ble
subject-matter is often selected as the occasion for the horse-laugh.
In some of his works indeed (we might cite the poems named _The Dead
Robbery_, _The Forge_, and _The Supper Superstition_) the horse-laugh
almost passes into a nightmare laugh. A ghoul might seem to have set it
going, and laughing hyenas to be chorusing it. A man of such a faculty
and such a habit of work could scarcely, in all instances, keep himself
within the bounds of good taste--a term which people are far too ready
to introduce into serious discussions, for the purpose of casting
disparagement upon some work which transcends the ordinary standards of
appreciation, but a term nevertheless which has its important meaning
and its true place. Hood is too often like a man grinning awry, or
interlarding serious and beautiful discourse with a nod, a wink, or a
leer, neither requisite nor convenient as auxiliaries to his speech:
and to do either of these things is to fail in perfect taste.
Sometimes, not very often, we are allowed to reach the close of a poem
of his without having our attention jogged and called off by a single
interpolation of this kind; and then we feel unalloyed--what we
constantly feel also even under the contrary conditions--how exquisite
a poetic sense and how choice a cunning of hand were his. On the whole,
we can pronounce Hood the finest English poet between the generation of
Shelley and the generation of Tennyson.

[Footnote 4: Horne's _New Spirit of the Age_.]

CONTENTS.

To Hope
The Departure of Summer
The Sea of Death
To an Absentee
Lycus the Centaur
The Two Peacocks of Bedfont
Hymn to the Sun
Midnight
To a Sleeping Child
To Fancy
Fair Ines
To a False Friend
Ode--Autumn
Sonnet--Silence
Sonnet
Sonnet--to an Enthusiast
To a Cold Beauty
Sonnet--Death
Serenade
Verses in an Album
The Forsaken
Song
Song
Birthday Verses
I Love Thee
Lines
False Poets and True
The Two Swans
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy
Song
The Water Lady
Autumn
I Remember, I Remember!
The Poet's Portion
Ode to the Moon
Sonnet
A Retrospective Review
Ballad
Time, Hope and Memory
Flowers
Ballad
Ruth
The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies
Hero and Leander
Ballad
Autumn
Ballad
The Exile
To ----
Ode to Melancholy
Sonnet--to my Wife
Sonnet on Receiving a Gift
Sonnet
The Dream of Eugene Aram
Sonnet--for the 14th of February
The Death-Bed
Anticipation
To a Child Embracing his Mother
Stanzas
Sonnet to Oc