Year: 1860

The Phlladelphla Evening Bulletin says:


Before the Memorials were published the
world knew Thomas Hood as humorist,
and as the author Of poetry SO pathetic that
its range was as wide as Shakespeare or
Burns. A reviewer had caught the idea of
his nature when he was but youth, and had
called him-"Our new Ovid -only more
imapinatiVe-Painter to the visible eye-and
the inward. Commixture of what the super
fetal deem incongruous elementsl Instruct
i've proof how close are the founts Of laugh
ter and tearsl Thou fermenting brain-op-
pressed, as yet, by its own riches"


A full recognition of his genius had he
enjoyed ere, dying, he exclaimed: Lord
say, Arise, take up thy cross and follow
me.'n He had heard of the Song oftbe Shirt
sung in the streets of London; he had felt
the universal throb of sympathy in response
to the Bridge Of Sighs, and had enjoyed the
worlds relish of his brightest and most
felicitous flashes of humor. .


But until the work of his son Thomas and
daughter Frances had been lovingly COM
pleted and given to the public, we had no
knowledge of the beauty of his character as
a man; of his tenderness as lover, husband
and father of his sturdy honesty and his
generous patriotism. The Memorials touch
ones heart very nearly on these points. We
find him writing his most graceful poems in
honor of his lady-love; we see him mourn





ing tiny curl of his golden hair; we read
his lover-like words to his wife, as thus:


''Think, sweetest, If my lids are not now wet,


The tenderest tears lie ready at the brim,


To see thine own dear eyes-so pale and dim


Again:--


81 grudge the commonplace have been
obliged to write; every sentence should claim
you as my own dear wife, the pride of my
youth; the Joy of my manhood, the hope Of
all my after; days. Twice has the shadow
of death come between us, but our hearts
are preserved to throb against each other"
In spite of sickness and pain constantly
hanging about him, we see Hood full of in
finite funny fancies wherewith to amuse his
| children full Of cheerful counsel for his
friends, and able to delight the world by his
sallies of wit and the quaint power of his
| pencil. An enforced absence from England,
| to save money enough to pay his debts, does
| not darken his horizon jot. He merely
| absorbs fun from among the Germans and
sounds it out again in his Up the Rhine aud
| Comic Annual His publishers swindle him,
I but his pen is as feathery rs ever and his
| heart is as light as his pocket. A cheerful
Christianity sustains him, and an apprecia-
tive, tender, loving wife is ever by his side.
His friends were many-from Charles Lamb
to Sir Robert Peel-and his admiring readers
from every town in England and every walk
of life contributed to build his monument,
with the inscription-"He sang the Song Of
the Song"


The Memorials are full of fun, from begin
ming to end; turning over the leaves keeps
one in continuous ripple of a smile, and his
name is almost Synonymous with puns and
punning;-yet as all noble things art
touched with melancholy, the impression
left by it is any thing butjoyous. Of him, al
of Cowper, can we say: B..
| "With quiet sadness and no gloom, ra.


We learn to think upon him." ....
as the story of his life is told, with its event
full yet changing current light and dark BY
turns, yet rejecting the sunlight wherevel
there was rift in the clouds. .-