While engaged on the "Carpet-Bag," the subject of our sketch closely studied the theatre and courted the society of actors and actresses.  It was in this way that he gained that correct and valuable knowledge of the texts and characters of the drama, which enabled him in after years to burlesque them so successfully.  The humorous writings of Seba Smith were his models, and the oddities of "John Phoenix" were his especial admiration. Being of a roving temper Charles Browne soon left Boston, and, after traveling as a journeyman printer over much of New York and Massachusetts, he turned up in the town of Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio, where he became reporter and compositor at four dollars per week.  After making many friends among the good citizens of Tiffin, by whom he is remembered as a patron of side shows and traveling circuses, our hero suddenly set out for Toledo, on the lake, where he immediately made a reputation as a writer of sarcastic paragraphs in the columns of the Toledo "Commercial."  He waged a vigorous newspaper war with the reporters of the Toledo "Blade," but while the "Blade" indulged in violent vituperation, "Artemus" was good-natured and full of humor.  His column soon gained a local fame and everybody read it. His fame even traveled away to Cleveland, where, in 1858, when Mr. Browne was twenty-four years of age, Mr. J.W. Gray of the Cleveland "Plaindealer" secured him as local reporter, at a salary of twelve-dollars per week.  Here his reputation first began to assume a national character and it was here that they called him a "fool" when he mentioned the idea of taking the field as a lecturer.  Speaking of this circumstance while traveling down the Mississippi with the writer, in 1865, Mr. Browne musingly repeated this colloquy: WISE MAN:--"Ah! you poor foolish little girl--here is a dollar for you." FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL:--"Thank you, sir; but I have a sister at home as foolish as I am; can't you give me a dollar for her?" Charles Browne was not successful as a NEWS reporter, lacking enterprise and energy, but his success lay in writing up in a burlesque manner well-known public affairs like prize-fights, races, spiritual meetings, and political gatherings.  His department became wonderfully humorous, and was always a favorite with readers, whether there was any news in it or not.  Sometimes he would have a whole column of letters from young ladies in reply to a fancied matrimonial advertisement, and then he would have a column of answers to general correspondents like this:-- VERITAS:--Many make the same error. Mr. Key, who wrote the "Star Spangled Banner," is not the author of Hamlet, a tragedy.   He wrote the banner business, and assisted in "The Female Pirate," BUT DID NOT WRITE HAMLET.  Hamlet was written by a talented but unscrupulous man named Macbeth, afterwards tried and executed for "murdering sleep."