The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-19 00:00:00

ing himself with throwing summersets, a piece of
heartlessness which • so shocked the poet that he
turned bilious upon the spot, or, as he more
poetically observes,

. -
----- it raised my bile
To see him so, reflect their grief aside.
We would recommend him, should he ever
again. catch Puck " a pleasuring," to fortify
himself with Dixon's anti-bilious pills ; they are
very good and cheap, and taken in barley water
just before-bed time are sure to correct " aci-
dity." When the woodsman has ended, the
" spiteful shade" Time replies, that he is an old
stager, not to be easily done, and that he has
seen

- infant Titans of enormous girth,
Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks,
Stunning the early world with frequent shocks.
What huge feet they must have had ! He adds,
moreover, that he does not care a curse abOut
them all; whereupon another fairy, a very gen-
tlemanly sort of sylph, jumps up and tells the
" spiteful shade" how that very morning he had
saved a gentleman from drowning himself in the
Lea. Just, as he has concluded, Arid sets to,
and swears that he cut a man down who had
hanged himself in his glutei's and then gives
way to a third fury, who had found a baby in
the bull-rushes and turned himself into a grass-
hopper in order to attract the notice of the
passers by. The baby thus providentially dis-
covered becomes, in after life, a great citizen,
ur, as the fairy says, •

But how he prospered let proud London quote,
110 w wise, how rich, and how renowned he got,
And chief of all her citizens, I wot.
The author does not say which citizen it was
lorho was ,thus picked up in the bull-rushes and
" got renowned," we conclude, therefore, it
must have been the Lord Mayor—or, peradven-
tore, one of the Sheriffs, either of whom are
men eminently worthy of such a poetic origin.
When this fairy (to use a sea-phrase) has
" brought his jawing tacks to an anchor," Puck
(the Pet of the Fancy) resolves on a set-to with
Time, who, being one of the big weights,
takes the shine out of him in something less
than ten minutes. Luckily, just at this crisis,
Shakspeare (so we suppose) appears, and after
making, a long speech, compels the " spiteful
shade" to give up all idea of mowing down the
fairies, upon which they return their deliverer many
thanks, the curtain drops, and—" exeunt orrineq.
The poem of " Hero and Leander," in point
both of conception and execution, is equally
defective. Every one knows the story—it is a
painful one of human passion and suffering (the
mere recital of .which must be effective) yet,
Mr. Hood, instead of trusting to nature for
success, has encumbered it wilh cold mytholo-
gical conceit. Leander, in the recorded le-.
gena, is wrecked in sight of Hero, who stands
unavailingly watching his last. struggles from
Abydos. This, in the hands of a true poet,.
would form a very impressive incident ; but
our author, who seems to have as much notion of
taste as -a cow has of a clean shirt, has conjured
up a sea-nymph, who seizes his hero by the nape of
the neck, arid so drowns him out of sheer affec-
tion.. .Perhaps this may be intended as an imi-
tation of Marlowe, who wrote a striking poem
on the same subject. But why did not Mr. H.
rather imitate the passionate feelings depicted
by that great writer, than his quaint mythologi-
cal absurdities? But besides Marlowe, he has also
imitated Shakspeare's " Venus and Adonis ;"
the very structure and quaintness of verse, some-
thnes even the very words, are borrowed from
our immoral dramatist. The phrase " coffer-
lids," for instance, applied to Leander's eye, is
manifestly taken (sed quantum mutatus) from
the following beautiful couplet in " Venus and
Adonis :"
She lifts the coffer-lids that close each eye,
WI-ere lo ! two lamps burnt out in darkness lie.
Mr. Hood's tale is something to the following
effect :.--t-Leanyler, after taking leave of- Hero,
sets out on his return across the Hellespont, in
doing which— -

With deep sighs he blows away the wave;
(conceive a man blowing away a wave with a
sigh), after which tremendous exertion of lungs,
he looks up and finds the sun holding a close
conversation with the world,
By this the climbing sun, with rest repaired, •
Looked through the gold embrasures of the sky,
And asked the drowsy world how she bad fared ;
Tht drowsy world shone brightened in reply.
Immediately after this, Leander looks up a
second time (still swimming), and sees just
two yards off his nose a woman—no, not a wo-
man, but " a woman's double" whose " polished
brow"

is an ample plain
To lodge vast contemplations of the main.
The most extraordinary brow we ever yet heard
of. This " double" turns out to be a Siren who
is in the habit of destroying people,

As drowsy men are poisoned through the ear.
From which we derive the highly valuable in-
formation that men (provided they be drowsy)
are poisoned through the car." The
" double, " struck by Leander's beauty, falls in
love with him ; it turns out, however, to be no
go, for she not only throttles him, but bears his
body away to her coral palace : upon which,
Mr. Hood rapturously cries out

0 sad marvel ! oh ! most bitter strange !
Strange indeed, for a lady to throttle a gentle-
man, by way of showing her affection for him.
While this " double" is carrying off her sweet-
heart, a variety of fishes are seen swimming by,
which
Flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails.
A manifest plagiarism from Maw-worm, when
he described the boys as " tying brick-bats to
his pious tail." Arrived at her palace, the
" double" tries every means to resuscitate
Leander; but finding (to use a vulgar but ex--
pressive phrase) that he is " as dead as mutton,"
she

Backward falls, like a pale prophetess.
A circumstance which leads us to conclude that
all pale prophetesses fall backwards. After try-
ing all possible methods to restore animation in
her lover, the afflicted " double" carries him in
her arms to the sea-shore, but finding that
The sand is Cot",n, whereupon he lies,
Soiling his fairness ;
(she must have thrown him into a ditch)—she
swims away to look out for a cleaner birth ; but,
on her return, finds that some fishermen (resur-
rection-men, no doubt) have walked off with the
body, whereupon—
she rends her hairs
And casts them forth, sad keepsakes to the wind.
A fact which would have fully justified her friends
in instituting a Commission of Lunacy against