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.]
SCENE X.—NOODLE, and then GRIZZLE.
Nood. [1] Sure, Nature means to break her solid chain,
Or else unfix the world, and in a rage
To hurl it from its axletree and hinges;
All things are so confused, the king's in love,
The queen is drunk, the princess married is.
[Footnote 1: Our author hath been plundered here, according to custom
Great nature, break thy chain that links together
The fabrick of the world, and make a chaos
Like that within my soul.—Love Triumphant.
——Startle Nature, unfix the globe,
And hurl it from its axletree and hinges.
—Albion Queens.
The tott'ring earth seems sliding off its props.
]