r
favorite. He remained in Cleveland from 1857 to 1860, when he was called
to New York to take the editorship of a venture called Vanity Fair. This
died soon after. But he did not die with it. A year later, in the fall
of 1861, he made his appearance as a lecturer at New London, and
met with encouragement. Then he set out _en tour_, returned to the
metropolis, hired a hall and opened with "the show." Thence onward all
went well.

The first money he made was applied to the purchase of the old family
homestead in Maine, which he presented to his mother. The payments on
this being completed, he bought himself a little nest on the Hudson,
meaning, as he said, to settle down and perhaps to marry. But his dreams
were not destined to be fulfilled.

Thus, at the outset of a career from which much was to be expected, a
man, possessed of rare and original qualities of head and heart, sank
out of the sphere in which at that time he was the most prominent
figure. There was then no Mark Twain or Bret Harte. His rivals were such
humorists as Orpheus C. Kerr, Nasby, Asa Hartz, The Fat Contributor,
John Happy, Mrs. Partington, Bill Arp and the like, who are now mostly
forgotten.

Artemus Ward wrote little, but he made good and left his mark. Along
with the queer John Phoenix his writings survived the deluge that
followed them. He poured out the wine of life in a limpid stream. It may
be fairly said that he did much to give permanency and respectability to
the style of literature of which he was at once a brilliant illustrator
and illustration. His was a short life indeed, though a merry one, and a
sad death. In a strange land, yet surrounded by admiring friends, about
to reach the coveted independence he had looked forward to so long,
he sank to rest, his dust mingling with that of the great Thomas Hood,
alongside of whom he was laid in Kensal Green.

Chapter the Fifth

Mark Twain--The Original of Colonel Mulberry Sellers--The "Earl of
Durham"--Some Noctes Ambrosianae--A Joke on Murat Halstead

I

Mark Twain came down to the footlights long after Artemus Ward had
passed from the scene; but as an American humorist with whom during
half a century I was closely intimate and round whom many of my London
experiences revolve, it may be apropos to speak of him next after his
elder. There was not lacking a certain likeness between them.

Samuel L. Clemens and I were connected by a domestic tie, though before
eith