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PROLOGUE.

In reprinting these Lectures, the first four of which I delivered at the Royal Institution last year (1881), I am quite aware that what was spoken extemporaneously, and intended originally only to be heard in a genial atmosphere, must lose some of its effect when read in cold blood.

But the numerous imperfect shorthand reports which appeared, not only upon the first delivery of my "AMERICAN HUMORISTS" at the Royal Institution, but also after their repetition at the London Institution, in the spring of the present year (1882), convinced me that nothing worse could happen to them, even were I to throw my own notes together and print them in a volume.

I have done so, and can at least plead Thackeray's example in my favor.

Thackeray's "ENGLISH HUMORISTS" were first heard in the lecture-room.

I can only hope that the "Wit and Wisdom" of others in the following pages will be found, if not enhanced, at least not impaired by the setting which I have here supplied, and which so lately appeared to receive the hearty approval of " crowded houses," both in the east and west of London.