| | | Of all the American books that have hitherto reached us this | appears one of the most characteristic. The leading phases | of Transatlantic eccentricity stand here photographed by one | of the keenest observers amongst that acute people. No | Englishman could have poured the tenth part of this homely | satire upon the most sensitive branch of the Anglo-Saxon | race without having every revolver in the States cocked at | his head, and every bowie knife pointed at his waistcoat. | Here, however, the salt is rubbed in by a native hand, and by | one which has the gift of tickling his own public so entirely to | their humour that they are said to rush in crowds of five | dollars a-head to hear themselves in his lectures

| “metaforically speakin,”

as he says, scalped, flayed, | and carbonadoed. | Artemus Ward ~~ or, in native pronunciation, Artemus | Wud, and in real life Mr. Charles F. Brown ~~ has risen, | like Franklin before him, from a printer’s office, as we are | informed in the introduction, to be one of the choice and | representative spirits of his race in the present day. His | career to an

“editorial chair”

seems to have been | unusually rapid. His comic writings, whether sketches or | essays, were soon found to have a spice and a raciness | which brought them in demand everywhere. With a taste for | roaming which seems to characterize all genuine humorists, | he has flitted in rapid migrations over the greater part of the | Northern and Western States and Territories of the Union, | improving everywhere on the reputation which had preceded | him, gathering huge audiences, not only in theatres and | lecture-rooms, but, if the introduction may be believed, | occasionally in a church, in a gaol ~~ where, ~~ or, | bursting all restrictions upon space as only a clog to his | exuberant attractiveness, beneath the cope of heaven. | Captured by Indians, rescued by Mormons, laid down by a | fever, compelled by his captors to perform a comic dance | known as the

“Essence of Virginny,”

upset in a | sleigh and flung among a pack of wolves, his adventures in | quest of things to observe, and of audiences to whom to | address his

“observations,”

have not been few. | Returning to New York, he opened an illustrated lecture or | series of lectures on his travels, after the fashion which | fifteen years ago ~~ to recall the memory of one dear to all | Englishmen who love a joke ~~ used to delight us at the | Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. And now, in the book before us, | he shows no small pretensions to combine the powers of | Thackeray, on one of his many sides, with those of Albert | Smith, so far as the two can be reflected from the other side | of the Atlantic. | The book in English literature with which we can most | closely compare the

“showman”

and his sketches | of American character is The Snobs of England, by One | of Themselves. The parallel prompts the suggestion | that an edition with humorous illustrations is the only thing | wanted to tickle and transport to more uproarious fits of | laughter the public here. We do not, of course, expect from | any artist that inbred subtlety of power in caricature which | arises from the same hand guiding the pencil and the pen; | but we think the attempt to illustrate Artemus Ward | might be well worth trying. To return, however, to the | literary merits of the book, after mentioning it in the same | sentence with the Snob Papers, we ought to make, in justice | to their author, a large abatement in the next. There is not a | particle of the easy finish and unstudied refinement about | our showman’s caustic but coarse diatribes which marked | every trifle that came from Thackeray’s pen. Or rather, we | should say, easy he doubtless is, but not finished; unstudied, | but not refined. The styles differ as a flaring gas-lamp differs | from a wax-chandelier. Nor do we, however, by the term

| “coarse,”

mean that the pages suggest in general | repulsive ideas; but simply that they are coarse as yellow | soap is coarse, and yet may have a wholesome, salubrious, | and detergent effect. Another point in which they may be | contrasted with the book with which we have compared them | suggests the contrast between American and English social | life. They deal not with the domestic, but with the public | aspect of the society which they quiz. The Snob visited | families, and even where he starts from a point of view | wholly without the domestic circle, as in his military snobs | and club snobs, drops into it at the earliest possible moment. | Artemus Ward moves, on the contrary, always among the | out-of-doors public. The machinery of the showman, with his |

“wax figgers”

and

“moral”

entertainment | of tamed snakes and innocuous wild beasts, is adapted | entirely to this idea which it develops. And as he moves | amongst his varied and promiscuous companies of | spectators, he singles out a face from the upturned million | around him, and touches with ready insight its salient | features. The only domestic interior at which he allows us a | peep, save one casually visited among the

“Shakers,” |

is his own. We exclude from present consideration the | domestic interior of Brigham Young the Mormon, as being, | by reason of its

“peculiar institution,”

too | promiscuous for our purpose. | The book has the blemish of being a continual volley of | slang, while the affectation of bad spelling is carried to a | point which no artist in that line has probably ever attempted. | It has the New Englander’s respect for the clergy of all sects, | and his readiness in jumping at any sacred allusion which | can be thrown in to spice drollery with what we should think | profanity. It evinces the true Yankee sympathy with strong | fluids of all sorts, simple and compound; and shows for | womankind the respectful deference which is native to the | race, couple with sly hits and broad grins at the stilted | caricature into which female dignity, so deferred to, | sometimes expands. We must, however, give one or two | specimens. The first shall be declamatory, in which Mr. Ward, | who has spent a night among the

“Shakers,”

and | attended their meeting next morning, is giving them a few | parting words of advice: ~~ | A few pages further on, we find Artemus

“among the | Spirits,”

being introduced to a

“spiritual circle at | Squire Smith’s”

by his

“naburs.”

He is | supposed to evoke, and converse with, the spirit of his | deceased partner William Tompkins: ~~ | The poverty-stricken with of this strain of jocularity is | manifest at a glance. A vulgar dabbling in the mysteries of | the world unseen, whether meant in serious imposture or | jocular badinage, is as degrading a style of writing as has | been invented, or perhaps can be imagined. The future and | the unseen form the last appeal against the engrossments of | materialism, and they who tear the veil off this ultimate | sanctuary of human reverence will leave nothing | undesecrated by their ribald impertinence. The absurdities of | those pretentious charlatans who profess to conduct | communications between the living and the dead might, like | any other absurdity, form a fair mark for satirical description; | but the passage which we have just quoted goes far beyond | this, and sinks all scruples in a laugh, in which probably most | readers will join. Secure of this, why should a writer care for | anything else? | The mysteries of wax-work showing have been revealed | before. Most of our readers will remember a scene in Mr. | Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop as they read the | following. Mr. Ward, we will premise, is on British soil ~~ to | wit, in Canada: ~~ | | As an example of waggery directed at the aggressiveness of | woman, and her combativeness as the champion of her own | supposed rights, we will cull the following: ~ | It will be seen from these selections that there is in the | author a ready sense of what is absurd on the surface, and a | constant supply of easy and pungent humour. There is no | hitch of style or halting of expression, and only to the English | reader is there a momentary obscurity from a slang or cant | phrase, or from some unusual freak played against | orthography. But there is a total absence of that background | of pathos which in a great humorist relieves and intensifies | the humour. There is a hard absence of the ideal, and a | rapid series of rough and ready sketches in exaggerated | outline, without an attempt to give any depth to the picture, | or to throw over the strong glare of grotesque fact a shade of | tenderness or sentiment. A reader forming his opinion solely | from this book would certainly conclude that the Americans | were the most vulgar and repulsive set of people on the face | of the earth. indeed, the tone of the book, and the point of | view from which it touches the Yankee character, may be | disadvantageously contrasted in these respects with the | work of a genial and loyal spirit lately passed away ~~ the | Sam Slick of Judge Haliburton. At the same time, | in rapid and condensed vigour, and in the power of imparting | an effect in a few touches, the moving panorama which the |

“showman”

puts before us leaves

“the | clockmaker”

far behind. | We may just observe that the obnoxious airs of masculinity | affected by some of his country women seem to have deeply | impressed the writer. The virago with the cotton umbrella is | presented once and again to the reader, as if with the | consciousness that she is a favourite dish and fair game. | She generally seizes someone of the | opposite sex by his coat collar or tails, and swings him round | by that appendage. To this class of esprits forts | Mrs. Ward herself appears to belong. Although confining her |

“spear”

to household matters, she makes her | empire absolute within it; and Artemus’ crestfallen figure in | some encounters touching conjugal prerogative helps to | make some of the funniest scenes in the whole collection. | About the best things in the book are the supposed | interviews which Artemus obtains with the Prince of Wales, | with the late President Lincoln, and with prince Napoleon; | but either of these would be unfortunately too long for | extraction here. The

“War Fever in Baldinsville”

| forms a choice chapter too. Our friend the showman comes | out as captain he says, | This, as well as the following and last extract | which we shall make, will show that | Artemus hits his countrymen rather hard. It is an anecdote | supposed to be told | by the commander of a barge on the Wabash Canal: ~~ | The sympathy manifested with the rowdy, and against the | vindication of law and | order, is well hit off, and explains the sympathy with | Commodore Wilkes in the | Trent outrage. We don’t doubt its reality, | and are glad it’s not a | Britisher who has made the hit.