In 1731-32 the burlesque entitled the _Tragedy of Tragedies; or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great_, took the Town. The _Tragedy_ parodies the absurdities of tragedians; and so far won immortality that in 1855 it was described as still holding the stage. But its chief modern interest lies in the tradition that Swift once observed that he "had not laughed above twice" in his life,--once at the tricks of a merry-andrew, and again when Fielding's Tom Thumb killed the ghost. The design for the frontispiece of the edition of 1731, here reproduced, is from the pencil of Hogarth; and is the first trace of a connexion between Fielding and the painter who was to be honoured so frequently in his pages. An adaptation from Molière, produced in 1733, under the title of the _Miser_, won from Voltaire the praise of having added to the original "quelques beautes de dialogue particulières a sa [Fielding's] nation." The leading character in the _Miser_, Lovegold, became a stock part, and survived to our own days, having been a favourite with Phelps. In _Don Quixote in England_, produced in 1733 or 34, [6] Fielding reappears in the character of patriotic censor with the design, as appears from the dedication to Lord Chesterfield, of representing "the Calamities brought on a Country by general Corruption." No less than fifteen songs are interspersed in the play, and it is matter for curious conjecture why none of them was chosen for a reprint among the collected verses published ten years later in the _Miscellanies_. Time has almost failed to preserve even the hunting-song beginning finely-- "The dusky Night rides down the Sky, And ushers in the Morn; The Hounds all join in glorious Cry, The Huntsman winds his Horn:" But a happier fate has befallen the fifth song, now familiar as the first verse of the _Roast Beef of Old England_. It is eminently appropriate that the most distinctly national of English novelists should have written: "_When mighty Rost Beef was the_ Englishman's _food, It ennobled our Hearts, and enriched our Blood; Our Soldiers were brave and our Courtiers were good. Oh, the Rost Beef of old England, And old_ England's _Rost Beef!_ "_Then_, Britons, _from all nice Dainties refrain, Which effeminate_ Italy, France, _and_ Spain; _And mighty Rost Beef shall command on the Main. Oh, the Rost Beef_, etc." To this truly prolific period of the young 'hackney writer's' pen belongs an _Epilogue_, hitherto overlooked, written for Charles Johnson's five-act play _Caelia or the Perjur'd Lover_, and spoken by Kitty Clive. The lines, which are hardly worth reprinting, consist of an ironic attack on the laxity of town morals, where "Miss may take great liberties upon her," and each woman is virtuous till she be found out.