The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-24 00:00:00

39 to 41 ; Russian Five per Cents. 97 to 99 ;
ditto Four-and-a-Half per Cents. 82 to 84 ; Spanish
New Deferred, 181- to 181 ; ditto Three per Cents.
361 to 37#; ditto Certificates, 31 to 4/; ditto Pas-
sive, 31 to 4i.
The Railway Share Market has been active,
and there are fuller prices obtained. The Man-
chester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, York and
North Midland, South-Eastern and North-Western
have been principally dealt in. Foreign Shares are
neglected.
There is much more doing in Mining Shares, and
they realise fuller prices in some cases, including
Cobre Copper, Linares, and Pontgiband, but St.
John del Rey are cheaper.
The Joint-Stock Bank Shares have been well
supported. Australasia are up IL Electric
Telegraph Shares are a shade higher, and Crystal
Palace have reached par again.

BRITISH FUNDS THIS DAY AT ONE O'CLOCK.
( Prom the 05cial List. ) _

Business done
Bank Stock
per Cent. Reduced Annuities 92h a
3 per Cent Consols Annuities 92z h a
3i per Cent. Annuities
New 21. per Cent. Annuities
South Sea Stock
Consols for Account 17th August 942 a 3 2a
Exchequer Bills, 24d.
£IOOO
2500 2 I p
Small 3 1 p
PRICE OF FOREIGN FUNDS AT ONE O'CLOCK.
Mexican 3 per Cent.
Spanish Bonds, 3 per Cent 36 x d
Dividends on the above payable in London.
HALF-PAST TWO.

Consols 92g
Ditto August Account 92g

TEE LATE THOMAS HOOD.

(From, the Times.)

The Turk cannot live without a story-teller, nor
the civilised European without a book. In a coun-
try like this, where much labour calls for some
solace, and much idleness for some resource, the
writings which circulate most are of the kind termed
" light literature." Of this light literature the
best and raciest portion is that which we derive
from our humourists. It is the portion which con-
veys the most pleasure, and along with the pleasure
infuses much philosophy and much wisdom. There
are good reasons why here in England we should
set store by this class of writers. They are bone
of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Humour, as
opposed to wit, may almost be called a physical
peculiarity ; it results from something kindly and
home-spun in the nature rather than from anything
induced by education, and is consequently to be
found in the rudest as well as in the most refined
of men. It is a property by which the English
people are distinguished from their neighbours of
the continent. It is essentially different from the
liveliness of the French or the sentiment of the
German writer ; it belongs to a healthy and vigor-
ous temperament, to a land of beef and barley,
of sport and slang, where the honest emotions are
not destroyed by overuse, but live and arc strong.
It speaks a language understood by the people.
It links together the rich and the poor, the learned
and the unlearned, by its naturalness and univers-
ality. Pathos and humour are, as it were,
grief and laughter done into speech, and, as
laughter is good for the digestive organs, so is
humour good for the spirit of a man. It is not
long since Mr. Thackeray undertook to illus-
trate the marked and peculiar character, the
strong outlines and skilful touches, of the
old English humourists. Those who want a
more modern exposition of the thing may find it in
the Pickwick Papers and in the poems of Thomas
Hood.

There are, we suppose, two reasons why a public
monument to Thomas Hood was deferred until

July, 1854—the one, that our humourists, much
as they are studied and loved, are not themselves
understood so well as their works. Is this an irre-
mediable stupidity ? The second, that the works
of Thomas Hood being distributed in reviews and
periodicals, did not speak with sufficient clearness
and unity during his life. But why were they so
distributed ? Because they were thus easiest con-
vertible into bread ; yet they had been still better
than they are but for his necessity of writing in
periodicals, and have doubtless done more good in
their permanent than in their casual form.
In the address which Mr. Monckton.
livered the other day on the inauguration of Hood's
monument he touched slightly on this very prac-
tical point of common ingratitude—an ingratitude
which is one half intellectual, and the other half
moral. The life of Hood was no easy one. Some
of his most popular and most genial compositions
were written during times of privation and suffer-
ing. Mirth, as one of his admirers has said, gave
him to be reared by Sorrow. His latest eulogist
went in person to the late Sir Robert Peel to ask
an aid, which was never, in such cases, refused.
In his address he was good enough to propose that
the posthumous tribute to Hood's genius should
be considered as the memorial of national inte-
rest for national fame. Now, it strikes us that
there must be a good many people who have had
interest in Hood, alive or dead, who ought to feel
not a little obliged by this proposition, coming
from a person who took upon him all their respon-
sibilities in the matter, and we take the liberty to
enforce a lesson which Mr. Milnes hesitated to
enunciate, lest he should exalt himself by contrast.
There is a real ingratitude involved in losing sight
of an author in the perusal of his works, and some
loss of advantage in separating the product of a
man's intellect and character from his flesh and
blood. Between booksellers and readers there is
a cash transaction, sound and intelligible ; between
the writer and the reader there exist other obliga-
tions—there is an outstanding balance on the
author's side, with an unlimited term for payment.
The " Song of the Shirt" is national, and may per-
haps be as historical, as " Chevy Chase." Mr.
Milnes quoted other compositions not less, but
rather more, sure of enduring memory. Perhaps'
in denouncing a common fault we may fail of pro-
ducing deep conviction ; it is difficult, too, for the
'public to exercise a discriminating and wise grati-
tude towards its instructors, however the ground
can be retrenched so that the admonition may be
applied by the individual conscience. Suppose that
there are friends of Thomas Hood—whether ac-
quaintances in the flesh or admirers in the spirit—
but who yet conveyed no aid to his want, or no
assistance to his monument ; suppose that there
are others now for the first time reminded by Mr.
Milnes' address of Hood's value as a writer—of
Hood's struggles as a man ;--let these accept their
remaining opportunities. Recurrence is a very
hill., an law. Virgil says, in his eclogue, " there
will be some day another " Priam and another
Achilles." Beyond all doubt there will be other
Hoods ; and, if a man is too late to erect a sepul-
chre for a prophet deceased, perchance he may look
him out some prophet, present and living, to
cherish.