Act 3 - Scene 6

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_ ACT III - SCENE VI

SCENE VI.--KING, QUEEN, HUNCAMUNCA, NOODLE.

King.
See where the princess comes! Where is Tom Thumb?

Hunc.
Oh! sir, about an hour and half ago
He sallied out t' encounter with the foe,
And swore, unless his fate had him misled,
From Grizzle's shoulders to cut off his head,
And serve't up with your chocolate in bed.

King.
'Tis well, I found one devil told us both.
Come, Dollallolla, Huncamunca, come;
Within we'll wait for the victorious Thumb;
In peace and safety we secure may stay,
While to his arm we trust the bloody fray;
Though men and giants should conspire with gods,
[1] He is alone equal to all these odds.

[Footnote 1:
"Credat Judaeus Appella,
Non ego,"

says Mr D--. "For, passing over the absurdity of being equal to odds, can we possibly suppose a little insignificant fellow--I say again, a little insignificant fellow--able to vie with a strength which all the Samsons and Herculeses of antiquity would be unable to encounter?" I shall refer this incredulous critick to Mr Dryden's defence of his Almanzor; and, lest that should not satisfy him, I shall quote a few lines from the speech of a much braver fellow than Almanzor, Mr Johnson's Achilles:

Though human race rise in embattled hosts,
To force her from my arms--Oh! son of Atreus!
By that immortal pow'r, whose deathless spirit
Informs this earth, I will oppose them all.--Victim.]

Queen.
He is, indeed,[1] a helmet to us all;
While he supports we need not fear to fall;
His arm despatches all things to our wish?
And serves up ev'ry foe's head in a dish.
Void is the mistress of the house of care,
While the good cook presents the bill of fare;
Whether the cod, that northern king of fish,
Or duck, or goose, or pig, adorn the dish,
No fears the number of her guests afford,
But at her hour she sees the dinner on the board.

[Footnote 1:
"I have heard of being supported by a staff," says Mr
D., "but never of being supported by a helmet." I believe
he never heard of sailing with wings, which he may read
in no less a poet than Mr Dryden:

Unless we borrow wings, and sail through air.
--_Love Triumphant_.

What will he say to a kneeling valley?

----I'll stand
Like a safe valley, that low bends the knee
To some aspiring mountain. --_Injured Love_.

I am ashamed of so ignorant a carper, who doth not know that an epithet in tragedy is very often no other than an expletive. Do not we read in the New Sophonisba of "grinding chains, blue plagues, white occasions, and blue serenity?" Nay, it is not the adjective only, but sometimes half a sentence is put by way of expletive, as, "Beauty pointed high with spirit," in the same play; and, "In the lap of blessing, to be most curst," in the Revenge.] _

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