[page 213:]

OF this number of the Library we said a few words last week — but Hood was far too remarkable a man to be passed over in so cursory a manner.

“Frequently since his recent death,” says the American editor, “he has been called a great author, a phrase used not inconsiderately or in vain.” Yet if we adopt the conventional idea of “a great author,” there has lived, perhaps, no writer of the last half century, who, with equal notoriety, was less entitled than Hood to the term. In fact, he was a literary merchant whose principal stock in trade was littleness — for during the larger portion of his life he seemed to breathe only for the purpose of perpetrating puns — things of such despicable platitude, that the man who is capable of habitually committing them, is very seldom capable of anything else. In especial, whatever merit may accidentally be discovered in a pun, arises altogether from unexpectedness. This is its element, and is twofold. First, we demand that the combination of the pun be unexpected, and secondly we demand the most entire unexpectedness in the pun per se. A rare pun, rarely appearing, is, to a certain extent, a pleasurable effect — but to no mind, however debased in taste, is a continuous effort at punning otherwise than unendurable. The man who maintains that he derives gratification from any such chapters of punnage as Hood was in the daily habit of putting to paper, has no claim to [page 214:] be believed upon his oath. What, for example, is any rational being to make of such jargon as this, which we copy from the very first page of the volume before us?

Here is something better from page five — but still we look upon the whole thing as a nuisance:

The continuous and premeditated puns of Hood, however, are to be regarded as the weak points of the man. Independently of their ill effect, in a literary view, as mere puns, they leave upon us a painful impression; for too evidently they are the hypochondriac's struggles at mirth — they are the grinnings of the death's-head. No one can read his Literary Reminiscences without being convinced of his habitual despondency — and the species of pseudo wit in question, is precisely of that character which would be adopted by an author of Hood's temperament and cast of intellect, when compelled to write, at an emergency. That his heart had no interest in these niaiseries, is clear. We allude, of course, to his mere puns for the pun's sake — a class of letters by which he attained his most extensive renown. That he did more in this way than in any other, would follow as a corollary from what we have already said — for, generally, he was unhappy, and, almost continually he was obliged to write, invitá Minervâ. But his true element was a [page 216:] very rare and ethereal class of humor, in which the mere pun was left altogether out of sight, or took the character of the richest grotesquerie, impressing the imaginative reader with very remarkable force, as if by a new phase of the ideal. It is in this species of brilliant grotesquerie, uttered with a rushing abandon which wonderfully aided its effect, that Hood's marked originality of manner consisted; and it is this which fairly entitles him, at times, to the epithet “great;” — we say fairly so entitles him; for that undeniably may be considered great — (of whatever seeming littleness in itself) which has the capability of producing intense emotion in the minds of those who are themselves undeniably great.

When we said, however, that Hood wrought profound impressions upon imaginative men, we spoke only of what is imagination in the popular acceptance of the term. His true province — that is to say the field in which he is distinctive — is a kind of border land between the Fancy and the Fantasy — but in this region he reigns supreme. That we may be the more clearly understood on this head, we will venture to quote a few passages of definition which were used by ourselves on a former occasion — while commenting on the prose style of Mr. Willis: — it is indeed too much the custom to employ at absolute random such words as Wit, Humor, Fantasy, the Fancy and the Imagination.(1)

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These, we grant, are entirely new views, but we do not consider them as the less surely deduced. At all events their admission for the present will enable us to be lucid on the topic of Hood. When we speak [page 217:] of his province as a border ground between Fantasy and Fancy, of course we do not mean rigorously to confine him to this province. He has made very successful and frequent incursions into the dominions of Humor (in general he has been too benevolent to be witty), and there have been one or two occasions — (those, for instance, of his “Eugene Aram” and “Bridge of Sighs,”) in which he has stepped boldly, yet vacillatingly, into the realm of Imagination herself. We mean to say, however, that he is never truly imaginative for more than a paragraph at a time.

In a word, the genius of Hood is the result of vivid Fancy impelled, or controlled, — certainly tinctured, at all points, by hypochondriasis. In his wild “Ode to Melancholy,” which forms the closing poem of the volume now reviewed, we perceive this result in the very clearest of manifestations. Few things have ever more deeply affected us than the passages which follow:

In “The Pugsley Papers,” with which the volume opens, we have the correspondence of a Cockney family of shoemakers, who, receiving a rich legacy, retire at once to the otium cum dignitate of a country mansion. The mishaps and mismanagements of the party are told in the broadest extravaganza admissible or conceivable — very much in the Ramsbottom way — although the tone of Hood's jeu d’esprit is the better of the two. It is not so much humorous in itself, as productive of the usual humorous effect. We laugh not altogether at the incongruities of the narrative, but at the incongruity of Hood's supposing that we will laugh at anything so absurd; — and it must be confessed, that it all amounts to pretty much the same thing in the end.

“Black, White and Brown,” is an Abolition tale — or rather a squib against Abolition. Its finale has some point — but, on the whole, the story has the air of an effort, and is quite unworthy of Hood.

“The Portrait,” “The Apology,” and “The Literary Reminiscences” (which form one subject,) have, we think, exceedingly little interest. The author himself acknowledges that he has no capacity for Boswellism — and we agree with him altogether. [page 219:]

“An Undertaker” is a mere string of puns — giving no idea of the true spirit of the author.

The rest of the book is verse — and much of it very remarkable verse indeed.

“The Dream of Eugene Aram,” is too well known in America to need comment from us. It has (as we observed just now,) more of true imagination than any composition of its author; — but even when engaged on so serious a subject, he finds great difficulty in keeping aloof from the grotesque — the result (we say) of warm Fancy impelled by Hypochondriasis. The opening stanza affords an example:

Stanza the twenty-fourth approaches more nearly the imaginative spirit than any passage in the poem — but the taint of the fantastical is over it still:

“The Lost Heir” is possibly aimed at a well known novel of the same title. The effect depends upon the principle to which we referred when speaking of “The Pugsley Papers.” We laugh chiefly (although not [page 220:] altogether) at the author's absurdity. The lines belong to the class helter-skelter — that is to say, they are the flattest of all possible prose — intentionally so, of course. The story (if story it can be called) embodies the lamentations of a poor Irish woman who has lost her son.

“Autumn” and “A Song,” (occupying each one page) have nothing about them especially remarkable. “Fair Ines” is so beautiful’ that we shall purloin it in full — although we have no doubt that it is familiar to our readers:

The only article which remains to be noticed, is “Miss Killmansegg and Her Precious Leg” — and it is, perhaps, more thoroughly characteristic of Hood's genius than any single thing which he has written. It is quite a long poem — comprising nearly 3000 lines — and its author has evidently laboured it much. Its chief defect is in its versification; and for this Hood had no ear — of its principles he knew nothing at all. Not that his verses, individually, are very lame, but they have no capacity for running together. The reader is continually getting baulked — not because the lines are unreadable, but because the lapse from one rhythm to another is so inartistically managed.

The story concerns a very rich heiress who is excessively pampered by her parents, and who at length gets thrown from a horse and so injures a leg as to render amputation inevitable. To supply the place of the true limb, she insists upon a leg of solid gold — a leg of the exact proportions of the original. She puts up with its inconvenience for the sake of the admiration it excites. Its attractions, however, excite the cupidity of a chevalier d‘industrie, who cajoles her into wedlock, dissipates her fortune, and, finally, purloining her golden leg, dashes out her brains with it, elopes, and puts an end to the story.

It is wonderfully well told, and abounds in the most brilliant points — embracing something of each of the elementary faculties which we have been discussing — but most especially rich in that which we have termed Fantasy. We quote at random some brief passages, which will serve to exemplify our meaning:

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[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 216:]

1.  Here Poe quotes his former article on N. P. Willis, which may be found in full on page 36. — ED.