The Sun. — 1839-02-18 (London, England)

LITERATURE.  HOOD'S COMIC ANNUAL. Baily, London, 1839. Whoever loves a broad grin, and would rather laugh and grow fat, than sigh and grow le in, let him hasten to acquaint himself with the contents of this delightful little volume, whose very title-page is a joke of the broadest and most grotesque quality. If it be true, as Peter Pindar has said, that " Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt, But every jest so merry draws one out," then the Comic Annual, acting the reverse way of Morison's Pills, will operate as an invaluable " Life Preserver." To read it is like inhaling the " lata4hing gas." Your risible muscles are called vehemently into action every instant. Nor are the plates less provocative of inextinguishable merriment. They are not less than fifty in number, and not one but overflows with true humour. We will just briefly describe a few of them. " Poplar and Wapping" is illustrated by two elderly females, one of whom—short, and squat, and round to a degree approaching the supernatural—looks just like a fillet of veal upon castors ; while the other is as thin as a skewer, as tall as a May-pole, and as straight and s•iff as a ram-rod. The countenances of these bewitching creatures are admirably contrasted. One looks as if she were holiday making ; the other as if she were doing penance for an act of meditated suicide. "If you are not engaged for the next sat" is capital. Conceive a great brown Norway bear, with his right paw placed, dandy-fashion, on his heart, sidling up to a young lady in a ball-room, and with a smile of the most engaging suavity, requesting the honour of her hand for the next quadrille! The lady, as might be expected, looks the very picture of astonishment ; though why, we cannot, for the life of us, imagine, for bears are by no means un common in London ball-rooms. Indeed, they are as often to be met with there as lions. "A Detachment of Infantry" is a touching domestic incident that cannot but come home to the hearts of all parents, illustrating, as it does, the old proverb, that " accidents will happen in the best regulated families." A discreet father and mother are walking out with their children, whom Papa is dragging along in a little chaise, utterly unconscious— for his back, as also his wife's, is turned towards the helpless innocents—that they have all three pitched out of the tiny vehicle, and are sprawling, one over the other, on the ground ! " Hound drawing Cover" represents another domestic catastrophe. An officious dog has just made a snap at the breakfast cloth, awl pulled cups and saucers, eggs and tea-pot, all .); the table. The servant-maid in attendance to ;,Ks horrified, and you can read in her eye that `'...1.1e anticipates " a a month's warning." " FlyingFish"—this plate exhibits an old Billingsgate fisv.i.,,x:man, who, stumbling up, against a loose brick deranges her perpendicular, and , showers the co "...cents of her fish-basket on the unshela little boy who is passing by. Her face tered head. of evinc:-..4 much ludicrous perturbation. The verse and arose in illustration of these and other plates are full of those quips and cranks in which Mr. Hood so much delights. The best—and perhaps the best its author ever wrote, so far as blended whim and fancy are concerned—is the poem entitled the " Flying Visit," in which the visit to Earth of the Man in the Moon is related with all due emphasis.