land. This journey 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 popular
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 expression. 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 reputation 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
professional 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 he is,
and unconscious and unpracticed as is the art that went to his creation,
he is one of th