d its
approval.

It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that his triumph that week
was a regal one. For five successive nights and a Saturday matinee the
culture and fashion of London thronged to hear him discourse of their
"fellow savages." It was a lecture event wholly without precedent. The
lectures of Artemus Ward,--["Artemus the delicious," as Charles Reade
called him, came to London in June, 1866, and gave his "piece" in
Egyptian Hall. The refined, delicate, intellectual countenance, the
sweet, gave, mouth, from which one might have expected philosophical
lectures retained their seriousness while listeners were convulsed with
laughter. There was something magical about it. Every sentence was a
surprise. He played on his audience as Liszt did on a piano most easily
when most effectively. Who can ever forget his attempt to stop his
Italian pianist--"a count in his own country, but not much account in
this"--who went on playing loudly while he was trying to tell us an
"affecting incident" that occurred near a small clump of trees shown
on his panorama of the Far West. The music stormed on-we could see only
lips and arms pathetically moving till the piano suddenly ceased, and
we heard-it was all we heard "and, she fainted in Reginald's arms."
His tricks have been at tempted in many theaters, but Artemus Ward was
inimitable. And all the time the man was dying. (Moneure D. Conway,
Autobiography.)]--who had quickly become a favorite in London, had
prepared the public for American platform humor, while the daily doings
of this new American product, as reported by the press, had aroused
interest, or curiosity, to a high pitch. On no occasion in his own
country had he won such a complete triumph. The papers for a week
devoted columns of space to appreciation and editorial comment. The
Daily News of October 17th published a column-and-a-half editorial on
American humor, with Mark Twain's public appearance as the general text.
The Times referred to the continued popularity of the lectures:

They can't be said to have more than whetted the public appetite, if
we are to take the fact which has been imparted to us, that the
holding capacity of the Hanover Square Rooms has been inadequate to
the demand made upon it every night by Twain's lecturing, as a
criterion. The last lecture of this too brief course was delivered
yesterday before an audience which crammed to discomfort every part
of the prin