E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg
Distributed Proofreaders
Thomas Hood was originally intended for business, and entered amercantile house; but the failure of his health, at fifteen years ofage, compelled him to leave it, and go to Scotland, where he remainedtwo years, with much gain to his body and his mind. On his return toLondon, he applied himself to learn the art of engraving; but hisconstitution would not allow him to pursue it. Yet what he did acquireof this art, with his genius for comic observation, must have been ofexcellent service to him in his subsequent career. This, at first, wassimply literary, in a subordinate connection with "The London Magazine."His relation to this periodical gave him opportunities, which he did notneglect, of knowing many of its brilliant contributors. Among these wasCharles Lamb, who took a strong liking to the youthful sub-editor, and,doubtless, discovered a talent that in some points had resemblance tohis own. The influence of his conversation and companionship may havebrought Hood's natural qualities of mind into early growth, and helpedthem into early ripeness. Striking as the difference was, in somerespects, between them, in other respects the likeness was quite asstriking. Both were playful in manner, but melancholy by constitution,and in each there lurked an unsuspected sadness; both had tenderness intheir mirth, and mirth in their tenderness; and both were born punsters,with more meaning in their puns than met the ear, and constantlybringing into sudden and surprising revelation the wonderful mysteriesof words.
With a genius of so singular a cast, Hood was not destined to continuelong a subordinate. Almost with manhood he began to be an independentworkman of letters; and as such, through ever-varying gravities andgayeties, tears and laughter, grimsicalities and whimsicalities, proseand verse, he labored incessantly till his too early death. The wholewas 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 totoil in order to pay, he went abroad, residing between four and fiveyears out of England, part of the time at Coblentz, in Rhenish Prussia,and part at Ostend, in Belgium. The climate of Rhenish Prussia was badfor his health, and the people were disagreeable to his feelings. Thechange to Belgium was at first pleasant and an improvement; but completerecovery soon seemed as far away as ever; nay, it was absolutely awayforever. But in the midst of his family—his wife, his little boy andgirl, most loving and most loved—bravely he toiled, with pen andpencil, with head and heart; and while men held both their sides fromlaughter, he who shook them held both his sides from pain; while tears,kindly or comical, came at the touch of his genius into thousands ofeyes, eyes were watching and weeping in secret by his bed-side in thelonely night, which, gazing through the cloud of sorrow on his thinfeatures and his uneasy sleep, took note that the instrument was fastdecaying which gave forth the enchantment and the charm of all thismirthful and melancholy music. Thus, in bodily pain, in bodily weaknesseven worse than pain, in pecuniary embarrassment worse than either,worst of all, often distressed in mind as to means of support for hisfamily, he still persevered; his genius did not forsake him, nor did hisgoodness; the milk of human kindness did not grow sour, nor the sweetcharities of huma