Henry Fielding

“ Upon looking full in his face I thought I had seen it before; nor was it long before I recollected where it was, and that this was the same beau I had met with in Somersetshire. The difference in the same man in London, where he was known, and in the country, where he was a stranger, was beyond expression; and, was it not impertinent to make observations to you, I could inlarge upon this sort of behaviour; for I am firmly of opinion that there is neither spirit nor good sense in oaths, nor any wit or humour in blasphemy. ”

“ Sir, I would not have you think I give up the cause of tragedy; but my ghost, being ill, sir, cannot get up without danger, and I would not risque the life of my ghost on any account.
Trap. You are in the right on't, sir; for a ghost is the soul of tragedy.
Fust. Ay, sir, I think it is not amiss to remind people of those things which they are now-a-days too apt to disbelieve; besides, we have lately had an act against witches, and I don't question but shortly we shall have one against ghosts. But come, Mr Trapwit, as we are for this once to give the precedence to comedy, e'en let us begin. ”

“ Certain it is, that the highest pleasure which we are capable of enjoying in conversation is to be met with only in the society of persons whose understanding is pretty near on an equality with our own; nor is this equality only necessary to enable men of exalted genius and extensive knowledge to taste the sublimer pleasures of communicating their refined ideas to each other; but it is likewise necessary to the inferior happiness of every subordinate degree of society, down to the very lowest. ”

“ Now, what less than the highest degree of ill-nature can permit a man to pamper his own vanity at the price of another's shame? Is the glutton, who, to raise the flavour of his dish, puts some birds or beasts to exquisite torment, more cruel to the animal than this our proud man to his own species?
This character then is a composition made up of those odious, contemptible qualities, pride, folly, arrogance, insolence, and ill-nature. ”

“ Where is Tom Thumb?
Hunc. Oh! sir, about an hour and half ago
He sallied out t' 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, [1] He is alone equal to all these odds. ”

“ SCENE IX.—Mrs MONEYWOOD, WITMORE. Money. Yes, sir; and, sir, a man that has never shewn one the colour of his money.
Wit. Very hard, truly. How much may he be in your debt, pray? Because he has ordered me to pay you.
Money. Ay! sir, I wish he had.
Wit. I am serious, I assure you.
Money. I am very glad to hear it, sir. Here is the bill as we settled it this very morning. I always thought, indeed, Mr Luckless had a great deal of honesty in his principles: any man may be unfortunate; but I knew when he had money I should have it; and what signifies dunning a man when he hath it not? ”

“ Now, Mr Sneerwell, we shall begin my third and last act; and I believe I may defy all the poets who have ever writ, or ever will write, to produce its equal: it is, sir, so crammed with drums and trumpets, thunder and lightning, battles and ghosts, that I believe the audience will want no entertainment after it: it is as full of shew as Merlin's cave itself; and for wit—no rope-dancing or tumbling can come near it. ”

“ Respect and deference are perhaps justly demandable of the obliged, and may be, with some reason at least, from expectation, paid to the rich and liberal from the necessitous; but that men should be allured by the glittering of wealth only to feed the insolent pride of those who will not in return feed their hunger—that the sordid niggard should find any sacrifices on the altar of his vanity—seems to arise from a blinder idolatry, and a more bigoted and senseless superstition, than any which the sharp eyes of priests have discovered in the human mind. ”

“ Mrs M. But I am for a standing army, sir; a standing army is a good thing: you pretend to be afraid of your liberties and your properties—you are afraid of your wives and daughters: I love to see soldiers in the town; and you may say what you will, I know the town loses nothing by 'em.
May. The women don't, I believe.
Mrs M. And I'll have you know, the women's wants shall be considered, as well as yours. I think my lord and the colonel do you too much honour in offering to represent such a set of clownish, dirty, beggarly animals—Ah! I wish we women were to choose. ”

“ Let Socrates, for instance, institute a discourse on the nature of the soul, or Plato reason on the native beauty of virtue, and Aristotle on his occult qualities—What must become of our dancing-masters? Would they not stare at one another with surprise, and, most probably, at our philosophers with contempt? Would they have any pleasure in such society? or would they not rather wish themselves in a dancing-school, or a green-room at the playhouse? What, therefore, have our philosophers to do but to lower themselves to those who cannot rise to them? ”

“ SCENE VI.—To them, LUCKLESS. Luck. Mr Bookweight, your servant. Who can form to himself an idea more amiable than of a man at the head of so many patriots working for the benefit of their country.
Book. Truly, sir, I believe it is an idea more agreeable to you than that of a gentleman in the Crown-office paying thirty or forty guineas for abusing an honest tradesman.
Luck. Pshaw! that was only jocosely done, and a man who lives by wit must not be angry at a jest. ”

“ Luck. Hast thou been in thy trade so long, and talk of money to a modern author? You might as well have talked Latin or Greek to him. I have brought you paper, sir.
Book. That is not bringing me money, I own. Have you brought me an opera?
Luck. You may call it an opera if you will, but I call it a puppet-show.
Book. A puppet-show!
Luck. Ay, a puppet show; and is to be played this night at Drury-lane playhouse.
Book. A puppet-show in a playhouse!
Luck. Ay, why, what have been all the playhouses a long while but puppet-shows? ”

“ Where do you think these courtiers get the money they bribe you with, but from yourselves? Do you think a man who will give a bribe won't take one? If you would be served faithfully, you must choose faithfully, and give your vote on no consideration but merit; for my part, I would as soon suborn an evidence at an assize as a vote at an election.
May. I do believe you, Sir Harry.
Sir H. Mr Mayor, I hope you received those three bucks I sent you, and that they were good.
May. Sir Harry, I thank you for them; but 'tis so long since I eat them that I have forgot the taste. ”

“ What is this less than an insult on the company over whom he thus affects a superiority, and whose time he sacrifices to his vanity?
Wisely different is the amiable conduct of Sophronus; who, though he exceeds the former in knowledge, can submit to discourse on the most trivial matters, rather than introduce such as his company are utter strangers to. He can talk of fashions and diversions among the ladies; nay, can even condescend to horses and dogs with country gentlemen. This gentleman, who is equal to dispute on the highest and abstrusest points, can likewise talk on a fan or a horse-race ”

“ The lawyers cannot rob men of their rights;
Physicians cannot dose away their souls;
A courtier's promise will not be believed;
Nor broken citizens again be trusted.
A thousand newspapers cannot subsist
In which there is not any news at all.
Playhouses cannot flourish, while they dare
To nonsense give an entertainment's name.
Shakspeare, and Jonson, Dryden, Lee, and Rowe,
Thou wilt not bear to yield to Sadler's Wells;
Thou wilt not suffer men of wit to starve,
And fools, for only being fools, to thrive. ”

“ Thou art too satirical on mankind. It is possible to thrive in the world by justifiable means.
Wit. Ay, justifiable, and so they are justifiable by custom. What does the soldier or physician thrive by but slaughter?—the lawyer but by quarrels?—the courtier but by taxes?—the poet but by flattery? I know none that thrive by profiting mankind, but the husbandman and the merchant: the one gives you the fruit of your own soil, the other brings you those from abroad ”

“ Miss M. Notwithstanding all you have said, madam, I should be a brute not to pity you under this calamity: comfort yourself, child, I have a fan the exact fellow to it; if you bring your sweetheart over to vote for the colonel you shall have it.
Miss S. And can I sell my country for a fan? What's my country to me? I shall never get a fan by it. And will you give it me for nothing?
Miss M. I'll make you a free present of it.
Miss S. I am ashamed of your conquest, but I'll take the fan.
Miss M. And now, my dear, we'll go and drink a dish of tea
together. ”

“ If I prefer my excellence in poetry to Pope or Young; if an inferior actor should, in his opinion, exceed Quin or Garrick; or a sign-post painter set himself above the inimitable Hogarth, we become only ridiculous by our vanity: and the persons themselves who are thus humbled in the comparison, would laugh with more reason than any other. Pride, therefore, hitherto seems an inoffensive weakness only, and entitles a man to no worse an appellation than that of a fool; but it will not stop here: though fool be perhaps no desirable term, the proud man will deserve worse ”

“ If dress is their only title, sure even the monkey, if as well dressed, is on as high a footing as the beau. But perhaps I shall be told they challenge their dignity from birth; that is a poor and mean pretence to honour when supported with no other. Persons who have no better claim to superiority should be ashamed of this; they are really a disgrace to those very ancestors from whom they would derive their pride, and are chiefly happy in this, that they want the very moderate portion of understanding which would enable them to despise themselves. ”

“ The qualities of the mind do, in reality, establish the truest superiority over one another: yet should not these so far elevate our pride as to inflate us with contempt, and make us look down on our fellow-creatures as on animals of an inferior order; but that the fortuitous accident of birth, the acquisition of wealth, with some outward ornaments of dress, should inspire men with an insolence capable of treating the rest of mankind with disdain, is so preposterous that nothing less than daily experience could give it credit. ”

“ Seraphina herself can make no impression on the rough temper of Agroicus; neither her quality nor her beauty can exact the least complacence from him; and he would let her lovely limbs ach rather than offer her his chair: while the gentle Lyperus tumbles over benches and overthrows tea-tables to take up a fan or a glove; he forces you, as a good parent doth his child, for your own good; he is absolute master of a lady's will, nor will allow her the election of standing or sitting in his company. ”

“ It is very common among us to cast sarcasms on a neighbouring nation, to which we have no other reason to bear an antipathy than what is more usual than justifiable, because we have injured it; but sure such general satire is not founded on truth; for I have known gentlemen of that nation possessed with every good quality which is to be wished in a man or required in a friend. I remember a repartee made by a gentleman of this country, which, though it was full of the severest wit, the person to whom it was directed could not resent, as he so plainly deserved it. ”

“ I am weary of arguing with a fool any longer; so, sir, I tell you you must vote for my lord and the colonel, or I'll make the house too hot to hold you; I'll see whether my poor family is to be ruined because you have whims.
Miss M. I know he is a Jacobite in his heart.
Mrs M. What signifies what he is in his heart? have not a hundred, whom everybody knows to be as great Jacobites as he, acted like very good whigs? What has a man's heart to do with his lips? I don't trouble my head with what he thinks; I only desire him to vote.
Miss M. I am sure mama is a very reasonable woman. ”

“ Fust. This prologue was writ by a friend.
PROLOGUE. When Death's sharp scythe has mowed the hero down,
The muse again awakes him to renown;
She tells proud Fate that all her darts are vain,
And bids the hero live and strut about again:
Nor is she only able to restore,
But she can make what ne'er was made before;
Can search the realms of Fancy, and create
What never came into the brain of Fate. ”

“ The poet make the play indeed! the colourman might be as well said to make the picture, or the weaver the coat. My father and I, sir, are a couple of poetical tailors. When a play is brought us, we consider it as a tailor does his coat: we cut it, sir—we cut it; and let me tell you we have the exact measure of the town; we know how to fit their taste. The poets, between you and me, are a pack of ignorant——
Wit. Hold, hold, sir. This is not quite so civil to Mr Luckless; besides, as I take it, you have done the town the honour of writing yourself. ”