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;
and was the guest of that ancient and most honourable body--the City of
London Artillery--all these matters we should like to dwell upon." His
public lectures, though not so popular as those of Artemus Ward, won him
recognition as a master in all the arts of the platform. Mr. H. R.
Haweis, who heard him once at the old Hanover Square Rooms, thus
describes the occasion: "The audience was not large nor very
enthusiastic. I believe he would have been an increasing success had he
stayed longer. We had not time to get accustomed to his peculiar way,
and there was nothing to take us by storm, as in Artemus Ward. . . . .
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