, 1873-03-23
HOOD.

0 His Genius and Wit.
: E. P. Whipple, writing in tho Boston Glol
9 'Hood is the Regius Professor Of Punning
: all universities. He is the greatest OF wor
n twisters that eyer put the English language
!: the rack. Tho ingenuity he developed in th
work would have more than sutf1ced to Original
everything, including death ard damnatio
Occasionally his quibbles are CHASTITY. ns respec
but they arc over ingenious: @ % Au the Y words S'
"Wobster's Unabridged" had, for him, tn
contribution to q punning dictionary, which, v
doubt not, hio successors will complete
Of number ''N Of " Hood'u funny
poems: There is o common quotatlo
from grave to gay, from lively to severe.
Hood was gay in considering the grave, an
lively in skotching skeletons. He pnnned O
occasions where others prayed: He had not th
rush Of animal sspiTits which characterize
bears them triumphantly through the most in
trinsically repulsive subjects. By defect o
physical impulse and health, he jested from hi
brain rather than from his heart no rich, riot
GUS, and roaring laughter, having its source il
be chuckled This end business was tx t.
turnfsh Provocations to mirth in every
thlng-even in the most serious and ''severe
aspects Of human life. We call it sad business
for We can conceive OF nothing more pitifu1 thar
the deliberate preparation Of jokes, when it il
! known that the joker Is falling every day it
health and is half broken in heart. Hoods
mirth is rarely mirthfu1 in essence, though won.
| derfully ingenious in form. He jests at the
grave; though he feels all the time TINT he is up.
preaching It. Greater humorists than he may
have jested at it. because they felt immortal life
stirring in their veins and souls; but feebleneee
I Of physical stamina is everywhere perceived in
race Of Keats; but he turned punster in order to
mako living and support family. He died ut
last with no smilo on his lips, but with acl1-
ing sense that he had not been able to provide
| punning bread into thoir mouths for half his
life. Tho intellectual conditions OF the truo
humorist were palpablo in Hood; the bodily
conditions were wanting. Hence the tragedy OF
his life. The funniest of men waa really the
satldest! His quips. and quibbles, and cranks
and "wreathed smiles, Indicate heartache as
well as brain ache. The exercise OF the mind
in verso is commonly called 'strains.'' It is
plain that as O. humorous poet, Hood was
fancy to do 1ob work with which bis
poetic soul lad little sympathy. His "stzains
are wofully apparent in his comic stanzas.
His mind was often forced into an actiyity
which his feelings 80 often ropudia+ed
must have been while he WAS versifying puns on
the business Of the resurrectionists. For exam
pie. in "N1ary's Ghost" the dead woman is
made to lament to her lover the distribution Of
her remains among various physicians:
80, William dear! Q, William dear!
My rest eternal ceases;
Alas my everlasting peace
IL broken into pieces.
The cock It erows-1 must be gouo!
h1y William, We must part
But III be yours IN death, although
Sir ASttty has my hart
"po9't 0oa ts;s g. to .rs rssP ek upon ny grave.
They haven't left atom there
OF my o0atomie!"
Then in Sally Bimpkin's Lament" the ghost
Of John Jones, who wns bitten in two bv a sRark.
appears to her for the purpose OF discoursing in
this wise:
"Oh Sally, sharks do things By halves.
}ct most completely do.
bite in one place seems enough,
But I've been bit in two.
ttYou know once was all your own,
But now shark must share!
But let that pass-for now to you
I'm neither here nor there
.Alas! death has strange divorce
It has divided me from you, !
And even mb from me!
"pont fear my ghost will walk o. nights
NY ghost can't walk, for OIL my legs
Arc many leagues away!
ssBut now, adicu-a long sdfeu!
I've solved carth's awful riddle,
And would say more, but am doomed
To brcnk OF in the middle!
Again let us take another OF his s' funny"
poems, called '' Deaths Rambler"
"Ono day the dreary old King Of Death,
Inclined for some sport with the carnal,
So he tied pack OF darts on his back
And quietly stole from his charnel.
"Death eaw two Quakers sitting At church,
Quoth he, twe shall not differ
And he let them aonc, like figures Of stone,
For he could not make them sitter.
"Ho met coachman driving his coach
So SLOW that his fare grew sick;
But be let him stray on his tedious way,
For Death only wars on the quick
"Death saw two players playing ut cards,
But the game wasn't worth dump,
For he quickly mid them fat with spade,
To wnit for the hna1 trump" |
Ia not all this as ghnstly as it il witty
Among the hitherto uncollccted pieces in |
[il1er's edition OF Hood is tho following epi- ]
ram:
After such years Of dissension and str1fe,
ome wonder that Peter should weep for his wife:
ut hia tears on her grave nothing surrIisno-f
es laying har dust, for fear of fts rising"