ages." As naturally in a burlesque, the height of the absurd is reached at the end, in the anticlimax where the hero is swallowed by a cow, and in the concluding extravagance, where the spectator's head fairly swims watching all the other characters fall dead. Thus he has his fling at the exaggerated and unnatural violences of some artificial tragedy. On the whole the several dozen plays by sixteen writers thus ridiculed are fair game. They are almost without exception tragedies of the Restoration and early eighteenth century, more especially those of Dryden, Banks, and Lee. Earlier tragedies he leaves almost entirely alone. While one or two of the plays at which he shoots his arrows, such as Dryden's All for Love, are still admired, most of them met only a temporary taste, and have ceased to please and even to be read. Passion, freedom of feeling, are essential to great tragedy, and an age when it was literary good breeding to repress and make light of feeling was ill adapted to it. Poets did not wait till the fire kindled and at last they spake with their tongue. They thought more of rule than of spontaneity, as was pointed out in the discussion of Cato. There never was a time when poets made such elaborate effort to write tragedy, or more often dismally failed. They were like the men of Babel, who said, "Go to, let us build us a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name "; and the Lord confounded their language, that they might not understand one another's speech.

"Which brings me to speak of his diction," as the Preface says. "Here I shall only beg one postulatum, viz., that the greatest perfection of the language of a tragedy is, that it is not to be understood; which granted (as I think it must be), it will necessarily follow that the only way to avoid this is by being too high or too low for the understanding. . . . What can be so proper for tragedy as a set of big sounding words, so contrived together as to convey no meaning? He has no mercy on the artificial and the inflated, especially the frigid and long similes bedecking the tragedies of poets "who liken things not like at all." "Our author" "is very rarely within sight through the whole play, either rising higher than the eye of your imagination can soar, or sinking lower than it careth to stoop." Such a parody as

Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!, which chastises Thomson's notorious effort Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!, illustrates how faint a line parts the ludicrous from the intolerably touching, for it differs in but one word from Shakespeare's

O Desdemona, Desdemona, dead,! With the incongruity which is the essence of humor, he varies this sort of thing by the prosaic and grotesque, which made particu

larly effective satire in an age when a poet had better be in jail than be "low." His laughter rings out at the too-literary device of attributing human traits to non-human things (smiling dolphins, a blushing sun), which John Ruskin a century later scolded at as the "pathetic fallacy "; and at the puffing up of a frog-commonplace into an ox-grandiloquence. Fielding relishes nothing in his play more than the dressing up in burlesque solemnity of some proverb like "Between two stools the breech falls to the ground" (II. x). With his common-sense liking for pithy reality, he says in the note, "It were to be wished that, instead of filling their pages with the fabulous theology of the pagans, our modern poets would think it worth their while to enrich their works with the prover bial sayings of their ancestors." There speaks not only eighteenth-century prosaic sense against pseudo-classicism, but also the later romantic spirit, with its fondness for the popular and traditional.

But, after all, Tom Thumb must not be taken too seriously, even as a burlesque. Fielding was no prophet, or reformer, with deep convictions on literature, but a playwright who needed money and wanted to "make a hit." He saw a chance in cleverly parodying what everybody would recognize, not only what deserved ridicule and might be discredited by it, but also what could bear ridicule. There are almost as many reminiscences of Shakespeare as of any later dramatist, though Fielding has too much reverence to point them out in the notes (he also spares Venice Preserved). There is no more humor in his parody of Thomson's Sophonisba-scream than of Juliet in "0 Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?"; or in that of Don John's "Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero," in "My Huncamunca! - Your Huncamunca, Tom Thumb's Huncamunca, every man's Huncamunca." The only difference is that Shakespeare can stand it and Thomson cannot. It must not be supposed that Fielding condemned everything in the plays he parodied, or even every parodied passage. must be admitted too that his mockery is often undeserved; a clever writer can always take passable or even good things out of their context and make them look silly. Young's "with these eyes I saw him," ridiculed in III. ix, is the natural emphatic language of strong feeling. With a mind full of scraps of plays, Fielding parodied from memory anything that could be made to raise a laugh, and when he came to print set the originals in the footnotes (so far as he could remember them), and sometimes inaccurately. These notes make the play more suitable to read than to witness, for few things are less intelligible than a burlesque of something unknown. They explain to us a play which is rather a free-and-easy boiling over of humor

It

a

posedly by Dr. William Wagstaffe, and written to ridicule Addison's appreciation of the ballad of Chevy Chase in the Spectator. The play quotes the History (III. viii), and borrows some of its incidents. In such burlesques there is really much more of the vital energy of the age than in the works they parodied. Its greatest literary men, Swift, Pope, Addison, were critics, and the critical spirit of the earlier eighteenth century was more vigorous and more characteristic than the imaginative. Any collection of eighteenthcentury dramas would be incomplete without a specimen of it.

KING ARTHUR, a passionate sort of king, husband to QUEEN DOLLALLOLLA, of whom he stands a little in fear; father to HUNCAMUNCA, whom he is very fond of and in love with GLUMDALCA.

TOM THUMB THE GREAT, a little hero with a great soul, something violent in his temper, which is a little abated by his love for HUNCAMUNCA.

GHOST OF GAFFER THUMB, a whimsical sort of Ghost.

LORD GRIZZLE, extremely zealous for the lib

erty of the subject, very choleric in his temper, and in love with HUNCAMUNCA. MERLIN, a conjurer, and in some sort father to TOм THUMB.

NOODLE, courtiers in place, and consequently DOODLE, of that party that is uppermost. FOODLE, a courtier that is out of place, and consequently of that party that is undermost.

PARSON, of the side of the church.

WOMEN

QUEEN DOLLALLOLLA, wife to KING ARTHUR, and mother to HUNCAMUNCA, a woman entirely faultless, saving that she is a little given to drink, a little too much a virago towards her husband, and in love with Toм THUMB.

THE PRINCESS HUNCAMUNCA, daughter to their Majesties KING ARTHUR and QUEEN DOLLALLOLLA, of a very sweet, gentle, and amorous disposition, equally in love with LORD GRIZZLE and TOM THUMB, and desirous to be married to them both. GLUMDALCA, of the giants, a captive queen, beloved by the king, but in love with Toм THUMB.

CLEORA, MUSTACHA, maids of honor in love
with NOODLE and Doodle.

Courtiers, Guards, Rebels, Drums, Trumpets,
Thunder and Lightning.

Scene. The Court of King Arthur, and a
Plain Thereabouts.

Shines like a beau in a new birth-day
suit:

This down the seams embroidered, that the beams.

All nature wears one universal grin. Nood. This day, O Mr. Doodle, is a day

we generally call a fine summer's day: so that according to this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies as Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane,* &c., begin with their observations on the morning. Lee seems to have come the Fenton, and Rowe.

As conscious of my joy, with broader eye
To look abroad the world, and all things smile
Like Sophonisba.

Memnon, in the Persian Princess [by Theobald], makes the sun decline rising, that he may not peep on objects which would profane his brightness: The morning rises slow,

And all those ruddy streaks that used to paint
The day's approach are lost in clouds, as if
The horrors of the night had sent 'em back,
To warn the sun he should not leave the sea,
To peep, &c.

2 This line is highly conformable to the beautiful simplicity of the ancients. It hath been copied by

almost every modern.

Not to be is not to be in woe.

[Dryden's] State of Innocence. Love is not sin but where 'tis sinful love.

[Dryden's] Don Sebastian. Nature is nature, Lælius. [Lee's] Sophonisba. Men are but men, we did not make ourselves. [Young's] Revenge. 3 Dr. B-y reads. The mighty Tall mast Thumb. Mr. Mr. D-s, The mighty Thumbing Thumb. T-dreads, Thundering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author.

4 That learned historian Mr. S-n.t 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 call 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 ancients. 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 quàm 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:

Though small his body be, so very small, A chairman's || leg is more than twice as large,

Yet is his soul like any mountain big; And as a mountain once brought forth a mouse,

8 So doth this mouse contain a mighty mountain.

Then Elfar, with two brethren giants had,
The one of which had two heads --
The other three.
Risum teneatis, amici.**

5 "To whisper in books," says Mr. D-s, "is_arrant nonsense." I am afraid this learned man does not sufficiently understand the extensive meaning of the word whisper. If he had rightly understood what is meant by the "senses whispering the soul, in the Persian Princess, or what "whispering like winds" is in [Dryden's] Aurengzebe, or like thunder in another author, he would have understood this. Emmeline in Dryden sees a voice, but she was born blind, which is an excuse Panthea cannot plead in [Banks']Cyrus, who hears a sight:

Your description will surpass

All fiction, painting, or dumb show of horror,
That ever ears yet heard, or eyes beheld.
When Mr. D-s understands these, he will under-
stand whispering in books.

6-Some ruffian stept into his father's place, And more than half begot him.

Mary Queen of Scots.4+ 7-For Ulamar seems sent express from Heaven. To civilize this rugged Indian clime.

[Dennis'] Liberty Asserted

8 "Omne majus continet in se minus. sed minus

9 Mr. Banks hath copied this almost verbatim: It was enough to say, here's Essex come, And nurses stilled their children with the fright. Earl of Essex. 10 The trumpet in a tragedy is generally as much as to say Enter king, which makes Mr. Banks, in one of his plays, call it the trumpet's formal sound.

11 Phraortes, in the Captives [by Gay], seems to have been acquainted with king Arthur: Proclaim a festival for seven days' space. Let the court shine in all its pomp and lustre, Let all our streets resound with shouts of joy; Let music's care-dispelling voice be heard; The sumptuous banquet and the flowing goblet Shall warm the cheek and fill the heart with gladness. Astarbe shall sit mistress of the feast.

14 These floods are very frequent in the tragic authors:

Near to some murmuring brook I'll lay me down,
Whose waters, if they should too shallow flow,
My tears shall swell them up till I will drown.
Lee's Sophonisba.
Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate,
That were the world on fire they might have drowned
The wrath of heaven, and quenched the mighty ruin.
[Lee's] Mithridates.
One author changes the waters of grief to those of
These tears, that sprung from tides of
grief,
Are now augmented to a flood of joy.

joy:

Another:

[Banks'] Cyrus the Great.

Shall melt into a deluge, and the world
Shall drown in tears.

Cyrus the Great. 15 An expression vastly beneath the dignity of tragedy, says Mr. D-s, yet we find the word he cavils at in the mouth of Mithridates less properly used, and applied to a more terrible idea:

I would be drunk with death. Mithridates. The author of the new Sophonisba taketh hold of this monosyllable, and uses it pretty much to the same purpose:

The Carthaginian sword with Roman blood
Was drunk.

I would ask Mr. D-s which gives him the best idea,

a drunken king, or a drunken sword?

Mr. Tate dresses up king Arthur's resolution in

heroic [Injured Love, 17071:

Merry, my lord, o' th' captain's humor right,

I am resolved to be dead drunk to-night.

Lee also uses this charming word:

Love's the drunkenness of the mind. Gloriana. 16 Dryden hath borrowed this, and applied it improperly:

I'm half seas o'er in death.

Cleomenes.

By all the gods in council: so fair she is, That surely at her birth the council paused,

And then at length cried out, This is a woman!

Thumb. Then were the gods mistakenshe is not

A woman, but a giantess-whom we. 23 With much ado, have made a shift to hawl

Within the town: 24 for she is by a foot Shorter than all her subject giants were. Glum. We yesterday were both a queen and wife,

One hundred thousand giants owned our

That ship, leaks fast, and the great heavy lading,

My soul, will quickly sink.

Queen.

Madam, believe I view your sorrows with a woman's eye:

This perfect face, drawn by the gods in council, Which they were long a making.

Luc. Jun. Brut. -At his birth the heavenly council paused, And then at last cried out, This is a man! Dryden hath improved this hint to the utmost perfection: So perfect, that the very gods who formed you wondered

At their own skill, and cried, A lucky hit
Has mended our design! Their envy hindered,
Or you had been immortal, and a pattern,
When Heaven would work for ostentation sake.
To copy out again.
[Dryden's] All for Love.
Banks prefers the works of Michael Angelo to that of
the gods:

A pattern for the gods to make a man by,
Or Michael Angelo to form a statue.

23 It is impossible, says Mr. W-,* sufficiently to admire this natural easy line.

24 This tragedy, which in most points resembles the ancients. differs from them in this-that it assigns the same honor to lowness of stature which they did to height. The gods and heroes in Homer and Virgil are continually described higher by the head than their followers, the contrary of which is ob served by our author. In short, to exceed on either side is equally admirable; and a man of three foot is as wonderful a sight as a man of nine.

25 My blood leaks fast, and the great heavy lading. My soul will quickly sink. Mithridates. My soul is like a ship. [Tate's] Injured Love.