The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
On the evening of Friday, the seventh week of his engagement at
Egyptian Hall, Artemus became seriously ill, an apology was made
to a disappointed audience, and from that time the light of one
of the greatest wits of the centuries commenced fading into
darkness. The Press mourned his retirement, and a funeral pall
fell over London. The laughing, applauding crowds were soon to
see his consumptive form moving towards its narrow resting-place
in the cemetery at Kensal Green.
By medical advice Charles Browne went for a short time to the
Island of Jersey--but the breezes of Jersey were powerless. He
wrote to London to his nearest and dearest friends--the members
of a literary club of which he was a member--to complain that his
"loneliness weighed on him." He was brought back, but could not
sustain the journey farther than Southampton. There the members
of the club traveled from London to see him--two at a time--that
he might be less lonely.
His remains were followed to the grave from the rooms of his
friend Arthur Sketchley, by a large number of friends and
admirers, the literati and press of London paying the last
tribute of respect to their dead brother. The funeral services
were conducted by the Rev. M.D. Conway, formerly of Cincinnati,
and the coffin was temporarily placed in a vault, from which it
was removed by his American friends, and his body now sleeps by
the side of his father, Levi Browne, in the quiet cemetery at
Waterford, Maine. Upon the coffin is the simple inscription:--
"CHARLES F. BROWNE,
AGED 32 YEARS,
Better Known to the World as 'Artemus Ward.'"
His English executors were T.W. Robertson, the playwright, and
his friend and companion, E.P. Hingston. His literary executors
were Horace Greeley and Richard H. Stoddard. In his will, he
bequeathed among other things a large sum of money to his little
valet, a bright little fellow; though subsequent denouments
revealed the fact that he left only a six-thousand-dollar house
in Yonkers. There is still some mystery about his finances,
which may one day be revealed. It is known that he withdrew
10,000 dollars from the Pacific Bank to deposit it with a friend
before going to England; besides this, his London "Punch" letters
paid a handsome profit. Among his personal friends were George
Hoyt, the late Daniel Setchell, Charles W. Coe, and Mr. Mullen,
the artist, all of whom he used to style "my friends all the year
round."
Personally Charles Farrar Browne was one of the kindest and most
affectionate of men, and history does not name a man who was so
universally beloved by all who knew him. It was remarked, and
truly, that the death of no literary character since Washington
Irving caused such general and widespread regret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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