I have many of them—beautiful photographs—of myself;" you smile; and when he continues, "These pictures were painted by the Old Masters; they painted these pictures and then they—they expired;" you hardly know what it is that makes you laugh outright; and when Josh Billings says in his Proverbs, wiser than Solomon's "You'd better not know so much, than know so many things that ain't so;"—the same vein is struck, but the text-books fail to explain scientifically the cause of our mirth.

The wit of Charles Browne is of the most exalted kind. It is only scholars and those thoroughly acquainted with the SUBTILTY of our language who fully appreciate it. His wit is generally about historical personages like Cromwell, Garrick, or Shakspeare, or a burlesque on different styles of writing, like his French novel, when hifalutin phrases of tragedy come from the clodhopper who—"sells soap and thrice—refuses a ducal coronet."

Mr. Browne mingled the eccentric even in his business letters. Once he wrote to his Publisher, Mr. G.W. Carleton, who had made some alterations in his MSS.: "The next book I write I'm going to get YOU to write." Again he wrote in 1863:

"Dear Carl:—You and I will get out a book next spring, which will knock spots out of all comic books in ancient or modern history. And the fact that you are going to take hold of it convinces me that you have one of the most MASSIVE intellects of this or any other epoch.

"Yours, my pretty gazelle,

"A. Ward."

When Charles F. Browne died, he did not belong to America, for, as with Irving and Dickens, the English language claimed him. Greece alone did not suffer when the current of Diogenes' wit flowed on to death. Spain alone did not mourn when Cervantes, dying, left Don Quixote, the "knight of la Mancha." When Charles Lamb ceased to tune the great heart of humanity to joy and gladness, his funeral was in every English and American household; and when Charles Browne took up his silent resting-place in the sombre shades of Kensal Green, JESTING CEASED, and one great Anglo-American heart,

             Like a muffled drum went beating
               Funeral marches to his grave.

MELVILLE D. LANDON.

INTRODUCTION BY 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 Farrar 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 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 Farrar 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 Farrar 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 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 waxwork show, with a hoarse voice, and over familiar manner. The slim gentleman in evening dress, polished manners, and gentle voice, with a 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," Betsy 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 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 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