ghts and a humanitarian sympathy. But, on the whole,
the intellectual personality is nearly the same: seeking by natural
affinity, and enjoying to the uttermost, whatever tends to lightness of
heart and to ridicule--thus dwelling indeed in the region of the
commonplace and the gross, but constantly informing it with some
suggestion of poetry, somewise side-meaning, or some form of sweetness
and grace. These observations relate of course to Hood's humorous
poems: into his grave and pathetic poems he can import qualities still
loftier than these--though even here it is not often that he utterly
forswears quaintness and oddity. The risible, the fantastic, was his
beacon-light; sometimes as delicate as a dell of glow-worms; sometimes
as uproarious as a bonfire; sometimes, it must be said (for he had to
be perpetually writing whether the inspiration came or not, or his
inspiration was too liable to come from the very platitudes and
pettinesses of everyday life), not much more brilliant than a
rush-light, and hardly more aromatic than the snuff of a tallow candle.

[Footnote 3: This "Tim, says he," is a perfect _gag_ in many of Hood's
letters. It is curious to learn what was the kind of joke which could
assume so powerful an ascendant over the mind and associations of this
great humorist. Here it is, as given in the Hood _Memorials_ from _Sir
Jonah Barrington's Memoirs_:--

"'Tim,' says he--
'Sir,' says he--
'Fetch me my hat, says he;
'That I may go,' says he,
'To Timahoe,' says he,
'And go to the fair,' says he,
'And see all that's there,' says he.--
'First pay what you owe,' says he;
'And then you may go,' says he,
'To Timahoe,' says he,
'And go to the fair,' says he,
'And see all that's there,' says he.--
'Now by this and by that,' says he,
'Tim, hang up my hat,' says he."]

We must now glance again at Hood's domestic affairs. His first child
had no mundane existence worth calling such; but has nevertheless lived
longer than most human beings in the lines which Lamb wrote for the
occasion, _On an Infant dying as soon as born_. A daughter followed,
and in 1830 was born his son, the Tom Hood who became editor of the
comic journal _Fun_, and died in 1874. At the time of his birth, the
family was living at Winchmore Hill: thence they removed about 1832, to
the Lake House, Wanstead, a highly picturesque dwelling, but scanty in
domestic comforts. The first of the _Comic Annual_ series was bro