6.1. PREFATORY NOTE BY MELVILLE D. LANDON.

The fame of Artemus Ward culminated in his last lectures at
Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, the final one breaking off
abruptly on the evening of the 23d of January, 1867. That
night the great humorist bade farewell to the public, and
retired from the stage to die! His Mormon lectures were
immensely successful in England. His fame became the talk
of journalists, savants, and statesmen. Every one seemed to
be affected differently, but every one felt and acknowledged
his power. "The Honorable Robert Lowe," says Mr. E.P.
HINGSTON, Artemus Ward's bosom friend, "attended the Mormon
lecture one evening, and laughed as hilariously as any one
in the room. The next evening Mr. John Bright happened to
be present. With the exception of one or two occasional
smiles, he listened with GRAVE attention."

The "London Standard," in describing his first lecture in
London, aptly said, "Artemus dropped his jokes faster than
the meteors of last night succeeded each other in the sky.
And there was this resemblance between the flashes of his
humor and the flights of the meteors, that in each case one
looked for jokes or meteors, but they always came just in
the place that one least expected to find them. Half the
enjoyment of the evening lay, to some of those present, in
listening to the hearty cachinnation of the people, who only
found out the jokes some two or three minutes after they
were made, and who laughed apparently at some grave
statements of fact. Reduced to paper, the showman's jokes
are certainly not brilliant; almost their whole effect lies