te songs for the League. I augur good from it. This comes of 'The
Song of the Shirt,' of which we hear something continually."

As an instance of her judgment, we may mention that she prophesied at
once all the success which followed this same "Song of the Shirt." When
read to her in manuscript,--"Now mind, Hood," said she, "mark my words,
this will tell wonderfully! It is one of the best things you ever
did." Her reference to "The Song" in her letter has a sort of pathetic
_naivete_ in it; it shows that the thought with which she was concerned
was practical, not poetical,--not her husband's fame, but her household
cares. She was thinking of songs that would turn into substance,--of
"notes" that could be exchanged for cash,--of evanescent flame that
might be condensed into solid coal, which would, in turn, make the pot
boil,--and of music that could be converted into mutton. O ye entranced
bards, drunk with the god, seeing visions and dreaming dreams in the
third heaven, that is, the third story! O ye voluminous historians, who
live in the guilt and glory of the past, and are proud in making the
biggest and thickest books for the dust, cobwebs, and moths of the
future! O ye commentators, who delight to render obscurity more obscure,
and who assume that in a multitude of words, as in a multitude of
counsellors, there is wisdom! O ye critics, who vote yourselves the
Areopagites of Intellect, whose decrees confer immortality in the
Universe of Letters! O all ye that write or scribble,--all ye tribes,
both great and small, of pen-drivers and paper-scrapers!--know ye,
that, while ye are listening in your imaginative ambition to the praise
of the elect or the applause of nations, your wives are often counting
the coppers that are to buy the coming meal, alarmed at the approaching
rent-day, or trembling in apprehension of the baker's bill.

Hood, in 1840, returned to reside in England during the small remainder
of his life. For a few months he edited the "New Monthly," and then, for
a few months more, a magazine of his own. But the whole of this period
was filled with bodily and mental trials, of which it is painful to
read. Yet within this period it was that he wrote some of his finest
things, both laughable and serious. It is, however, to be remarked, it
was now he reached down to that well of tears which lay in the depth of
his nature. Always before, there had been misty exhalations from it,
that oozed up into the sunshine