The Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 41

I do not hes'tate to p.r.o.nounce it as such.

You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the cause of litteraoor, you may publicate it.

I told my wife Betsy when I left home that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur of "Oth.e.l.ler" and other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn't care where I went. "But," I said, "don't you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the Roses as growses, and the Breezes as blowses--but a Boss Poit--also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything."

She was packing my things at the time, and the only answer she made was to ask me if I was goin to carry both of my red flannel night-caps.

Yes. I've been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birthplace of Shakspeare. Mr. S. is now no more. He's been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him.

They cherish his mem'ry, and them as sell pictures of his birthplace, &c., make it prof'tible cheris.h.i.+n it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.

As I stood gazing on the spot where Shakspeare is s'posed to have fell down on the ice and hurt hisself when a boy, (this spot cannot be bought--the town authorities say it shall never be taken from Stratford), I wondered if three hundred years hence picturs of my birthplace will be in demand? Will the peple of my native town be proud of me in three hundred years? I guess they won't short of that time because they say the fat man weighing 1000 pounds which I exhibited there was stuffed out with pillers and cus.h.i.+ons, which he said one very hot day in July, "Oh bother, I can't stand this," and commenced pullin the pillers out from under his weskit, and heavin 'em at the audience.

I never saw a man lose flesh so fast in my life. The audience said I was a pretty man to come chiselin my own townsmen in that way. I said, "Do not be angry, feller-citizens. I exhibited him simply as a work of art. I simply wished to show you that a man could grow fat without the aid of cod-liver oil." But they wouldn't listen to me. They are a low and grovelin set of peple, who excite a feelin of loathin in every brest where lorfty emotions and original idees have a bidin place.

I stopped at Leamington a few minits on my way to Stratford onto the Avon, and a very beautiful town it is. I went into a shoe shop to make a purchis, and as I entered I saw over the door those dear familiar words, "By Appintment: H.R.H.;" and I said to the man, "Squire, excuse me, but this is too much. I have seen in London four hundred boot and shoe shops by Appintment: H.R.H.; and now you're at it. It is simply onpossible that the Prince can wear 400 pairs of boots. Don't tell me,"

I said, in a voice choked with emotion--"Oh, do not tell me that you also make boots for him. Say slippers--say that you mend a boot now and then for him; but do not tell me that you make 'em reg'lar for him."

The man smilt, and said I didn't understand these things. He said I perhaps had not noticed in London that dealers in all sorts of articles was By Appintment. I said, "Oh, hadn't I?" Then a sudden thought flasht over me. "I have it!" I said. "When the Prince walks through a street, he no doubt looks at the shop windows."

The man said, "No doubt."

"And the enterprisin tradesman," I continnerd, "the moment the Prince gets out of sight, rushes frantically and has a tin sign painted, By Appintment, H.R.H.! It is a beautiful, a great idee!"

I then bought a pair of shoe strings, and wringin the shopman's honest hand, I started for the Tomb of Shakspeare in a hired fly. It look't however more like a spider.

"And this," I said, as I stood in the old church-yard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, "this marks the spot where lies William W.

Shakspeare. Alars! and this is the spot where--"

"You've got the wrong grave," said a man--a worthy villager: "Shakspeare is buried inside the church."

"Oh," I said, "a boy told me this was it." The boy larfed and put the s.h.i.+llin I'd given him onto his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.

I pursood and captered him, and after talking to him a spell in a skarcastic stile, I let him went.

The old church was damp and chill. It was rainin. The only persons there when I entered was a fine bluff old gentleman who was talking in a excited manner to a fashnibly dressed young man.

"No, Earnest Montresser," the old gentleman said, "it is idle to pursoo this subjeck no further. You can never marry my daughter. You were seen last Monday in Piccadilly without a umbreller! I said then, as I say now, any young man as venturs out in a uncertain climit like this without a umbreller, lacks foresight, caution, strength of mind and stability; and he is not a proper person to intrust a daughter's happiness to."

I slapt the old gentleman on the shoulder, and I said: "You're right!

You're one of those kind of men, you are--"

He wheeled suddenly round, and in a indignant voice, said, "Go way--go way! This is a privit intervoo."

I didn't stop to enrich the old gentleman's mind with my conversation.

I sort of inferred that he wasn't inclined to listen to me, and so I went on. But he was right about the umbreller. I'm really delighted with this grand old country, "Mr. Punch," but you must admit that it does rain rayther numerously here. Whether this is owing to a monerkal form of gov'ment or not I leave all candid and onprejudiced persons to say.

William Shakspeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentaters, Shaksperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn't fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatist much. And there is no doubt if these commentaters and persons continner investigating Shakspeare's career, we shall not, in doo time, know anything about it at all.

When a mere lad little William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar School wouldn't attend him. This remarkable remark, comin from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin there might be somethin in this lad. He subsequently wrote "Hamlet"

and "George Barnwell." When his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow pupils to deliver a farewell address.

"Go on, Sir," he said, "in a glorus career. Be like a eagle, and soar and the soarer you get the more we shall all be gratified! That's so."

My young readers, who wish to know about Shakspeare, better get these vallyable remarks framed.

I returned to the hotel. Meetin a young married couple, they asked me if I could direct them to the hotel which Was.h.i.+ngton Irving used to keep?

"I've understood that he was onsuccessful as a lan'lord," said the lady.

"We've understood," said the young man, "that he busted up."

I told 'em I was a stranger, and hurried away. They were from my country, and ondoubtedly represented a thrifty Ile well somewhere in Pennsylvany. It's a common thing, by the way, for a old farmer in Pennsylvany to wake up some mornin' and find ile squirtin all around his back yard. He sells out for 'normous price, and his children put on gorgeous harness and start on a tower to astonish people. They succeed in doin it. Meantime the Ile squirts and squirts, and Time rolls on.

Let it roll.

A very nice old town is Stratford, and a capital inn is the Red Horse.

Every admirer of the great S. must go there once certinly; and to say one isn't a admirer of him, is equv'lent to sayin one has jest about brains enough to become a efficient tinker.

Some kind person has sent me Chawcer's "poems." Mr. C. had talent, but he couldn't spel. No man has a right to be a lit'rary man onless he knows how to spel. It is a pity that Chawcer, who had geneyus, was so unedicated. He's the wuss speller I know of.

I guess I'm through, and so I lay down the pen, which is more mightier than the sword, but which I'm fraid would stand a rayther slim chance beside the needle gun.

Adoo! Adoo!

Artemus Ward

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V.

IS INTRODUCED AT THE CLUB.

MR. PUNCH, My dear Sir,--It is seldim that the Commercial relations between Great Britain and the United States is mar'd by Games.

It is Commerce after all, which will keep the two countries friendly to'ards each other rather than statesmen.

I look at your last Parliament, and I can't see that a single speech was encored during the entire session.

Look at Congress--but no, I'd rather not look at Congress.

Entertainin this great regard for Commerce, "whose sales whiten every sea," as everybody happily observes every chance he gets, I learn with disgust and surprise that a British subjeck bo't a Barril of Apple Sa.s.s in America recently, and when he arrove home he found under a few deloosiv layers of sa.s.s nothin but sawdust. I should have instintly gone into the City and called a meetin of the leadin commercial men to condemn and repudiate, as a American, this gross frawd, if I hadn't learned at the same time that the draft given by the British subjeck in payment for this frawdylent sa.s.s was drawed onto a Bankin House in London which doesn't have a existance, but far otherwise, and never did.

There is those who larf at these things, but to me they merit rebooks and frowns.

With the exception of my Uncle Wilyim--who, as I've before stated, is a uncle by marrige only, who is a low cuss and filled his coat pockets with pies and biled eggs at his weddin breakfast, given to him by my father, and made the clergyman as united him a present of my father's new overcoat, and when my father on discoverin' it got in a rage and denounced him, Uncle Wilyim said the old man (meanin my parent) hadn't any idee of first cla.s.s Humer!--with the exception of this wretched Uncle the escutchin of my fam'ly has never been stained by Games. The little harmless deceptions I resort to in my perfes.h.i.+on I do not call Games. They are sacrifisses to Art.

I come of a very clever fam'ly.