ly original in the jocose vein, more
especially with reference to the concurrent demands of _Hood's Own_,
and of the _Comic Annual_ of the year. At the beginning of 1839 he paid
a visit of about three weeks to his often-regretted England, staying
with one of his oldest and most intimate friends, Mr. Dilke, then
editor of the _Athenaeum_. Another of his best friends--one indeed who
continued to the end roost unwearied and affectionate in his
professional and other attentions, Dr. Elliot--now made a medical
examination of Hood's condition. He pronounced the lungs to be
organically sound; the chief seat of disease being the liver, and the
heart, which was placed lower down than usual. At a later stage of the
disease, enlargement of the heart is mentioned, along with haemorrhage
from the lungs consequent on that malady, and recurring with terrible
frequency: to these dropsy, arising from extreme weakness, was
eventually superadded. Indeed, the catalogue of the illnesses of the
unconquerably hilarious Hood, and the details of his sufferings, are
painful to read. They have at least the merit of giving a touch of
adventitious but intimate pathos even to some of his wildest
extravagances of verbal fence,--and of enhancing our sympathy and
admiration for the force and beauty of his personal character, which
could produce work such as this out of a torture of body and spirit
such as that. During this visit to London, Hood scrutinized his
publishing and other accounts, and found them sufficiently encouraging.
The first edition of _Up the Rhine_, consisting of 1500 copies, sold
off In a fortnight. Soon, however, some vexations with publishers
ensued: Hood felt it requisite to take legal proceedings, and the
action lingered on throughout and beyond the brief remainder of his
life. Thus his prospects were again blighted, and his means crippled
when most they needed to be unembarrassed.

The poet was back in England from Ostend in April 1840; and, under
medical advice, he determined to prolong his visit into a permanent
re-settlement in his native London. Here therefore he remained and
returned, no more to the Continent. He took a house, with his family,
in Camberwell, not far from the Green; removing afterwards to St.
John's Wood, and finally to another house in the same district,
Devonshire Lodge, Finchley Road. He wrote in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, then edited by Theodore Hook: his _Rhymes for the Times_,
the celebrated _Miss Ki