Nood. – [1] Sure he was sent express From Heaven to be the pillar of our state. Though small his body be, so very small A chairman's leg is more than twice as large, Yet is his soul like any mountain big; And as a mountain once brought forth a mouse, [2] So doth this mouse contain a mighty mountain.
[Footnote 1: For Ulamar seems sent express from Heaven, To civilize this rugged Indian clime. —Liberty Asserted]
[Footnote 2: "Omne majus continet in se minus, sed minus non in se majus continere potest," says Scaliger in Thumbo. I suppose he would have cavilled at these beautiful lines in the Earl of Essex:
– Thy most inveterate soul,
That looks through the foul prison of thy body.
And at those of Dryden:
The palace is without too well design'd;
Conduct me in, for I will view thy mind. —Aurengzebe.
]
Dood. Mountain indeed! So terrible his name, [1]The giant nurses frighten children with it, And cry Tom Thumb is come, and if you are Naughty, will surely take the child away.
[Footnote 1: Mr Banks hath copied this almost verbatim:
It was enough to say, here's Essex come,
And nurses still'd their children with the fright.
– Earl of Essex.
]
Nood. But hark! [1]these trumpets speak the king's