Tom, one of the servants of Mr. Peregrine Lovel, “with a good deal of surly honesty about him.” Tom is no sneak, and no tell-tale, but he refuses to abet Philip, the butler, in sponging on his master, and wasting his property in riotous living. When Lovel discovers the state of affairs, and clears out his household, he retains Tom, to whom he entrusts the cellar and the plate.--Rev. J. Townley, High Life Below Stairs (1750).
Tom Folio, Thomas Rawlinson, the bibliopolist (1681-1725).
Tom Jones (1 syl.), a model of generosity, openness, and manly spirit, mixed with dissipation. Lord Byron calls him “an accomplished blackguard” (Don Juan, xiii. 110, 1824).--Fielding, Tom Jones (1749).
A hero with a flawed reputation, a hero sponging for a guinea, a hero who cannot pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his honor out to hire, is absurd, and the claim of Tom Jones to heroic rank is quite untenable.--Thackeray.
Tom Long, the hero of an old tale, entitled The Merry Conceits of Tom Long, the Carrier, being many Pleasant Passages and Mad Pranks which he observed in his Travels. This tale was at one time amazingly popular.
Tom Scott, Daniel Quilp’s boy, Tower Hill. Although Quilp was a demon incarnate, yet “between the boy and the dwarf there existed a strange kind of mutual liking.” Tom was very fond of standing on his head, and on one occasion Quilp said to him, “Stand on your head again, and I’ll cut one of your feet off.”
The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back, and stood on his head there, then to the opposite side and repeated the performance.... Quilp, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance, armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged, and studded with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him, if it had been thrown at him.--C. Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, v. (1840).
Tom Thumb, the name of a very diminutive little man in the court of King Arthur, killed by the poisonous breath of a spider, in the reign of King Thunstone, the successor of Arthur. In the Bodleian Library there is a ballad about Tom Thumb, which was printed in 1630. Richard Johnson wrote in prose, The History of Tom Thumbe, which was printed in 1621. In 1630, Charles Perrault published his tale called Le Petit Poucet. Tom Thumb is introduced by Drayton in his Nymphidia (1563-1631).
“Tom” in this connection is the Swedish tomt (“a nix or dwarf”), as in Tomptgubbe (“a brownie or kobold”); the final t is silent, and the tale is of Scandinavian origin.
Tom Thumb, a burlesque opera, altered by Kane O’Hara (author of Midas), in 1778, from a dramatic piece by Fielding, the novelist (1730). Tom Thumb, having killed the giants, falls in love with Huncamunca, daughter of King Arthur. Lord Grizzle wishes to marry the princess, and when he hears that the “pygmy giant-queller” is preferred before him, his lordship turns traitor, invests the palace “at the head of his rebellious rout,” and is slain by Tom. Then follows the bitter end: A red cow swallows Tom, the queen, Dollallolla, kills Noodle, Frizaletta kills the queen, Huncamunca kills Frizaletta, Doodle kills Huncamunca, Plumantê kills Doodle, and the king, being left alone, stabs himself. Merlin now enters, commands the red cow to “return our England’s Hannibal,” after which the wise wizard restores all the slain ones to life again, and thus “jar ending,” each resolves to go home “and make a night on’t.”