d hardly to
be reconciled with the courtesy due to a woman, as a mere question of
sex. It would be convenient, I may observe, to know more plainly what
the biographers mean by such expressions as "religious faith,"
"Christian gentleman," and the like. They are not explained, for
instance, by adding that Hood honored the Bible too much to make it a
task-book for his children. "Religious faith" covers many very serious
differences of sentiment and conviction, between natural theology and
historical Christianity; and, on hearing that a man possessed religious
faith, one would like to learn which of the two extremes this faith was
more nearly conversant with. In respect of political or social opinion,
Hood appears to have been rather humane and philanthropic than
democratic, or "liberal" in the distinct technical sense. His favorite
theory of government, as he said in a letter to Peel, was "an angel
from heaven, and a despotism." He loved neither whigs nor tories, but
was on the side of a national policy: war was his abhorrence, and so
were the wicked corn-laws--an oligarchical device which survived him,
but not for long. His private generosity, not the less true or hearty
for the limits which a precarious and very moderate income necessarily
imposed on it, was in accordance with the general sentiments of
kindness which he was wont to express both in public and private: if he
preached, he did not forget to practise.

It has been well said[4] that "the predominant characteristics of his
genius are humorous fancies grafted upon melancholy impressions." Yet
the term "grafted" seems hardly strong enough. Hood appears, by natural
bent and permanent habit of mind, to have seen and sought for
ludicrousness under all conditions--it was the first thing that struck
him as a matter of intellectual perception or choice. On the other
hand, his nature being poetic, his sympathies acute, and the condition
of his life morbid, he very frequently wrote in a tone of deep and
indeed melancholy feeling, and was a master both of his own art and of
the reader's emotion; but, even in work of this sort, the intellectual
execration, when it takes precedence of the general feeling, is
continually fantastic, grotesque, or positively mirthful. And so again
with those of his works--including rude designs along with finished or
off-hand writing--which are professedly comical: the funny twist of
thought is the essential thing, and the most gloomy or horri