The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-20

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national renown. The bosom-friend of the
lamented Douglas, he stood by the "Little
Grant through all the mighty conflicts of that
daring and undaunted statesman suffering
pohuca decapitation as Postmaster of the
lucrative Office in Cleveland rather than trim
ms sans to meet the exactions of the old
TuDnc neutrality-suspicious. Buchanan. (Par-
don me If cannot speak with respect even
now of this man,
Then there was the autbor of uRo-,nd the
Block, John b. Bouton, afterwards connected
with the Journal Of Commerce and still, be-
ieve, writer on one of the daily papers of
New York. Bouton was scarcely past his ma
iority when he came upon the plaindealer.
like Browne, TALL slim New Englander. His
was a racy pen, and he possessed a poetical
temperament, which sparkled with bright
and pretty gems. He bade fair to become an
author of no mean repute, and, though he has
given the world but one book-and that
fiction of no remarkable power-I still be-
lieve him capable of something which shall be
enduring.
Bouton was followed by William L. McLaren,
now an eloquent missionary in some dis
tant part Of the globe, but then a poet,
whose contributions to the kHickerbocker
and other magazines were fraught with
the divine inspiration of which true poesy
is born.
Next came a brilliant young Hebrew, who
has since risen to great distinction among his
own people-Benjamin +. Peixoth, at present
the Grand Master of the /. o. b. b. a Jewish
order, like the Masons, spread throughout the
country. His writings are in the quick, ner-
vous, tlorid, and fascinating type of the Orient.
He is more of an orator than writer though
eXcelling in each gift, for with him it is a gift
of rare and singular power.
Then came Charles +. Browne, then A. NJ.
Griswold, the ''Fat Contributor" "IIun Ki
Dori;" then William A. Collins, owner and
present editor of the Pittsburg Chronicle, and
a man of rare mental parts.
Browne came from TGledo to Cleveland.
having been a brief while upon a daily paper
in that city. His columns or rdepartment-the
local-was never distinguished for the dry re-
cord and chronicle for which such are gene
rally reputed. He could not gather the dry
details of a new block of buildings, nor fathom
the mysteries of boiler-shop, nor plunge
into the depths of the "largest and most ele-
giant stock Of goods this side of New York"
To him everything wore comical aspect.
He saw fun in everything. His lips were
always smiling. Genial to all, everything that
came within his quick, penetrating, observant
eye, wore its grotesque shape.
His eye begets occasion for his wit
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest"
This was literally true of him. His first
striking essays of wit were his caricatures of
local politicians. These were drawn to the
life. The ''Western Reserve at the time had
its Giddings, its Wade, its Spalding, its Tilden,
and its d. X. Carter. 1t has some of these
still. His pencil photographs of these were of
the most grotesque and side-splitting char
acter. y-and-by he came to write his ga.
Ward" letters from Baldinsville. These set
the town in such a roar that it was caught up
and carried throughout the land and across
The 'big pond and is still echoing its hearty
miTth-thOugh it will lull now for a brief
while to weep tears over the grave of the early
dead. These letters were reprinted every
where IN this country and in Great Britain.
His famous "Piccolomini' criticism shared
like reputation convulsing the fair, sweet
songstress herself by its inimitable humor. In
Cleveland, Browne was the cynOsure of all the
wits of the town. By them he was throned a
monarch of mirth, and at his feet were spread
the rarest tributes of their excessive adula-
ton. He quilted Cleveland and came to New
York with letters to distinguished authors,
which he never presented. He won his own
way here, as he had won it in the West. He
literally laid the cornerstone of his own
renOwn, and his magnet lay alone in his
genius. His ascent of the ladder of fame was
rapid beyond all parallel He became world
renowned before he had reached his twenty
fifth birthday, and he died lacking year of
his thirtieth.
He was his own worst enemy. Too yield
ing, his associates were more of the Bohemian
type, because he was, indeed, the Prince or
BOhemians. He did not, indeed, attain ''the
dignity of literature" in the exalted sense of
that noble profession, for he was deficient in
education, his range Of reading restricted, and
his life never that of student. Nor was
there any affectation of the 'dignity of litera-
ture' in his composition. He had no atIecta
ton about him; he was a naturalist without
even the knowledge of single science; and
yet to him all things wore their natural color.
He never assumed to be anything more than
what he really was, and he was as much at
home in one place as in another, if the people
were only human and natural.
He utterly scorned all and every attempt at
cant and hypocrisy, and was as keenly alive
to his own dement's and deficiencies as the
most acute of his critics. What Bobby Burns
was as a poet, Charley Browne was as
humorst - simple, unaffected original "a
genius whose heart beat warm and true,
whose human nature filled every household
with gladness. He was emphatically the
humorist of the people; to them he was some
thing more than the "Great Snowman" in
literature. He is gone in his early manhood,
with all his virtues and imperfections ON his
head. The latter were of the head, not of the
heart, which was ever as genial, and joyous,
and gladstone as an unclouded summers day.
Let us
"No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode;
There they alike in trembling nope repose,
The bosom OF his father and his God"
N C. HoYT.