"The curse of Adam, the old curse of all." "Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak." MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. BY RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. THOMAS HOOD, humorist and poet, was born at London in 1798. He was the son of Mr. Hood, bookseller, of the firm of Vernor and Hood, a man of intelligence, and the author of two novels. "Next to being a citizen of the world," writes Thomas Hood in his Literary Reminiscences, “it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the world's greatest city." The best incident of his boyhood was his instruction by a schoolmaster who appreciated his talents, and, as he says, “ made him feel it impossible not to take an interest in learning while he seemed so interested in teaching." Under the care of this "decayed dominie," whom he has so affectionately recorded, he earned a few guineas-his first literary fee-by revising for the press a new edition of Paul and Virginia. Admitted soon after into the counting-house of a friend of his family, he "turned his stool into a Pegasus on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee;" but the uncongenial profession affected his health, which was never strong, and he was transferred to the care of a relation at Dundee. He has graphically described his unconditional rejection by this inhospitable personage, and the circumstances under which he found himself in a strange town without an acquaintance, with the most sympathetic nature, anx'ous for in tellectual and moral culture, but without guidance, instruction, or control. This self-dependence, however, suited the originality of his character: he be came a large and indiscriminate reader, and before long contributed humorous and poetical articles to the provincial newspapers and magazines. As a proof of the seriousness with which he regarded the literary vocation, it may be mentioned that he used to write out his poems in printed characters, believing that that process best enabled him to understand his own peculiarities and faults, and probably unconscious that Coleridge had recommended some such method of criticism when he said he thought "print settles it." His modest judgment of his own abilities, however, deterred him from literature as a profession, and on his return to London he applied himself assiduously to the art of engraving, in which he acquired a skill that in after years became a most valuable assistant to his literary labors, and enabled him to illustrate his various humours and fancies by a profusion of quaint devices, which not only repeated to the eye the impressions of the text, but, by suggesting amusing analogies and contrasts, added considerably to the sense and effect of the work. In 1821, Mr. John Scott, the editor of the London Magazine, was killed in a duel, and that periodical passed into the hands of some friends of Mr. Hood, who proposed to him to take a part in its publication. His installation into this congenial post at once introduced him to the best literary Society of the time; and in becoming the associate of such men as Charles Lamb, Cary, De Quincy, Allan Cunningham, Proctor, Talfourd, Hartley Coleridge, the peasant-poet Clare, and other contributors to that remarkable miscellany, he gradually developed his own intellectual powers, and enjoyed that happy intercourse with superior minds for which his cordial and genial character was so well adapted, and which he has described in his best manner, in several chapters of Hood's Own. Odes and Addresses, his first work, were written about this time, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reynolds, the friends of Keats; and it is agreeable to find Sir Walter Scott acknowledging the gift of the work with no formal expressions of gratification, but "wishing the unknown author good health, good fortune, and whatever other good things can best support and encourage his lively vein of inoffensive and humorous satires." Whims and Oddities, National Tales, Tylney Hall, a novel, and The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, followed. In these works the humorous faculty not only predominated, but expressed itself with a freshness, originality, and power, which the poetical element could not claim. There was much true poetry in the verse, and much sound sense and keen observation in the prose of these works; but the poetical feeling and lyrical facility of the one, and the more solid qualities of the other, seemed best employed when they were subservient to his rapid wit, and to the ingenious coruscations of his fancy. This impression was confirmed by the series of the Comic Annual, a kind of publication at that time popular, which Mr. Hood undertook and continued, almost unassisted, for several years. Under that somewhat frivolous title he treated all the leading events of the day in a fine spirit of caricature, entirely free from grossness and vulgarity, without a trait of personal malice, and with an under-current of true sympathy and honest purpose that will preserve these papers, like the sketches of Hogarth, long after the events and manners they illustrate have passed from the minds of men. But just as the agreeable jester rose into the earnest satirist, one of the most striking peculiarities of his style became a more manifest defect. The attention of the eader was distracted, and his good taste annoyed, |