Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), May 31, 1845, vol. 1, no. 22, p. ??

[page 347, column 2, continued:]

LITERARY GOSSIP,

THOMAS HOOD.

“It is the heaviest stone melancholy can throw at a man,” says old Fuller, to tell him that he is at the end of his being; a truth, which excellent, witty, stout-hearted Thomas Hood has been rather playing with as a football or shuttlecock any time these ten years than receiving as so gloomy a missive. But alas. the time for skirmishing with so severe au antagonist, seems well! nigh over, and Hood, with the certainty of immediate death before him, is receiving from friends and the press, those honors which are too often withheld for posterity and the dull cold ear.” A late number of the magazine which he has just established, announces his approaching, dissolution, and commends him as a very great author. His merits will appear to us the greater when the light is withdrawn and we sit in darkness. A writer starts up to amuse and enlighten us through the press — day after day, month after month, he pours out an unceasing Cow of jests, and sentiment, and wisdom; we take the gift, and never look for the giver: it seems a matter of course that the mottling paper should be wise and witty, just as the morning sun is expected to shine. But little reputation is formed in this benevolent and beneficial way. But let a pompous author time his appearance with a due attention to self and his own want of power, and come forward in an octavo, we hail the man. We are willing to praise the one, but we cannot live without the other. This is the difference, but the honor should be more wisely distributed. [page 348:]

How Hood has borne up against the inroads of a long disease, the consumption, Jet him tell us himself in a passage of his mirthful philosophy written in the very fingers so aristocratically slender, that now hold the pen, hint plainly of the ‘ills that flesh is heir to;’ my coats have become great-coats, my pantaloons have been turned into trowsers, and, by a worse bargain than Peter Schlemild's I seem to have retained toy shadow and sold my substance. In short, as happens to prematurely old port wine, I am of a had color with very little body. But what then? That emaciated hand still lends a hand to embody words, and sketches the creations and recreations of a Merry Fancy: those gaunt sides yet shake heartily as ever at the Grotesques and Arabesques, and dull Picturesques that my Good Genius (a Pantagruelian familiar) charitably conjures up to divert me from more sombre realities. * * * * The raven croaked, but I persuaded myself that it was the nightingale: there was the smell of the mould, but I remembered that it nourished the violets.” There was faith and a sound heart there. It was not for nothing. Since that day Hood has written some of his best verses, his quaintest stories are his most philanthropic appeals. English readers and English hearts will not soon forget them. If Hood revives once more, he will be a sacred man while he lives. The sympathy of the good is with him. We trust we are violating no courtesy of private life while we quote from a letter received by the last steamer, from a source which adds pathos to every line, if that were necessary:

Poor Hood is dying — in a state of perfect preparation and composure, among the tears of his friends. His disease has been consumption — is, in fact — but the crisis is combined with water on the chest, which is expected to bring death. To a friend who asked him the other morning how it was with him, he answered with a characteristic playful pathos, “The tide is rising — and I shall soon he in port.” It is said of him, that he has no regrets for life, except for the unborn works which he feels striving impotently in his dying brain — a species of regret which is peculiarly affecting to me, as it must be to all who understand it: also it is plain to are that he has genius greater than anything he has produced — and if this is plain and sad to us, how profoundly melancholy it must be to him. The only comfort is that the end of development is not here. Sir Robert Peel wrote a long letter to him lately in a tone of respect and consideration, which was honorable to the minister, and relieved him from becoming anxiety by attaching his pension to the life of his wife rather than to his own. Poor Hood and poor Sydney Smith! How we are losing our Yoricks! all dumb’ — ‘ all gone!’ “