The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-13 00:00:00

THE LATE THOMAS HOOD.

" Can Fulvia die ?" There are people in the world
of literature as of social intercourse, who seem so in-
dispensable to us that time must elapse ere we can
believe that they are gone to return no more. It is
thus we feel in recording the death of lhomas Hood ;
after a wasting illness of many years' slow progress,
terminated by months of extreme debility and suffer-
ing cheerfully borne. Often and familiarly as he was
wont to talk of death and the things of the grave,
there seemed a vitality in the man no less than in
his genius, which makes the catastrophe startling as
it is sad.

Thomas Hood was the son of Mr. Hood, the book-
seller, of the firm of Vernor and Hood. He gave to
the public an outline of his early life, in the Literary
Reminiscences," published in Hood's Own. He was,
as he there states, early placed " upon lofty
stool, at lofty desk," in a merchant's count-
ing-house ; but his commercial career was
soon put an end to by his health which
began to fail ; and, by the recommenda-
tion of the physicians, he was " shipped, as
per advice, in a Scotch smack," to his father's rela-
tions in Dundee. There he made his first literary
venture in the local journals; subsequently he sent a
paper to the Dundee Magazine, the editor of which
was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, " to
wrap my bit of nonsense under his honour's kiver,
without charging for its insertion." Literature, how-
ever, was then only thought of as an amusement, for,
on his return to London, he was, we believe, appren-
ticed to an uncle as an engraver, and subsequently
transferred to one of the Le Keux. But though he
always retained his early love for art, and had much
facility in drawing, as the numberless quaint illus-
trations to his works testify, his tendencies were lite-
rary, and when, on the death of Mr. John Scott, the
London Magazine passed into the hands of Messrs.
Taylor and Hessey, Mr. Hood was installed in a sort
of sub-editorship. From that time his career has been
open and known to the public.
The following is, we apprehend, something like a
catalogue of Mr. Hood's works, dating from the pe-
riod when his " Odes and Addresses," written in con-
junction with his brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reynolds,
brought him prominently before the public :
"Whims and Oddities ;" " National Tales ;" "The
Plea of the Midsummer Fairies" (a volume full of
rich imaginative poetry) ; " The Comic Annuals,"
subsequently reproduced with the addition of new
matter as " Hood's Own ;" " Tylney Hall ;" " lip
the Rhine ;" and "- Whimsicalities : a Periodical Ga-
thering." Nor must we forget one year's editorship
of " The Gem," since that included " Eugene Aram's
Dream," a ballad which we imagine will live as long
as the language. Of later days Mr. Hood was an
occasional contributor to Punch's casket of mirth and
benevolence ' • and, perhaps, his last offering, " The
Song of the Shirt," was his best—a poem of which
the imitations have been countless, and the moral ef-
fect immeasurable.
The secret of this effect, if analysed, would give
the characteristics of one of the most original arid
powerful geniuses which ever was dropped by Faery
into infant's cradle, and oddly nursed up by man into
a treasure, quaint, special, cameleon -coloured in the
changefulness of its tints, yet complete and self-con-
sistent. Of all the humourists Hood was the most
poetical. When dealing with the most familiar sub-
jects, whether it might be a sweep bewailing the sup-
pression of his cry, or a mother searching through
St. Giles's for her lost infant, or a Miss Kilmansegg's
golden childhood—there was hardly a verse in which
some touches of heart or some play of fancy did not
beckon the laughing reader away into far other worlds
than the Jester's. It is true that he was equally prone
innde s streakv,.
with
familiarhis noblest . poems,
awful ntheaallusionsanodn
grotesque
sagnucel
similes; and this union of
sinks
is near and tangible
with what soars high and deep, wrought out in
every capricious form which a gamesome invention
could suggest, enabled him from time to time
to strike home to the hearts of every one—
the fastidious and the commonplace—the man
of wit and the man of dreams—of all, we
should say, except the bigot and the charlatan. To
these Hood's genial sarcasms must have been gall
and wormwood, directed, as they were, to the noblest
purposes. His jokes pierced the deeper, too, inasmuch
as they were poet's jokes—clear of grossness or vul-
garity. But what need is there once again, in this
j ournal, to dissect or to display the gifts of one whose
published works for years furnished out its. richest
mirth ?—nor is the present the time. Our lTs may
speak of the wit which Death could only exhaust, and

the humour which sickness could not daunt, nor hard
fortunes depress into silence ; but our thoughts are
fixed on the pall which hides them fram us for ever !
As little can we attempt any portraiture of the man ;
more original, we verily think, more gifted when met
in a private social circle of those to whom he would
open his stores, than when presenting himself to the
world in private. The service is one comprehending
too many mingled recollections to he borne at the
moment. The world will presently feel how much
poorer it is for Hood's withdrawal, and then there
will be no lack of remembrancers and memorialists.
Sufficient for the day is the regret !—Athenteurn.