Henry Fielding 1707-1754 John Bartlett


1
All Nature wears one universal grin.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 1.
2
Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk; And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 2.
3
When I ’m not thank’d at all, I ’m thank’d enough; I ’ve done my duty, and I ’ve done no more.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
4
Thy modesty ’s a candle to thy merit.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
5
To sun myself in Huncamunca’s eyes.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
6
Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, With a third dog one of the two dogs meets; With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done. 1
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 6.
7
I am as sober as a judge. 2
Don Quixote in England. Act iii. Sc. 14.
8
Much may be said on both sides. 3
The Covent Garden Tragedy. Act i. Sc. 8.
9
Enough is equal to a feast. 4
The Covent Garden Tragedy. Act v. Sc. 1.
10
We must eat to live and live to eat. 5
The Miser. Act iii. Sc. 3.



11
Penny saved is a penny got. 6
The Miser. Act iii. Sc. 12.
12
Oh, the roast beef of England, And old England’s roast beef!
The Grub Street Opera. Act iii. Sc. 2.
13
This story will not go down.
Tumble-down Dick.
14
Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?
Tom Jones. Book iv. Chap. iv.
15
Distinction without a difference.
Tom Jones. Book vi. Chap. xiii.
16
Amiable weakness. 7
Tom Jones. Book x. Chap. viii.
17
The dignity of history. 8
Tom Jones. Book xi. Chap. ii.
18
Republic of letters.
Tom Jones. Book xiv. Chap. i.
19
Illustrious predecessors. 9
Covent Garden Journal. Jan. 11, 1752.

Note 1.
Thus when a barber and a collier fight,
The barber beats the luckless collier—white;
The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
And big with vengeance beats the barber—black.
In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o’erspread,
And beats the collier and the barber—red:
Black, red, and white in various clouds are tost,
And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.
Christopher Smart: The Trip to Cambridge (on “Campbell’s Specimens of the British Poets,” vol. vi. p. 185). [back]

Note 2.
Sober as a judge.—Charles Lamb: Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Moxon. [back]

Note 3.
See Addison, Quotation 28. [back]

Note 4.
See Heywood, Quotation 133. [back]

Note 5.
Socrates said, Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.—Plutarch: How a Young Man ought to hear Poems. [back]

Note 6.
A penny saved is twopence dear;
A pin a day ’s a groat a year.
Benjamin Franklin: Hints to those that would be Rich (1736). [back]

Note 7.
Amiable weaknesses of human nature.—Edward Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap xiv. [back]

Note 8.
See Bolingbroke, Quotation 2. [back]

Note 9.
Illustrious predecessor.—Edmund Burke: The Present Discontents.

I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men…. In receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.—Martin Van Buren: Inaugural Address, March 4, 1837. [back]

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