The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12. Fielding Harold

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СКАЧАТЬ Har. All that any modest woman can require.

       Money. If he has given you all a modest woman can require, I am afraid he has given you more than a modest woman should take: because he has been so good a lodger, I suppose I shall have some more of the family to keep. It is probable I shall live to see half a dozen grandsons of mine in Grub-street.

      SCENE XI. – MONEYWOOD, HARRIOT, JACK

       Jack. Oh, madam! the man whom you took for a bailiff is certainly some great man; he has a vast many jewels and other fine things about him; he offered me twenty guineas to shew him my master, and has given away so much money among the chairmen, that some folks believe he intends to stand member of parliament for Westminster.

       Money. Nay, then, I am sure he is worth inquiring into. So, d'ye hear, sirrah, make as much haste as you can before me, and desire him to part with no more money till I come.

       Har. So, now my mother is in pursuit of money, I may securely go in pursuit of my lover: and I am mistaken, good mamma, if e'en you would not think that the better pursuit of the two.

      In generous love transporting raptures lie,

      Which age, with all its treasures, cannot buy.

      THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; OR, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM THUMB THE GREAT

      WITH THE ANNOTATIONS OF H. SCRIBLERUS SECUNDUS

      FIRST ACTED IN 1730, AND ALTERED IN 1731.

      H. SCRIBLERUS SECUNDUS,

HIS PREFACE

      THE town hath seldom been more divided in its opinion than concerning the merit of the following scenes. While some publickly affirmed that no author could produce so fine a piece but Mr P – , others have with as much vehemence insisted that no one could write anything so bad but Mr F – .

      Nor can we wonder at this dissension about its merit, when the learned would have not unanimously decided even the very nature of this tragedy. For though most of the universities in Europe have honoured it with the name of "Egregium et maximi pretii opus, tragoediis tam antiquis quam novis longe anteponendum;" nay, Dr B – hath pronounced, "Citius Maevii Aeneadem quam Scribleri istrus tragoediam hanc crediderium, cujus autorem Senecam ipsum tradidisse haud dubitarim: " and the great professor Burman hath styled Tom Thumb "Heroum omnium tragicorum facile principem: " nay, though it hath, among other languages, been translated into Dutch, and celebrated with great applause at Amsterdam (where burlesque never came) by the title of Mynheer Vander Thumb, the burgomasters receiving it with that reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy. Notwithstanding all this, there have not been wanting some who have represented these scenes in a ludicrous light; and Mr D – hath been heard to say, with some concern, that he wondered a tragical and Christian nation would permit a representation on its theatre so visibly designed to ridicule and extirpate everything that is great and solemn among us.

      This learned critick and his followers were led into so great an error by that surreptitious and piratical copy which stole last year into the world; with what injustice and prejudice to our author will be acknowledged, I hope, by every one who shall happily peruse this genuine and original copy. Nor can I help remarking, to the great praise of our author, that, however imperfect the former was, even that faint resemblance of the true Tom Thumb contained sufficient beauties to give it a run of upwards of forty nights to the politest audiences. But, notwithstanding that applause which it received from all the best judges, it was as severely censured by some few bad ones, and, I believe rather maliciously than ignorantly, reported to have been intended a burlesque on the loftiest parts of tragedy, and designed to banish what we generally call fine things from the stage.

      Now, if I can set my country right in an affair of this importance, I shall lightly esteem any labour which it may cost. And this I the rather undertake, first, as it is indeed in some measure incumbent on me to vindicate myself from that surreptitious copy before mentioned, published by some ill-meaning people under my name; secondly, as knowing myself more capable of doing justice to our author than any other man, as I have given myself more pains to arrive at a thorough understanding of this little piece, having for ten years together read nothing else; in which time, I think, I may modestly presume, with the help of my English dictionary, to comprehend all the meanings of every word in it.

      But should any error of my pen awaken Clariss. Bentleium to enlighten the world with his annotations on our author, I shall not think that the least reward or happiness arising to me from these my endeavours.

      I shall waive at present what hath caused such feuds in the learned world, whether this piece was originally written by Shakspeare, though certainly that, were it true, must add a considerable share to its merit, especially with such who are so generous as to buy and commend what they never read, from an implicit faith in the author only: a faith which our age abounds in as much as it can be called deficient in any other.

      Let it suffice, that THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; or, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM THUMB, was written in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Nor can the objection made by Mr D – , that the tragedy must then have been antecedent to the history, have any weight, when we consider that, though the HISTORY OF TOM THUMB, printed by and for Edward M – r, at the Looking-glass on London-bridge, be of a later date, still must we suppose this history to have been transcribed from some other, unless we suppose the writer thereof to be inspired: a gift very faintly contended for by the writers of our age. As to this history's not bearing the stamp of second, third, or fourth edition, I see but little in that objection; editions being very uncertain lights to judge of books by; and perhaps Mr M – r may have joined twenty editions in one, as Mr C – l hath ere now divided one into twenty.

      Nor doth the other argument, drawn from the little care our author hath taken to keep up to the letter of this history, carry any greater force. Are there not instances of plays wherein the history is so perverted, that we can know the heroes whom they celebrate by no other marks than their names? nay, do we not find the same character placed by different poets in such different lights, that we can discover not the least sameness, or even likeness, in the features? The Sophonisba of Mairet and of Lee is a tender, passionate, amorous mistress of Massinissa: Corneille and Mr Thomson give her no other passion but the love of her country, and make her as cool in her affection to Massinissa as to Syphax. In the two latter she resembles the character of queen Elizabeth; in the two former she is the picture of Mary queen of Scotland. In short, the one Sophonisba is as different from the other as the Brutus of Voltaire is from the Marius, jun., of Otway, or as the Minerva is from the Venus of the ancients.

      Let us now proceed to a regular examination of the tragedy before us, in which I shall treat separately of the Fable, the Moral, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction. And first of the

      Fable; which I take to be the most simple imaginable; and, to use the words of an eminent author, "one, regular, and uniform, not charged with a multiplicity of incidents, and yet affording several revolutions of fortune, by which the passions may be excited, varied, and driven to their full tumult of emotion." – Nor is the action of this tragedy less great than uniform. The spring of all is the love of Tom Thumb for Huncamunca; which caused the quarrel between their majesties in the first act; the passion of Lord Grizzle in the second; the rebellion, fall of Lord Grizzle and Glumdalca, devouring of Tom Thumb by the cow, and that bloody catastrophe, in the third.

      Nor is the Moral of this excellent tragedy less noble than the Fable; it teaches these two instructive lessons, viz., that human happiness is exceeding transient; and that death is the certain end of all men: the former whereof is inculcated by the fatal end of Tom Thumb; the latter, by that of all the other personages.

      The Characters are, I think, sufficiently described in the dramatis СКАЧАТЬ