[85j


THE    LIFE    AND    DEATH    OF

Hunc.    Too  sure  ;  't  is  written  in  the  book  of  fate.
Thumb.    ^  Then  I  will  tear  away  the  leaf
Wherein  it's  writ ;  or,  if  fate  won't  allow
So  large  a  gap  within  its  journal-book,
1 11  blot  it  out  at  least.
Scene  VII.  —  Glumdalca,  Tom  Thumb,  Huncamunca.
Glum.   2 1  need  not  ask  if  you  are  Huncamunca.
Your  brandy-nose  proclaims

Hunc.  I  am  a  princess ;

Nor  need  I  ask  who  you  are.
Glum.  A  giantess ;

The  queen  of  those  who  made  and  unmade  queens.
Hunc.    The  man  whose  chief  ambition  is  to  be
My  sweetheart  hath  destroyed  these  mighty  giants.
Glum.    Your  sweetheart  ?     Dost  thou  think   the
man  who  once
Hath  worn  my  easy  chains  will  e'er  wear  thine?

Hunc.    Well  may  your  chains  be  easy,  since,  if
fame
Says  true,  they  have  been  tried  on  twent}'  husbands.
1  Good  Heaven  !  the  book  of  fate  before  me  lay,
But  to  tear  out  the  journal  of  that  day.
Or,  if  the  order  of  the  world  below  -\

Will  not  the  gap  of  one  whole  day  allow,  >

Give  me  that  minute  when  she  made  her  vow.      )

—  Conquest  of  Granada.
^  I  know  some  of  the  commentators  have  imagined  that
Mr.  Dryden,  in  the  altercative  scene  between  Cleopatra  and
Octavia,  a  scene  which  Mr.  Addison  inveighs  against  with
great  bitterness,  is  much  beholden  to  our  author.  How  just
this  their  observation  is  I  will  not  presume  to  determine.
[86]


TOM    THUMB    THE    GREAT

^The  glove  or  boot,  so  many  times  pulPd  on,
May  well  sit  easy  on  the  hand  or  foot.
