The wind whistles--the moon rises--see, They have killed my squirrel in his cage; Is this a grasshopper?--Ha! no; it is my Whiskerandos--you shall not keep him-- I know you have him in your pocket-- An oyster may be cross'd in love!--who says A whale's a bird?--Ha! did you call, my love?-- He's here! he's there!--He's everywhere! Ah me! he's nowhere! For the rest, the text of the tragedy, as printed, is very dissimilar from the text as played. In representation, most of the fun is got out of intentional perversion of certain words or phrases. Thus, "martial symmetry" becomes "martial cemetery"; The famed Armada, by the Pope baptised, becomes The famed Armada, by the Pope capsised; "friendship's closing line" is turned into "friendship's clothes-line"; "My gentle Nora" into "My gentle Snorer"; "Cupid's baby woes" into "Cupid's baby clothes"; "matchless excellence" into "matchless impudence," and so on. This is sorry stuff; and those who desire to appreciate Sheridan's travestie of the tragedy of his day must read "The Critic" in its published shape. The next notable attempt at the burlesque of conventional tragedy was a return to the methods of "Chrononhotonthologos." In "Bombastes Furioso" (first played in 1816[3]) all satirical machinery was discarded; all that the author--William Barnes Rhodes--sought to do was to travestie his originals in a brief and telling story. "Bombastes" is not now so often performed as it used to be; but not so very long ago it was turned into a comic opera, under the title of "Artaxominous the Great," and its humours are fairly well known to the public. Some of these the world will not willingly let die. One still thinks with amusement of the "army" of Bombastes, consisting of "one Drummer, one Fifer, and two Soldiers, all very materially differing in size"; of the General's exhortation to his troops-- [3] The elder Mathews was Artaxominous; Liston, Bombardinian; and Miss H. Kelly, Distaffina. A few years later Munden played Bombardinian, and Farren, Fusbos. Begone, brave army, and don't kick up a row; and of the boastful challenge of the General, so promptly accepted by Artaxominous-- Who dares this pair of boots displace Must meet Bombastes face to face. And the piece bears re-perusal wonderfully well. Its literary merit is assuredly not less than that of "Chrononhotonthologos": it is perhaps even greater. The opening colloquy between the King and Fusbos is genuinely diverting, embodying as it does one of those mock similes so dear to the satirists of old-fashioned tragedy. The King admits to Fusbos that he is "but middling--that is, _so so_!" It is not, however, either the mulligrubs or the blue-devils that disturb him:--