A Burletta,

ALTERED FROM HENRY FIELDING,

BY KANE O'HARA.

WITH DESIGNS

BY

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

LONDON:
JOSEPH THOMAS, FINCH LANE, CORNHILL;
AND SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS' COURT.

MDCCCXXXVII.

LONDON:

J. UNWIN, ST. PETER'S ALLEY,

CORNHILL.

TOM THUMB, to whose exploits we have listened with delight in our childhood, and witnessed on the stage with laughter and amusement in our later years, is a hero whose origin is enveloped in equal obscurity with that of many others of old and later time; rival nations contend for the honour of his birth, and rival antiquaries advance their several theories respecting him with equal confidence and pertinacity.

The Author of " Tom Thumbe his Life and Death,” 8vo. 1630, asserts him to have been of British origin:

"In Arthur's Court, Tom Thumb did live,
A man of mickle might,
The best of all the table round,
And eke a doughty knight.

And the erudite Commentator on that work, (edit. 1711,) takes the same side of the question; but the learned namesake of our Hero, TOM HEARNE, degrades him to the rank of a dwarf in the court of King Edgar.t Mr. E. Taylor, with greater probability, traces him to the Däumbling, or LittleThumb, of the Northern nations, and considers him to have formed one of that hardy band of the descendants of Odin, whom Hengist and Horsa led into Britain. Leaving the decision of this important national question to the very learned, The Society of Antiquaries, and The Royal Society of Literature, we proceed to the history of the drama founded on his exploits.

The muse of Fielding, a name sacred to genius, first presented him before the world as a dramatic hero in 1730, in burlesque of the then favourite tragedies, filled with turgid and bombast speeches, and vapid declamations. To encounter these and drive them from the stage, no weapon was so proper as ridicule; and, wielded by such a hand, none was more effective. The putting into the mouths of Arthur and his mock Court the same speeches parodied, or slightly altered, had the most ludicrous effect, and immediately succeeded in opening the eyes of the public to the glare and tinsel by which they had been dazzled. The genuine wit and satire in the piece, kept it a favourite long after the purpose which called it forth was answered; and, as altered by O'Hara, it is still deservedly popular with the play going public.

The pencil of the Artist has in these times the power which

Ritson's Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, 8vo. 1791. + Benedictus Abbas, Appendix ad Præfationem, p. LV. German Popular Stories, vol. i. notes.

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