Mr. Seal. Madam, I can't blame your being a little surprised to see a perfect stranger make a visit, and

Isab. I am indeed surprised!-I see he does not know me.

(Aside.)

Mr. Seal. You are very prettily lodged here, madam; in troth you seem to have everything in plenty-A thousand a year, I warrant you, upon this pretty nest of rooms, and the dainty one within them.

(Aside, and looking about.) Isab. (Apart.) Twenty years, it seems, have less effect in the alteration of a man of thirty than of a girl of fourteenhe's almost still the same; but alas! I find, by other men, as well as himself, I am not what I was. As soon as he spoke, I was convinced 't was he; how shall I contain my surprise and satisfaction! He must not know me yet.

Mr. Seal. Madam, I hope I don't give you any disturbance; but there is a young lady here with whom I have a particular business to discourse, and I hope she will admit me to that favor.

Isab. Why, sir, have you had any notice concerning her? I wonder who could give it you.

Mr. Seal. That, madam, is fit only to be communicated to herself.

Isab. Well, sir! you shall see her.

(Aside.) I find he knows nothing yet, nor shall from me. I am resolved I will observe this interlude, this sport of nature and of fortune.-You shall see her presently, sir; for now I am as a mother, and will trust her with you.

(Exit.)

Mr. Seal. As a mother! right; that's the old phrase for one of those commode 25 ladies, who lend out beauty for hire to young gentlemen that have pressing occasions. But here comes the precious lady herself. In troth a very sightly

woman

(Enter Indiana.)

Ind. I am told, sir, you have some affair that requires your speaking with me. Mr. Seal. Yes, madam, there came to my hands a bill drawn by Mr. Bevil, which is payable to-morrow; and he, in the intercourse of business, sent it to me, who have cash of his, and desired me to send a servant with it; but I have made bold to bring you the money myself. Ind. Sir! was that necessary?

25 accommodating.

Mr. Seal. No, madam; but to be free with you, the fame of your beauty, and the regard which Mr. Bevil is a little too well known to have for you, excited my curiosity.

Ind. Too well known to have for me! Your sober appearance, sir, which my friend described, made me expect no rudeness, or absurdity, at least-Who's there? 20-Sir, if you pay the money to a servant, 't will be as well.

Mr. Seal. Pray, madam, be not offended; I came hither on an innocent, nay, a virtuous design; and, if you will have patience to hear me, it may be as useful to you, as you are in a friendship with Mr. Bevil, as to my only daughter, whom I was this day disposing of.

Ind. You make me hope, sir, I have mistaken you. I am composed again; be free, say on-(Aside.)—what I am afraid to hear.

Mr. Seal. I feared, indeed, an unwarranted passion here, but I did not think it was in abuse of so worthy an object, so accomplished a lady as your sense and mien bespeak; but the youth of our age care not what merit and virtue they bring to shame, so they gratify

Ind. Sir, you are going into very great errors; but as you are pleased to say you see something in me that has changed at least the color of your suspicions, so has your appearance altered mine, and made me earnestly attentive to what has any way concerned you to inquire into my affairs and character.

Mr. Seal. How sensibly, with what an air she talks!

Ind. Good sir, be seated, and tell me tenderly; keep all your suspicions concerning me alive, that you may in a proper and prepared way acquaint me why the care of your daughter obliges a person of your seeming worth and fortune to be thus inquisitive about a wretched, helpless, friendless-(Weeping.) But I beg your pardon; though I am an orphan, your child is not; and your concern for her, it seems, has brought you hither. I'll be composed; pray go on, sir.

Mr. Seal. How could Mr. Bevil be such a monster, to injure such a woman?

Ind. No, sir, you wrong him; he has not injured me. My support is from his bounty.

Mr. Seal. Bounty! when gluttons give

26 A way of calling a servant,

high prices for delicates, they are prodigious bountiful.

Ind. Still, still you will persist in that error. But my own fears tell me all. You are the gentleman, I suppose, for whose happy daughter he is designed a husband by his good father, and he has, perhaps, consented to the overture. He was here this morning, dressed beyond his usual plainness-nay, most sumptuously -and he is to be, perhaps, this night a bridegroom.

Mr. Seal. I own he was intended such; but, madam, on your account, I have determined to defer my daughter's marriage till I am satisfied from your own mouth of what nature are the obligations you are under to him.

Ind. His actions, sir; his eyes have only made me think he designed to make me the partner of his heart. The goodness

and gentleness of his demeanor made me misinterpret all. 'T was my own hope, my own passion, that deluded me; he never made one amorous advance to me. His large heart, and bestowing hand, have only helped the miserable; nor know I why, but from his mere delight in virtue, that I have been his care and the object on which to indulge and please himself with pouring favors.

Mr. Seal. Madam, I know not why it is, but I, as well as you, am methinks afraid of entering into the matter I came about; but 't is the same thing as if we had talked never so distinctly-he ne'er shall have a daughter of mine.

Ind. If you say this from what you think

of me, you wrong yourself and him. Let not me, miserable though I may be, do injury to my benefactor. No, sir, my treatment ought rather to reconcile you to his virtues. If to bestow without a prospect of return; if to delight in supporting what might, perhaps, be thought an object of desire, with no other view than to be her guard against those who would not be so disinterested; if these actions, sir, can in a careful parent's eye commend him to a daughter, give yours, sir, give her to my honest, generous Bevil. What have I to do but sigh, and weep, and rave, run wild, a lunatic in chains, or, hid in darkness, mutter in distracted starts and broken accents my strange, strange story!

Mr. Seal. Take comfort, madam. Ind. All my comfort must be to expostulate in madness, to relieve with frenzy my

despair, and shrieking to demand of fate why-why was I born to such variety of

sorrows.

Mr. Seal. If I have been the least occasion

Ind. No, 't was Heaven's high will I should be such; to be plundered in my cradle! tossed on the seas! and even there an infant captive! to lose my mother, hear but of my father! to be adopted! lose my adopter! then plunged again into worse calamities!

Mr. Seal. An infant captive!

Ind. Yet then, to find the most charming of mankind, once more to set me free from what I thought the last distress, to load me with his services, his bounties, and his favors; to support my very life in a way that stole, at the same time, my very soul itself from me.

Mr. Seal. And has young Bevil been this worthy man?

Ind. Yet then, again, this very man to take another! without leaving me the right, the pretence of easing my fond heart with tears! For, oh! I can't reproach him, though the same hand that raised me to this height now throws me down the precipice.

Mr. Seal. Dear lady! Oh, yet one moment's patience: my heart grows full with your affliction.-But yet there's something in your story that

Ind. My portion here is bitterness and

Ind. What new amazement? That is, indeed, my family.

Mr. Seal. Know, then, when my misfortunes drove me to the Indies, for reasons too tedious now to mention, I changed my name of Danvers into Sealand.

(Enter Isabella.)

Isab. If yet there wants an explanation of your wonder, examine well this face (yours, sir, I well remember), gaze on and read in me your sister, Isabella. Mr. Seal. My sister!

Isab. But here's a claim more tender yet your Indiana, sir, your long-lost daughter.

Mr. Seal. Oh, my child! my child! Ind. All-gracious Heaven! is it possible! do I embrace my father?

Mr. Seal. And do I hold thee?-These passions are too strong for utterance. Rise, rise, my child, and give my tears their way.-Oh, my sister!

(Embracing her.)

Isab. Now, dearest niece, my groundless fears, my painful cares no more shall vex thee. If I have wronged thy noble lover with too much suspicion, my just concern for thee, I hope, will plead my pardon. Mr. Seal. Oh! make him, then, the full amends, and be yourself the messenger of joy. Fly this instant! tell him all these wondrous turns of Providence in his favor! Tell him I have now a daughter to bestow which he no longer will decline; that this day he still shall be a bridegroom; nor shall a fortune, the merit which his father seeks, be wanting. Tell him the reward of all his virtues waits on his acceptance. (Exit Isab.) My dearest Indiana!

(Turns and embraces her.) Ind. Have I, then, at last, a father's sanction on my love? His bounteous hand to give, and make my heart a present worthy of Bevil's generosity?

Mr. Seal. Oh, my child! how are our sorrows past o'erpaid by such a meeting! Though I have lost so many years of soft paternal dalliance with thee, yet, in one day to find thee thus, and thus bestow thee, in such perfect happiness, is ample, ample reparation!-And yet, again, the merit of thy lover

Ind. Oh! had I spirits left to tell you of his actions! how strongly filial duty has suppressed his love; and how concealment still has doubled all his obligations; the

pride, the joy of his alliance, sir, would warm your heart, as he has conquered mine.

Mr. Seal. How laudable is love when born of virtue! I burn to embrace himInd. See, sir, my aunt already has succeeded, and brought him to your wishes. (Enter Isabella, with Sir John Bevil, Bevil, Jun., Mrs. Sealand, Cimberton, Myrtle, and Lucinda.)

Sir J. Bev. (Entering.) Where, where's this scene of wonder? Mr. Sealand, I congratulate, on this occasion, our mutual happiness-Your good sister, sir, has, with the story of your daughter's fortune, filled us with surprise and joy. Now all exceptions are removed; my son has now avowed his love, and turned all former jealousies and doubts to approbation; and, I am told, your goodness has consented to reward him.

Mr. Seal. If, sir, a fortune equal to his father's hopes can make this object worthy his acceptance.

Bev. Jun. I hear your mention, sir, of fortune, with pleasure only as it may prove the means to reconcile the best of fathers to my love. Let him be provident, but let me be happy.-My ever-destined, my acknowledged wife!

(Embracing Indiana.) Ind. Wife! Oh, my ever loved! My lord! my master!

Sir J. Bev. I congratulate myself, as well as you, that I had a son who could, under such disadvantages, discover your great merit.

Mr. Seal. Oh, Sir John! how vain, how weak is human prudence! What care, what foresight, what imagination could contrive such blest events, to make our children happy, as Providence in one short hour has laid before us?

Cimb. (To Mrs. Sealand.) I am afraid, madam, Mr. Sealand is a little too busy

for our affair. If you please, we'll take another opportunity.

Mrs. Seal. Let us have patience, sir. Cimb. But we make Sir Geoffry wait, madam.

Myrt. O, sir, I am not in haste.

(During this Bev. Jun. presents Lucinda to

Indiana.)

Mr. Seal. But here! here's our general benefactor! Excellent young man, that could be at once a lover to her beauty and a parent to her virtue.

Bev. Jun. If you think that an obligation,

sir, give me leave to overpay myself, in the only instance that can now add to my felicity, by begging you to bestow this lady on Mr. Myrtle.

Mr. Seal. She is his without reserve; I beg he may be sent for. Mr. Cimberton, notwithstanding you never had my consent, yet there is, since I last saw you, another objection to your marriage with my daughter.

Cimb. I hope, sir, your lady has concealed nothing from me?

Mr. Seal. Troth, sir, nothing but what was concealed from myself-another daughter, who has an undoubted title to half my estate.

Cimb. How, Mr. Sealand? Why, then, if half Mrs. Lucinda's fortune is gone, you can't say that any of my estate is settled upon her. I was in treaty for the whole; but if that is not to be come at, to be sure there can be no bargain. Sir, I have nothing to do but to take my leave of your good lady, my cousin, and beg pardon for the trouble I have given this old gentleman.

Myrt. That you have, Mr. Cimberton, with all my heart.

(Discovers himself.) All. Mr. Myrtle!

Myrt. And I beg pardon of the whole company that I assumed the person of Sir Geoffry, only to be present at the danger of this lady's being disposed of, and in her utmost exigence to assert my right to her; which, if her parents will

Mr. Seal. If, sir, you can overlook the injury of being in treaty with one who as meanly left her, as you have generously asserted your right in her, she is yours. Luc. Mr. Myrtle, though you have ever had my heart, yet now I find I love you more, because I bring you less.

Myrt. We have much more than we want; and I am glad any event has contributed to the discovery of our real inclinations to each other.

Mrs. Seal. Well! however, I'm glad the girl's disposed of, anyway. (Aside.)

Bev. Myrtle, no longer rivals now, but brothers!

Myrt. Dear Bevil, you are born to triumph over me! but now our competition ceases; I rejoice in the pre-eminence of your virtue, and your alliance adds charms to Lucinda.

Sir J. Bev. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have set the world a fair example: your happiness is owing to your constancy and merit; and the several difficulties you have struggled with evidently show

Whate'er the generous mind itself denies, The secret care of Providence supplies. (Exeunt.)

Henry Fielding (1707-1754), of aristocratic birth and pleasure-loving disposition, began writing plays as the best-paying form of literature, most of them being comedies more or less after the pattern of Molière and Congreve. He best shows his comic ability in his burlesques and farces. Tom Thumb (the fourth of twenty-seven plays) was first acted, at the Haymarket Theater, in 1730, was enlarged to three acts in 1731, and published in both years; in an altered form it held the stage till well on in the nineteenth century. At the age of thirty Fielding abandoned the stage for the law, and a few years later began the series of great novels which mainly support his fame; a word of admiration can be spared also for his essays.

Fielding was a born parodist. Endlessly clever, versatile, vigorous, with a strong though not fine feeling for style, a great sense of the ridiculous, and exhaustless common-sense, he could have had no mercy on unreality, pomposity, pretentiousness, and sentimentality. His fling at sentimentality is in a novel, later and more celebrated than this play. In 1740 Samuel Richardson had published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, which seemed to Fielding petty and fine-drawn, and he responded in 1742 with Joseph Andrews. Thus from the first fully-developed novel of emotion was born the first fullydeveloped novel of incident. For the mood of mockery died away as Fielding became more interested, and a creative spirit replaced it.

In his earlier burlesque he maintains throughout the spirit of delicious derision. There was no new type of fiction ready for the birth. In a highly diverting Preface to Tom Thumb, all as fictitious as the fantastic name, H. Scriblerus Secundus, under which he wrote it, he states that some publicly affirmed that no author could produce so fine a piece but Mr. P- [Pope]; others have with as much vehemence insisted that no one could write anything so bad but Mr. F [Fielding]." After recording the ponderous praises it had received from universities and critics, and how "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 received it with that reverend

and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy," he rejects with seeming indignation the notion that it was meant to be ludicrous, and, hinting that it may be by Shakespeare, confidently dates it in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He continues by applauding, in received critical style, "the Fable, the Moral, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction." Thus in the Preface, as well as in some of the notes, he has his joke at the expense of the portentous style and deficient insight of some scholars and critics of his day, who he avers have wagged their heavy heads over this eminent work. The similarities between it and other plays of the preceding seventy years he affects to be uncertain whether to attribute to coincidence or to their imitation of his author; but in the notes intimates that it has been pillaged right and left, till, like Hamlet, it seems to be made up of nothing but quotations.

The "heroic plays" are particularly though not wholly the object of his mirth, and among them The Conquest of Granada comes in for its full share. Like Almanzor, though probably not especially imitated from him, Tom Thumb has his moments of modesty or at least of courtesy, but not unlike the other he announces,

I ask not kingdoms, I can conquer those. Like Almanzor he is devoted to honor only less than to love, and comes from preterhuman victory to lay his heart at the feet of the fair. Like Almanzor (in part II) King Arthur not only faces but threatens a ghost; a scene which poor saturnine Dean Swift said was one of the two things in his life which had made him laugh. Several scenes are in the rhymed couplet, which Fielding sometimes varies by such grotesque Browning-like rhymes as "Are you drunk, ha?" Huncamunca." The unities are observed with a strictness to set the heart of Castelvetro aglow. Like the classical tragedies of the day, the play has a moral, which when stated is as usually a platitude; "it teaches these two instructive lessons,' says the Preface, 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 person

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