The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-30
THE FIELD OF LITERATURE.


ocrioners sons, New York, is now given to the
public The reader will be disappointed be-
cause Of the fact that Thomas CARLYLE and
! George Eliot have been omitted, because, as thu
editor explains, the available material concern
! ing one was too recent and concerning the other
too scanty to warrant the attempt The pres
ent volume deals with Hood Macaulay, Sydney
Smith, Jerrold Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and
Thackeray group of lterati familiar to the ex-
listing generation of readers. In the preface the
editor takes the year 1922 as the most
favorable time for a general view OF
most of them, when actively at
work In the previous year De Quincy had
published his Confessions" and Keats had died
in Rome; and now Shelley was about to die
Leigh Hunt, in an ill-starred hour. arrived in
Pisa and joined Shelley and Byron in the pub
LEGATION of s'The Liberal" Byron was writing
his last poems, and would ere long embark upon
the fatal expedition to Greece. Rogers, already
an old man, had just published the first part OF
Italy" Landor was in Florence, writing
imaginary Conversations" quarreing with
publishers and stirring up strife in his wonted
way. Southey lived peacefully at Keswick,
working none the less diligently because Of his
pension and his laureateship. Hazlitt half
crazed by poision was annoying all his friends
with the praises of that comely servant girl
whom he afterwards celebrated in Lii
Der Amoris." For several years Coleridgs
had been the guest of the friendly dillmans; no
more Ancient Mariners or "Christabels"
now: but wonderful outpourings Of talk as he
wandered about the little garden at Highgate.
Wordsworth, past his fftieth year, had prac-
tically finished his work; his admirers were
still few and he had long to wait for the full
| recognition which came to him before his DEATH
Jeffrey, a few years younger than Wordsworth.
was still editing the Edinburgh Review Walter
Scott, Esquire, had but recently become Sir
| Walter, and was in the prime of life. and at the
| very height of his dazzling success ''Christo-
pher North had exchanged his sporting jacket
| for an academic gown, and was professor of
moral philosophy in the Edinburgh University
Macauay was still at Cambridge Sgd
ney Smith had not yet left his
Yorkshire parish. There also lived
| in Yorkshire delicate child, six years old;
tiny precocous girl, who would one day depict
the harsh and gloomy surroundings of her in
fancy in the pages of 'Jane Eyre In 1922 five
humorists, unknown to each other-three Of
them still unknown to the world--were toiling at
very different tasks in the same great city. In
that year Thomas Hood was sub-editor of the
magazine to which Charles Lamb was contribute
ing the ESSAYS of Ella" and while the youthful
Jerrold set types, studied languages and wrote
melodramas for the minor theaters, a neg
lected boy, ten years of age, sat washing bottles
| in backing manufactory-a boy who, within
| few years, was to tell the story of David Cop
perfeld." One other boy, soon to become the
comrade and fellow-laborer of Hood, Jerrold
and Dickens, pored over his books in the Char
ter House School for it was there that Thackeray
was preparing himself to enter Cambridge.
| Of the group of authors here considered the
one accorded the slenderest space in this vol
ume lived life replete with droll humor,
mingled with a pure pathos that was never
tainted with ill-humor or repining Under oil
the universities that beset him, the writer of the
Song of the Shirt was agreeably cheerful, even
when physical ailments would seem to have
racked him cruelty.
One who knew him in his childhood described
him as singular child-silent and retired
with much quiet humor. and apparently
delicate health. When mere boy he
was continually making shrewd and pointed re-
| marks upon topics on which he was presumed to
know nothing and while he seemed Needless
listener, out would come some observation which
showed he had taken in all that had been said
| In person Hood was of middle height slender
and sicky looking, of sallow complexion and
plain features, quiet in expression and very rarely
excited, so as to give indication of either the
pathos or the humor that must ever have been
working in his soul. His was, indeed, coun-
tenance rather of melancholy than of mirth.
There was something calm even to solemnity
in the upper portion of the face seldom relieved
in society by the eloquent play of the mouth, or
the sparkle of an obseryant eye.
One of the most pleasing characteristics Of
Hood was his love of home, of his wife and
children, with whom he lived on terms of the
utmost intimacy His love of humor, usually
held in restraint in public, here found exercise,
and always in such wholesome way as to
leave no bitterness or humiliation to the ssvic-
tim" of his delicate sport The memorials edit
ed by his children recount many of the
diversions wrought out by him in moments of
levity. One of his children says: "He enjoyed
playing off little harmless practical jokes on my
mother who, on her part, bore them with the
sweetest temper, and joined in the
laugh against herself afterwards,
with great good humor She was
o capital subject for this fun, for
she believed implicitly in whatever he told her,
however impossible and though vowing serious
ly every time not to be taken in again, she was
sure to be caught On one occasion, soon after
their marriage, my father was suddenly seized
| With rheumatic fever of severe kind. On his
partial recovery he was ordered to Brighton to
recruit his strength. One morning at breakfast
he offered to give my mother few hints on
buying fish. above all things, Jane said he,
as they will endeavor to impose upon your iu-
experience, let nothing induce you to buy %