The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-21 00:00:00

bankrupt had given 221., including the cost of stamps,
for the discount of a bill for three months for 1501., and
whilst he had thus been raising money at the rate of
101. to 601. per cent., he had kept a carriage and been
living at the rate of 1,0001. a year. The unsecured
debts were 17,0001., and there would not be a dividend
of more than 2s. 6d. in the pound.
At this stage of the proceedings the Court adjourned.

1.19-

A WORD ABOUT THOMAS ROOD AND HIS
MONUMENT.

(From the Liverpool Journal.)
A public subscription has been started in London for
the purpose of erecting a monument over the grave of
Thomas Hood, the poet and author of "The Comic An-
nual." The suggestion originated with Miss Eliza Cook,
through some lines on " Hood's Grave," published in
her journal a few weeks since, which were responded to,
in default of notice in high places, by several literary
members of the Whittington Club. These gentlemen, in
furtherance of the plan, have formed themselves into a
committee to receive subscriptions, and have appointed
Mr. John Watkins (formerly of Liverpool), of 34, Par-
liament-street, Westminster, honorary secretary. The
Fund, we are happy to announce, is progressing rapidly ;
and we have every reason to hope, as an appeal is only
now being made in Liverpool, that Hood, who has been
30 strangely forgotten, and whose earnest career of
public usefulness has been so strangely overlooked, will
ret some decent memorial to cover the nakedness of his
tomb.
We believe Hood, if any man ever had, has a tie on
•" humanly and brotherly." His claim is not on our
;enerosity but but on our justice, —on the justice which
lemands a public acknowledgment of that virtue which
lies in the pursuit of the public good. It if, not simply
a matter of regret, but of severe reproach, that Miss
Eliza Cook, in seeking amidst the mausoleums of pill
loctors and posture makers for his grave, should find
that he has left no sign. That he has died out like a
candle. That there is not even a cross for the illiterate
over his grave. He earned at least our gratitude ;he
has received nothing, we are consequently in his debt.
Something is asked to mark his narrow home, not to
commemorate his memory, for that will live in hearts he
has left behind, and needs no commemoration, but as an
instalment on account. Not a " lamp of sacrifice" to
enlighten the world as to national gratitude. Not a
column, for he never set his charity on high, a beacon to
break the hearts of houseless wanderers, who fly to it in
the dark night and fall dead outside at the strange cold
reception, but a simple stone to tell where lies the man
" Who sung the song of the shirt."
Our munificent rewards for military services, our
mausoleums, columns, and funeral pageants, the artistic
result of forty centuries of woe, when contrasted with
our reward of literary genius, might perhaps, to some,
suggest harsh allusions. But we have no desire to point
to the fame of a great conqueror, while peeping about
for the narrow home of a poet and philanthropist, or,
what is more, of a disinterestedly-earnest and indefatig-
ably-humane man. There is no comparison, and we
have no desire to make one. We cannot help ignorance.
We can only regret that there are men who have neither
heard of the name nor the mission of Thomas Hood, and
feel it is heard that, at this time of day, an appeal should
be necessary for one who- so honourably " helped his
country and his kind," that the modest exertions of a
party of chivalrous ladies and gentlemen are even neces-
sary to save his memory with the public from oblivion,
and that a man who has "done the state some service,"
should be so lost sight of. We speak not of Hood the
poet, nor of Hood the humourist, nor of Hood of the
"Comic Annual," though they are one, but of Hood the
moralist, of Hood the philanthropist, who threw his
mantle alike over all, and who spoke for those who
could not speak for themselves. For labourers, paupers,
outcasts, and distressed needlewomen. Of Rood, the
last soul of chivalry in consumption ;—of nobility fallen
in an evil age -the poor man's poet—the great racer
worn down by misfortune into a literary hack, and then
doing wonders, breaking forth like a Pegasus before he
lay down and died ;—and, finally, of Hood, the Giant
Great Heart, whose pulse beat responsively with all woe,
misery, or misfortune whatever. For Hood was no
ordinary nor mere versifier. That he was a poet, and a
poet whose merits were of a rare order, is undoubted ;
but his imagination was as nothing to his humanity.
His indignation at evil, his pity for the houseless and
distressed, framed his song, and gave it the peculiarity
in which lay its intrinsic worth. It was not so much
the brilliancy, melody, nor iteration of his note that dis-
tinguished it, as its curious cry.
"Such thrilling voice was never heard,
In spring time from the cuckoo bird."
It told of old, unhappy, far-off things—of human misery
and depravity—of human indifference and despair, and
therein lay its claims on our sympathies and affection,
its interest and attraction. This sad quaint song shows
us the depths of the man, what manner of heart he had,
his honesty and integrity of purpose, and his no-
bility and true worth—that, after all, his was not a
mind attaining to, but a soul venting itself in poetry. A
contributor to annuals—a daily worker for the press,
his Pegasus harnessed and let to the booksellers, his
terrific, yet sober earnestness, seemed all the more
serious that it was not his trade. That it burst out ap-
parently against his will. That it welled up through the
depths of his feelings, frightening the idle drinkers at
his sunny stream (like some vision of Hades) with the
dark phantom underneath ; that it came and went un-
controlled, like the fierce wind of heaven ; and, though
he could not "show scorn its own image," he brought
us face to face with misery, lit up its gaunt visage, and
begged us to scrape acquaintance. His rich, quaint
stream of fancy came pouring down like a flood of light
on the upturned face of sorrow and affliction, showing
its strange grim look and lines of care truthfully, but
sunnily ; and then, when he had beguiled us with
the wild, sad music of his note, he left us with the
face of woe he had conjured up, and whose cry he had
been imitating, to show it, if possible, some sympathy
and affection. Having enlisted our attention, he left
us to settle accounts with the miserables them-
selves. He did all a poet could. He did not challenge
society on its vices, and then throw down the gauntlet
a' l'outrance for justice ; but, like Anthony, he pointed
to the wounds it had inflicted, and bade them speak, and
thus, perhaps, fulfilled the only function possible to the
time, or of service to the object he strove to promote.
Hood's poems were many ; they were short, wild,
imaginative, and fantastic creations—the flashes of a
burning mind, whether it assumed to be comic or pro-
found. But he is known to the public less by these
than by his " Comic Annual," and by his by no means
best song "Of the Shirt." To his serious writings we
wish, however, chiefly to draw attention. To the
" Bridge of Sighs," "The Workhouse Clock," and such
and similar of his poems. In all, there was the same
deep feeling for human misery—the same solemn serious-
ness ; a seriousness unlike that of any other poet ; a seri-
ousness springing neither from disappointment, nor from
misanthropy, nor from disease, nor from affectation, but
from incurable humanity. He loved his country, and he
hated crime. His heart overflowed with pity. He saw
the evils of life—the rich man's contumely—" the law's
delay." He not only saw but felt them. The iron en-
tered into his soul ; and then, wounded, pitying, in-
dignant—yet mildly, humanely, mercifully—he poured
forth his feelings earnestly, but still curiously, quaintly.
and with his kindliness playing over them, like a good,
humane, and feeling man, as he was. He saw the suf-
fering misery of those who could not help themselves,
putting words into their mouths, he bade them speak, as
they were but poor dumb mouths, he fashioned their cry
intelligibly—set it to music—and what a strange, fan-
tastic, heart-rending cry it was, arousing the mighty Ba-
bylon hastily from its rest, like an affrighted sleeper, and
then dying away in faint, melodious echoes. The coun-
try was startled for a moment, the sound was so preter-
natural and unholy. It hastened, as if summoned by
a tocsin in an earthquake, to pass resolutions hastily for
safety and social regeneration ; but when the morning
came, as bright and light as ever, "there was no need
to push that business farther ;" and the fire struck, ex-
hausted itself in the flash, and " straight was cold again."
Hood did for the white slaves what Mrs. Stowe is
attempting to do for the black ones. He penned faith-
fully and dispassionately their miseries and woes, and
was, as she is, fashionable in his day. He attempted to
break down that middle wall of partition through which
no sympathy can penetrate—the " great gulf fixed" be-
tween poor and rich, between which no man can or will
pass ; to pull up, as it were, the hatchway gratings, over
which we make merry, and disclose the suffering wretches
crying for air—fighting and tearing at each other in
mad disaster—amid vice, poverty, and despair—in the
hold below. He succeeded in clearing away some of our
respectable prejudices, and disclosed misery in its truckle
bed, behind the neat design which, like Goldsmith's
drawers, was designed a double debt to pay, and keep
up appearances.

And what a view it was he thus briefly disclosed !
Poor miserable women wearing out their lives in poverty,
hunger, and dirt—" sewing their own shrouds ; unfor-
tunates, " rashly importunate, gone to their death ;"
hearts broken by toil, the sickly and crippled sons of
squalid misery. In conclusion, Hood showed the naked
horrors of crime that grows up rankly among uncultured
millions. He threw his lanthorn light well on the miser-
able slaves of a miserable social system—on the by no
means brightest example of Christianity among men—on
the homes of the unwashed, the schools of crime and
"the galley-slaves of civilisation." ,

For extending the line othuma liity—for showing that
the miserable had a claim upon us—for attempting to
save his country from further disgrace—and for
endeavouring to make the laws of justice and Chris-
tianity rightly understood, we put in this small plea to
the memory of Thomas Hood. It is certain that he was
a poet, and an able one—a man of great and startling
catholicity of soul--a living example of charity and
mercy ; and, as such, we think his claims deserve recog-
nition. Such men are not frequent enough in their ap-
pearance to render gravestones to their memory a pro-
bable tax. Their visits are few and far between. It is
not every man who sees misery—and we believe it to be
the hardest thing in the world for the prosperous to see
—that dare talk of it, still more to talk of it as a wrong
—as a positive evil, that should and must be abated.
And we therefore think that honesty of its order—nota-
bility of its worth, should be honoured when met. We
wish all success to the subscription—the success that its
purpose deserves.

JAM. T. FOARD.

THE STEAM-SHIP GLASGOW.—This fine ship sailed
from the Clyde on Thursday evening, for New York,
with 55 passengers, and the most valuable cargo of ma-
nufactured goods which ever cleared out from Glasgow,
the estimated value in the Custom-house books being
151,825/.

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