CHARLES F. BROWNE.
(ARTEMUS WARD).
RTEMUS WARD first revealed to the world that humor is a characteristic trait of the Yankee, and he was the first to succeed in producing a type of comic literature distinctively American, purely the product of his original genius.
It is impossible to analyze his jokes or to tell why they are irresistibly funny, but it would be generally admitted that his best things are as much creations of genius as masterpieces of art are.
He was one of the kindest and most generous of men; he used his keen wit to smite evil customs and to satirize immoral deeds, and he went through his short life enjoying above everything to make people laugh and to laugh himself, but with all his play of wit there was a tinge of melancholy in his nature and a tendency to do the most unexpected things, a tendency which he never tried to control. He was born in Waterford, Maine, in 1834, and he came honestly by a view of humor from his father’s side. He had only a most meagre school education, and at fourteen he set himself to learn the printer’s trade, becoming one of the best typesetters in the country.
He drifted from place to place and finally became one of the staff of the “Commercial” at Toledo, Ohio, where he first displayed his peculiar richness of humor in his news reports. In 1857 he became local editor of the “Plain-Dealer” in Cleveland, and it was here his sketches were first signed Artemus Ward, a name which he took from a peculiar character who called on him once in his Cleveland office. He is described at this time as being in striking degree gawky and slouchy, with yellowish, straight hair, a loose swaggering gait, and strangely ill-fitting clothes, though as his popularity and position rose he took on more cultivated manners and grew very particular regarding his dress.
His first attempts at lecturing were not marked with success and he was forced to explain his jokes to his audiences to make the desired laugh come, but he soon attracted attention and multitudes flocked to hear the “grate showman,” with his “moral wax figgers.” In 1863 he crossed the continent and on this trip he collected material for his most humorous lectures and for the best of his chapters.
The Mormons furnished him with the material for his most telling lecture, and it was a mark of his genius that he was irresistibly drawn to Utah to study this peculiar type of American society.
He went to England in 1866, where, though in failing health, ending in premature death, he created almost a sensation and had flattering successes. The “Mormons” never failed to fill a hall and always carried his audiences by storm.
Some of his most brilliant articles were written for “Punch,” and the American humorist was recognized as a typical genius; but he was a dying man while he was making his London audiences laugh at his spontaneous wit, and his life came to an end at Southampton, January 23, 1867.
He provided in his will for the establishment of an asylum for printers and for the education of their orphan children, an action which revealed, as many acts of his life had done, the kindly human spirit of the humorist.
His published books, which owe much of their charm to his characteristic spelling, are as follows: “Artemus Ward, His Book,” and “Artemus Ward, His Travels” (1865), “Artemus Ward in London” (1867), “Artemus Ward’s Lecture, as delivered in Egyptian Hall, London,” edited by T. W. Robertson and E. P. Hingston (1869), and “Artemus Ward, His Works Complete,” with biographical sketch by Melville D. Landon (1875).
ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE SHAKERS.
R. SHAKER,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you.”
“Yay,” said the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another bein’ sent to put my horse and wagon under kiver.
A solum female, lookin’ somewhat like a last year’s bean-pole stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I hunger? To which I asserted, “A few.” She went orf, and I endeavored to open a conversation with the old man.
“Elder, I spect,” sed I.
“Yay,” he said.
“Health’s good, I reckon?”
“Yay.”
“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understands his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitous?”
“Yay.”
“Storm nigh, sir?”
“Yay.”
“If the storm continues there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”
“Yay.”
“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of wesket you wear, includin’ trimmin’s?”
“Yay.”
I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin’ I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin’ ekel.
He jumped up as if bilin’ water had been squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin’ and sed:
“You’re a man of sin!”
He then walked out of the room.
Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin’ galls as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by long, white caps, such as I spose female gosts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin’ enuff to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forget Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez I:
“My pretty dears, how air you?”
“We air well,” they solumly sed.
“Where is the old man?” said I, in a soft voice.
“Of whom dost thou speak—Brother Uriah?”
“I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name wasn’t Uriah.”
“He has retired.”
“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have some fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”
“Air you a [♦]Shaker, sir?” they asked.
[♦] ‘Skaker’ replaced with ‘Shaker’
“Wall, my pretty dears, I haven’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I am willing to be Shaker protemporary.”
They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little skeery. I tawt ’em puss in the corner, and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin’ quiet of course, so that the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I:
“My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections have you? to a innersent kiss at partin’?”
“Yay,” they said, and I—yayed.
ARTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.
’VE been lingerin’ by the tomb of the lamented Shakespeare.
It is a success.
I do not hes’tate to pronounce it as such.
You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the cause of literatoor, you may publicate.
I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur of Otheller and other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn’t care where I went. “But,” I said, “don’t you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the roses as groses, and the breezes as blowses—but a Boss poit—also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything.”
Yes. I’ve been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birth-place of Shakespeare. Mr. S. is now no more. He’s been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him. They cherish his mem’ry, and them as sell picturs of his birth-place, &c., make it prof’tible cherishin’ it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.
“And this,” I said, as I stood in the old churchyard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, “this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakespeare. Alars! and this is the spot where—”
“You’ve got the wrong grave,” said a man—a worthy villager; “Shakespeare is buried inside the church.”
“Oh,” I said, “a boy told me this was it.” The boy larfed and put the shillin’ I’d given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.
I pursood and captered him, and, after talking to him a spell in a sarkastic stile, I let him went.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentators, Shakesperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn’t fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatist much. And there is no doubt if these commentators and persons continner investigatin’ Shakespeare’s career, we shall not in doo time, know anything about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar School wouldn’t attend him. This remarkable remark coming from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin’ there might be something in this lad. He subsequently wrote Hamlet and George Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils to deliver a farewell address. “Go on, sir,” he said, “in a glorous career. Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be gratified! That’s so.”
