_Nood_. This day, O Mr Doodle, is a day Indeed!--A day, [1] we never saw before. The mighty [2] Thomas Thumb victorious comes; Millions of giants crowd his chariot wheels, [3] Giants! to whom the giants in Guildhall Are infant dwarfs. They frown, and foam, and roar, While Thumb, regardless of their noise, rides on. So some cock-sparrow in a farmer's yard, Hops at the head of an huge flock of turkeys. [Footnote 1: This line is highly conformable to the beautiful simplicity of the antients. It hath been copied by almost every modern. Not to be is not to be in woe.--_State of Innocence_. Love is not sin but where 'tis sinful love.--_Don Sebastian_. Nature is nature, Laelius.--_Sophonisba_. Men are but men, we did not make ourselves.--_Revenge_. ] [Footnote 2: Dr B--y reads, The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr D--s, The mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr T--d reads, Thundering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author.] [Footnote 3: That learned historian Mr S--n, in the third number of his criticism on our author, takes great pains to explode this passage. "It is," says he, "difficult to guess what giants are here meant, unless the giant Despair in the Pilgrim's Progress, or the giant Greatness in the Royal Villain; for I have heard of no other sort of giants in the reign of king Arthur." Petrus Burmannus makes three Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the same person whom the Greeks called Hercules; and that by these giants are to be understood the Centaurs slain by that hero. Another Tom Thumb he contends to have been no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the antients. The third Tom Thumb he places under the reign of king Arthur; to which third Tom Thumb, says he, the actions of the other two were attributed. Now, though I know that this opinion is supported by an assertion of Justus Lipsius, "Thomam illum Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat," yet shall I venture to oppose one line of Mr Midwinter against them all: In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live. "But then," says Dr B--y, "if we place Tom Thumb in the court of king Arthur, it will be proper to place that court out of Britain, where no giants were ever heard of." Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, is of another opinion, where, describing Albion, he says, ------Far within a savage nation dwelt Of hideous giants. And in the same canto: Then Elfar, with two brethren giants had, The one of which had two heads------ The other three. Risum teneatis, amici. ] _Dood_. When Goody Thumb first brought this Thomas forth, The Genius of our land triumphant reign'd; Then, then, O Arthur! did thy Genius reign. _Nood_. They tell me it is [1]whisper'd in the books Of all our sages, that this mighty hero, By Merlin's art begot, hath not a bone Within his skin, but is a lump of gristle.