Thomas Hood was originally intended for business, and entered a
mercantile house; but the failure of his health, at fifteen years of
age, compelled him to leave it, and go to Scotland, where he remained
two years, with much gain to his body and his mind. On his return to
London, he applied himself to learn the art of engraving; but his
constitution would not allow him to pursue it. Yet what he did acquire
of this art, with his genius for comic observation, must have been of
excellent service to him in his subsequent career. This, at first, was
simply literary, in a subordinate connection with "The London Magazine."
His relation to this periodical gave him opportunities, which he did not
neglect, of knowing many of its brilliant contributors. Among these was
Charles Lamb, who took a strong liking to the youthful sub-editor, and,
doubtless, discovered a talent that in some points had resemblance to
his own. The influence of his conversation and companionship may have
brought Hood's natural qualities of mind into early growth, and helped
them into early ripeness. Striking as the difference was, in some
respects, between them, in other respects the likeness was quite as
striking. Both were playful in manner, but melancholy by constitution,
and in each there lurked an unsuspected sadness; both had tenderness in
their mirth, and mirth in their tenderness; and both were born punsters,
with more meaning in their puns than met the ear, and constantly
bringing into sudden and surprising revelation the wonderful mysteries
of words.
With a genius of so singular a cast, Hood was not destined to continue
long a subordinate. Almost with manhood he began to be an independent
workman of letters; and as such, through ever-varying gravities and
gayeties, tears and laughter, grimsicalities and whimsicalities, prose
and verse, he labored incessantly till his too early death. The whole
was truly and entirely "Hood's Own." In mind he owed no man anything.
Unfortunately, he did in money. That he might economize, and be free to
toil in order to pay, he went abroad, residing between four and five
years out of England, part of the time at Coblentz, in Rhenish Prussia,
and part at Ostend, in Belgium. The climate of Rhenish Prussia was bad
for his health, and the people were disagreeable to his feelings. The
change to Belgium was at first pleasant and an improvement; but complete
recovery soon seemed as far away as ever; nay, it was absolutely away
forever. But in the midst of his family--his wife, his little boy and
girl, most loving and most loved--bravely he toiled, with pen and
pencil, with head and heart; and while men held both their sides from
laughter, he who shook them held both his sides from pain; while tears,
kindly or comical, came at the touch of his genius into thousands of
eyes, eyes were watching and weeping in secret by his bed-side in the
lonely night, which, gazing through the cloud of sorrow on his thin
features and his uneasy sleep, took note that the instrument was fast
decaying which gave forth the enchantment and the charm of all this
mirthful and melancholy music. Thus, in bodily pain, in bodily weakness
even worse than pain, in pecuniary embarrassment worse than either,
worst of all, often distressed in mind as to means of support for his
family, he still persevered; his genius did not forsake him, nor did his
goodness; the milk of human kindness did not grow sour, nor the sweet
charities of human life turn into bitter irritations. But what a tragedy
the whole suggests, in its combination of gayety with grief, and in
the thought of laughter that must be created at the cost of sighs, of
merriment in which every grin has been purchased by a groan!
An anecdote which we once read, always, when we recall it, deeply
affects us. A favorite comic actor, on a certain evening, was hissed by
the audience, who had always before applauded him. He burst into tears.
He had been watching his dying wife, and had left her dead, as be came
upon the stage. This was his apology for imperfection in his part. Poor
Hood had also to unite comedy with tragedy,--not for a night, or a day,
or a week, but for months and years. He had to give the comedy to the
public, and keep the tragedy to himself; nor could he, if comedy failed
him, plead with the public the tragedy of his circumstances. _That_ was
nothing to the public. He must give pleasure to the public, and not
explanations and excuses. But genius, goodness, many friends, no enemy,
the consciousness of imparting enjoyment to multitudes, and to no man
wretchedness, a heart alive with all that is tender and gentle, and
strong to manful and noble purpose and achievement,--these are grand
compensations,--compensations for even more ills than Hood was heir to;
and with such compensations Hood was largely blessed. Though his funds
were nothing to the bounty of his spirit, yet he did not refuse to
himself the blessedness of giving. Want, to his eye of charity, was
neither native nor foreign, but _human_; and as _human_ he pitied it
always, and, as far as he could, relieved it. While abroad, he was
constantly doing acts of beneficence; and the burlesque style with
which, in his correspondence, he tries to disguise his own goodness,
while using the incidents as items to write about, is one of the most
delightful peculiarities in his delightful letters. The inimitable
combination of humanity and humor in these passages renders them equal
to the best things that Hood has anywhere written. To crown all, Hood
had happiness unalloyed in his children and his wife. Mrs. Hood seems
to have deserved to the utmost the abounding love which her husband
lavished on her. She was not only, as a devoted wife, a cheerer of
his heart, but, as a woman of accomplishment and ability, she was a
companion for his mind. Her judgment was as clear and sure as her
affection was warm and strong. Her letters have often a grave tenderness
and an insinuated humor hardly inferior to her husband's. But as she
must write from fact and not from fancy, what she writes naturally bears
the impression of her cares. Here is a passage from one of her latest
letters, which, half sadly, half amusingly, reminds us of Mrs. Primrose
and her "I'll-warrant" and "Between-ourselves" manner.
"Hood dines to-day," she writes, "with Doctor Bowring, in Queen Square.
He knew him well years ago in 'The London Magazine'; and he wrote, a few
days ago, to ask Hood to meet Bright and Cobden on business,--_I_ think,
to write songs for the League. I augur good from it. This comes of 'The
Song of the Shirt,' of which we hear something continually."
As an instance of her judgment, we may mention that she prophesied at
once all the success which followed this same "Song of the Shirt." When
read to her in manuscript,--"Now mind, Hood," said she, "mark my words,
this will tell wonderfully! It is one of the best things you ever
did." Her reference to "The Song" in her letter has a sort of pathetic
_naïveté_ in it; it shows that the thought with which she was concerned
was practical, not poetical,--not her husband's fame, but her household
cares. She was thinking of songs that would turn into substance,--of
"notes" that could be exchanged for cash,--of evanescent flame that
might be condensed into solid coal, which would, in turn, make the pot
boil,--and of music that could be converted into mutton. O ye entranced
bards, drunk with the god, seeing visions and dreaming dreams in the
third heaven, that is, the third story! O ye voluminous historians, who
live in the guilt and glory of the past, and are proud in making the
biggest and thickest books for the dust, cobwebs, and moths of the
future! O ye commentators, who delight to render obscurity more obscure,
and who assume that in a multitude of words, as in a multitude of
counsellors, there is wisdom! O ye critics, who vote yourselves the
Areopagites of Intellect, whose decrees confer immortality in the
Universe of Letters! O all ye that write or scribble,--all ye tribes,
both great and small, of pen-drivers and paper-scrapers!--know ye,
that, while ye are listening in your imaginative ambition to the praise
of the elect or the applause of nations, your wives are often counting
the coppers that are to buy the coming meal, alarmed at the approaching
rent-day, or trembling in apprehension of the baker's bill.
Hood, in 1840, returned to reside in England during the small remainder
of his life. For a few months he edited the "New Monthly," and then, for
a few months more, a magazine of his own. But the whole of this period
was filled with bodily and mental trials, of which it is painful to
read. Yet within this period it was that he wrote some of his finest
things, both laughable and serious. It is, however, to be remarked, it
was now he reached down to that well of tears which lay in the depth of
his nature. Always before, there had been misty exhalations from it,
that oozed up into the sunshine of his fancy, and that took all the
shapes of glisten or of gloom which his Protean genius gave them. In the
rapid eccentricities of cloud and coruscation, the source which supplied
to the varying forms so much of their substance was hidden or unminded.
But now the fountain of thought and tragedy had been readied, whence the
waters of sin and suffering spring forth clear and unalloyed in their
own deep loneliness, and we hear the gush and the murmur of their stream
in such monodies as "The Song of the Shirt," "The Lay of the Laborer,"
and "The Bridge of Sighs."
Hood died in 1845, and was then only forty-six or forty-seven years old.
Alike esteemed by the poor and the rich, both united to consecrate a
monument to his memory. Kindly should we ever think of those who make
our hearts and our tempers bright; who, without pomp of wisdom, help us
to a cheerfulness which no proud philosophy can give; who, in the motley
of checkered mirth and wit, sparkle on the resting-spots of life. Such
men are rare, and as valuable as they are rare. The world wants them
more than it wants heroes and victors: for mirth is better than
massacre; and it is surely better to hear laughter sounding aloud the
jubilee of the heart, than the shout of battle and yell of conquest.
Precious, then, are those whose genius brings pleasure to the bosom
and sunshine to the face; who not only call our thoughts into festive
action, but brighten our affections into generous feeling. Though we may
not loudly celebrate such men, we greatly miss them; and not on marble
monuments, but in our warmest memories, their names continue fresh. But
laugh and make laugh as they may, they, too, have the destiny of grief;
and unto them, as unto all men, come their passages of tragedy,--the
days of evil, the nights of waking, and the need of pity.
When Hood was near his death a pension of a hundred pounds a year was
settled on his wife, at the instance of Sir Robert Peel. The wife, so
soon to become a widow, did not long survive her husband; then, in 1847,
the pension was continued to their two orphan children, at the instance
of Lord John Russell. Politics and parties were forgotten, in gratitude
to an earnest lover of his kind; and the people, as well as the
government, in helping to provide for those whom he left behind, showed
that they had not forgotten one whose desire it was to improve even more
than to amuse them. And still we cannot but feel sad that there should
ever have been this need. Nor would there have been, had Hood had the
strength to carry him into the vast reading public which has arisen
since his death, and which it was not his fate to know. "The income,"
says his daughter, "which his works now produce to his children, might
then have prolonged his life for many years."
We have written more on the personal relations of Hood than we had
intended; but we have been carried on unwitttingly, while reading the
"Memorials" of him recently published and edited by his children. The
loving worth of the man, as therein revealed, made us slow to quit the
companionship of his character to discuss the qualities of his genius.
We trust that our time has not been misspent, morally or critically;
for, besides the moral good which we gain from the contemplation of an
excellent man, we enjoy also the critical satisfaction of learning that
whatever is best in literature comes out of that which is best in life.
We therefore close this section of our article with a bit of prose and a
bit of poetry, among Hood's "last things,"--personally and pathetically
characteristic of his nature and his genius.
"Dear Moir,[A]
"God bless you and yours, and goodbye! I drop these few lines, as in a
bottle from a ship water-logged and on the brink of foundering, being
in the last stage of dropsical debility; but, though suffering in body,
serene in mind. So, without reversing my union-jack, I await my last
lurch. Till which, believe me, dear Moir,
"Yours most truly,
"THOMAS HOOD."
[Footnote A: The _Delta_ of Blackwood]