truth, we have a kind of liking for him. There is a frankness and
originality about his remarks which is (sic) pleasanter than the mere
repetition of stale raptures; and his fun, if not very refined, is often
tolerable in its way. In short, his pages may be turned over with
amusement, as exhibiting more or less consciously a very lively portrait
of the uncultivated American tourist, who may be more obtrusive and
misjudging, but is not quite so stupidly unobservant as our native
product. We should not choose either of them for our companions on a
visit to a church or a picture--gallery, but we should expect most
amusement from the Yankee as long as we could stand him." It was this
review which gave Mark Twain the opening for his celebrated parody--a
parody which, I have always thought, went far to opening the eyes of the
British public to the true spirit of his humour. Such irresistible fun
could not fail of appreciation at the hands of a nation which regarded
Dickens as their representative national author.

Two years later, Mark Twain received in England an appreciative
reception of well-nigh national character. Whilst the literary and
academic circles of America withheld their unstinted recognition of an
author so primitive and unlettered, Great Britain received him with open
arms. He was a welcome guest at the houses of the exclusive; the
highest dignitaries of public life, the authoritative journals, the
leaders of fashion, of thought, and of opinion openly rejoiced in the
breezy unconventionality, the fascinating daring, and the genial
personality of this new variety of American genius. His English
publisher, John Camden Hotten, wrote in 1873: "How he dined with the
Sheriff of London and Middlesex; how he spent glorious evenings with the
wits and literati who gather around the festive boards of the
Whitefriars and the Savage Clubs; how he moved in the gay throng at the
Guildhall conversazione; how he feasted with the Lord Mayor of London;