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.”