Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), March 22, 1845, vol. 1, no. 12, p. ??

[page 190, column 2, continued:]

MR. HUDSON. — We are rejoiced to learn that this new lecturer on Shakspeare, has met with sufficient encouragement to induce him to commence another course of lectures in New York. Not that we think the public greatly needs enlightening on this subject, or that Mr. Hudson will be likely to create a new interest in Shakspeare, but because it is encouraging to know that there Is a sufficient number of people in our community willing to patronise genius, when genius will take the pains to make itself known. We have no doubt of there being at least a thousand young men in our city, as fully competent to instruct, or amuse the public, as Mr. Hudson, who will never be heard of, simply because they have not energy enough to force themselves out of their studies and dusty offices into the world; or because they fear there is not intelligence enough to appreciate their talents. It may be thought that Mr. Hudson's very peculiar manner attracts a great part of his audiences, but we believe that his manner keeps away many more than it attracts. For ourselves, we wonder that anybody can be induced to listen to bane second time; perhaps, if we had survived the first lecture that we attended, we could have gone again, but that was impossible. Such was the peculiar effect of his drawling enunciation upon our nerves, that after sitting fifteen minutes in the sound of his voice, the marrow in our bones began to dissolve, our teeth were set on edge as by the filings of a law, and chills crept [page 191:] over us like an ague-fit; to have listened a moment longer would have induced a paralysis, or something worse; and we did not begin to resume our usual serenity until we had been jolted in an omnibns from the Stuyvesant Institute to Bowling-green. There is a member of Congress from Massachusetts, of the same name as Mr. Hudson, to whom he bears a very strong resemblance in his speech and countenance. We remember having heard the Hon. Mr. Hudson make a speech in Congress, in which he repeated two or three dozens of times, the phrase yallar corn from Virginny,” and every time that any body laughed, he laughed with them. His speech was a sensible speech enough, notwithstanding the a yallar corn,” and the lectures of his name-sake are not a whit the less valuable to those who can listen to them, for being delivered in the worst provincial drawl that ever wounded a human ear.

We have heard Mr. Hudson (Shakspeare Hudson) called a humbug, but a humbug he is not. He is a quack, without question; such a quack as Shakspeare himself was, and such a quack as every man of genius must be, who is not a regular practitioner. It is not likely that there is a professor of elocution in the world who would consent that Mr. Hudson should open his mouth in public. But what are professors of elocution to him? he is a professor himself.