enius. How else was a ragged sempstress in a squalid
garret made immortal, nay, made universal, made to stand for an entire
sisterhood of wretchedness? Here is the direst poverty, blear-eyed
sorrow, dim and dismal suffering,--nothing of the romantic. A stern
picture it is, which even the softer touches render sterner; still there
is nought in it that revolts or shocks; it is deeply poetic, calls into
passionate action the feelings of reverence and pity, and has all the
dignity of tragedy. Even more wonderful is the transformation that a
rustic hind undergoes in "The Lay of the Laborer," in which a peasant
out of work personifies, with eloquent impressiveness, the claims and
calamities of toiling manhood. But an element of the sublime is added in
"The Bridge of Sighs." In that we have the truly tragic; for we have in
it the union of guilt, grief, despair, and death. An angel from heaven,
we think, could not sing a more gentle dirge, or one more pure; yet
the ordinary associations suggested by the corpse of the poor, ruined,
self-murdered girl are such as to the prudish and fastidious would not
allow her to be mentioned, much less bring her into song. But in the
pity almost divine with which Hood sings her fate there is not only a
spotless delicacy, there is also a morality as elevated as the heavenly
mercy which the lyrist breathes. The pure can afford to be pitiful; and
the life of Hood was so exemplary, that he had no fear to hinder him
from being charitable. The cowardice of conscience is one of the saddest
penalties of sin; and to avert suspicion from one's self by severity to
others is, indeed, the most miserable expediency of self-condemnation.
The temper of charity and compassion seems natural to men of letters and
of art. They are emotional and sensitive, and by the necessity of their
vocation have to hold much communion with the inmost consciousness of
our nature; they thus learn the weakness of man, and the allowances that
he needs; they are conversant with a broad and diversified humanity, and
thence they are seldom narrow, intolerant, or self-righteous; feeling,
too, their full share of moral and mortal imperfection, they refuse
to be inquisitors of the unfortunate, but rather choose to be their
advocates and helpers. No man ever had more of this temper than Hood;
and out of it came these immortal lyrics upon which we have been
commenting. For such a temper the writing of these lyrics was exceeding
great reward