We have here a happy satire upon the sanguinary conclusions given to the tragedies of the seventeenth century. Great pains, too, are taken, throughout the "tragedy," to travestie that _bête noire_ of the humourists, the dragged-in simile, to which not even "The Rehearsal" had given the _coup de grâce_. The ghost of Tom Thumb's father is made to say-- So have I seen the bees in clusters swarm, So have I seen the stars in frosty nights, So have I seen the sand in windy days, So have I seen the ghost on Pluto's shore, So have I seen the flowers in spring arise, So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall, So have I seen the fruits in summer smile, So have I seen the snow in winter frown. Whereupon the king says, "D--n all thou hast seen!" Grizzle, when on the point of expiring, cries-- Some kinder sprite knocks softly at my soul, And gently whispers it to haste away. I come, I come, most willingly I come. So, when some city wife, for country air, To Hampstead or to Highgate does repair, Her to make haste her husband does implore, And cries, "My dear, the coach is at the door": With equal wish, desirous to be gone, She gets into the coach, and then she cries, "Drive on!" Some of the mock similes in "Tom Thumb" are among the most familiar things in literature. We all remember the lines-- So, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, When 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. And these-- So, when the Cheshire cheese a maggot breeds, Another and another still succeeds; By thousands and ten thousands they increase, Till one continued maggot fills the rotten cheese. The burlesque contained within the pages of "Tom Thumb" covers a considerable field. Dryden is once more very freely satirised, some nine or ten of his plays being held up to ridicule. But much attention is at the same time paid to dramas which saw the light after the production of "The Rehearsal." Thus, there are allusions to the "Mithridates," "Nero," and "Brutus" of Nathaniel Lee, which belong to 1674-1679; to the "Marius" of Otway (1680); to the "Anna Bullen," "Earl of Essex," "Mary Queen of Scots," and "Cyrus the Great" of Banks (1680-1696); to the "Persian Princess" of Theobald (1711), to Addison's "Cato" (1713), to Young's "Busiris" and "The Revenge," and even to Thomson's "Sophonisba," which had come out only in the year preceding that in which "Tom Thumb" was performed. "O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O" (which had already been parodied in the form of "O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson O") is here laughed at in "O Huncamunca, Huncamunca O!" In "Cyrus the Great" the virtuous Panthea remarks to one lover-- For two I must confess are gods to me, Which is my Abradatus first, and thee. And, in a like spirit, Huncamunca, after wedding Tom Thumb, is quite willing to wed Grizzle:--