(as who, that is not a washy fellow, but must at some times have felt the after-operation of a too generous cup?)—­but then how heightened! how exaggerated! how little within the sense of the Review, where a part, in their slanderous usage, must be understood to stand for the whole!  But it is useless to expostulate with this Quarterly slime, brood of Nilus, watery heads with hearts of jelly, spawned under the sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, and therefore cold, washy, spiteful, bloodless.  Elia shall string them up one day, and show their colors,—­or rather, how colorless and vapid the whole fry,—­when he putteth forth his long-promised, but unaccountably hitherto delayed, ‘Confessions of a Water-Drinker.’”

* * * * *

In turning over the leaves of divers old periodicals in search of the “Religion of Actors,” I accidentally and unexpectedly found an article by Charles Lamb entitled, “On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, with some Account of a Club of Damned Authors.”

Lamb, we know, was a great lover of the drama,—­a true patron and admirer of playwrights and play-actors.  He was, perhaps, the greatest theatrical critic that ever lived.  Many of the happiest hours of his life were passed in reading the works of the old English dramatists, and in witnessing the performances of favorite actors.  He once had hopes of being a successful dramatist himself, and to that end devoted many of his spare hours and odd moments to the composition of a tragedy. ("John Woodvil,”) which John Kemble, “the stately manager of Drury Lane,” refused to bring out.  But not wholly discouraged by the ill success of his tragedy, he tried his hand at a farce, and produced “Mr. H.,” which, to the author’s exceeding great delight, was accepted by the manager of Drury-Lane Theatre.[B]

[Footnote B:  Talfourd says that the acceptance of “Mr. H.” gave Lamb some of the happiest moments he ever spent.]

To Manning, then sojourning among the Mandarins, he thus writes of “Mr. H.":—­

“Now you’d like to know the subject.  The title is ’Mr. H.’,—­no more:  how simple! how taking!  A great H sprawling over the play-bill, and attracting eyes at every corner.  The story is a coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich,—­all the ladies dying for him, all bursting to know who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. H.:  a curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the great nose.  But I won’t tell you any more about it.  Yes, I will; but I can’t give you an idea how I have done it.  I’ll just tell you, that, after much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, ‘Hogsflesh,’ all the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their name for him:  that’s the idea:  how flat it is here! but how whimsical in the farce!  And only think how hard upon me it is, that the ship is despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be ascertained till the Wednesday after;—­but all China will ring of it by-and-by.”