Hood's own, or, Laughter from year to year : being a further collection of his wit and humour

Front matter

Gift of THE HEARST CORPORATION

8hH

FR/\

Preface

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, Oft have we seen him at the break of dawn,

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the Reverend Vicar all in lawn !

One morn I miss'd him on the 'custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree ;

Another came, nor yet beside the rill, Nor at the Magpie and the Stump was he t

The next with hat and staff, and new array, Along all sorts of streets we saw him borne ;

Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay He always brings upon a Christmas morn !

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send ;

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear, And never failed on Sundays to attend!

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode ;

Where they alike in trembling hope repose, John Bugsby, Number Thirteen, TibbaMs Road.

Of course the perusal of this at once pointed out to me, that in stringing together the old " Comic Addresses," I should he as involuntarily comic as John Bugsby, the Parish Beadle.

Not without some regret, therefore, that those most laughable yearly prologues should lapse by lapse of time, I have determined to confine myself in these preliminary observations to the materials and the form of the volume they are to accompany.

The time of Annuals is gone by. The " Forget-me-not " is forgotten, the " Souvenir " has passed from remembrance, and " Friendship's Offering " no longer, like " Friendship's Volunteered Advice " goes in at one year and comes out at the other.

The First Series of "Hood's Own" may be said to have marked the very time when the change in the issue of

VI PREFACE.

periodicals took place. Public opinion preferred a monthly number to a yearly volume, and the publications bowed to the decree. The " Forget-me-not " and others of its class left no representatives — but the "Comic" found a successor in the monthly shilling number of "Hood's Own" — the humour being checked in one place only to break out in another.

But the " Comics " were not entirely exhausted when unexpected circumstances brought the issue of the " Hood's Own " numbers to a stand-still. Ample materials were still left to assist in the formation of a Second Series.

Although Thomas Hood has been dead fifteen years, his fame, instead of dying out, is on the increase : — indeed, Time has rather added to, than obscured his popularity, and his writings find an ever-increasing circle of readers in England, while in America he is almost better known than in his own country.

Under these circumstances, and in compliance with a very general wish on the part of the public, it has been determined to publish a collected edition of his works as complete and uniform as circumstances will allow.

As regards the present volume, the more immediate subject of this preface, it will be seen that various reasons — the number of wood-cuts chiefly — render it necessary to present it to the public in a form which it would not be convenient to continue through the whole series of works. With the exception, however, of the two volumes of " Hood's Own," the collection will be uniform.

This, then, is the cause of the embodiment of "Whims and Oddities " with " Hood's Own." They could not, with their illustrations, be included in the projected series. The cuts of " Up the Rhine," (the text of which will be shortly reprinted)

PREFACE.

Vll are, for a similar reason, incorporated in the present volume.

Thus far for the illustrations — for the letter -press we have had recourse to the old "London," "Hood's Magazine," the " Whimsicalities," " Whims and Oddities," and to four or

FIVE "COMIC ANNUALS,

., ita

T. H.

MIRTH, ADMIT ME OF YOUR CREW.

TABLE OE CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface .......... iii

A Rise at the Father of Angling . . . . .20

Right and Wrong ; a Sketch at Sea . . ... 25

" Napoleon's Midnight Review ; " a New Version ... . . 38

The Forlorn Shepherd's Complaint ; an Unpublished Poem from

Review. — The Rambles of Piscator : by Sylvan us Suburban . 50

Clubs, turned up by a Female Hand . . . . 56

A New Song from the Polish . . . . . . .59

Stanzas composed in a Shower-Bath . . . . 69

An Intercepted Dispatch . . . . . . 102

Hitchin Hall 110

Sketches on the Road. ■ — The Wonderful Dog . . . .113

The Fresh Horse . , . . . 117

Spanish Pride : a Yarn . . . . . . . 128

John Jones : a Pathetic Ballad . . '. . , .131

X CONTENTS.

PAGE

An Irishman .......

. . 134

Domestic Poems ......

. 136

The Corresponding Club .....

. . 145

Queries in Natural History ....

. 163

Lord Durham's Return

. . 166

The Assistant Drapers' Petition ....

. . 174

Sketches on the Road. — The Railway-

Second Nature .......

. . 181

Epigram . . . . .

Ali Ben Nous : a Fable .....

. . 182

The New Lodger ......

. 189

Pompey's Ghost : a Pathetic Ballad

. . 193

. 197

A Popular Fallacy ......

. . 203

"Up the Rhine"

Not in " Boz "

. . 205

A Bull

. 205

Speculations of a Naturalist ....

. . 206

A Reflection . . . . .

. 207

A Sketch off the Road . . . - .

. . 208

Anacreontic .......

. 212

A Caution . .......

. . 213

A Popular Fallacy ......

The Pursuit of Letters .....

. . 213

Riddle

. 213

Suspended Animation .....

. . 214

The Schoolmistress Abroad ; an Extravaganza .

. 216

No!

. . 250

. 251

. . 257

Epigram on Mrs. Parkes's Pamphlet

. 257

An Extraordinary Operation ....

. . 258

The Earth-Quakers .....

. 260

. . 271

Sir John Bowring . . .

. 287

The Repeal of the Union .....

. . 288

A Sketch on the Road .....

. 291

Epigram on a late Cattle-Show in Smithfield .

. . 291

Epigram .......

. 291

Hydropathy, or the Cold Water Cure .

. . 292

Mr. Chubb ; a Piscatory Romance .

. 298