Note 1 — Chapter X · A DAY ON THE LAKE.—PART I.

This inflated passage, and some other similar ones, are extremely characteristic of Americans in the same station of life as Slick. From the use of superlative expressions in their conversation, they naturally adopt an exaggerative style in writing, and the minor poets and provincial orators of the Republic are distinguished for this hyperbolical tone. In Great Britain they would be admired by the Irish; on the Continent, by the Gascons. If Mr Slick were not affected by this weakness himself, he would be among the first to detect and ridicule it in others.