The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07
HOODS PLEA.
4 Happy Find in an Old Bookghop.


Suddenly a legend over an open shop
front took the attention, notifying as it
did that all books within were to be
sold at the same price--one shilling, to
wit A Veritabe republic of letters,
this! The dwelling sign writer had by
a stroke of his pen made all books
equal.
The praetised eye of Autolycus
glanced over the covers of old and new,
but saw little that endangered the Sc
curity of the few shillings in his purse.
He was turning about to leave, when
with that instinct, or luck, or happy
fortune-calI it what you will-which
attended him on his bookstall wander
| ings he noted among a number OF theo-
| logical volumes the simple words
Hoods Plea" The word plea prob
ably suggested religious controversy to
the bookseller and he dumped the vol
ume among it's companions without a
reference to title page. Far otherwise
was it with Autolycus. To see the book
was to lay hands on 1t, to hold it was
to feel the thrill which comes on secur-
| ing a prize-whether the prize be one
such as this, gained after idle Autoly-
cushing, or whether it be such as come
at times to reward the patient disciple
of old IZaak.
| Scarcely daring to glance at the book
as he went, Autolycus passed from
| Booksellers Row with n feeling that If
he paused the bookseller must repent
his bargain, and would come hurrying
after to say that mistake had been
made.
| The volume thus rescued-never was
| a splendid shilling better spent--Was
| 1.-THE Plea Of the Midsummer Fairies,
Hero and Leander, Lycus the Centaur.
| and other Poems. BY Thomas Hood,
author of 'Whims and Oddities. etc,
London: Printed for Longmans, Rees,
Orme, Brown and Green, Paternoster
Row, 1927" Over seventy years ago
the book had been published, and, as
Canon Anger has told us, "the poets
of that time had no doubt as to Hoods
true place among them from the first.
The public remained untouched; the
volume fell all but dead from the press,
and Hoods son and daughter tell us
that their father bought up as many of
the remainder copies as he was able,
to save them from the butter shop.
Kinder was the fate reserved for this
copy; its earliest owner must have
known how to appreciate poetic riches,
for he had the book CARRIED in enduring
green leather, neatly fooled in gold
symbolizing thus the enduring green
ness of the bays accorded for the poets
imperishable gold. Blessings on the
memory of that earlier owner of this
r DO IN bit11y n hn
may have been one Of "the poets Of
that time" himself 1t is to be feared
that matters are now under the Sew
enth Edward much as they were in 1927
under the Fourth George The poets Of
to-day know the 1ncalculable value of
work such as that to which Thomas
Hood gave permanent form in this vol
ume-the public remains untouched.
The public of to-day and Of three
quarters of century of yesterdays
knows all about Hood, the droll and
punster and even of Hood the rhetori-
cian--for the Song of the Shirt" and
the Bridge of Signs" are rhetoric,
though sublime rhetoric-but it refuses
to take any interest in Hood the poet,
who conceived and wrote such piece
of sustained beauty as the plea of the
Midsummer Fairies" who could pen
such perfect lyrics as Fair Inez" 1t
is the old, old story over again; the
shoemaker must stick to his last if he
would have his fellows look upon him
as a respectable citizen-he has begun
by making boots and shoes. and boots
and shoes he must go on making to the |
end, WITH perhaps, at the dictate of |
fashion, holiday task at the making |
of sandals. Thomas Hood as quite /
young man, had published his "Odes
and Addresses" and his "Whims and
and the public, having signi-
fed it's approval thereof, tacitly bade
him go on doing the same thing so that
when, while yet on the Junior side of
thirty he published a volume Of mature
poetry, that same public would have
none of it. Throw away the Tyre"
was the cry. I'VE know that you can
play on the jewsharp, and unless you
play that we will not listen to YOU"
Poor, brave Hood. He, was con-
scious as a poet must be of his own
great gifts and was made bitterly
aware that he must keep his candle
we'll under bushel the while he kept
striking flaming fuses to the wonder
ment of gapers. He had splendid re-
uenge on his deathbed, when his swan
song was echoing throughout the length
and breadth of the land; but, as 1t was
bitterly written at the time, ut was ne
,essary for Thomas Hood still to do one
hing ere the wide circle and the pro-
ound depths of his genius were to the
I'LL acknowledging that one thing was |
to die."-London Daily News.