2469 (#29) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2469
But Chalmerson hasn't done much.
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2469
But Chalmerson hasn't done much.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
2456 (#16) ############################################
viii
LIVED
PAGE
1747-1794
2767
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
William and Helen
The Wives of Weinsberg
EDMUND BURKE
1729-1797
2779
BY E. L. GODKIN
From Speech on Conciliation with America'
From Speech on "The Nabob of Arcot's Debts'
From Speech on (The French Revolution?
1849-
2809
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
At the Pit (“That Lass o' Lowrie's ')
2817
FRANCES BURNEY (Madame D'Arblay)
1752-1840
Evelina's Letter to the Rev. Mr. Villars (Evelina')
A Man of the Ton (Cecilia')
Miss Burney's Friends (Letters')
ROBERT BURNS
1759-1796
2833
BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
The Cotter's Saturday Night To a Mountain Daisy
John Anderson, My Jo
Tam o' Shanter
Man Was Made to Mourn Bruce to His Men at Ban-
Green Grow the Rashes
nockburn
A Man's a Man for A' That Highland Mary
To a Mouse
My Heart's in the Highlands
The Banks o' Doon
1837-
2867
JOHN BURROUGHS
Sharp Eyes (Locusts and Wild Honey)
Waiting
2883
Sir Richard F. BURTON
1821-1890
The Preternatural in Fiction ('The Book of a Thousand
Nights and a Night')
A Journey in Disguise (“The Personal Narrative of a Pil-
grimage to El Medinah and Meccah')
En Route (same)
2901
ROBERT BURTON
1577-1640
Conclusions as to Melancholy ("The Anatomy of Melan-
choly)
## p. 2457 (#17) ############################################
ix
LIVED
PAGE
HORACE BUSHNELL
1802-1876
2909
BY THEODORE T. MUNGER
Work and Play
The Founders (“Work and Play ')
Religious Music (same)
1612–1680
2927
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras Described
LORD BYRON
1788-1824
2935
BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
Maid of Athens
Translation of a Romaic Song
Greece ("The Giaour')
The Hellespont and Troy (The Bride of Abydos')
Greece and her Heroes ("The Siege of Corinth')
The Isles of Greece (Don Juan')
Greece and the Greeks before the Revolution (Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage')
To Rome (same)
The Coliseum (same)
Chorus of Spirits (“The Deformed Transformed')
Venice (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Ode to Venice
The East (The Bride of Abydos')
Oriental Royalty (Don Juan')
A Grecian Sunset ( The Curse of Minerva')
An Italian Sunset ("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ')
Twilight (Don Juan')
An Alpine Storin (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
The Ocean (same)
The Shipwreck (Don Juan')
Love on the Island (Don Juan')
The Two Butterflies (The Giaour')
To His Sister (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Ode to Napoleon
The Battle of Waterloo (“Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Mazeppa's Ride (Mazeppa')
The Irish Avatar
The Dream
She Walks in Beauty (Hebrew Melodies')
## p. 2458 (#18) ############################################
X
LIVED
PAGE
LORD BYRON - Continued :
Destruction of Sennacherib (Hebrew Melodies')
From The Prisoner of Chillon
Prometheus
A Summing-Up ("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
On This Day I Complete my Thirty-sixth Year
3001
FERNAN CABALLERO (Cecilia Böhl de Faber) 1796-1877
The Bull-Fight (La Gaviota')
In the Home Circle (same)
1844-
3017
GEORGE W. CABLE
« Posson Jone'» (Old Creole Days')
CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR
100-44 B. C.
3037
BY J. H. WESTCOTT
Defeat of Ariovistus and the Germans (“The Gallic Wars')
On the Manners and Customs of Ancient Gauls and Ger-
mans (same)
The Two Lieutenants (same)
Epigram on Terentius
1853-
3067
THOMAS HENRY HALL CAINE
Pete Quilliam's First-Born ("The Manxman')
## p. 2459 (#19) ############################################
LIST OF PORTRAITS
IN VOL. V
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Charles Farrar Browne (Artemus Ward)
Sir Thomas Browne
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Robert Browning
Orestes Augustus Brownson
Ferdinand Brunetière
William Cullen Bryant
James Bryce
Buffon
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Henry Cuyler Bunner
John Bunyan
Gottfried August Bürger
Edmund Burke
Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay)
Robert Burns
Sir Richard F. Burton
Robert Burton
John Burroughs
Horace Bushnell
Samuel Butler
Lord Byron
George W. Cable
Julius Cæsar
Thomas Henry Hall Caine
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
## p. 2460 (#20) ############################################
1
1
## p. 2461 (#21) ############################################
2461
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE (ARTEMUS WARD)
(1834-1867)
BY CHARLES F. JOHNSON
a
HARLES FARRAR BROWNE, better known to the public of thirty
years ago under his pen-name of Artemus Ward, was born
in the little village of Waterford, Maine, on the 26th day of
April, 1834. Waterford is a quiet village of about seven hundred in-
habitants, lying among the foot-hills of the White Mountains. When
Browne was a child it was a station on the western stage-route, and
an important depot for lumbermen's supplies. Since the extension
of railroads northerly and westerly from the seaboard, it has how-
ever shared the fate of many New Eng-
land villages in being left on one side of
the main currents of commercial activity,
and gradually assuming a character of
repose and leisure, in many regards more
attractive than the life and bustle of ear-
lier days. Many persons are still living
there who remember the humorist as
quaint and tricksy boy, alternating between
laughter and preternatural gravity, and of
surprising ingenuity in devising odd
practical jokes in which good nature so
far prevailed that even the victims were
too much amused to be very angry.
CHARLES F. BROWNE
On both sides, he came froin original
New England stock; and although he was proud of his descent from
a very ancient English family, in deference to whom he wrote his
with the final «e,” he felt greater pride in his American
ancestors, and always said that they were genuine and primitive
Yankees, - people of intelligence, activity, and integrity in business,
but entirely unaffected by new-fangled ideas. It is interesting to
notice that Browne's humor was hereditary on the paternal side, his
father especially being noted for his quaint sayings and harmless
eccentricities. His cousin Daniel many years later bore a strong
resemblance to what Charles had been, and he too possessed a kin-
dred humorous faculty and told a story in much the same solemn
manner, bringing out the point' as if it were something entirely irrele-
vant and unimportant and casually remembered. The subject of this
name
## p. 2462 (#22) ############################################
2462
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
a а
sketch, however, was the only member of the family in whom a
love for the droll and incongruous was a controlling disposition. As
is frequently the case, a family trait was intensified in one individual
to the point where talent passes over into genius.
On his mother's side, too, Browne was a thorough-bred New-Eng-
lander. His maternal grandfather, Mr. Calvin Farrar, was a man of
influence in town and State, and was able to send two of his sons to
Bowdoin College. I have mentioned Browne's parentage because his
humor is so essentially American. Whether this consists in
peculiar gravity in the humorous attitude towards the subject, rather
than playfulness, or in a tendency to exaggerated statement, or in a
broad humanitarian standpoint, or in a certain flavor given by a
blending of all these, it is very difficult to decide. Probably the
peculiar standpoint is the distinguishing note, and American humor is
a product of democracy.
Humor is as difficult of definition as is poetry. It is an intimate
quality of the mind, which predisposes a man to look for remote
and unreal analogies and to present them gravely as if they were
valid. It sees that many of the objects valued by men are illusions,
and it expresses this conviction by assuming that other manifest
trifles are important. It is the deadly enemy of sentimentality and
affectation, for its vision is clear. Although it turns everything
topsy-turvy in sport, its world is not a chaos nor a child's play-
ground, for humor is based on keen perception of truth. There is
no method — except the highest poetic treatment, which reveals so
distinctly the falsehoods and hypocrisies of the social and economic
order as the reductio ad absurdum of humor; for all human institu-
tions have their ridiculous sides, which astonish and amuse us when
pointed out, but from viewing which we suddenly become aware of
relative values before misunderstood. But just as poetry may degen-
erate into a musical collection of words and painting into a decorat-
ive association of colors, so humor may degenerate into the merely
comic or amusing. The laugh which true humor arouses is not far
removed from tears. Humor indeed is not always associated with
kindliness, for we have the sardonic humor of Carlyle and the sav-
age humor of Swift; but it is naturally dissociated from egotism, and
is never more attractive than when, as in the case of Charles Lamb
and Oliver Goldsmith, it is based on a loving and generous interest
in humanity.
Humor must rest on a broad human foundation, and cannot be
narrowed to the notions of a certain class. But in most English
humor, as indeed in all English literature except the very high-
est, — the social class to which the writer does not belong is regarded
ab extra. In Punch, for instance, not only are servants always given
## p. 2463 (#23) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2 463
a conventional set of features, but they are given conventional minds,
and the jokes are based on a hypothetical conception of person-
ality. Dickens was a great humorist, and understood the nature of
the poor because he had been one of them; but his gentlemen and
ladies are lay figures. Thackeray's studies of the flunky are capital;
but he studies him qua flunky, as a naturalist might study an animal,
and hardly ranks him sub specie humanitatis. But to the American
humorist all men are primarily men. The waiter and the prince are
equally ridiculous to him, because in each he finds similar incongrui-
ties between the man and his surroundings; but in England there is
a deep impassable gulf between the man at the table and the man
behind his chair. This democratic independence of external and
adventitious circumstance sometimes gives a tone of irreverence to
American persiflage, and the temporary character of class distinctions
in America undoubtedly diminishes the amount of literary material
«in sight”; but when, as in the case of Browne and Clemens, there
is in the humorist's mind a basis of reverence for things and persons
that are really reverend, it gives a breadth and freedom to the
humorous conception that is distinctively American.
We put Clemens and Browne in the same line, because in reading
a page of either we feel at once the American touch. Browne of
course is not to be compared to Clemens in affluence or in range in
depicting humorous character-types; but it must be remembered that
Clemens has lived thirty active years longer than his predecessor
did. Neither has written a line that he would wish to blot for its
foul suggestion, or because it ridiculed things that were lovely and
of good report. Both were educated in journalism, and came into
direct contact with the strenuous and realistic life of labor. And
to repeat, though one was born and bred west of the Mississippi and
the other far down east,” both are distinctly American. Had either
been born and passed his childhood outside our magic line, this re-
semblance would not have existed. And yet we cannot say precisely
wherein this likeness lies, nor what caused it; so deep, so subtle,
so pervading is the influence of nationality. But their original ex-
pressions of the American humorous tone are worth ten thousand
literary echoes of Sterne or Lamb or Dickens or Thackeray.
The education of young Browne was limited to the strictly pre-
paratory years. At the age of thirteen he was forced by the death
of his father to try to earn his living. When about fourteen, he was
apprenticed to a Mr. Rex, who published a paper at Lancaster, New
Hampshire. He remained there about a year, then worked on vari-
ous country papers, and finally passed three years in the printing-
house of Snow and Wilder, Boston. He then went to Ohio, and after
working for some months on the Tiffin Advertiser, went to Toledo,
## p. 2464 (#24) ############################################
2464
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
where he remained till the fall of 1857. Thence he went to Cleveland,
Ohio, as local editor of the Plain Dealer. Here appeared the humor-
ous letters signed “Artemus Ward” and written in the character of
an itinerant showman. In 1860 he went to New York as editor of
the comic journal Vanity Fair.
His reputation grew steadily, and his first volume, Artemus
Ward, His Book,' was brought out in 1862. In 1863 he went to San
Francisco by way of the Isthmus and returned overland. This jour-
ney was chronicled in a short volume, Artemus Ward, His Travels. '
He had already undertaken a career of lecturing, and his comic
entertainments, given in a style peculiarly his own, became very
popular. The mimetic gift is frequently found in the humorist; and
Browne's peculiar drawl, his profound gravity and dreamy, far-away
expression, the unexpected character of his jokes and the surprise
with which he seemed to regard the audience, made a combination of
a delightfully quaint absurdity. Browne himself was a very winning
personality, and never failed to put his audience in good humor.
None who knew him twenty-nine years ago think of him without
tenderness. In 1866 he visited England, and became almost as pop-
ular there as lecturer and writer for Punch. He died from a
pulmonary trouble in Southampton, March 6th, 1867, being not quite
thirty-three years old. He was never married.
When we remember that a large part of Browne's mature life was
taken up in learning the printer's trade, in which he became a
master, we must decide that he had only entered on his career as
humorous writer. Much of what he wrote is simply amusing, with
little depth or power of suggestion; it is comic, not humorous. He
was gaining the ear of the public and training his powers of expres-
sion. What he has left consists of a few collections of sketches
written for a daily paper. But the subjoined extracts will show,
albeit dimly, that he was more than a joker, as under the cap and
bells of the fool in Lear we catch a glimpse of the face of a tender-
hearted and philosophic friend. Browne's nature was so kindly and
sympathetic, so pure and manly, that after he had achieved a repu-
tation and was relieved from immediate pecuniary pressure, he would
have felt an ambition to do some worthy work and take time to
bring out the best that was in him. As it is, he had only tried his
'prentice hand. Still, the figure of the old showman, though not very
solidly painted, is admirably done. He is a sort of sublimated and
unoffensive Barnum; perfectly consistent, permeated with his profes-
sional view of life, yet quite incapable of anything underhand or
mean; radically loyal to the Union, appreciative of the nature of his
animals, steady in his humorous attitude toward life: and above all,
not a composite of shreds and patches, but a personality. Slight as
## p. 2465 (#25) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2465
he is, and unconscious and unpracticed as is the art that went to his
creation, he is one of the humorous figures of all literature; and old
Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and Dr. Prim-
rose will not disdain to admit him into their company; for he too is
a man, not an abstraction, and need not be ashamed of his parent-
age nor doubtful of his standing among the “chiidren of the men of
wit. ”
EDWIN FORREST AS OTHELLO
D
URIN a recent visit to New York the undersined went to see
Edwin Forrest. As I am into the moral show biziness
myself I ginrally go to Barnum's moral museum, where
only moral peeple air admitted, partickly on Wednesday arter-
noons. But this time I thot I'd go and see Ed. Ed has bin
actin out on the stage for many years.
There is varis 'pinions
about his actin, Englishmen ginrally bleevin that he's far
superior to Mister Macready; but on one pint all agree, & that
is that Ed draws like a six-ox team. Ed was actin at Niblo's
Garding, which looks considerable more like a parster than a
garding, but let that pars. I sot down in the pit, took out
my spectacles and commenced peroosin the evenin's bill. The
awjince was all-fired large & the boxes was full of the elitty of
New York. Several opery glasses was leveled at me by Gotham's
fairest darters, but I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby
I did take out my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it
round more than was necessary. But the best of us has our
weaknesses & if a man has gewelry let him show it.
As I was
peroosin the bill a grave young man who sot near me axed me
if I'd ever seen Forrest dance the Essence of Old Virginny.
«He's immense in that,” sed the young man.
« He also does a
fair champion jig,” the young man continnered, “but his Big
Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny. " Sez I, “Fair youth, do
you know what I'd do with you if you was my sun ? ”
“No," sez he.
“Wall,” sez I, “I'd appint your funeral to-morrow arternoon,
& the korps should be ready. You're too smart to live on this
yerth. ”
He didn't try any more of his capers on me. But another
pussylanermuss individooul in a red vest and patent leather
boots told me his name was Bill Astor & axed
to lend
me
V-155
## p. 2466 (#26) ############################################
2466
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
corn.
him 50 cents till early in the mornin. I told him I'd probly
send it round to him before he retired to his virtoous couch, but
if I didn't he might look for it next fall as soon as I'd cut my
The orchestry was now fiddling with all their might &
as the peeple didn't understan anything about it they applaudid
versifrusly. Presently old Ed cum out. The play was Otheller
or More of Veniss. Otheller was writ by Wm. Shakspeer. The
seene is laid in Veniss.
Otheller was a likely man & was a
ginral in the Veniss army. He eloped with Desdemony, a darter
of the Hon. Mr. Brabantio, who represented one of the back
districks in the Veneshun legislater. Old Brabantio was as mad
as thunder at this & tore round considerable, but finally cooled
down, tellin Otheller, howsoever, that Desdemony had come it
over her par, & that he had better look out or she'd come it
over him likewise. Mr. and Mrs. Otheller git along very com-
fortable-like for a spell. She is sweet-tempered and lovin -a
nice, sensible female, never goin in for he-female conventions,
green cotton umbrellers, and pickled beats. Otheller is a good
provider and thinks all the world of his wife. She has a lazy
time of it, the hird girl doin all the cookin and washin. Desde-
mony in fact don't have to git the water to wash her own hands
with. But a low cuss named Iago, who I bleeve wants to git
Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work
& upsets the Otheller family in most outrajus stile.
Iago falls
in with a brainless youth named Roderigo & wins all his money
at poker. (Iago allers played foul. ) He thus got money enuff to
carry out his onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is
selected as a tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & a orficer
in Otheller's army.
He liked his tods too well, howsoever, &
they floored him as they have many other promisin young men.
Iago injuces Mike to drink with him, Iago slily throwin his
whiskey over his shoulder. Mike gits as drunk as a biled owl
& allows that he can lick a yard full of the Veneshun fancy
before breakfast, without sweatin a hair. He meets Roderigo
& proceeds for to smash him. A feller named Mentano under-
takes to slap Cassio, when that infatooated person runs his sword
into him. That miserble man, lago, pretends to be very sorry
to see Mike conduck hisself in this way & undertakes to smooth
the thing over to Otheller, who rushes in with a drawn sword
& wants to know what's up. Iago cunningly tells his story &
Otheller tells Mike that he thinks a good deal of him but that
## p. 2467 (#27) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2467
he cant train no more in his regiment. Desdemony sympathises
with poor Mike & interceds for him with Otheller. Iago makes
him bleeve she does this because she thinks more of Mike than
she does of hisself. Otheller swallers lagos lyin tail & goes to
makin a noosence of hisself ginrally. He worries poor Desde-
mony terrible by his vile insinuations & finally smothers her to
deth with a piller. Mrs. Iago comes in just as Otheller has
finished the fowl deed & givs him fits right & left, showin
him that he has been orfully gulled by her miserble cuss of a
husband. Iago cums in & his wife commences rakin him down
also, when he stabs her. Otheller jaws him a spell & then cuts
a small hole in his stummick with his sword. Iago pints to
Desdemony's deth bed & goes orf with a sardonic smile onto
his countenance. Otheller tells the peple that he has dun the
state some service & they know it; axes them to do as fair a
thing as they can for him under the circumstances, & kills his-
self with a fish-knife, which is the most sensible thing he can do.
This is a breef skedule of the synopsis of the play.
Edwin Forrest is a grate acter. I thot I saw Otheller before
me all the time he was actin &, when the curtin fell, I found
my spectacles was still mistened with salt-water, which had run
from my eyes while poor Desdemony was dyin. Betsy Jane -
Betsy Jane! let us pray that our domestic bliss may never be
busted up by a Iago!
Edwin Forrest makes money actin out on the stage.
He gits
five hundred dollars a nite & his board & washin. I wish I had
such a Forrest in my Garding!
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company, New York.
HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA
IN
IN THE fall of 1856 I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate
sitty in the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was
loud in her prases.
1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks
in my usual flowry stile, what was my skorn & disgust to see a
big burly feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of
the Lord's Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscariot by the feet and
drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound
hiin as hard as he cood.
## p. 2468 (#28) ############################################
2468
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
“What under the son are you abowt ? ” cried I.
Sez he, "What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here
fur? ” & he hit the wax figger another tremenjus blow on the
hed.
Sez I, “You egrejus ass that air's a wax figger--a represen-
tashun of the false 'Postle. ”
Sez he, “ That's all very well fur you to say, but I tell you,
old man, that Judas Iscariot can't show hisself in Utiky with im-
punerty by a darn site! ” with which observashun he kaved in
Judassis hed. The young man belonged to i of the first famerlies
in Utiky. I sood him and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson
in the 3d degree.
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company, New York.
AFFAIRS ROUND THE VILLAGE GREEN
A
ND where are the friends of my youth? I have found one of
'em, certainly. I saw him ride in a circus the other day
on a bareback horse, and even now his name stares at me
from yonder board-fence in green and blue and red and yellow
letters. Dashington, the youth with whom I used to read the
able orations of Cicero, and who as a declaimer on exhibition
days used to wipe the rest of us boys pretty handsomely out-
well, Dashington is identified with the halibut and cod interests
drives a fish-cart, in fact, from a certain town on the coast
back into the interior. Hurburtson - the utterly stupid boy — the
lunkhead who never had his lesson, he's about the ablest lawyer
a sister State can boast. Mills is a newspaper man, and is just
now editing a Major General down South. Singlingson, the sweet-
faced boy whose face was always washed and who was never
rude, he is in the penitentiary for putting his uncle's autograph
to a financial document. Hawkins, the clergyman's son, is an
actor; and Williamson, the good little boy who divided his bread
and butter with the beggar-man, is a failing merchant, and
makes money by it. Tom Slink, who used to smoke Short
Sixes and get acquainted with the little circus boys, is popularly
supposed to be the proprietor of a cheap gaming establishment
in Boston, where the beautiful but uncertain prop is nightly
tossed. Be sure the Army is represented by many of the friends
of my youth, the most of whom have given a good account of
themselves.
## p.
2469 (#29) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2469
But Chalmerson hasn't done much. No, Chalmerson is rather
of a failure. He plays on the guitar and sings love-songs. Not
that he is a bad man - a kinder-hearted creature never lived,
and they say he hasn't yet got over crying for his little curly-
haired sister who died ever so long ago.
But he knows nothing
about business, politics, the world, and those things. He is dull
at trade — indeed, it is the common remark that “Everybody
cheats Chalmerson. ” He came to the party the other evening
and brought his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in
the opera, certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if
his simple melodies didn't gush straight from the heart! why,
even my trained eyes were wet! And although some of the girls
giggled, and some of the men seemed to pity him, I could not
help fancying that poor Chalmerson was nearer heaven than any
of us all.
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company.
MR. PEPPER
From Artemus Ward: His Travels)
M
Y ARRIVAL at Virginia City was signalized by the following
incident:
I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the
International Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated
man, who said he was an Editor. Knowing how rare it is for
an Editor to be under the blighting influence of either spirituous
or malt liquors, I received this statement doubtfully. But I said:
«What name? ”
“Wait! ” he said, and went out.
I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside.
In ten minutes he returned, and said, "Pepper! ”
Pepper was indeed his name. He had been out to see if he
could remember it, and he was so flushed with his success that
he repeated it joyously several times, and then, with a short
laugh, he went away.
I had often heard of a man being so drunk that he didn't
know what town he lived in,” but here was a man so hideously
inebriated that he didn't know what his name was.
I saw him no more, but I heard from him. For he published
a notice of my lecture, in which he said that I had a dissipated
air!
## p. 2470 (#30) ############################################
2470
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE
From (Artemus Ward: His Travels)
WA
noon.
THEN Mr. Greeley was in California, ovations awaited him
at every town. He had written powerful leaders in the
Tribune in favor of the Pacific Railroad, which had greatly
endeared him to the citizens of the Golden State. And there-
fore they made much of him when he went to see them.
At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated
white coat to pieces and carried the pieces home to remember
him by.
The citizens of Placerville prepared to fête the great jour-
nalist, and an extra coach with extra relays of horses was char-
tered of the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom
to Placerville -- distance, forty miles. The extra was in some
way delayed, and did not leave Folsom until late in the after-
Mr. Greeley was to be fêted at seven o'clock that evening
by the citizens of Placerville, and it was altogether necessary that
he should be there by that time. So the Stage Company said
to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra, "Henry, this great
man must be there by seven to-night. ” And Henry answered,
“The great man shall be there. "
The roads were in an awful state, and during the first few
miles out of Folsom slow progress was made.
“Sir,” said Mr. Greeley, are you aware that I must be in
Placerville at seven o'clock to-night?
“I've got my orders! ” laconically replied Henry Monk.
Still the coach dragged slowly forward.
“Sir,” said Mr. Greeley, “this is not a trifling matter. I must
be there at seven ! »
Again came the answer, “I've got my orders! »
But the speed was not increased, and Mr. Greeley chafed
away another half-hour; when, as he was again about to remon-
strate with the driver, the horses suddenly started into a furious
run, and all sorts of encouraging yells filled the air from the
throat of Henry Monk.
«That is right, my good fellow,” said Mr. Greeley. I'll
give you ten dollars when we get to Placerville. Now we are
going! ”
They were indeed, and at a terrible speed.
## p. 2471 (#31) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2471
Crack, crack! went the whip, and again that voice” split the
air, «Get up! Hi-yi! G'long! Yip-yip. ”
And on they tore over stones and ruts, up hill and down, at
a rate of speed never before achieved by stage horses.
Mr. Greeley, who had been bouncing from one end of the
stage to the other like an India-rubber ball, managed to get his
head out of the window, when he said: --
Do-on't-on't-on't you-u-u think we-e-e-e shall get there by
seven if we do-on't-on't go so fast ? ”
"I've got my orders! ” That was all Henry Monk said. And
on tore the coach.
It was becoming serious. Already the journalist was extremely
sore from the terrible jolting -and again his head might have
been seen from the window. ”
“Sir,” he said, “I don't care-care-air if we don't get there at
seven.
"I've got my orders! ” Fresh horses forward again, faster
than before— over rocks and stumps, on one of which the coach
narrowly escaped turning a summerset.
“See here! ” shrieked Mr. Greeley, “I don't care if we don't
get there at all. ”
“I've got my orders! I work fer the California Stage Com-
That's wot I work fer. They said, 'Get this man
through by seving' An' this man's goin' through, you bet!
Gerlong! Whoo-ep! ”
Another frightful jolt, and Mr. Greeley's bald head suddenly
found its way through the roof of the coach, amidst the crash of
small timbers and the ripping of strong canvas.
"Stop, you — maniac! ” he roared.
Again answered Henry Monk:-
"I've got my orders! Keep your seat, Horace ! »
At Mud Springs, a village a few miles from Placerville, they
met a large delegation of the citizens of Placerville, who had
come out to meet the celebrated editor, and escort him into
town, There was a military company, a brass band, and a six-
horse wagon-load of beautiful damsels in milk-white dresses, rep-
resenting all the States in the Union. It was nearly dark now,
but the delegation was amply provided with torches, and bonfires
blazed all along the road to Placerville.
The citizens met the coach in the outskirts of Mud Springs,
and Mr. Monk reined in his foam-covered steeds.
pany, I do.
## p. 2472 (#32) ############################################
2472
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
"Is Mr. Greeley on board ? ” asked the chairman of the com-
mittee.
“He was, a few miles back ! ” said Mr. Monk. “Yes,” he
added, looking down through the hole which the fearful jolting
had made in the coach-roof, “Yes, I can see him! He is there ! »
Mr. Greeley,” said the chairman of the committee, present-
ing himself at the window of the coach, "Mr. Greeley, sir! We
are come to most cordially welcome you, sir! - Why, God bless
me, sir, you are bleeding at the nose!
"I've got my orders! ” cried Mr. Monk. "My orders is as
follows: Git him there by seving! It wants a quarter to seving.
Stand out of the way! ”
“But, sir,” exclaimed the committee-man, seizing the off-
leader by the reins, "Mr. Monk, we are come to escort him into
town! Look at the procession, sir, and the brass-band, and the
people, and the young women, sir! ”
“I've got my orders ! » screamed Mr. Monk. My orders don't
say nothin' about no brass bands and young women. My orders
says, "Git him there by seving. ' Let go them lines ! Clear the
way there! Whoo-ep! KEEP YOUR SEAT, HORACE! ” and the coach
dashed wildly through the procession, upsetting a portion of the
brass band, and violently grazing the wagon which contained
the beautiful young women in white.
Years hence, gray-haired men who were little boys in this
procession will tell their grandchildren how this stage tore
through Mud Springs, and how Horace Greeley's bald head ever
and anon showed itself like a wild apparition above the coach-
roof.
Mr. Monk was on time. There is a tradition that Mr. Greeley
was very indignant for a while: then he laughed and finally pre-
sented Mr. Monk with a brand-new suit of clothes. Mr. Monk
himself is still in the employ of the California Stage Company,
and is rather fond of relating a story that has made him famous
all over the Pacific coast. But he says he yields to no man in
his admiration for Horace Greeley.
## p. 2473 (#33) ############################################
2473
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
(1605-1682)
BY FRANCIS BACON
HEN Sir Thomas Browne, in the last decade of his life, was
asked to furnish data for the writing of his memoirs in
Wood's 'Athenæ Oxonienses,' he gave in a letter to his
friend Mr. Aubrey in the fewest words his birthplace and the places
of his education, his admission as “Socius Honorarius of the College
of Physitians in London, the date of his being knighted, and the
titles of the four books or tracts which he had printed; and ended
with «Have some miscellaneous tracts which may be published. ”
This account of himself, curter than
many an epitaph, and scantier in details
than the requirements of a census-taker's
blank, may serve, with many other signs
that one finds scattered among the pages
of this author, to show his rare modesty
and effacement of his physical self. He
seems, like some other thoughtful and
sensitive natures before and since, averse
or at least indifferent to being put on
record as an eating, digesting, sleeping,
and clothes-wearing animal, of that species
of which his contemporary Sir Samuel
Pepys stands as the classical instance, and SIR THOMAS BROWNE
which the newspaper interviewer of our
own day — that “fellow who would vulgarize the Day of Judg-
ment” — has trained to the most noxious degree of offensiveness.
Sir Thomas felt, undoubtedly, that having admitted that select
company —«fit audience though few) — who are students of the
Religio Medici' to a close intimacy with his highest mental pro-
cesses and conditions, his «separable accidents,” affairs of assimila-
tion and secretion as one may say, were business between himself
and his grocer and tailor, his cook and his laundress.
The industrious research of Mr. Simon Wilkin, who in 1836 pro-
duced the completest edition (William Pickering, London) of the lit-
erary remains of Sir Thomas Browne, has gathered from all sources
- his own note-books, domestic and friendly correspondence, allusions
of contemporary writers and the works of subsequent biographers -
## p. 2474 (#34) ############################################
2474
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
all that we are likely, this side of Paradise, to know of this great
scholar and admirable man.
The main facts of his life are as follows. He was born in the
Parish of St. Michael's Cheap, in London, on the 19th of October,
1605 (the year of the Gunpowder Plot). His father, as is apologetically
admitted by a granddaughter, Mrs. Littleton, “was a tradesman, a
mercer, though a gentleman of a good family in Cheshire” (generosa
familia, says Sir Thomas's own epitaph). That he was the parent of
his son's temperament, a devout man with a leaning toward mysti-
cism in religion, is shown by the charming story Mrs. Littleton tells
of him, exhibiting traits worthy of the best ages of faith, and more
to be expected in the father of a mediæval saint than in a prosperous
Cheapside mercer, whose son was to be one of the most learned and
philosophical physicians of the age of Harvey and Sydenham:—“His
father used to open his breast when he was asleep and kiss it in
prayers over him, as 'tis said of Origen's father, that the Holy Ghost
would take possession there. ” Clearly, it was with reverent memory
of this good man that Sir Thomas, near the close of his own long
life, wrote:–«Among thy multiplied acknowledgments, lift up one
hand unto heaven that thou wert born of honest parents; that inod-
esty, humility, patience, and vera
eracity lay in the same egg and came
into the world with thee. ”
This loving father, of whom one would fain know more, died in
the early childhood of his son Thomas. He left a handsome estate
of £9,000, and a widow not wholly inconsolable with her third por-
tion and a not unduly deferred second marriage to a titled gentleman,
Sir Thomas Dutton, -a knight so scantily and at the same time so
variously described, as a worthy person who had great places,” and
“a bad member” of “mutinous and unworthy carriage,” that one is
content to leave him as a problematical character.
The boy Thomas Browne being left to the care of guardians, his
estate was despoiled, though to what extent does not appear; nor
can it be considered greatly deplorable, since it did not prevent his
early schooling at that ancient and noble foundation of Winchester,
nor in 1623 his entrance into Pembroke College, Oxford, and in due
course his graduation in 1626 as bachelor of arts. With what special
assistance or direction he began his studies in medical science, cannot
now be ascertained; but after taking his degree of master of arts in
1629, he practiced physic for about two years in some uncertain
place in Oxfordshire. He then began a course of travel, unusually
extensive for that day. His stepfather upon occasion of his official
duties under the government “shewed him all Ireland in some vis-
itation of the forts and castles. ” It is improbable that Ireland at
that time long detained a traveler essentially literary in his tastes.
## p. 2475 (#35) ############################################
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2475
Browne betook himself to France and Italy, where he appears to
have spent about two years, residing at Montpellier and Padua, then
great centres of medical learning, with students drawn from most
parts of Christendom. Returning homeward through Holland, he
received the degree of doctor of medicine from the University of
Leyden in 1633, and settled in practice at Halifax, England.
At this time — favored probably by the leisure which largely
attends the beginning of a medical career, but which is rarely so
laudably or productively employed, - he wrote the treatise Religio
Medici,' which more than any other of his works has established
his fame and won the affectionate admiration of thoughtful readers.
This production was not printed until seven years later, although
some unauthorized manuscript copies, more or less faulty, were in
circulation. When in 1642 “it arrived in a most depraved copy at
the press,” Browne felt it necessary to vindicate himself by publish-
ing a correct edition, although, he protests, its original intention
was not publick: and being a private exercise directed to myself,
what is delivered therein was rather a memorial unto me than an
example or rule unto any other. ”
In 1636 he removed to Norwich and permanently established him-
self there in the practice of physic. There in 1641. he married
Dorothy Mileham, a lady of good family in Norfolk; thereby not
only improving his social connections, but securing a wife of such
symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband both in the graces
of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a
kind of natural magnetism. ” Such at least was the view of an inti-
mate friend of more than forty years, Rev. John Whitefoot, in the
Minutes) which, at the request of the widow, he drew up after Sir
Thomas's death, and which contain the most that is known of his
personal appearance and manners. Evidently the marriage was a
happy one for forty-one years, when the Lady Dorothy was left
mastissima conjux, as her husband's stately epitaph, rich with many
an issimus, declares. Twelve children were born of it; and though
only four of them survived their parents, such mortality in carefully
tended and well-circumstanced families was less remarkable than it
would be now, when two centuries more of progress in medical sci-
ence have added security and length to human life.
The good mother — had she ngt endeared herself to the modern
reader by the affectionate gentleness and the quaint glimpses of
domestic life that her family letters reveal — would be irresistible
by the ingeniously bad spelling in which she reveled, transgressing
even the wide limits then allowed to feminine heterography.
It is noteworthy that Dr. Browne's professional prosperity was
not impaired by the suspicion which early attached to him, and soon
## p. 2476 (#36) ############################################
2476
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
deepened into conviction, that he was addicted to literary pursuits.
He was in high repute as a physician. His practice was extensive,
and he was diligent in it, as also in those works of literature and
scientific investigation which occupied all snatches of time,” he
says, “as medical vacations and the fruitless importunity of uroscopy
would permit. ” His large family was liberally reared; his hospitality
and his charities were ample.
In 1646 he printed his second book, the largest and most operose
of all his productions: the Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Inquiries into
Vulgar and Common Errors,' the work evidently of the hora subsecive
of many years. In 1658 he gave to the public two smaller but
important and most characteristic works, Hydriotaphia' and 'The
Garden of Cyrus. ' Beside these publications he left many manu-
scripts which appeared posthumously; the most important of them,
for its size and general interest, being Christian Morals. ?
When Sir Thomas's long life drew to its close, it was with all the
blessings “which should accompany old age. His domestic life had
been one of felicity. His eldest and only surviving son, Edward
Browne, had become a scholar after his father's own heart; and
though not inheriting his genius, was already renowned in London,
one of the physicians to the King, and in a way to become, as after-
ward he did, President of the College of Physicians. All his daugh-
ters who had attained womanhood had been well married. He lived
in the society of the honorable and learned, and had received from
the King the honor of knighthood. *
Mr. John Evelyn, carrying out a long and cherished plan of see-
ing one whom he had known and admired by his writings, visited
him at Norwich in 1671. He found Sir Thomas among fit surround-
ings, “his whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of
rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medails, books,
* As for this business of the knighting, one hesitates fully to adopt Dr. John-
son's remark that Charles II. (had skill to discover excellence and virtue to
reward it, at least with such honorary distinctions as cost him nothing. ” A
candid observer of the walk and conversation of this illustrious monarch finds
room for doubt that he was an attentive reader or consistent admirer of the
(Religio Medici, or (Christian Morals); and though his own personal history
might have contributed much to a complete catalogue of Vulgar Errors,
Browne's treatise so named did not include divagations from common decency
in its scope, and so may have failed to impress the royal mind. The fact
is that the King on his visit to Norwich, looking about for somebody to
knight, intended, as usual on such occasions, to confer the title on the mayor
of the city; but this functionary,- some brewer or grocer perhaps, of whom
nothing else than this incident is recorded, - declined the honor, whereupon
the gap was stopped with Dr. Browne.
## p. 2477 (#37) ############################################
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2477
never
.
plants, and natural things. ”* Here we have the right background and
accessories for Whitefoot's portrait of the central figure:
“His complexion and hair
answerable to his name, his stature
moderate, and habit of body neither fat nor lean but ei oápkos;
seen to be transported with mirth or dejected with sadness; always cheerful,
but rarely merry at any sensible rate; seldom heard to break a jest, and
when he did, apt to blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural
without affectation. His modesty
visible in a natural habitual blush,
which was increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
observable cause.
So free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that
he was something difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
was so, it was always singular and never trite or vulgar. ”
A man of character so lofty and self-contained might be expected
to leave a life so long, honorable, and beneficent with becoming dig-
nity.
viii
LIVED
PAGE
1747-1794
2767
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
William and Helen
The Wives of Weinsberg
EDMUND BURKE
1729-1797
2779
BY E. L. GODKIN
From Speech on Conciliation with America'
From Speech on "The Nabob of Arcot's Debts'
From Speech on (The French Revolution?
1849-
2809
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
At the Pit (“That Lass o' Lowrie's ')
2817
FRANCES BURNEY (Madame D'Arblay)
1752-1840
Evelina's Letter to the Rev. Mr. Villars (Evelina')
A Man of the Ton (Cecilia')
Miss Burney's Friends (Letters')
ROBERT BURNS
1759-1796
2833
BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
The Cotter's Saturday Night To a Mountain Daisy
John Anderson, My Jo
Tam o' Shanter
Man Was Made to Mourn Bruce to His Men at Ban-
Green Grow the Rashes
nockburn
A Man's a Man for A' That Highland Mary
To a Mouse
My Heart's in the Highlands
The Banks o' Doon
1837-
2867
JOHN BURROUGHS
Sharp Eyes (Locusts and Wild Honey)
Waiting
2883
Sir Richard F. BURTON
1821-1890
The Preternatural in Fiction ('The Book of a Thousand
Nights and a Night')
A Journey in Disguise (“The Personal Narrative of a Pil-
grimage to El Medinah and Meccah')
En Route (same)
2901
ROBERT BURTON
1577-1640
Conclusions as to Melancholy ("The Anatomy of Melan-
choly)
## p. 2457 (#17) ############################################
ix
LIVED
PAGE
HORACE BUSHNELL
1802-1876
2909
BY THEODORE T. MUNGER
Work and Play
The Founders (“Work and Play ')
Religious Music (same)
1612–1680
2927
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras Described
LORD BYRON
1788-1824
2935
BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
Maid of Athens
Translation of a Romaic Song
Greece ("The Giaour')
The Hellespont and Troy (The Bride of Abydos')
Greece and her Heroes ("The Siege of Corinth')
The Isles of Greece (Don Juan')
Greece and the Greeks before the Revolution (Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage')
To Rome (same)
The Coliseum (same)
Chorus of Spirits (“The Deformed Transformed')
Venice (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Ode to Venice
The East (The Bride of Abydos')
Oriental Royalty (Don Juan')
A Grecian Sunset ( The Curse of Minerva')
An Italian Sunset ("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ')
Twilight (Don Juan')
An Alpine Storin (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
The Ocean (same)
The Shipwreck (Don Juan')
Love on the Island (Don Juan')
The Two Butterflies (The Giaour')
To His Sister (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Ode to Napoleon
The Battle of Waterloo (“Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
Mazeppa's Ride (Mazeppa')
The Irish Avatar
The Dream
She Walks in Beauty (Hebrew Melodies')
## p. 2458 (#18) ############################################
X
LIVED
PAGE
LORD BYRON - Continued :
Destruction of Sennacherib (Hebrew Melodies')
From The Prisoner of Chillon
Prometheus
A Summing-Up ("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage')
On This Day I Complete my Thirty-sixth Year
3001
FERNAN CABALLERO (Cecilia Böhl de Faber) 1796-1877
The Bull-Fight (La Gaviota')
In the Home Circle (same)
1844-
3017
GEORGE W. CABLE
« Posson Jone'» (Old Creole Days')
CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR
100-44 B. C.
3037
BY J. H. WESTCOTT
Defeat of Ariovistus and the Germans (“The Gallic Wars')
On the Manners and Customs of Ancient Gauls and Ger-
mans (same)
The Two Lieutenants (same)
Epigram on Terentius
1853-
3067
THOMAS HENRY HALL CAINE
Pete Quilliam's First-Born ("The Manxman')
## p. 2459 (#19) ############################################
LIST OF PORTRAITS
IN VOL. V
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Charles Farrar Browne (Artemus Ward)
Sir Thomas Browne
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Robert Browning
Orestes Augustus Brownson
Ferdinand Brunetière
William Cullen Bryant
James Bryce
Buffon
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Henry Cuyler Bunner
John Bunyan
Gottfried August Bürger
Edmund Burke
Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay)
Robert Burns
Sir Richard F. Burton
Robert Burton
John Burroughs
Horace Bushnell
Samuel Butler
Lord Byron
George W. Cable
Julius Cæsar
Thomas Henry Hall Caine
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
Full page
Vignette
## p. 2460 (#20) ############################################
1
1
## p. 2461 (#21) ############################################
2461
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE (ARTEMUS WARD)
(1834-1867)
BY CHARLES F. JOHNSON
a
HARLES FARRAR BROWNE, better known to the public of thirty
years ago under his pen-name of Artemus Ward, was born
in the little village of Waterford, Maine, on the 26th day of
April, 1834. Waterford is a quiet village of about seven hundred in-
habitants, lying among the foot-hills of the White Mountains. When
Browne was a child it was a station on the western stage-route, and
an important depot for lumbermen's supplies. Since the extension
of railroads northerly and westerly from the seaboard, it has how-
ever shared the fate of many New Eng-
land villages in being left on one side of
the main currents of commercial activity,
and gradually assuming a character of
repose and leisure, in many regards more
attractive than the life and bustle of ear-
lier days. Many persons are still living
there who remember the humorist as
quaint and tricksy boy, alternating between
laughter and preternatural gravity, and of
surprising ingenuity in devising odd
practical jokes in which good nature so
far prevailed that even the victims were
too much amused to be very angry.
CHARLES F. BROWNE
On both sides, he came froin original
New England stock; and although he was proud of his descent from
a very ancient English family, in deference to whom he wrote his
with the final «e,” he felt greater pride in his American
ancestors, and always said that they were genuine and primitive
Yankees, - people of intelligence, activity, and integrity in business,
but entirely unaffected by new-fangled ideas. It is interesting to
notice that Browne's humor was hereditary on the paternal side, his
father especially being noted for his quaint sayings and harmless
eccentricities. His cousin Daniel many years later bore a strong
resemblance to what Charles had been, and he too possessed a kin-
dred humorous faculty and told a story in much the same solemn
manner, bringing out the point' as if it were something entirely irrele-
vant and unimportant and casually remembered. The subject of this
name
## p. 2462 (#22) ############################################
2462
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
a а
sketch, however, was the only member of the family in whom a
love for the droll and incongruous was a controlling disposition. As
is frequently the case, a family trait was intensified in one individual
to the point where talent passes over into genius.
On his mother's side, too, Browne was a thorough-bred New-Eng-
lander. His maternal grandfather, Mr. Calvin Farrar, was a man of
influence in town and State, and was able to send two of his sons to
Bowdoin College. I have mentioned Browne's parentage because his
humor is so essentially American. Whether this consists in
peculiar gravity in the humorous attitude towards the subject, rather
than playfulness, or in a tendency to exaggerated statement, or in a
broad humanitarian standpoint, or in a certain flavor given by a
blending of all these, it is very difficult to decide. Probably the
peculiar standpoint is the distinguishing note, and American humor is
a product of democracy.
Humor is as difficult of definition as is poetry. It is an intimate
quality of the mind, which predisposes a man to look for remote
and unreal analogies and to present them gravely as if they were
valid. It sees that many of the objects valued by men are illusions,
and it expresses this conviction by assuming that other manifest
trifles are important. It is the deadly enemy of sentimentality and
affectation, for its vision is clear. Although it turns everything
topsy-turvy in sport, its world is not a chaos nor a child's play-
ground, for humor is based on keen perception of truth. There is
no method — except the highest poetic treatment, which reveals so
distinctly the falsehoods and hypocrisies of the social and economic
order as the reductio ad absurdum of humor; for all human institu-
tions have their ridiculous sides, which astonish and amuse us when
pointed out, but from viewing which we suddenly become aware of
relative values before misunderstood. But just as poetry may degen-
erate into a musical collection of words and painting into a decorat-
ive association of colors, so humor may degenerate into the merely
comic or amusing. The laugh which true humor arouses is not far
removed from tears. Humor indeed is not always associated with
kindliness, for we have the sardonic humor of Carlyle and the sav-
age humor of Swift; but it is naturally dissociated from egotism, and
is never more attractive than when, as in the case of Charles Lamb
and Oliver Goldsmith, it is based on a loving and generous interest
in humanity.
Humor must rest on a broad human foundation, and cannot be
narrowed to the notions of a certain class. But in most English
humor, as indeed in all English literature except the very high-
est, — the social class to which the writer does not belong is regarded
ab extra. In Punch, for instance, not only are servants always given
## p. 2463 (#23) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2 463
a conventional set of features, but they are given conventional minds,
and the jokes are based on a hypothetical conception of person-
ality. Dickens was a great humorist, and understood the nature of
the poor because he had been one of them; but his gentlemen and
ladies are lay figures. Thackeray's studies of the flunky are capital;
but he studies him qua flunky, as a naturalist might study an animal,
and hardly ranks him sub specie humanitatis. But to the American
humorist all men are primarily men. The waiter and the prince are
equally ridiculous to him, because in each he finds similar incongrui-
ties between the man and his surroundings; but in England there is
a deep impassable gulf between the man at the table and the man
behind his chair. This democratic independence of external and
adventitious circumstance sometimes gives a tone of irreverence to
American persiflage, and the temporary character of class distinctions
in America undoubtedly diminishes the amount of literary material
«in sight”; but when, as in the case of Browne and Clemens, there
is in the humorist's mind a basis of reverence for things and persons
that are really reverend, it gives a breadth and freedom to the
humorous conception that is distinctively American.
We put Clemens and Browne in the same line, because in reading
a page of either we feel at once the American touch. Browne of
course is not to be compared to Clemens in affluence or in range in
depicting humorous character-types; but it must be remembered that
Clemens has lived thirty active years longer than his predecessor
did. Neither has written a line that he would wish to blot for its
foul suggestion, or because it ridiculed things that were lovely and
of good report. Both were educated in journalism, and came into
direct contact with the strenuous and realistic life of labor. And
to repeat, though one was born and bred west of the Mississippi and
the other far down east,” both are distinctly American. Had either
been born and passed his childhood outside our magic line, this re-
semblance would not have existed. And yet we cannot say precisely
wherein this likeness lies, nor what caused it; so deep, so subtle,
so pervading is the influence of nationality. But their original ex-
pressions of the American humorous tone are worth ten thousand
literary echoes of Sterne or Lamb or Dickens or Thackeray.
The education of young Browne was limited to the strictly pre-
paratory years. At the age of thirteen he was forced by the death
of his father to try to earn his living. When about fourteen, he was
apprenticed to a Mr. Rex, who published a paper at Lancaster, New
Hampshire. He remained there about a year, then worked on vari-
ous country papers, and finally passed three years in the printing-
house of Snow and Wilder, Boston. He then went to Ohio, and after
working for some months on the Tiffin Advertiser, went to Toledo,
## p. 2464 (#24) ############################################
2464
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
where he remained till the fall of 1857. Thence he went to Cleveland,
Ohio, as local editor of the Plain Dealer. Here appeared the humor-
ous letters signed “Artemus Ward” and written in the character of
an itinerant showman. In 1860 he went to New York as editor of
the comic journal Vanity Fair.
His reputation grew steadily, and his first volume, Artemus
Ward, His Book,' was brought out in 1862. In 1863 he went to San
Francisco by way of the Isthmus and returned overland. This jour-
ney was chronicled in a short volume, Artemus Ward, His Travels. '
He had already undertaken a career of lecturing, and his comic
entertainments, given in a style peculiarly his own, became very
popular. The mimetic gift is frequently found in the humorist; and
Browne's peculiar drawl, his profound gravity and dreamy, far-away
expression, the unexpected character of his jokes and the surprise
with which he seemed to regard the audience, made a combination of
a delightfully quaint absurdity. Browne himself was a very winning
personality, and never failed to put his audience in good humor.
None who knew him twenty-nine years ago think of him without
tenderness. In 1866 he visited England, and became almost as pop-
ular there as lecturer and writer for Punch. He died from a
pulmonary trouble in Southampton, March 6th, 1867, being not quite
thirty-three years old. He was never married.
When we remember that a large part of Browne's mature life was
taken up in learning the printer's trade, in which he became a
master, we must decide that he had only entered on his career as
humorous writer. Much of what he wrote is simply amusing, with
little depth or power of suggestion; it is comic, not humorous. He
was gaining the ear of the public and training his powers of expres-
sion. What he has left consists of a few collections of sketches
written for a daily paper. But the subjoined extracts will show,
albeit dimly, that he was more than a joker, as under the cap and
bells of the fool in Lear we catch a glimpse of the face of a tender-
hearted and philosophic friend. Browne's nature was so kindly and
sympathetic, so pure and manly, that after he had achieved a repu-
tation and was relieved from immediate pecuniary pressure, he would
have felt an ambition to do some worthy work and take time to
bring out the best that was in him. As it is, he had only tried his
'prentice hand. Still, the figure of the old showman, though not very
solidly painted, is admirably done. He is a sort of sublimated and
unoffensive Barnum; perfectly consistent, permeated with his profes-
sional view of life, yet quite incapable of anything underhand or
mean; radically loyal to the Union, appreciative of the nature of his
animals, steady in his humorous attitude toward life: and above all,
not a composite of shreds and patches, but a personality. Slight as
## p. 2465 (#25) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2465
he is, and unconscious and unpracticed as is the art that went to his
creation, he is one of the humorous figures of all literature; and old
Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and Dr. Prim-
rose will not disdain to admit him into their company; for he too is
a man, not an abstraction, and need not be ashamed of his parent-
age nor doubtful of his standing among the “chiidren of the men of
wit. ”
EDWIN FORREST AS OTHELLO
D
URIN a recent visit to New York the undersined went to see
Edwin Forrest. As I am into the moral show biziness
myself I ginrally go to Barnum's moral museum, where
only moral peeple air admitted, partickly on Wednesday arter-
noons. But this time I thot I'd go and see Ed. Ed has bin
actin out on the stage for many years.
There is varis 'pinions
about his actin, Englishmen ginrally bleevin that he's far
superior to Mister Macready; but on one pint all agree, & that
is that Ed draws like a six-ox team. Ed was actin at Niblo's
Garding, which looks considerable more like a parster than a
garding, but let that pars. I sot down in the pit, took out
my spectacles and commenced peroosin the evenin's bill. The
awjince was all-fired large & the boxes was full of the elitty of
New York. Several opery glasses was leveled at me by Gotham's
fairest darters, but I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby
I did take out my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it
round more than was necessary. But the best of us has our
weaknesses & if a man has gewelry let him show it.
As I was
peroosin the bill a grave young man who sot near me axed me
if I'd ever seen Forrest dance the Essence of Old Virginny.
«He's immense in that,” sed the young man.
« He also does a
fair champion jig,” the young man continnered, “but his Big
Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny. " Sez I, “Fair youth, do
you know what I'd do with you if you was my sun ? ”
“No," sez he.
“Wall,” sez I, “I'd appint your funeral to-morrow arternoon,
& the korps should be ready. You're too smart to live on this
yerth. ”
He didn't try any more of his capers on me. But another
pussylanermuss individooul in a red vest and patent leather
boots told me his name was Bill Astor & axed
to lend
me
V-155
## p. 2466 (#26) ############################################
2466
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
corn.
him 50 cents till early in the mornin. I told him I'd probly
send it round to him before he retired to his virtoous couch, but
if I didn't he might look for it next fall as soon as I'd cut my
The orchestry was now fiddling with all their might &
as the peeple didn't understan anything about it they applaudid
versifrusly. Presently old Ed cum out. The play was Otheller
or More of Veniss. Otheller was writ by Wm. Shakspeer. The
seene is laid in Veniss.
Otheller was a likely man & was a
ginral in the Veniss army. He eloped with Desdemony, a darter
of the Hon. Mr. Brabantio, who represented one of the back
districks in the Veneshun legislater. Old Brabantio was as mad
as thunder at this & tore round considerable, but finally cooled
down, tellin Otheller, howsoever, that Desdemony had come it
over her par, & that he had better look out or she'd come it
over him likewise. Mr. and Mrs. Otheller git along very com-
fortable-like for a spell. She is sweet-tempered and lovin -a
nice, sensible female, never goin in for he-female conventions,
green cotton umbrellers, and pickled beats. Otheller is a good
provider and thinks all the world of his wife. She has a lazy
time of it, the hird girl doin all the cookin and washin. Desde-
mony in fact don't have to git the water to wash her own hands
with. But a low cuss named Iago, who I bleeve wants to git
Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work
& upsets the Otheller family in most outrajus stile.
Iago falls
in with a brainless youth named Roderigo & wins all his money
at poker. (Iago allers played foul. ) He thus got money enuff to
carry out his onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is
selected as a tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & a orficer
in Otheller's army.
He liked his tods too well, howsoever, &
they floored him as they have many other promisin young men.
Iago injuces Mike to drink with him, Iago slily throwin his
whiskey over his shoulder. Mike gits as drunk as a biled owl
& allows that he can lick a yard full of the Veneshun fancy
before breakfast, without sweatin a hair. He meets Roderigo
& proceeds for to smash him. A feller named Mentano under-
takes to slap Cassio, when that infatooated person runs his sword
into him. That miserble man, lago, pretends to be very sorry
to see Mike conduck hisself in this way & undertakes to smooth
the thing over to Otheller, who rushes in with a drawn sword
& wants to know what's up. Iago cunningly tells his story &
Otheller tells Mike that he thinks a good deal of him but that
## p. 2467 (#27) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2467
he cant train no more in his regiment. Desdemony sympathises
with poor Mike & interceds for him with Otheller. Iago makes
him bleeve she does this because she thinks more of Mike than
she does of hisself. Otheller swallers lagos lyin tail & goes to
makin a noosence of hisself ginrally. He worries poor Desde-
mony terrible by his vile insinuations & finally smothers her to
deth with a piller. Mrs. Iago comes in just as Otheller has
finished the fowl deed & givs him fits right & left, showin
him that he has been orfully gulled by her miserble cuss of a
husband. Iago cums in & his wife commences rakin him down
also, when he stabs her. Otheller jaws him a spell & then cuts
a small hole in his stummick with his sword. Iago pints to
Desdemony's deth bed & goes orf with a sardonic smile onto
his countenance. Otheller tells the peple that he has dun the
state some service & they know it; axes them to do as fair a
thing as they can for him under the circumstances, & kills his-
self with a fish-knife, which is the most sensible thing he can do.
This is a breef skedule of the synopsis of the play.
Edwin Forrest is a grate acter. I thot I saw Otheller before
me all the time he was actin &, when the curtin fell, I found
my spectacles was still mistened with salt-water, which had run
from my eyes while poor Desdemony was dyin. Betsy Jane -
Betsy Jane! let us pray that our domestic bliss may never be
busted up by a Iago!
Edwin Forrest makes money actin out on the stage.
He gits
five hundred dollars a nite & his board & washin. I wish I had
such a Forrest in my Garding!
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company, New York.
HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA
IN
IN THE fall of 1856 I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate
sitty in the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was
loud in her prases.
1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks
in my usual flowry stile, what was my skorn & disgust to see a
big burly feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of
the Lord's Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscariot by the feet and
drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound
hiin as hard as he cood.
## p. 2468 (#28) ############################################
2468
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
“What under the son are you abowt ? ” cried I.
Sez he, "What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here
fur? ” & he hit the wax figger another tremenjus blow on the
hed.
Sez I, “You egrejus ass that air's a wax figger--a represen-
tashun of the false 'Postle. ”
Sez he, “ That's all very well fur you to say, but I tell you,
old man, that Judas Iscariot can't show hisself in Utiky with im-
punerty by a darn site! ” with which observashun he kaved in
Judassis hed. The young man belonged to i of the first famerlies
in Utiky. I sood him and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson
in the 3d degree.
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company, New York.
AFFAIRS ROUND THE VILLAGE GREEN
A
ND where are the friends of my youth? I have found one of
'em, certainly. I saw him ride in a circus the other day
on a bareback horse, and even now his name stares at me
from yonder board-fence in green and blue and red and yellow
letters. Dashington, the youth with whom I used to read the
able orations of Cicero, and who as a declaimer on exhibition
days used to wipe the rest of us boys pretty handsomely out-
well, Dashington is identified with the halibut and cod interests
drives a fish-cart, in fact, from a certain town on the coast
back into the interior. Hurburtson - the utterly stupid boy — the
lunkhead who never had his lesson, he's about the ablest lawyer
a sister State can boast. Mills is a newspaper man, and is just
now editing a Major General down South. Singlingson, the sweet-
faced boy whose face was always washed and who was never
rude, he is in the penitentiary for putting his uncle's autograph
to a financial document. Hawkins, the clergyman's son, is an
actor; and Williamson, the good little boy who divided his bread
and butter with the beggar-man, is a failing merchant, and
makes money by it. Tom Slink, who used to smoke Short
Sixes and get acquainted with the little circus boys, is popularly
supposed to be the proprietor of a cheap gaming establishment
in Boston, where the beautiful but uncertain prop is nightly
tossed. Be sure the Army is represented by many of the friends
of my youth, the most of whom have given a good account of
themselves.
## p.
2469 (#29) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2469
But Chalmerson hasn't done much. No, Chalmerson is rather
of a failure. He plays on the guitar and sings love-songs. Not
that he is a bad man - a kinder-hearted creature never lived,
and they say he hasn't yet got over crying for his little curly-
haired sister who died ever so long ago.
But he knows nothing
about business, politics, the world, and those things. He is dull
at trade — indeed, it is the common remark that “Everybody
cheats Chalmerson. ” He came to the party the other evening
and brought his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in
the opera, certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if
his simple melodies didn't gush straight from the heart! why,
even my trained eyes were wet! And although some of the girls
giggled, and some of the men seemed to pity him, I could not
help fancying that poor Chalmerson was nearer heaven than any
of us all.
Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company.
MR. PEPPER
From Artemus Ward: His Travels)
M
Y ARRIVAL at Virginia City was signalized by the following
incident:
I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the
International Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated
man, who said he was an Editor. Knowing how rare it is for
an Editor to be under the blighting influence of either spirituous
or malt liquors, I received this statement doubtfully. But I said:
«What name? ”
“Wait! ” he said, and went out.
I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside.
In ten minutes he returned, and said, "Pepper! ”
Pepper was indeed his name. He had been out to see if he
could remember it, and he was so flushed with his success that
he repeated it joyously several times, and then, with a short
laugh, he went away.
I had often heard of a man being so drunk that he didn't
know what town he lived in,” but here was a man so hideously
inebriated that he didn't know what his name was.
I saw him no more, but I heard from him. For he published
a notice of my lecture, in which he said that I had a dissipated
air!
## p. 2470 (#30) ############################################
2470
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE
From (Artemus Ward: His Travels)
WA
noon.
THEN Mr. Greeley was in California, ovations awaited him
at every town. He had written powerful leaders in the
Tribune in favor of the Pacific Railroad, which had greatly
endeared him to the citizens of the Golden State. And there-
fore they made much of him when he went to see them.
At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated
white coat to pieces and carried the pieces home to remember
him by.
The citizens of Placerville prepared to fête the great jour-
nalist, and an extra coach with extra relays of horses was char-
tered of the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom
to Placerville -- distance, forty miles. The extra was in some
way delayed, and did not leave Folsom until late in the after-
Mr. Greeley was to be fêted at seven o'clock that evening
by the citizens of Placerville, and it was altogether necessary that
he should be there by that time. So the Stage Company said
to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra, "Henry, this great
man must be there by seven to-night. ” And Henry answered,
“The great man shall be there. "
The roads were in an awful state, and during the first few
miles out of Folsom slow progress was made.
“Sir,” said Mr. Greeley, are you aware that I must be in
Placerville at seven o'clock to-night?
“I've got my orders! ” laconically replied Henry Monk.
Still the coach dragged slowly forward.
“Sir,” said Mr. Greeley, “this is not a trifling matter. I must
be there at seven ! »
Again came the answer, “I've got my orders! »
But the speed was not increased, and Mr. Greeley chafed
away another half-hour; when, as he was again about to remon-
strate with the driver, the horses suddenly started into a furious
run, and all sorts of encouraging yells filled the air from the
throat of Henry Monk.
«That is right, my good fellow,” said Mr. Greeley. I'll
give you ten dollars when we get to Placerville. Now we are
going! ”
They were indeed, and at a terrible speed.
## p. 2471 (#31) ############################################
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
2471
Crack, crack! went the whip, and again that voice” split the
air, «Get up! Hi-yi! G'long! Yip-yip. ”
And on they tore over stones and ruts, up hill and down, at
a rate of speed never before achieved by stage horses.
Mr. Greeley, who had been bouncing from one end of the
stage to the other like an India-rubber ball, managed to get his
head out of the window, when he said: --
Do-on't-on't-on't you-u-u think we-e-e-e shall get there by
seven if we do-on't-on't go so fast ? ”
"I've got my orders! ” That was all Henry Monk said. And
on tore the coach.
It was becoming serious. Already the journalist was extremely
sore from the terrible jolting -and again his head might have
been seen from the window. ”
“Sir,” he said, “I don't care-care-air if we don't get there at
seven.
"I've got my orders! ” Fresh horses forward again, faster
than before— over rocks and stumps, on one of which the coach
narrowly escaped turning a summerset.
“See here! ” shrieked Mr. Greeley, “I don't care if we don't
get there at all. ”
“I've got my orders! I work fer the California Stage Com-
That's wot I work fer. They said, 'Get this man
through by seving' An' this man's goin' through, you bet!
Gerlong! Whoo-ep! ”
Another frightful jolt, and Mr. Greeley's bald head suddenly
found its way through the roof of the coach, amidst the crash of
small timbers and the ripping of strong canvas.
"Stop, you — maniac! ” he roared.
Again answered Henry Monk:-
"I've got my orders! Keep your seat, Horace ! »
At Mud Springs, a village a few miles from Placerville, they
met a large delegation of the citizens of Placerville, who had
come out to meet the celebrated editor, and escort him into
town, There was a military company, a brass band, and a six-
horse wagon-load of beautiful damsels in milk-white dresses, rep-
resenting all the States in the Union. It was nearly dark now,
but the delegation was amply provided with torches, and bonfires
blazed all along the road to Placerville.
The citizens met the coach in the outskirts of Mud Springs,
and Mr. Monk reined in his foam-covered steeds.
pany, I do.
## p. 2472 (#32) ############################################
2472
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE
"Is Mr. Greeley on board ? ” asked the chairman of the com-
mittee.
“He was, a few miles back ! ” said Mr. Monk. “Yes,” he
added, looking down through the hole which the fearful jolting
had made in the coach-roof, “Yes, I can see him! He is there ! »
Mr. Greeley,” said the chairman of the committee, present-
ing himself at the window of the coach, "Mr. Greeley, sir! We
are come to most cordially welcome you, sir! - Why, God bless
me, sir, you are bleeding at the nose!
"I've got my orders! ” cried Mr. Monk. "My orders is as
follows: Git him there by seving! It wants a quarter to seving.
Stand out of the way! ”
“But, sir,” exclaimed the committee-man, seizing the off-
leader by the reins, "Mr. Monk, we are come to escort him into
town! Look at the procession, sir, and the brass-band, and the
people, and the young women, sir! ”
“I've got my orders ! » screamed Mr. Monk. My orders don't
say nothin' about no brass bands and young women. My orders
says, "Git him there by seving. ' Let go them lines ! Clear the
way there! Whoo-ep! KEEP YOUR SEAT, HORACE! ” and the coach
dashed wildly through the procession, upsetting a portion of the
brass band, and violently grazing the wagon which contained
the beautiful young women in white.
Years hence, gray-haired men who were little boys in this
procession will tell their grandchildren how this stage tore
through Mud Springs, and how Horace Greeley's bald head ever
and anon showed itself like a wild apparition above the coach-
roof.
Mr. Monk was on time. There is a tradition that Mr. Greeley
was very indignant for a while: then he laughed and finally pre-
sented Mr. Monk with a brand-new suit of clothes. Mr. Monk
himself is still in the employ of the California Stage Company,
and is rather fond of relating a story that has made him famous
all over the Pacific coast. But he says he yields to no man in
his admiration for Horace Greeley.
## p. 2473 (#33) ############################################
2473
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
(1605-1682)
BY FRANCIS BACON
HEN Sir Thomas Browne, in the last decade of his life, was
asked to furnish data for the writing of his memoirs in
Wood's 'Athenæ Oxonienses,' he gave in a letter to his
friend Mr. Aubrey in the fewest words his birthplace and the places
of his education, his admission as “Socius Honorarius of the College
of Physitians in London, the date of his being knighted, and the
titles of the four books or tracts which he had printed; and ended
with «Have some miscellaneous tracts which may be published. ”
This account of himself, curter than
many an epitaph, and scantier in details
than the requirements of a census-taker's
blank, may serve, with many other signs
that one finds scattered among the pages
of this author, to show his rare modesty
and effacement of his physical self. He
seems, like some other thoughtful and
sensitive natures before and since, averse
or at least indifferent to being put on
record as an eating, digesting, sleeping,
and clothes-wearing animal, of that species
of which his contemporary Sir Samuel
Pepys stands as the classical instance, and SIR THOMAS BROWNE
which the newspaper interviewer of our
own day — that “fellow who would vulgarize the Day of Judg-
ment” — has trained to the most noxious degree of offensiveness.
Sir Thomas felt, undoubtedly, that having admitted that select
company —«fit audience though few) — who are students of the
Religio Medici' to a close intimacy with his highest mental pro-
cesses and conditions, his «separable accidents,” affairs of assimila-
tion and secretion as one may say, were business between himself
and his grocer and tailor, his cook and his laundress.
The industrious research of Mr. Simon Wilkin, who in 1836 pro-
duced the completest edition (William Pickering, London) of the lit-
erary remains of Sir Thomas Browne, has gathered from all sources
- his own note-books, domestic and friendly correspondence, allusions
of contemporary writers and the works of subsequent biographers -
## p. 2474 (#34) ############################################
2474
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
all that we are likely, this side of Paradise, to know of this great
scholar and admirable man.
The main facts of his life are as follows. He was born in the
Parish of St. Michael's Cheap, in London, on the 19th of October,
1605 (the year of the Gunpowder Plot). His father, as is apologetically
admitted by a granddaughter, Mrs. Littleton, “was a tradesman, a
mercer, though a gentleman of a good family in Cheshire” (generosa
familia, says Sir Thomas's own epitaph). That he was the parent of
his son's temperament, a devout man with a leaning toward mysti-
cism in religion, is shown by the charming story Mrs. Littleton tells
of him, exhibiting traits worthy of the best ages of faith, and more
to be expected in the father of a mediæval saint than in a prosperous
Cheapside mercer, whose son was to be one of the most learned and
philosophical physicians of the age of Harvey and Sydenham:—“His
father used to open his breast when he was asleep and kiss it in
prayers over him, as 'tis said of Origen's father, that the Holy Ghost
would take possession there. ” Clearly, it was with reverent memory
of this good man that Sir Thomas, near the close of his own long
life, wrote:–«Among thy multiplied acknowledgments, lift up one
hand unto heaven that thou wert born of honest parents; that inod-
esty, humility, patience, and vera
eracity lay in the same egg and came
into the world with thee. ”
This loving father, of whom one would fain know more, died in
the early childhood of his son Thomas. He left a handsome estate
of £9,000, and a widow not wholly inconsolable with her third por-
tion and a not unduly deferred second marriage to a titled gentleman,
Sir Thomas Dutton, -a knight so scantily and at the same time so
variously described, as a worthy person who had great places,” and
“a bad member” of “mutinous and unworthy carriage,” that one is
content to leave him as a problematical character.
The boy Thomas Browne being left to the care of guardians, his
estate was despoiled, though to what extent does not appear; nor
can it be considered greatly deplorable, since it did not prevent his
early schooling at that ancient and noble foundation of Winchester,
nor in 1623 his entrance into Pembroke College, Oxford, and in due
course his graduation in 1626 as bachelor of arts. With what special
assistance or direction he began his studies in medical science, cannot
now be ascertained; but after taking his degree of master of arts in
1629, he practiced physic for about two years in some uncertain
place in Oxfordshire. He then began a course of travel, unusually
extensive for that day. His stepfather upon occasion of his official
duties under the government “shewed him all Ireland in some vis-
itation of the forts and castles. ” It is improbable that Ireland at
that time long detained a traveler essentially literary in his tastes.
## p. 2475 (#35) ############################################
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2475
Browne betook himself to France and Italy, where he appears to
have spent about two years, residing at Montpellier and Padua, then
great centres of medical learning, with students drawn from most
parts of Christendom. Returning homeward through Holland, he
received the degree of doctor of medicine from the University of
Leyden in 1633, and settled in practice at Halifax, England.
At this time — favored probably by the leisure which largely
attends the beginning of a medical career, but which is rarely so
laudably or productively employed, - he wrote the treatise Religio
Medici,' which more than any other of his works has established
his fame and won the affectionate admiration of thoughtful readers.
This production was not printed until seven years later, although
some unauthorized manuscript copies, more or less faulty, were in
circulation. When in 1642 “it arrived in a most depraved copy at
the press,” Browne felt it necessary to vindicate himself by publish-
ing a correct edition, although, he protests, its original intention
was not publick: and being a private exercise directed to myself,
what is delivered therein was rather a memorial unto me than an
example or rule unto any other. ”
In 1636 he removed to Norwich and permanently established him-
self there in the practice of physic. There in 1641. he married
Dorothy Mileham, a lady of good family in Norfolk; thereby not
only improving his social connections, but securing a wife of such
symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband both in the graces
of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a
kind of natural magnetism. ” Such at least was the view of an inti-
mate friend of more than forty years, Rev. John Whitefoot, in the
Minutes) which, at the request of the widow, he drew up after Sir
Thomas's death, and which contain the most that is known of his
personal appearance and manners. Evidently the marriage was a
happy one for forty-one years, when the Lady Dorothy was left
mastissima conjux, as her husband's stately epitaph, rich with many
an issimus, declares. Twelve children were born of it; and though
only four of them survived their parents, such mortality in carefully
tended and well-circumstanced families was less remarkable than it
would be now, when two centuries more of progress in medical sci-
ence have added security and length to human life.
The good mother — had she ngt endeared herself to the modern
reader by the affectionate gentleness and the quaint glimpses of
domestic life that her family letters reveal — would be irresistible
by the ingeniously bad spelling in which she reveled, transgressing
even the wide limits then allowed to feminine heterography.
It is noteworthy that Dr. Browne's professional prosperity was
not impaired by the suspicion which early attached to him, and soon
## p. 2476 (#36) ############################################
2476
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
deepened into conviction, that he was addicted to literary pursuits.
He was in high repute as a physician. His practice was extensive,
and he was diligent in it, as also in those works of literature and
scientific investigation which occupied all snatches of time,” he
says, “as medical vacations and the fruitless importunity of uroscopy
would permit. ” His large family was liberally reared; his hospitality
and his charities were ample.
In 1646 he printed his second book, the largest and most operose
of all his productions: the Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Inquiries into
Vulgar and Common Errors,' the work evidently of the hora subsecive
of many years. In 1658 he gave to the public two smaller but
important and most characteristic works, Hydriotaphia' and 'The
Garden of Cyrus. ' Beside these publications he left many manu-
scripts which appeared posthumously; the most important of them,
for its size and general interest, being Christian Morals. ?
When Sir Thomas's long life drew to its close, it was with all the
blessings “which should accompany old age. His domestic life had
been one of felicity. His eldest and only surviving son, Edward
Browne, had become a scholar after his father's own heart; and
though not inheriting his genius, was already renowned in London,
one of the physicians to the King, and in a way to become, as after-
ward he did, President of the College of Physicians. All his daugh-
ters who had attained womanhood had been well married. He lived
in the society of the honorable and learned, and had received from
the King the honor of knighthood. *
Mr. John Evelyn, carrying out a long and cherished plan of see-
ing one whom he had known and admired by his writings, visited
him at Norwich in 1671. He found Sir Thomas among fit surround-
ings, “his whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of
rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medails, books,
* As for this business of the knighting, one hesitates fully to adopt Dr. John-
son's remark that Charles II. (had skill to discover excellence and virtue to
reward it, at least with such honorary distinctions as cost him nothing. ” A
candid observer of the walk and conversation of this illustrious monarch finds
room for doubt that he was an attentive reader or consistent admirer of the
(Religio Medici, or (Christian Morals); and though his own personal history
might have contributed much to a complete catalogue of Vulgar Errors,
Browne's treatise so named did not include divagations from common decency
in its scope, and so may have failed to impress the royal mind. The fact
is that the King on his visit to Norwich, looking about for somebody to
knight, intended, as usual on such occasions, to confer the title on the mayor
of the city; but this functionary,- some brewer or grocer perhaps, of whom
nothing else than this incident is recorded, - declined the honor, whereupon
the gap was stopped with Dr. Browne.
## p. 2477 (#37) ############################################
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2477
never
.
plants, and natural things. ”* Here we have the right background and
accessories for Whitefoot's portrait of the central figure:
“His complexion and hair
answerable to his name, his stature
moderate, and habit of body neither fat nor lean but ei oápkos;
seen to be transported with mirth or dejected with sadness; always cheerful,
but rarely merry at any sensible rate; seldom heard to break a jest, and
when he did, apt to blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural
without affectation. His modesty
visible in a natural habitual blush,
which was increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
observable cause.
So free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that
he was something difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
was so, it was always singular and never trite or vulgar. ”
A man of character so lofty and self-contained might be expected
to leave a life so long, honorable, and beneficent with becoming dig-
nity.
