But the entertainment, original, humorous, and racy though it was, was drawing to a close! In the fight between youth and death, death was to conquer. By medical advice Charles Browne went for a short time to 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 beforementioned club travelled from London to see him--two at a time--that he might be less lonely--and for the unwearying solicitude of his friend and agent, Mr. Hingston, and to the kindly sympathy of the United States Consul at Southampton, Charles Browne's best and dearest friends had cause to be grateful. I cannot close these lines without mention of "Artemus Ward's" last joke. He had read in the newspapers that a wealthy American had offered to present the Prince of Wales with a splendid yacht, American built. "It seems," said the invalid, "a fashion now-a-days for everybody to present the Prince of Wales with something. I think I shall leave him--my panorama!" Charles Browne died beloved and regretted by all who knew him, and by many who had known him but a few weeks; and when he drew his last breath, there passed away the Spirit of a true gentleman. T.W. ROBERTSON London, August 11, 1868. PREFATORY NOTE BY EDWARD P. HINGSTON. In Cleveland, Ohio, the pleasant city beside the lakes, Artemus Ward first determined to become a public lecturer. He and I rambled through Cleveland together after his return from California. He called on some old friends at the Herald office, then went over to the Weddel House, and afterwards strolled across to the offices of the "Plain Dealer", where, in his position as sub-editor, he had written many of his earlier essays. Artemus inquired for Mr. Gray, the editor, who chanced to be absent. Looking round at the vacant desks and inkstained furniture, Artemus was silent for a minute or two, and then burst into one of those peculiar chuckling fits of laughter in which he would occasionally indulge; not a loud laugh, but a shaking of the whole body with an impulse of merriment which set every muscle in motion. "Here," said he, "here's where they called me a fool." The remembrance of their so calling him seemed to afford him intense amusement. >From the office of the Cleveland Plain Dealer we continued our tour of the town. Presently we found ourselves in front of Perry's statue, the monument erected to commemorate the naval engagement on Lake Erie, wherein the Americans came off victorious. Artemus looked up to the statue, laid his finger to the side of his nose, and, in his quaint manner, remarked, "I wonder whether they called him 'a fool' too, when he went to fight!"