Chapter 37

_Par_. Happy's the wooing that's not long a doing; For, if I guess right, Tom Thumb this night Shall give a being to a new Tom Thumb.

_Thumb_. It shall be my endeavour so to do.

_Hunc_. Oh! fie upon you, sir, you make me blush.

_Thumb_. It is the virgin's sign, and suits you well: [1] I know not where, nor how, nor what I am; [2] I am so transported, I have lost myself.

[Footnote 1: Nor know I whether What am I, who, or where. --_Busiris_.

I was I know not what, and am I know not how. --_Gloriana_. ]

[Footnote 2: To understand sufficiently the beauty of this passage, it will be necessary that we comprehend every man to contain two selfs. I shall not attempt to prove this from philosophy, which the poets make so plainly evident.

One runs away from the other:

----Let me demand your majesty, Why fly you from yourself? --_Duke of Guise_.

In a second, one self is a guardian to the other:

Leave me the care of me. --_Conquest of Granada_.

Again:

Myself am to myself less near. --_Ibid_.

In the same, the first self is proud of the second:

I myself am proud of me. --_State of Innocence_.

In a third, distrustful of him:

Fain I would tell, but whisper it in my ear, That none besides might hear, nay, not myself. --_Earl of Essex_.

In a fourth, honours him:

I honour Rome, And honour too myself. --_Sophonisba_.

In a fifth, at variance with him:

Leave me not thus at variance with myself. --_Busiris_.

Again, in a sixth:

I find myself divided from myself. --_Medea_.

She seemed the sad effigies of herself. --_Banks_.

Assist me, Zulema, if thou would'st be The friend thou seem'st, assist me against me. --_Albion Queens_.

From all which it appears that there are two selfs; and therefore Tom Thumb's losing himself is no such solecism as it hath been represented by men rather ambitious of criticising than qualified to criticise. ]

_Hunc_. Forbid it, all ye stars, for you're so small. That were you lost, you'd find yourself no more. So the unhappy sempstress once, they say, Her needle in a pottle, lost, of hay; In vain she look'd, and look'd, and made her moan, For ah, the needle was forever gone.

_Par_. Long may they live, and love, and propagate, Till the whole land be peopled with Tom Thumbs! [1] So, when the Cheshire cheese a maggot breeds, Another and another still succeeds: By thousands and ten thousands they increase, Till one continued maggot fills the rotten cheese.

[Footnote 1: Mr F---- imagines this parson to have been a Welsh one from his simile.]