The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-01 00:00:00

HOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Mr. Hood takes the field in strong force this
month, with prose and verse of the best, serious
and humorous, matter-of-fitct and fanciful, and
plenty of all. Hi; prospectus prepared us for
ainusement, and what is a very remarkable eir-
cuinstance—fbr prospectuses are notorious liars
—it promised us nothing- which the Magazine,
of which it was the avant courier, has not realised.
We were told to expect poetry that should be
something better than a mere tagging together
bf rhymes, and lo ! we have it in the " Haunted
House !" We were told to expect drollery,
which should possess humour of idea as well as
of expression, and, lo! it rises before -us in the
shape of Mr. Burrage, the tee-totaller, and his
drunken helpmate ! Henceforth let not pro-
spectuses be totally discredited, but let it be
charitably conceded to them, that it is just pos-
sible that they may once in a way speak the
truth, if only by accident! And now "to busi-
ness," as they say on the Stock Exchange. Tf►e
" Haunted House" is a rhymed romance by the
editor, of a stern and ghastly character, and
abounding in descriptive touches as vigorous and
circumstantial as any to be met with in the
" Peter Grimes" of Crabbe, or the " :Mated
Grange" of Tennyson. The story, such as it is,
is vaguely hinted in outline, which—very judi-
ciously, we think—is left to be filled up by the
reader's imagination. if we have a fault to find
with this impressive poem, it is, that it is rather
too much overlaid with description, and that
the same images are more than once repeated,
varied only in point of expression. We give a
tew of the most graphic passages :

" The keyhole lodg'd the earwig and her brood,
The eminets of the steps had old possession,
And inarch'd in search of their diurnal food

In undisturb'd procession.

" As undisturbed as the prehensile cell
Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue,
For never foot upon that threshold fell,
To enter or to issue.
" O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted.
" Howbeit, the door I pushed—or so 1 dream'd—
Which slowly, slowly gaped,—the hinges creaking
With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd
That Time himself was speaking.

But Time was dumb within that Mansion old,

Or left his tale to the heraldic banners

That hung from the corroded walls, and told

Of former men and manners.

Those tatter'd flags, that with the open'd door,
Seem'd the old wave of battle to remember,
While fallen fragments danc'd upon the floor

Like dead leaves in December.

The startled bats flew out—bird after bird—

The screech-owl overhead began to flutter,
And seem'd to mock the cry that she had heard
Some (lying victim utter!

" A shriek that echoed from the jointed roof,
And up the stair, and further still and further,
Till in some ringing chamber far aloof
It ceased its tale of murther

0 Meanwhile the rust- armour rattled round,
The banner slittdder d, and the ragged streamer;
All things the horrid tenor of the sound
Acknowledg'd with a tremor.

" The antlers, where the helmet hung and belt,
Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches,
Or as the stag had trembled when he felt
•

The blood-hound at his haunches.
The window jingled in its crumbled frame,
And through its many gaps of destitution
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came,
Like those of dissolution.

" 'The wood-louse dropp'd, and rolled into a ball,
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic;
And nameless beetles ran along the wall

In universal panic.
" The subtle spider, that from overhead
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
lion with a nimble terror.
" The very stains and fractures on the wall
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some Tragedy of that old Hall,
Lock'd up in hieroglyphic."

The lines which we have marked in italics are
full of apt significance; and, in particular, the
investing of the banner with conscious life by
applying to its flutter in the wind the epithet
"shuddered," breathes the true imaginative
spirit. Mr. Hood must give us more poems of
this sort, for it is a nobler intellectual triumph to
stir the heart than to tickle the midriff. In the
" Reminiscences of Bayonne" an affecting anec-
dote is related of a younw and ardent Spanish
girl who became insane from having met with
the very common-place catastrophe of a cross in
love. Greatly to our satisfaction and somewhat
to our surprise, she does not—as is the case with
most heroines in sentimental magazine tales—
go mad to the sound of soft music, with dishe-
velled tresses hanging loosely on her white mus-
lin gown. " A Tale of Temper" is rather eccen-
tric than humorous, and is thrown in, we
presume, by way of make-weight. " Great
fom of Oxford" is the narrative of a drunken
collegian who fell—or dreamed he fell—into the
ball of a bell, and while thus incarcerated,
held an edifying conference with the tintinnabu-
lary Spirit. Parts of the story are well enough ;
but, as a whole, it should either have been more
humorous, or more bold and decided in its wild
extravagance. At present, it halts tamely and
timidly between the two extremes. " Mrs.
Burrage, a Temperance Romance," is told in the
quaint, desultory, arch, and roundabout manner
of " Tristram Shandy." The humour, however, is
the author's own, and it is turned to excellent
account. " Albums" is very so-so twaddle.
Luckily, it is short. 44 A Christmas Carol in
Prose," is a generous notice—from the Editor's
pen, we suspect—of Mr. Dickens's latest produc-
tion, which we reviewed a day or two since
in The Sun. "Au Irish Rebellion" is a capital
quiz, written in the imperfect and perplexing
English of a maid-servant, of the formidable ac-
counts with which the papers have so long
teenied, of the rapid progress of the Repeal
agitation. In closing our notice of this new
periodical, we must not omit to mention the
admirable engraving which is prefixed by way
of illustration, to the " Haunted Howie." We
know not when we have seen a work of art
more carefully finished, even to its minutest
details.