"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_. _Petnis Burmanus_ 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 Heroe. 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, tho' I know that this Opinion is supported by an Assertion of _Justus Lipsius, Thomam ilium Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat_; yet shall I venture to oppose one Line of Mr. _Midwinter_, against them all, _In_ Arthurs' Court Tom Thumb _did live_. "But then, says Dr. _B-----y_, if we place _Tom Thumb_ in the Court of King _Arthur_, it will he proper to place that Court out of _Britain_, where no Giants were ever heard of. _Spencer_, in his _Fairy Queen_, is of another Opinion, where describing Albion, he says, Far within, a salvage 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." Of the play itself it is difficult to give an idea by extract, as nearly every line travesties some tragic passage once familiar to play-goers, and now utterly forgotten. But the following lines from one of the speeches of Lord Grizzle--a part admirably acted by Liston in later years [Footnote: Compare Hazlitt, _On the Comic Writers of the Last Century._]--are a fair specimen of its ludicrous use (or rather abuse) of simile:-- "Yet think not long, I will my Rival bear, Or unreveng'd the slighted Willow wear; The gloomy, brooding Tempest now confin'd, Within the hollow Caverns of my Mind, In dreadful Whirl, shall rowl along the Coasts, Shall thin the Land of all the Men it boasts, And cram up ev'ry Chink of Hell with Ghosts. So have I seen, in some dark Winter's Day, A sudden Storm rush down the Sky's High-Way, Sweep thro' the Streets with terrible ding-dong, Gush thro' the Spouts, and wash whole Crowds along. The crowded Shops, the thronging Vermin skreen, Together cram the Dirty and the Clean, And not one Shoe-Boy in the Street is seen."