Note 4 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Speaking of things suavitous, it strikes us that the following, clipped from a late number of the Daily Mail, is something rich in the way of squash luxuriance:
“Mr. Robert Hamilton.—To the enterprise, tact, and discretion of this gentleman, the efficient stage-manager of the National Theatre, much of the success of this favorite establishment is to be ascribed. His well-known literary fame, and his merits as an actor, have acquired for him a deserved popularity.”
Bear always in mind that the game of a literary quack is to sound the trumpet of his own fame, since no one else will. There is potency in a free ticket, a beef steak, or a gin-sling! Either of these will at any time secure plenty of space in the columns of such an ephemeral, penny concern as the Mail. It is not surprising that the corporation which contains the ‘immortal part’ of Mr. Robert Hamilton should swell with the self-complacency of its tenant! Of a truth, Oh Fame, thy trumpet is of ‘sounding brass,’ and, though thou makest ‘the judicious grieve,’ yet, with thine every blast, thou givest fresh occasion for the open-mouthed wonder of ‘the groundlings!’ When is this self-puffing surfeit to have an end?