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Artemus Ward's panorama. Ward, Artemus, (1834–1867).
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ARTEMUS WARD'S LECTURE.
page: Advertisement (TitlePage) [View Page Advertisement (TitlePage) ]

COMIC BOOKS,

BY Yours Trooly, A. Ward

  • Artemus Ward; His Book.
  • Artemus Ward; His Travels.
  • Artemus Ward; In London.
  • Artemus Ward; His Panorama.

All these books are profusely embellished with humorous illustrations, and handsomely bound in cloth. Sold by all booksellers, and sent by mail FREE on receipt of price, $1.50.

BY Carleton, Publisher, New York.

ARTEMUS WARD'S PANORAMA. (As exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, London.)

EDITED BY HIS EXECUTORS, T. W. ROBERTSON & E. P. HINGSTON.WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

NEW YORK: G. W. CARLETON, PUBLISHER. LONDON: J. C. HOTTEN.

MDCCCLXIX.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by G. W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX.

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THE Lecture on the Mormons was thus announced to the public of New York, when Artemus Ward first appeared at Dodworth Hall:—

THE Festivities at Dodworth Hall will be commenced by the pianist, a gentleman who used to board in the same street with Gottschalk. The man who kept the boarding-house remembers it distinctly. The overture will consist of a medley of airs, including the touching new ballads—"Dear Sister, is there any Pie in the house?" "My gentle Father, have you any Fine Cut about you?" "Mother, is the Battle o'er—and is it safe for me to come home from Canada?" And (by request of several families who haven't heard it) "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the Boys are Marching." While the enraptured ear drinks in the sweet music (we pay our pianist nine dollars a week, and "find him') the eye will be enchained by the magnificent green baize covering of the panorama. This green baize cost 40 cents a yard at Mr. Stewart's store. It was bought in deference to the present popularity of "The Wearing of the Green." We shall keep up to the times if we spend the last dollar our friends have got.

INTRODUCTION.

T. W. ROBERTSON.

FEW tasks are more difficult or delicate than to write on the subject of the works or character of a departed friend. The pen falters as the familiar face looks out of the paper. The mind is diverted from the thought of death as the memory recalls some happy epigram. It seems so strange that the hand that traced the jokes should be cold, that the tongue that trolled out the good things should be silent—that the jokes and the good things should remain, and the man who made them should be gone for ever.

The works of Charles Farrer Browne—who was known to the world as "Artemus Ward"—have run through so many editions, have met with such universal popularity, and have been so widely criticised, that it is needless to mention them here. So many biographies have been, page: 10-11[View Page 10-11] written of the gentleman who wrote in the character of the 'cute Yankee Showman, that it is unnecessary that I should touch upon his life, belongings, or adventures. Of "Artemus Ward" I know just as much as the rest of the world. I prefer, therefore, to speak of Charles Farrer Browne, as I knew him, and, in doing so, I can promise those friends who also knew him and esteemed him, that as I consider no "public" man so public, that some portion of his work, pleasures, occupations, and habits may not be considered private I shall only mention how kind and noble-minded was the man of whom I write, without dragging forward special and particular acts in proof of my words, as if the goodness of his mind and character needed the certificate of facts.

I first saw Charles Browne at a literary club; he had only been a few hours in London, and he seemed highly pleased and excited at finding himself in the old city to which his thoughts had so often wandered. Browne was an intensely sympathetic man. His brain and feelings were as a "lens," and he received impressions immediately. No man could see him without liking him at once. His manner was straightforward and genial, and had in it the dignity of a gentleman, tempered, as it were, by the fun of the humorist. When you heard him talk you wanted to make much of him, not because he was "Artemus Ward," but because he was himself, for no one less resembled "Artemus Ward" than his author and creator, Charles Farrer Browne. But a few weeks ago it was remarked to me that authors were a disappointing race to know, and I agreed with the remark, and I remember a lady once said to me that the personal appearance of poets seldom "came up" to their works. To this I replied that, after all, poets were but men, and that it was as unreasonable to expect that the late Sir Walter Scott could at all resemble a Gathering of the Clans as that the late Lord Macaulay should appear anything like the Committal of the Seven Bishops to the Tower. I told the lady that she was unfair to eminent men if she hoped that celebrated engineers would look like tubular bridges, or that Sir Edwin Landseer would remind her of a "Midsummer Night's page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] Dream." I mention this because, of all men in the world, my friend Charles Browne was the least like a showman of any man I ever encountered. I can remember the odd half-disappointed look of some of the visitors to the Egyptian Hall when "Artemus" stepped upon the platform. At first they thought that he was a gentleman who appeared to apologise for the absence of the showman. They had pictured to themselves a coarse old man with a damp eye and a puckered mouth, one eyebrow elevated an inch above the other to express shrewdness and knowledge of the world—a man clad in velveteen and braid, with a heavy watch-chain, large rings, and horny hands, the touter to a wax-work show, with a hoarse voice, and over familiar manner. The slim gentlemen in evening dress, polished manners, and gentle voice, with the tone of good breeding that hovered between deference and jocosity; the owner of those thin—those much too thin—white hands could not be the man who spelt joke with a "g." Folks who came to laugh, began to fear that they should remain to be instructed, until the gentlemanly disappointer began to speak, then they recovered their real "Artemus," Betsey Jane, wax-figgers, and all. Will patriotic Americans forgive me if I say that Charles Browne loved England dearly? He had been in London but a few days when he paid a visit to the Tower. He knew English history better than most Englishmen; and the Tower of London was to him the history of England embalmed in stone and mortar. No man had more reverence in his nature; and at the Tower he saw that what he had read was real. There were the beef-eaters; there had been Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lady Jane Grey, and Shakspere's murdered princes, and their brave, cruel uncle. There was the block and the axe, and the armour and the jewels. "St. George for merrie England!" had been shouted in the Holy Land, and men of the same blood as himself had been led against the infidel by men of the same brain and muscle as George Washington. Robin Hood was a reality, and not a schoolboy's myth like Ali Baba and Valentine and Orson.

There were two sets of feelings in Charles Browne at the page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] Tower. He could appreciate the sublimity of history, but, as the "Show" part of the exhibition was described to him, the humorist, the wit, and the iconoclast from the other side of the Atlantic must have smiled at the "descriptions." The "Tower" was a "show," like his own—Artemus Ward's. A price was paid for admission, and the "figgers" were "orated." Real jewellery is very like sham jewellery after all, and the "Artemus" vein in Charles Browne's mental constitution—the vein of humour, whose source was a strong contempt of all things false, mean, shabby, pretentious, and only external—of bunkum and Barnumisation—must have seen a gigantic speculation realising ship loads of dollars if the Tower could have been taken over to the States, and exhibited from town to town—the Star and Stripes flying over it—with a four-horse lecture to describe the barbarity of the ancient British Barons and the cuss of chivalry.

Artemus Ward's Lecture on the Mormons at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, was a great success. His humour was so entirely fresh, new, and unconventional, it took his hearers by surprise, and charmed them. His failing health compelled him to abandon the lecture after about eight or ten weeks. Indeed, during that brief period he was once or twice compelled to dismiss his audience. I have myself seen him sink into a chair and nearly faint after the exertion of dressing. He exhibited the greatest anxiety to be at his post at the appointed time, and scrupulously exerted himself to the utmost to entertain his auditors. It was not because he was sick that the public was to be disappointed, or that their enjoyment was to be diminished. During the last few weeks of his lecture-giving, he steadily abstained from accepting any of the numerous invitations be received. Had he lived through the following London fashionable season, there is little doubt that the room at the Egyptian Hall would have been thronged nightly. Our aristocracy have a fine delicate sense of humour, and the success, artistic and pecuniary, of "Artemus Ward" would have rivalled that of the famous "Lord Dundreary." There were many stupid people who did not understand the "fun" of Artemus page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] Ward's books. In their vernacular "they didn't see it." There were many stupid people who did not understand the fun of Artemus Ward's lecture on the Mormons. They could not see it. Highly respectable people—the pride of their parish, when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons"—expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy—and bray against polygamists with four-and-twenty boiling-water Baptist power of denunciation. These uncomfortable Christians do not like humour. They dread it as a certain personage is said to dread holy water, and for the same reason that thieves fear policemen—it finds them out. When these good idiots heard Artemus offer, if they did not like the lecture in Piccadilly, to give them free tickets for the same lecture in California, when he next visited that country, they turned to each other indignantly, and said "What use are tickets for California to us? We are not going to California. No! we are too good—too respectable to go so far from home. The man is a fool!" One of these ornaments of the vestry complained to the door keepers, and denounced the lecture as an imposition—"and," said the wealthy parishioner, "as for the panorama, it's the worst painted thing I ever saw in all my life!"

But the Entertainment, original, humorous, and racy though it was, was drawing to a close! In the fight between youth and death, death was to conquer. By medical advice Charles Browne went for a short time to Jersey—but the breezes of Jersey were powerless. He wrote to London to his nearest and dearest friends—the members of a literary club of which he was a member—to complain that his "loneliness weighed on him." He was brought back, but could not sustain the journey farther than Southampton. There the members of the beforementioned club travelled from London to see him—two at a time—that he might be less lonely—and for the unwearying solicitude of his friend and agent, Mr. Hingston, and to the kindly sympathy of the United States Consul at Southampton, Charles Browne's best and nearest friends had cause to be grateful. I cannot close these lines without mention of "Artemus page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] Ward's" last joke. He had read in the newspapers that a wealthy American had offered to present the Prince of Wales with a splendid yacht, American built.

"It seems," said the invalid "a fashion now-a-days for everybody to present the Prince of Wales with something. I think I shall leave him—my Panorama!"

Charles Browne died beloved and regretted by all who knew him, and by many who had known him but a few weeks; and when he drew his last breath there passed away the spirit of a true gentleman.

T. W. ROBERTSON.

LONDON, August 11, 1868.

ARTEMUS WARD AS A LECTURER.

PREFATORY NOTE

EDWARD P. HINGSTON.

IN Cleveland, Ohio, the pleasant city beside the lakes, Artemus Ward first determined to become a public lecturer. He and I rambled through Cleveland together after his return from California. He called on some old friends at the Herald office, then went over to the Weddel House, and afterwards strolled across to the offices of the Plaindealer, where, in his position as sub-editor he had written many of his earlier essays. Artemus inquired for Mr. Gray, the editor, who chanced to be absent. Looking round at the vacant desks and ink-stained furniture, Artemus was silent for a minute or two, and then burst into one of those peculiar chuckling fits of laughter in which he would occasionally indulge; not a loud laugh, but a page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] shaking of the whole body with an impulse of merriment which set every muscle in motion. "Here"—said he—"here's where they called me a fool." The remembrance of their so calling him seemed to afford him intense amusement.

From the office of the Cleveland Plaindealer we continued our tour of the town. Presently we found ourselves in front of Perry's statue, the monument erected to commemorate the naval engagement on Lake Erie, wherein the Americans came off victorious. Artemus looked up to the statue, laid his finger to the side of his nose, and in his quaint manner remarked, "I wonder whether they called him 'a fool' too, when he went to fight?"

The remark, following close as it did upon his laughing fit in the newspaper office, caused me to inquire why he had been called "a fool," and who had called him so.

"It was the opinion of my friends on the paper," he replied; "I told them that I was going in for lecturing. They laughed at me and called me 'a fool.' Don't you think they were right?"

Then we sauntered up Euclid Street, under the shade of its avenue of trees. As we went along, Artemus Ward recounted to me the story of his becoming a lecturer. Our conversation on that agreeable evening is fresh in my remembrance. Memory still listens to the voice of my companion in the stroll, still sees the green trees of Euclid Street casting their shadows across our path, and still joins in the laugh with Artemus, who, having just returned from California, where he had taken 1600 dollars at one lecture, did not think that to be evidence of his having lost his senses.

The substance of that which Artemus Ward then told me, was that while writing for the Cleveland Plaindealer he was accustomed, in the discharge of his duties as a reporter, to attend the performances of the various minstrel troupes and circuses which visited the neighbourhood. At one of these he would hear some story of his own, written a month or two previously, given by the "middle-man" of page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] the minstrels and received with hilarity by the audience. At another place he would be entertained by listening to jokes of his own invention, coarsely retailed by the clown of the ring and shouted at by the public as capital waggery on the part of the performer. His own good things from the lips of another "came back to him with alienated majesty" as Emerson expresses it. Then the thought would steal over him—why should that man gain a living with my witticisms, and I not use them in the same way myself? why not be the utterer of my own coinage, the quoter of my own jests, the mouth-piece of my own merry conceits? Certainly it was not a very exalted ambition, to aim at the glories of a circus-clown or the triumphs of a minstrel with a blackened face. But, in the United States a somewhat different view is taken of that which is fitting and seemly for a man to do, compared with the estimate we form in this country. In a land where the theory of caste is not admitted, the relative respectability of the various profession is not quite the same as it with us. There the profession does not disqualify if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentleman because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of prescribing pills and potions.

Artemus Ward was always very self-reliant; when once he believed himself to be in the right it was almost impossible to persuade him to the contrary. But, at the same time he was cautious in the extreme, and would well consider his position before deciding that which was right or wrong for him to do. The idea of becoming a public man having taken possession of his mind, the next point to decide was in what form he should appear before the public. That of a humorous lecturer seemed to him to be the best. It was unoccupied ground. America had produced entertainers who by means of facial changes or eccentricities of costume had contrived to amuse their audiences, but there was no one who ventured to joke for an hour before a house full of people with no aid from scenery or dress. The page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] experiment was one which Artemus resolved to try. Accordingly, he set himself to work to collect all his best quips and cranks, to invent what new drolleries he could, and to remember all the good things that he had heard or met with. These he noted down and strung together almost without relevancy or connection. The manuscript chanced to fall into the hands of the people at the office of the newspaper on which he was then employed, and the question was put to him of what use he was going to make of the strange jumble of jest which he had thus compiled. His answer was that he was about to turn lecturer, and that before them were the materials of his lecture. It was then that his friends laughed at him, and characterised him as "a fool."

"They had some right to think so," said Artemus to me as we rambled up Euclid Street. "I half thought that I was one myself. I don't look like a lecturer—do I?"

He was always fond, poor fellow, of joking on the subject of his personal appearance. His spare figure and tall stature, his prominent nose and his light-coloured hair were each made the subject of a joke at one time or another in the course of his lecturing career. If he laughed largely at the foibles of others, he was equally disposed to laugh at any shortcomings he could detect in himself. If anything at all in his outward form was to him a source of vanity, it was the delicate formation of his hands. White, soft, long, slender, and really handsome, they were more like the hands of a high-born lady than those of a western editor. He attended to them with careful pride, and never alluded to them as a subject for his jokes, until, in his last illness they had become unnaturally fair, translucent, and attenuated. Then it was that a friend calling upon him at his apartments in Piccadilly, endeavoured to cheer him at a time of great mental depression, and pleasantly reminded him of a ride they had long ago projected through the south-western states of the Union. "We must do that ride yet, Artemus. Short stages at first, and longer ones as we go on." Poor Artemus lifted up his pale, slender hands, and letting the light shine through them, said jocosely, "Do you think these page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] would do to hold a rein with? Why, the horse would laugh at them."

Having collected a sufficient number of quaint thoughts, whimsical fancies, bizarre notions, and ludicrous anecdotes, the difficulty which then, according to his own confession, occurred to Artemus Ward was, what should be the title of his lecture. The subject was no difficulty at all, for the simple reason that there was not to be any. The idea of instructing or informing his audience never once entered into his plans. His intention was merely to amuse; if possible keep the house in continuous laughter for an hour and-a-half, or rather an hour and twenty minutes, for that was the precise time, in his belief, which people could sit to listen and to laugh without becoming bored; and, if possible, send his audience home well pleased with the lecturer and with themselves, without their having any clear idea of that which they had been listening to, and not one jot the wiser than when they came. No one better understood than Artemus the wants of a miscellaneous audience who paid their dollar or half-dollar each to be amused. No one could gauge better than he the capacity of the crowd to feed on pure fun, and no one could discriminate more clearly than he the fitness, temper, and mental appetite of the constituents of his evening assemblies. The prosiness of an ordinary Mechanics' Institute lecture was to him simply abhorrent, the learned platitudes of a professed lecturer were to him, to use one of his own phrases, "worse than poison." To make people laugh was to be his primary endeavour. If in so making them laugh he could also cause them to see through a sham, be ashamed of some silly national prejudice or suspicions of the value of some current piece of political bunkum, so much the better. He believed in laughter as thoroughly wholesome, he had the firmest conviction that fun is healthy, and sportiveness the truest sign of sanity. Like Talleyrand, he was of opinion that, "Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit."

Artemus Ward's first lecture was entitled "The Babes in the Wood." I asked him why he chose that title, because page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] there was nothing whatever in the lecture relevant to the subject of the child-book legend. He replied, "It seemed to sound the best. I once thought of calling the lecture 'My Seven Grandmothers.' Don't you think that would have been good?" It would at any rate have been just as pertinent. Incongruity as an element of fun was always an idea uppermost in the mind of the western humorist. I am not aware that the notes of any of his lectures, except those of his Mormon experience, have been preserved, and I have some doubts if any one of his lectures, except the Mormon one, was ever fairly written out. "The Babes in the Wood" as a lecture was a pure and unmitigated "sell." It was merely joke after joke, and drollery succeeding to drollery, without any connecting thread whatever. It was an exhibition of fireworks, owing half its brilliancy and more than half its effect to the skill of the man who grouped the fireworks together and let them off. In the hands of any other pyrotechnist the squibs would have failed to light, the rockets would have refused to ascend, and the "nine-bangers" would have exploded but once or twice only, instead of nine times. The artist of the display being no more, and the fireworks themselves having gone out, it is perhaps not to be regretted that the cases of the squibs and the tubes of the rockets have not been carefully kept. Most of the good things introduced by Artemus Ward in his first lecture were afterwards incorporated by him in subsequent writings, or used over again in his later entertainment. Many of them had reference to the events of the day, the circumstances of the American War and the polities of the Great Rebellion. These of course have lost their interest with the passing away of the times which gave them birth. The points of many of the jokes have corroded, and the barbed head of many an arrow of Artemus's wit has rusted into bluntness with the decay of the bow from which it was propelled.

If I remember rightly, the "Babes in the Wood" were never mentioned more than twice in the whole lecture. First, when the lecturer told his audience that the "Babes" were to constitute the subject of his discourse, and then page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] digressed immediately to matters quite foreign to the story. Then again at the conclusion of the hour and twenty minutes of drollery, when he finished up in this way: "I now come to my subject—'The Babes in the Wood.'" Here he would take out his watch, look at it with affected surprise, put on an appearance of being greatly perplexed, and amidst roars of laughter from the people, very gravely continue, "But I find that I have exceeded my time, and will therefore merely remark that so far as I know they were very good babes—they were as good as ordinary babes. I really have not time to go into their history. You will find it all in the story-books. They died in the woods, listening to the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree. It was a sad fate for them, and I pity them. So, I hope, do you. Good night!"

Artemus gave his first lecture at Norwich in Connecticut, and travelled over a considerable portion of the Eastern States before he ventured to give a sample of his droll oratory in the Western Cities, wherein he had earned reputation as a journalist. Gradually his popularity became very great, and in place of letting himself out at so much per night to literary societies and athenæums, he constituted himself his own showman, engaging that indispensable adjunct to all showmen in the United States, an agent to go ahead, engage halls, arrange for the sale of tickets, and engineer the success of the show. Newspapers had carried his name to every village of the Union, and his writings had been largely quoted in every journal. It required, therefore, comparatively little advertising to announce his visit to any place in which he had to lecture. But it was necessary that he should have a bill or poster of some kind. The one he adopted was simple, quaint, striking, and well adapted to the purpose. It was merely one large sheet, with a black ground, and the letters cut out in the block, so as to print white. The reading was "ARTEMUS WARD WILL SPEAK A PIECE." To the American mind this was intensely funny from its childish absurdity. It is customary in the States for children to speak or recite "a piece" at school at the annual examination, and the phrase is used just in the same sense as in England we say "a Christmas page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] piece." The professed subject of the lecture being that of a story familiar to children, harmonized well with the droll placard which announced its delivery. The place and time were notified on a slip pasted beneath. To emerge from the dull depths of lyceum committees and launch out as a showman-lecturer on his own responsibility was something both novel and bold for Artemus to do. In the majority of instances he or his agent met with speculators who were ready to engage him for so many lectures, and secure to the lecturer a certain fixed sum. But in his later transactions Artemus would have nothing to do with them, much preferring to undertake all the risk himself. The last speculator to whom he sold himself for a tour was, I believe, Mr. Wilder, of New York City, who realized a large profit by investing in lecturing stock, and who was always ready to engage a circus, a wild-beast show, or a lecturing celebrity.

As a rule, Artemus Ward succeeded in pleasing every one in his audience, especially those who understood the character of the man and the drift of his lecture; but there were not wanting at any of his lectures a few obtuse-minded, slowly-perceptive, drowsy-headed dullards, who had not the remotest idea what the entertainer was talking about, nor why those around him indulged in laughter. Artemus was quick to detect these little spots upon the sunny face of his auditory. He would pick them out, address himself at times to them especially, and enjoy the bewilderment of his Bœotian patrons. Sometimes a stolid inhabitant of central New York, evidently of Dutch extraction, would regard him with an open stare expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him. At other times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor lecturer with a look of benevolent pity, and, on one occasion, when my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by her two daughters, left the room in the midst of the lecture, exclaiming, as she passed me at the door, "It is too bad of people to laugh at a poor young man who doesn't know what he is saying and ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum!"

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The newspaper reporters were invariably puzzled in attempting to give any correct idea of a lecture by Artemus Ward. No report could fairly convey an idea of the entertainment, and being fully aware of this, Artemus would instruct his agent to beg of the papers not to attempt giving any abstract of that which he said. The following is the way in which the reporter of the Golden Era, at San Francisco, California, endeavoured to inform the San Franciscan public of the character of "The Babes in the Wood" lecture. It is, as the reader will perceive, a burlesque on the way in which Artemus himself dealt with the topic he had chosen; while it also notes one or two of the salient features of my friend's style of lecturing:—

"HOW ARTEMUS WARD 'SPOKE A PIECE.'"

"Artemus has arrived. Artemus has spoken. Artemus has triumphed. Great is Artemus!

"Great also is Platt's Hall. But Artemus is greater; for the hall proved too small for his audience, and too circumscribed for the immensity of his jokes. A man who has drank twenty bottles wine may be called 'full.' A pint bottle with a quart of water in it would also be accounted full; and so would an hotel be, every bed in it let three times over on the same night to three different occupants, but none of these would be so full as Platt's Hall was on Friday night to hear Artemus Ward 'speak a piece.'

"The piece selected was 'The Babes in the Wood,' which reminds us that Mr. Ward is a tall, slender-built, fair-complexioned, jovial-looking gentleman of about twenty-seven years of age. He has a pleasant manner, an agreeable style, and a clear, distinct, and powerful voice.

"'The Babes in the Wood' is a 'comic oration,' with a most comprehensive grasp of subject. As spoken by its witty author, it elicited gusts of laughter and whirlwinds of applause. Mr. Ward is no prosy lyceum lecturer. His style is neither scientific, didactic, or philosophical. It is simply that of a man who is brimful of mirth, wit and satire, and who is compelled to let it flow forth. Maintaining a very grave countenance himself, he plays upon the muscles of other people's faces as though they were piano-strings and he the prince of pianists.

"The story of 'The Babes in the Wood' is interesting in the extreme. We would say, en passant, however, that Artemus Ward is a perfect steam factory of puns and a museum of American humour. Humanity seems to him to be a vast mine, out of which he digs tons of fun; and life a huge forest, in which he can cut down 'cords' of comicality. Language with him is like the brass balls with which the juggler amuses us at the circus—ever being

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tossed up, ever glittering, ever thrown about at pleasure. We intended to report his lecture at full, but we laughed till we split our lead pencil and our short-hand symbols were too infused with merriment to remain steady on the paper. However, let us proceed to give an idea of 'The Babes in the Wood.' In the first place it is a comic oration; that is, it is spoken, is exuberant in fun, felicitous in fancy, teeming with jokes, and sparkling as bright waters on a sunny day. The 'Babes in the Wood' is—that is, it isn't a lecture or an oratorical effort; it is something sui generis; something reserved for our day and generation, which it would never have done for our forefathers to have known, or they would have been too mirthful to have attended to the business of preparing the world for our coming; and something which will provoke so much laughter in our time, that the echo of the laughs will reverberate along the halls of futurity and seriously affect the nerves of future generations.

"The 'Babes in the Wood' to describe it, is—Well, those who listened to it know best. At any rate they will acknowledge with us that it was a great success; and that Artemus Ward has a fortune before him in California.

"And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'—But we will not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who came; consequently Mr. Ward will tell it over again at the Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening. The subject will again be 'The Babes in the Wood.'"

Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood" lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became desirous of going over the same ground again. There were not wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold" his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a second time. But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes, incidental to new topics of the times. Just at this period General McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at Bull's Run had become matter of history. The forcible abolition of slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land. Artemus required a very page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] slender thread to string his jokes upon, and what better one could be found than that which he chose? He advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and in all probability had never read a book on African travel. He knew nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose Africa for his subject. I believe that he carried out the joke so far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the lecture-room. It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number, and the evening was unusually warm. Artemus came on the rostrum with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding-whip for the same purpose. He commenced his lecture thus, speaking very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly disregard their laughter.

"I have invited you to listen to a discourse upon Africa. Africa is my subject. It is a very large subject. It has the Atlantic Ocean on its left side, the Indian Ocean on its right, and more water than you could measure out at its smaller end. Africa produces blacks—ivory blacks—they get ivory. It also produces deserts, and that is the reason it is so much deserted by travellers. Africa is famed for its roses. It has the red rose, the white rose, and the neg-rose. Apropos of negroes, let me tell you a little story."

Then he at once diverged from the subject of Africa to detail to his audience his amusing story of the Conversion of a negro, which he subsequently worked up into an article in the Savage Club Papers, and entitled "Converting the Nigger." Never once again in the course of the lecture did he refer to Africa, until the time having arrived for him to conclude, and the people being fairly worn out with laughter, he page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] finished up by saying, "Africa, ladies and gentlemen, is my subject. You wish me to tell you something about Africa. Africa is on the map—it is on all the maps of Africa that I have ever seen. You may buy a good map for a dollar, and if you study it well, you will know more about Africa than I do. It is a comprehensive subject, too vast, I assume you, for me to enter upon to-night. You would not wish me to, I feel that—I feel it deeply, and I am very sensitive. If you go home and go to bed it will be better for you than to go with me to Africa."

The joke about the "neg-rose" has since run the gauntlet of nearly all the minstrel bands throughout England and America. All the "bones," every "middle-man," and all "end-men" of the burnt-cork profession have used Artemus Ward as a mine wherein to dig for the ore which provokes laughter. He has been the "cause of wit in others," and the bread-winner for many dozens of black-face songsters—"singists" as he used to term them. He was just as fond of visiting their entertainments as they were of appropriating his jokes; and among his best friends in New York were the brothers Messrs. Neil and Dan Bryant, who have made a fortune by what has been facetiously termed—"the burnt-cork-opera."

It was in his "Sixty Minutes in Africa" lecture that Artemus Ward first introduced his celebrated satire on the negro, which he subsequently put into print. "The African," said he, "may be our brother. Several highly respectable gentlemen and some talented females tell me that he is, and for argument's sake I might be induced to grant it, though I don't believe it myself. But the African isn't our sister, and wife, and uncle. He isn't several of our brothers and first wife's relations. He isn't our grandfather and great grandfather, and our aunt in the country, Scarcely."

It may easily be imagined how popular this joke became when it is remembered that it was first perpetrated at a time when the negro question was so much debated as to page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] have become an absolute nuisance. Nothing else was talked of; nobody would talk of anything but the negro. The saying arose that all Americans had "nigger-on-the-brain." The topic had become nauseous, especially to the Democratic party; and Artemus always had more friends among them than among the Republicans. If he had any politics at all he was certainly a Democrat.

War had arisen, the South was closed, and the lecturing arena considerably lessened. Artemus Ward determined to go to California. Before starting for that side of the American continent, he wished to appear in the city of New York. He engaged, through his friend Mr. De Walden, the large hall then known as Niblo's, in front of the Niblo's Garden Theatre, and now used, I believe, as the dining-room of the Metropolitan Hotel. At that period Pepper's Ghost chanced to be the great novelty of New York City, and Artemus Ward was casting about for a novel title to his old lecture. Whether he or Mr. De Walden selected that of "Artemus Ward's Struggle with a Ghost" I do not know; but I think that it was Mr. De Walden's choice. The title was seasonable and the lecture successful. Then came the tour to California, whither I proceeded in advance to warn the miners on the Yuba, the travellers on the Rio Sacramento, and the citizens of the Chrysopolis of the Pacific that "A. Ward" would be there shortly. In California the lecture was advertised under its old name of "The Babes in the Wood." Platt's Hall was selected for the scene of operation, and, so popular was the lecturer, that on the first night we took at the doors more than sixteen hundred dollars in gold. The crowd proved too great to take money in the ordinary manner, and hats were used for people to throw their dollars in. One hat broke through at the crown. I doubt if we ever knew to a dollar how many dollars it once contained.

California was duly travelled over, and "The Babes in the Wood" listened to with laughter in its flourishing cities, its mining-camps among the mountains, and its "new placers" beside gold-bedded rivers. While journeying page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] through that strangely-beautiful land, the serious question arose—What was to be done next? After California—where?

Before leaving New York, it had been a favourite scheme of Artemus Ward not to return from California to the East by way of Panama, but to come home across the Plains, and to visit Salt Lake City by the way. The difficulty that now presented itself was, that winter was close upon us, and that it was no pleasant thing to cross the Sierra Nevada and scale the Rocky Mountains with the thermometer far below freezing point. Nor was poor Artemus even at that time a strong man. My advice was to return to Panama, visit the West India Islands, and come back to California in the spring, lecture again in San Francisco, and then go on to the land of the Mormons. Artemus doubted the feasibility of this plan, and the decision was ultimately arrived at to try the journey to Salt Lake. Unfortunately the winter turned out to be one of the severest. When we arrived at Salt Lake City, my poor friend was seized with typhoid fever, resulting from the fatigue we had undergone, the intense cold to which we had been subjected, and the excitement of being on a journey of 3,500 miles across the North American Continent, when the Pacific Railway had made little progress and the Indians were reported not to be very friendly.

The story of the trip is told in Artemus Ward's lecture. I have added to it, at the special request of the publisher, a few explanatory notes, the purport of which is to render the reader acquainted with the characteristics of the lecturer's delivery. For the benefit of those who never had an opportunity of seeing Artemus Ward nor of hearing him lecture, I may be pardoned for attempting to describe the man, himself.

In stature he was tall, in figure, slender. At any time during our acquaintance his height must have been disproportionate to his weight. Like his brother Cyrus, who died a few years before him, Charles F. Browne, our page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] "Artemus Ward," had the premonitory signs of a short life strongly evident in his early manhood. There were the lank form, the long pale fingers, the very white pearly teeth, the thin, fine, soft hair, the undue brightness of the eyes, the excitable and even irritable disposition, the capricious appetite, and the alternately jubilant and despondent tone of mind which too frequently indicate that "the abhorred fury with the shears" is waiting too near at hand to "slit the thin-spun life." His hair was very light-coloured, and not naturally curly. He used to joke in his lecture about what it cost him to keep it curled; he wore a very large moustache without any beard or whiskers; his nose was exceedingly prominent, having an outline not unlike that of the late Sir Charles Napier. His forehead was large, with, to use the language of the phrenologists, the organs of the perceptive faculties far more developed than those of the imaginative powers. He had the manner and bearing of a naturally-born gentleman. Great was the disappointment of many who, having read his humorous papers descriptive of his exhibition of snakes and waxwork work, and who having also formed their ideas of him from the absurd pictures which had been attached to some editions of his works, found on meeting with him that there was no trace of the showman in his deportment, and little to call up to their mind the smart Yankee who had married "Betsy Jane." There was nothing to indicate that he had not lived a long time in Europe and acquired the polish which men gain by coming in contact with the society of European capitals. In his conversation there was no marked peculiarity of accent to identify him as an American, nor any of the braggadocio which some of his countrymen unadvisedly assume. His voice was soft, gentle, and clear. He could make himself audible in the largest lecture-rooms without effort. His style of lecturing was peculiar; so thoroughly sui generis, that I know of no one with whom to compare him, nor can any description very well convey an idea of that which it was like. However much he caused his audience to laugh, no smile appeared upon his own face. It was grave even to solemnity, while he was giving utterance to the most delicious absurdities. His assumption of indifference page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] difference to that which he was saying, his happy manner of letting his best jokes fall from his lips as if unconscious of their being jokes at all, his thorough self-possession on the platform, and keen appreciation of that which suited his audience, and that which did not, rendered him well qualified for the task which he had undertaken—that of amusing the public with a humorous lecture. He understood and comprehended to a hair's breadth the grand secret of how not to bore. He had weighed, measured, and calculated to a nicety the number of laughs an audience could indulge in on one evening, without feeling that they were laughing just a little too much. Above all, he was no common man, and did not cause his audience to feel that they were laughing at that which they should feel ashamed of being amused with. He was intellectually up to the level of nine-tenths of those who listened to him, and in listening, they felt that it was no fool who were the cap and bells so excellently. It was amusing to notice how with different people his jokes produced a different effect. The Honourable Robert Lowe attended one evening at the Mormon Lecture, and laughed as hilariously as any one in the room. The next evening Mr. John Bright happened to be present. With the exception of one or two occasional smiles, he listened with grave attention.

In placing the lecture before the public in print it is impossible by having recourse to any system of punctuation to indicate the pauses, jerky emphases, and odd inflexions of voice which characterized the delivery. The reporter of the Standard newspaper describing his first lecture in London aptly said, "Artemus dropped his jokes faster than the meteors of last night succeeded each other in the sky. And there was this resemblance between the flashes of his humour and the flights of the meteors, that in each case one looked for jokes or meteors, but they always came just in the place that one least expected to find them. Half the enjoyment of the evening lay, to some of those present, in, listening to the hearty cachinnation of the people who only found out the jokes some two or three minutes after they were made, and who then laughed apparently at some grave page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] statements of fact. Reduced to paper the showman's jokes are certainly not brilliant; almost their whole effect lies in their seeming impromptu character. They are carefully led up to, of course, but they are uttered as if they are mere afterthoughts of which the speaker is hardly sure." Herein the writer in the Standard hits the most marked peculiarity of Artemus Ward's style of lecturing. His affectation of not knowing what he was uttering; his seeming fits of abstraction, and his grave melancholy aspect constituted the very cream of the entertainment. Occasionally he would amuse himself in an apparently meditative mood, by twirling his little riding-whip, or by gazing earnestly but with affected admiration at his panorama. At the Egyptian Hall his health entirely failed him, and he would occasionally have to use a seat during the course of the lecture. In the notes which follow I have tried, I know how inefficiently, to convey here and there an idea of how Artemus rendered his lecture amusing by gesture or action. I have also, at the request of the Publisher, made a few explanatory comments on the subject of our Mormon trip. In so doing I hope that I have not thrust myself too prominently forward nor been too officious in my explanations. My aim has been to add to the interest of the lecture with those who never heard it delivered, and to revive in the memory of those who did some of its notable peculiarities. The illustrations are from photographs of the panorama painted in America for Artemus, as the pictorial portion of his entertainment.

In the lecture is the fun of the journey. For the hard facts the reader in quest of information is referred to a book published previously to the lecturer's appearance at the Egyptian Hall, the title of which is, "Artemus Ward: His Travels Among the Mormons." Much against the grain as it was for Artemus to be statistical, he has therein detailed some of the experiences of his Mormon trip, with due regard to the exactitude and accuracy of statement expected by information-seeking readers in a book of travels. He was not precisely the sort of traveller to write a paper for the evening meetings of the Royal page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] Geographical Society, nor was he sufficiently interested in philosophical theories to speculate on the developments of Mormonism as illustrative of the history of religious belief. We were looking out of the window of the Salt Lake House one morning, when Brigham Young happened to pass down the opposite side of Main Street. It was cold weather, and the prophet was clothed in a thick cloak of some green-coloured material. I remarked to Artemus that Brigham had, seemingly, compounded Mormonism from portions of a dozen different creeds, and that in selecting green for the colour of his apparel he was imitating Mahomet. "Has it not struck you," I observed, "that Swedenborgianism and Mahometanism are oddly blended in the Mormon faith?"

"Petticoatism and plunder," was Artemus's reply; and that comprehended his whole philosophy of Mormonism. As he remarked elsewhere: "Brigham Young is a man of great natural ability. If you ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and give it up."

To lecture in London, and at the Egyptian Hall, had long been a favourite idea of Artemus Ward. Some humorist has said that "All good Americans when they die——go to Paris." So do most, whether good or bad, while they are living.

Still more strongly developed is the trans-atlantic desire to go to Rome. In the far west of the Missouri, in the remoter west of Colorado, and away in far north-western Oregon, I have heard many a tradesman express his intention to make dollars enough to enable him to visit Rome. In a land where all is so new, where they have had no past, where an old wall would be a sensation, and a tombstone of anybody's great grandfather the marvel of the whole region, the charms of the old world have an irresistible fascination. To visit the home of the Cæsars they have read of in their school books, and to look at architecture which they have seen pictorially, but have nothing like it in existence around them, is very naturally the strong wish of people who are nationally page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] nomadic, and who have all more or less a smattering of education. Artemus Ward never expressed to me any very great wish to travel on the European continent, but to see London was to accomplish something which he had dreamed of from his boyhood. There runs from Marysville in California to Oroville in the same State a short and singular little railway, which, when we were there, was in a most unfinished condition. To Oroville we were going. We were too early for the train at the Marysville station, and sat down on a pile of timber to chat over future prospects.

"What sort of a man was Albert Smith?" asked Artemus, "And do you think that the Mormons would be as good a subject for the Londoners as Mont Blane was?"

I answered his questions. He reflected for a few moments, and then said,

Well, old fellow, I'll tell you what I should like to do. I should like to go to London and give my lecture in the same place. Can it be done?"

It was done. Not in the same room, but under the same roof and on the same floor; in that gloomy-looking Hall in Piccadilly, which was destined to be the ante-chamber to the tomb of both lecturers.

Throughout this brief sketch I have written familiarly of the late Mr. Charles F. Browne as "Artemus Ward," or simply as "Artemus." I have done so advisedly, mainly because, during the whole course of our acquaintance, I do not remember addressing him as "Mr. Browne," or by his real Christian name. To me he was always "Artemus"—Artemus the kind, the gentle, the suave, the generous. One who was ever a friend in the fullest meaning of the word, and the best of companions in the amplest acceptance of the phrase. His merry laugh and pleasant conversation are as audible to me as if they were heard but yesterday; his words of kindness linger on the ear of memory, and his page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] tones of genial mirth live in echoes which I shall listen to for evermore. Two years will soon have passed away since last he spoke, and—
  • "Silence now, enamoured of his voice
  • Locks its mute music in her rugged cell."

E. P. HINGSTON.

LONDON, October, 1868

ARTEMUS WARD'S first lecture in London was delivered at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, on Tuesday, November 13, 1866. The room used was that which had been recently occupied by Mr. Arthur Sketchley. It is the lesser of the two rooms at the top of the staircase. Not the one in which Mr. Albert Smith formerly made his appearances. The attendance was very large, but the audience for the most part consisted of invited friends and the members of the press. The paying public having to wait for another opportunity, though they struggled in large numbers to obtain admission.

Copies of Artemus Ward's very original programmes are given in the Appendix, together with the notice of the lecture which appeared in the Times two days after its delivery. The notice was written by Mr. John Oxenford.

page: 58 (Illustration) -59[View Page 58 (Illustration) -59]

THE PROSCENIUM

WITH THE CURTAIN DOWN.

As at Artemus Ward's First Lecture in the Egyptian Hall, London, On Tuesday, November 13, 1866.

[View Figure]

This was the appearance of the stage during the prologue of the lecture, before any portion of the panorama was exhibited. The lights in the room being then turned up, the wondrous gravity of the lecturer's face was fully visible at the time that he was uttering his best jokes. The picture was surrounded with a large gilt frame.

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