CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE.
Probably no writer in America—or out of it, for that matter—ever attained such universal notoriety, in such a brief space of time, as did that king of American humorists, Artemus Ward. His career was short but successful, and his fame will live as long as does the English language. Charles Farrar Browne was born in the hamlet of Waterford, Maine, on the 26th day of April, 1834, and died at Southampton, England, March 6, 1867. After graduating from the free village school at Waterford he sought and obtained employment in a printing office. As a printer’s apprentice he traveled throughout the New England States, stopping for a brief period at one place and then another. Finally Charles settled down in Boston, where he obtained employment as compositor in the office of a weekly paper. He soon after began to compose comic stories and essays for different periodicals, which met with medium success.
Browne remained there but a short time, however, being of a roving disposition, and a fewmonths later he gave up his idea of settling in Boston and left for the West, with but one suit of clothes (those were on his back) and with a few cents in his pocket. He obtained work as local reporter on papers in Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio, and finally brought up at Cleveland in 1857, in which city he obtained a situation as reporter on the morning Plain Dealer. His old associates in Cleveland tell me that Browne at this time was considered one of the characters of the town. His dress was always shabby and scant; his habits irregular, and his general appearance that of a country “greenhorn.” He delighted in wearing on his head a large crowned slouch hat, and his pantaloons were as a rule nearly a foot too short for him. Being tall, slim, and bony, his appearance in those days as he slouched along the streets of Cleveland in search of items could not have been very prepossessing, to say the least. “He was then,” says a well known humorist, “a mild-mannered, sunny-tempered young fellow of twenty-three, who delighted in witty anecdotes, and told droll stories in an inimitable way.”
Despite his looks, Browne was a brilliant and ready writer. He became involved in numerous journalistic quarrels, and his cutting remarks and timely rebukes to his contemporaries soon made known the fact that he could not be mastered.
A. Miner Griswold, the Cincinnati humorist, tells the following story of Browne at that time: “The first night of our acquaintance he took me to a school exhibition on Cleveland heights, and his whispered comments upon the performance amused me greatly. They gave a portion of the play of Rolla: ‘How now, Gomez, what bringest thou?’ Gomez: ‘On yonder mountain we surprised an old Peruvian.’ Said Brown in a whisper, ‘They knew him by his bark, a small bundle of which you perceive he carries on his shoulder.’ There have been many Peruvian bark jokes since, but that was then fresh to me—too fresh, perhaps. But one finds plenty of funny people at twenty-two, and I little dreamed that my entertainer, the green young man by the name of Browne, was destined to make the whole world laugh, and weep, too, when it heard of his death. It did occur to me as we drove back in the buggy that my new friend was the least bit eccentric. After riding along in silence for a time he suddenly declared that he liked me, and asked me if I had any objections to one embrace. Then he attempted to throw his arms around me, but owing to the darkness, I suppose, he embraced a new plug hat that I wore, and when he let go it was crushed into a shapeless mass. He apologized profusely when he discovered what he had done,appeared to give way to a momentary burst of tears, and then said that Shakespeare wouldn’t have succeeded as a local editor, because he hadn’t the necessary fancy and imagination.
“Barring an unreasonable desire to drive off the canal bridge into the water, which I prevailed upon him to relinquish with some difficulty, we reached the city without further incident. His humorous account of the school exhibition in the next day’s paper confirmed me in the impression that the young man by the name of Browne possessed a rare streak of original humor.”
The following autumn Browne published his first “Artemus Ward” letter that was extensively copied, an account of the Atlantic cable celebration in Baldwinsville; followed soon after by the Free Lovers of Berlin Heights, and later his letters from “Artemus Ward, showman,” appeared, which attracted general attention.
In the early part of 1860, Browne surrendered his position as city editor of the Plain Dealer, and left Cleveland for New York. In the metropolis he was engaged as a contributor to Vanity Fair, a comic weekly paper that had but recently been established. Vanity Fair was a success for a time, but it was not lasting. Some months after his arrival in New York, Browne was offered the position as editor of the publication, and aftersome hesitancy, he accepted. The paper suspended soon after, and the young humorist was thrown upon his own resources once again. Several positions were offered him on various New York journals, but he concluded to give up journalism for a time and turn his attention to lecturing.
His first lecture, which was of a humorous nature, was delivered in New York city, December 23, 1861, and was well received. As a lecturer he was at once acknowledged as a success, and immediately delivered his mirth provoking orations in various parts of the country. In 1862 he published his first book, entitled Artemus Ward, His Book. In 1863 he paid a visit to the Pacific coast, making an overland trip, visiting Salt Lake city, and addressing large audiences wherever he stopped.
Returning to New York city in 1864, he opened his illustrated lectures on California and Utah with immense success. About this time his other books, Artemus Ward Among the Mormons, and Ward Among the Fenians, appeared. In 1866 he was prevailed upon by his friends to visit England, where he became a regular contributor to Punch, and gave his lecture on the Mormons, in the British metropolis. But while he was convulsing all London with laughter he was fast falling a victim toconsumption, and becoming worse he went to Guernsey in 1867 for the benefit of his health. He became no better, and when he was just about preparing to return to America, he died at Southampton, March 6, 1867. By his will, after providing for his mother, leaving legacies to his friends, and his library of valuable books to a school-boy friend in his native village, he left the bulk of his property in trust to Horace Greeley for the purpose of founding an asylum for printers.
Mark Twain, in a private letter to a friend in Tennessee, says of Artemus Ward:
“He was one of the kindest and gentlest of men, and the hold he took on the English people surpasses imagination. Artemus Ward once said to me gravely, almost sadly:
“‘Clemens, I have done too much fooling, too much trifling; I am going to write something that will live.”
“‘Well, what for instance?
“In the same grave way, he said:
“‘A lie.’
“It was an admirable surprise. I was just ready to cry; he was becoming pathetic.”
There have been hundreds of stories of Artemus Ward going the rounds of the American press during the past twenty years. A few of them arefounded on facts, some of them are good, but many, I am sorry to say, are base fabrications. This is not the case, however, with the little reminder that certain residents of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, are wont to tell. Ward was advertised to deliver his famous lecture on the Mormons, in the town hall, at Pottstown, during the winter of one of the earlier years of the war. Much curiosity was excited by the announcement of his coming, and there was every reason to expect that the hall would be crowded on the evening of the lecture. A fierce snow storm raged all day, however, and the night was wild and stormy. When the lecturer was driven to the hall, he found waiting for him only five men, who had defied the storm. Advancing to the stage, and beckoning with the finger, as to a single individual, Artemus said, in an ordinary conversational tone:
“Come up closer.”
Not knowing precisely what to do, the audience of five compromised with their embarrassment by doing nothing. Artemus changed his tone to that used by one who wished to coax, and said:
“Please come up closer, and be sociable. I want to speak to you about a little matter I have thought of.”
The audience, thus being persuaded, came up a little closer, and the humorist said:
“I move that we don’t have any lecture here this evening, and I propose instead that we adjourn to the restaurant beneath and have a good time.”
Ward then put the motion, voted on it himself, declared it carried, and, to give no opportunity for an appeal from the chair, at once led the way to the restaurant. There he introduced himself to his intended auditors, and spent several hours in their company, richly compensating them for disappointment in the matter of the lecture, by the wit and humor of the stories that he told. That was how Artemus Ward lectured in Pottstown.
Glancing hurriedly through Ward’s volume of sketches, I find none more amusing than his description of
THE CENSUS.
The sences taker in our town being taken sick, he deppertised me to go out for him one day, and as he was too ill to give me information how to perceed, I was consekently compelled to go it blind. Sittin’ down by the roadside I draw’d up the follerin’ list of questions, which I proposed to ax the people I visited:Wat’s your age?Whar’ was you born?Air you married, and if so, how do you like it?How many children hav’ you, and do they sufficientlyresemble you so as to proclood the possibility of their belongin’ to any of your nabers?Did you ever have the measles, and if so, how many?Hav’ you a twin brother several years older than yourself?How many parents have you?Do you read Watt’s Hymns reg’lar?Do you use bought’n tabacker?Wat’s your fitin’ weight?Air you troubled with biles?How does your meresham culler?State whether you air blind, deaf, idiotic, or got the heaves?Do you know any Opry singers, and if so how much do they owe you?What’s the average of virtoo in the Ery canawl?If four barrels of emtin’s pored onto a barn floor will kiver it, how many plase can Dion Boucicault write in a year?Is beans a reg’lar article of diet in your family?How many chickens hav’ you, on foot and in the shell?Air you aware that Injiany whisky is used in New York shootin’ galrys insted of pistols, and that it shoots furthest?Was you ever at Niagry Falls?Was you ever in the penitentiary?State how much pork, impendin’ crysis, Dutch cheese, poplar survinity, standard poetry, children’s strainers, slave code, catnip, red flannel, ancient history, pickled tomatoes, old junk, perfoomery, coal ile, liberty, hoopskirts, etc., have you got on hand?But it didn’t work. I got into a row at the first house I stopt at, with some old maids. Disbelievin’ the answers they give in regard to their ages I endeavored to open their mouths and look at their teeth, same as they do with horses, but they floo into a violent rage and tackled me with brooms and sich. Takin’ the sences requires experience, like as any other bizness.
The sences taker in our town being taken sick, he deppertised me to go out for him one day, and as he was too ill to give me information how to perceed, I was consekently compelled to go it blind. Sittin’ down by the roadside I draw’d up the follerin’ list of questions, which I proposed to ax the people I visited:
Wat’s your age?
Whar’ was you born?
Air you married, and if so, how do you like it?
How many children hav’ you, and do they sufficientlyresemble you so as to proclood the possibility of their belongin’ to any of your nabers?
Did you ever have the measles, and if so, how many?
Hav’ you a twin brother several years older than yourself?
How many parents have you?
Do you read Watt’s Hymns reg’lar?
Do you use bought’n tabacker?
Wat’s your fitin’ weight?
Air you troubled with biles?
How does your meresham culler?
State whether you air blind, deaf, idiotic, or got the heaves?
Do you know any Opry singers, and if so how much do they owe you?
What’s the average of virtoo in the Ery canawl?
If four barrels of emtin’s pored onto a barn floor will kiver it, how many plase can Dion Boucicault write in a year?
Is beans a reg’lar article of diet in your family?
How many chickens hav’ you, on foot and in the shell?
Air you aware that Injiany whisky is used in New York shootin’ galrys insted of pistols, and that it shoots furthest?
Was you ever at Niagry Falls?
Was you ever in the penitentiary?
State how much pork, impendin’ crysis, Dutch cheese, poplar survinity, standard poetry, children’s strainers, slave code, catnip, red flannel, ancient history, pickled tomatoes, old junk, perfoomery, coal ile, liberty, hoopskirts, etc., have you got on hand?
But it didn’t work. I got into a row at the first house I stopt at, with some old maids. Disbelievin’ the answers they give in regard to their ages I endeavored to open their mouths and look at their teeth, same as they do with horses, but they floo into a violent rage and tackled me with brooms and sich. Takin’ the sences requires experience, like as any other bizness.
Browne had few if any enemies, and hosts of friends. Everyone with whom he became acquainted became his friend. He was as genial as he was humorous, and his former companions who are yet alive look back upon the time when Artemus Ward, the king of American humorists, took their proffered hand and shook it warmly in his original and friendly way.