Hunc. Oh! sir, about an hour and half Void is the mistress of the house of care,
ago
While the good cook presents the bill of
fare;

He sallied out to 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,

113 He is alone equal to all these odds.

113

Queen. He is, indeed, 114 a helmet to us
all;

While he supports we need not fear to fall;
His arm dispatches all things to our wish,
And serves up every foe's head in a dish.
"Credat Judæus Appella,
Non ego,"
says Mr. D.
For, passing over the ab-
surdity of being equal to odds, can we pos-
sibly 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 incredu-
lous critic 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 power, whose deathless
spirit

Informs this earth, I will oppose them all.
Victim.

114 "I have heard of being supported by a
staff," says Mr. D., "but never of being
supported by an 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.

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.

SCENE VII

A Plain. GRIZZLE, FOODLE, and Rebels.

Griz. Thus far our arms with victory are crowned;

For, though we have not fought, yet we have found

115 No enemy to fight withal.

Food.
Yet I,
Methinks, would willingly avoid this day,
110 This first of April, to engage our foes.
Gris. This day, of all the days of the year,
I'd choose,

For on this day my grandmother was born.
Gods! I will make Tom Thumb an April-
fool;

117 Will teach his wit an errand it ne'er knew,

And send it post to the Elysian shades.

Food. I'm glad to find our army is so
stout,

Nor does it move my wonder less than joy.
Griz. 118 What friends we have, and how

124 For, lo! a sight more glorious courts thy

eyes.

120 As if the gods meant to unhinge the world; And heaven and earth in wild confusion See from afar a theatre arise; hurl; There ages, yet unborn, shall tribute pay Yet will I boldly tread the tottering ball. To the heroic actions of this day; Merl. Tom Thumb! Then buskin tragedy at length shall choose Thumb. Thy name the best supporter of her muse. Merl. Thumb. Enough: let every warlike music sound.

What voice is this I hear?
Tom Thumb!

Thumb. Again it calls.

Merl.

Tom Thumb!

Glum.
It calls again.
Thumb. Appear, whoe'er thou art; I fear
thee not.

Merl. Thou hast no cause to fear, I am
thy friend,

Merlin by name, a conjurer by trade,

And to my art thou dost thy being owe.
Thumb. How!

Merl. Hear then the mystic getting of
Tom Thumb.

121 His father was a ploughman plain,
His mother milked the cow;
And yet the way to get a son

This couple knew not how.

Until such time the good old man
To learned Merlin goes,
And there to him, in great distress,
In secret manner shows;

How in his heart he wished to have

A child, in time to come,
To be his heir, though it may be
No bigger than his thumb:
Of which old Merlin was foretold
That he his wish should have;
And so a son of stature small
The charmer to him gave.

Thou'st heard the past, look up and see

the

my

See there, Glumdalca, see another 123 me! Glum. O, sight of horror! see, you are devoured

By the expanded jaws of a red cow.

Merl. Let not these sights deter thy noble mind,

We fall contented, if we fall renown'd.

124 The character of Merlin is wonderful throughout; but most so in this prophetic part. We find several of these prophecies in the tragic authors, who frequently take this opportunity to pay a compliment to their country, and sometimes to their prince. None but our author (who seems to have detested the least appearance of flattery) would have passed by such an opportunity of being a political prophet.

125 I saw the villain, Myron; with these eyes
Busiris.
I saw him.
In both which places it is intimated that it
is sometimes possible to see with other eyes

120 Were heaven and earth in wild confusion than your own. hurled,

Should the rash gods unhinge the rolling
world,

Undaunted would I tread the tottering ball,
Crushed, but unconquered, in the dreadful
fall.
Female Warrior.

121 See the History of Tom Thumb, page 2.
122 Amazement swallows up my sense,
And in the impetuous whirl of circling fate
Drinks down my reason.
Persian Princess.
I have outfaced myself.
What! am I two? Is there another me?

123

128 This mustard," says Mr. D., "is I would be enough to turn one's stomach. glad to know what idea the author had in his This will be, I behead when he wrote it." lieve, best explained by a line of Mr. Dennis: And gave him liberty, the salt of life. Liberty Asserted. The understanding that can digest the one will not rise at the other. 127 Han. Are you the chief whom famed Scipio call?

King Arthur.

men

Scip. Are you the much more famous

Hannibal?

Hannibal.

128 Dr. Young seems to have copied this Of Princess Huncamunca and Tom Thumb; engagement in his Buriris:

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

66

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, who touched nothing that he did not adorn," assayed no dramatic composition until near his fortieth year. His days of ragged roving and garret toil were then so far behind him, "Noll Goldsmith, hack-writer," had so long since given place to the great Dr. Goldsmith, the friend of Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke, and member of the famous "Literary Club," that his early struggles need not long detain us. His birth in the mean hamlet of Pallas in Longford, Ireland, November 10, 1728; his desultory boyhood in his father's poor parish and at many an Irish school; his four unhappy years at Trinity College, Dublin; the season of idle waiting and of aimless wandering that followed, are of little import to the student of his dramas. "He was a plant that flowered late," said Dr. Johnson; "there appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young."

With the thirties close upon him, came London years of the lean kine, during which he tried his hand at every calling-apothecary's clerk, physician, corrector of the press, usher at Peckham School. His literary career opens ignobly as a publisher's hack, making prefaces to order, grinding out reviews, revamping books with butterfly lives. But before he had reached the "mezzo cammin of life, he had entered upon the great work which he was destined to do. The admirable prose of The Bee and of The Citizen of the World was succeeded by the more admirable verse of The Traveller in 1764 and of The Hermit in 1765. After The Vicar of Wakefield of the next year, no one can question Goldsmith's claim to the rank which his genius has won. During the few years that remain to him there are other great achievements, that make us quite forget the hack-work of his Histories and of Animated Nature (1769-1774). The Deserted Village (1770) is as memorable as his dramas. Then night closes about him, and early in April, 1774, his body finds a resting-place under the stones of the Temple.

Goldsmith's supremacy in every field of his various endeavor is so readily acknowledged now and his merits seem so very obvious, that it is hard for us to realize the struggles through which he came into his own.