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.
