in their seeming impromptu character. They are carefully
led up to, of course; but they are uttered as if they are
mere afterthoughts of which the speaker is hardly sure."

His humor was so entirely fresh and unconventional, that it
took his hearers by surprise, and charmed them. His failing
health compelled him to abandon the lecture after about
eight or ten weeks. Indeed, during that brief period he was
once or twice compelled to dismiss his audience. Frequently
he sank into a chair and nearly fainted from the exertion of
dressing. He exhibited the greatest anxiety to be at his
post at the appointed time, and scrupulously exerted himself
to the utmost to entertain his auditors. It was not because
he was sick that the public was to be disappointed, or that
their enjoyment was to be diminished. During the last few
weeks of his lecture-giving, he steadily abstained from
accepting any of the numerous invitations he received. Had
he lived through the following London fashionable season,
there is little doubt that the room at the Egyptian Hall
would have been thronged nightly. The English aristocracy
have a fine, delicate sense of humor, and the success,
artistic and pecuniary, of "Artemus Ward" would have
rivalled that of the famous "Lord Dundreary." There were
many stupid people who did not understand the "fun" of
Artemus Ward's books. There were many stupid people who did
not understand the fun of Artemus Ward's lecture on the
Mormons. Highly respectable people--the pride of their
parish--when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons,"
expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new
statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy,--and