"Or send to us Thy wit's great overplus: But teach us yet Wisely to husband it; Lest we that talent spend: And having once brought to an end That precious stock; the store Of such a wit: the world should have no more." HERRICK. "Have gentility, and scorn every man!" BEN JONSON. "And laughter oft is but an art To drown the outcry of the heart." HARTLEY COLERIDGE. "Act freely, carelessly, and capriciously; as if our veins ran with quicksilver; and not utter a phrase but what shall come forth steeped in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire." BEN JONSON, Cynthia's Revels. THOMAS HOOD AND THE LATE THEODORE HOOK. very THERE are some writers, whose popularity has been so long established, is so well deserved, and about the character of whose genius there is so correct a general impression in the mind of the public, that little more need be said about them. But these are few in number. For, although it is not uncommon for the majority to be tolerably unanimous in its opinion of a favourite, it certainly very rarely occurs that such opinion is so perfectly satisfactory as to leave no opportunity and no wish to offer any further comment upon the individual or his works. Such, however, is the case with regard to Thomas Hood; and almost in an equal degree as to the late Theodore Hook, though the men are very different. We shall do little more, therefore, than endeavour to arrange and illustrate in a compact form, what we believe to be the popular impressions of both. Mr. Hood possesses an original wealth of humour, invention, and an odd sort of wit that should rather be called whimsicality, or a faculty of the "high fantastic." Among comic writers he is one of those who also possess genuine pathos; it is often deep, and of much tenderness, occasional sweetness of expression, and full of melancholy memories. The predominating characteristics of his genius are humorous fancies grafted upon melancholy impressions. It is a curious circumstance, that in his "Whims and Oddities," of bygone years, the majority of them, by far, turned upon some painful physicality. A boy roaring under the rod-a luckless individual being thrown over a horse's headan old man with his night-cap on fire-a clergyman with his wig accidently caught off his head by a pitch-fork-a man pursued by a bull,-skeletons, death, duels-cats with mice, dogs with kettles-&c These are the kind of things (we do not recollect if all these are actually in his books) in which his annual presents abounded. Nobody who takes a second look at any of these can feel them in a very jocular sense. If at all considered, they cease to be pleasurable. In the very first article of his Magazine" recently published, there is a morbid energy of desolation and misery for the love of those. things, and there is no story to relieve the feelings. A ghost or goblin of any kind would have been a real comfort. "The Haunted House" is a wonderful production for its prolonged inspiration of wretchedness and squalid catalogue of ruin. Such are Hood's latent characteristics, at all events; but the more obvious features are those of humour, and a most ingenious eccentricity. His fancies often bear an appearance of being studied, and seem to have arisen from the mind of a thoughtful humourist. Still, they are unaffected, and like himself. The fertility of his wit has chiefly been displayed in the application of his most erratic fancies to the current topics of the day, its men and manners, its sayings and doings, its ignorances and illiberalities. Mr. Hood is almost exclusively known as a comic writer, and his "Plea of the Midsummer Fairies" is little read in comparison; nevertheless, his songs and lyrical compositions have much sweetness, refinement, and tender melancholy. His prose and his verse equally illustrate his tendency to serious and pathetic writing. Though the touches of sadness are generally brief, and at unexpected seasons, Mr. Hood has still shown himself capable of writing a long narrative of serious interest and sustained purposecarried on clear through the very thick of the crossfire of puns, jokes, and extravaganzas-and con |