t to over-realize
his descriptions, has given us a frightful picture indeed, but no more
resembling the man Elia than the fictitious Edax may be supposed to
identify itself with Mr. L., its author. It is, indeed, a compound
extracted out of his long observations of the effects of drinking upon
all the world about him; and this accumulated mass of misery he hath
centred (as the custom is with judicious essayists) in a single figure.
We deny not that a portion of his own experiences may have passed into
the picture, (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.]