ARTEMIS WARD.•
THE popularity of Artemus Ward (or rather Charles F. Browne) has of late years suffered an undeserved eclipse, and Mr. Johnson has done extremely well in making this selection from his sketches and securing Mr. Howells to play sponsor with a sympathetic introduction. In truth, Artemus is and must remain an irresistible humorist. The dialect in which all his best work is written is as obsolete as the dodo ; the events on which his sketches often form a running com- mentary are most of them forgotten ; yet his book remains almost as brilliantly alive as on the day on which it was written. Without Artemus Mr. Dunne would never have created " Mr. Dooley," and a comparison of master and pupil may prove instructive. Mr. Dooley is much more subtle than Artemus. His critical acumen would ensure him a place in the political department of any newspaper. And he is a more subtly constructed personality. Artemus could never have lived. He is nothing but a voice. His criticism is of elemental breadth ; his adventures are always on the extreme verge of farce. His spelling and his dialect are extravagant and grotesque where Mr. Dooley's are subtle and full of character. Yet, if Mr. Dunne makes us laugh more often, the laughter which Browne arouses is infinitely the louder. For the freedom, for the self-surrender of that laugh one can forgive him anything. The world has not known many writers who could make her laugh out loud, and when she finds that golden gift she can ill afford to criticize. And, indeed; the humour of Artemus defies analysis. Why do we laugh when he quotes :—
" 2 soles with but a single thawt
2 harts which beet as 1,"
or when he talks of " whirling in the messy darnce," or asks rhetorically "shall we sell our birthrite fora mess of potash ? " We feel half ashamed of laughing, but still we laugh, and, when we read again, still read with laughter. Sometimes we have better excuse. " A solum female, lookin sum what like a last year's bean pole stuck into a long meal bag, cum and axed me was I atburst and did I hunger ? To which I urbanely answered a few.' " Or take this dialogue with Brigham Young. " Sir,' sed he, turnin as red as a biled beet, don't you know that the rules of our church is that I, the profit, may hey as menny wives as I wants Jes so,' I sed, 'you are old pie, ain't you ? '—' Them as is sealed to me—that is to say to be mine when I wants um—air at present my sperretooul wives,' sed Mister Yung. 'Long may thay wave !' scz I, seein I shood git into a scrape of I didn't look out." One feels here that there is something that more deserves laughter, something beyond the verbal grimace which has tickled us so unreasonably and unmercifully before. But what is it ? There is no chemistry of the mind that can dispart its elements.
• Artemus Word's hest Stories. Edited by Clifton Joblison. With an Intro- duction by W. D. Howells. London : Harper and Bros. 113.. not.) • And that is why Artemus is, and muss remain, one of the great humorists of the world.
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