here he is,
always ready to his work, and with a jewel of genius in his pocket! Why,
when he laid down his puns and pranks, put the motley off, and spoke out
of his heart, all England and America listened with tears and wonder!
Other men have delusions of conceit, and fancy themselves greater than
they are, and that the world slights them. Have we not heard how Liston
always thought he ought to play Hamlet? Here is a man with a power
to touch the heart almost unequalled, and he passes days and years
in writing, "Young Ben he was a nice young man," and so forth. To
say truth, I have been reading in a book of "Hood's Own" until I am
perfectly angry. "You great man, you good man, you true genius and
poet," I cry out, as I turn page after page. "Do, do, make no more of
these jokes, but be yourself, and take your station."

When Hood was on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel, who only knew of his
illness, not of his imminent danger, wrote to him a noble and touching
letter, announcing that a pension was conferred on him:

"I am more than repaid," writes Peel, "by the personal satisfaction
which I have had in doing that for which you return me warm and
characteristic acknowledgments.

"You perhaps think that you are known to one with such multifarious
occupations as myself, merely by general reputation as an author; but
I assure you that there can be little, which you have written and
acknowledged, which I have not read; and that there are few who can
appreciate and admire more than myself, the good sense and good feeling
which have taught you to infuse so much fun and merriment into writings
correcting folly and exposing absurdities, and yet never trespassing
beyond those limits within which wit and facetiousness are not very
often confined. You may write on with the consciousness of independence,
as free and unfettered, as if no communication had ever passed between
us. I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am fulfilling
the intentions of the legislature, which has placed at the disposal of
the Crown a certain sum (miserable, indeed, in amount) to be applied to
the recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown. If you will
review the names of those whose claims have been admitted on account
of their literary or scientific eminence, you will find an ample
confirmation of the truth of my statement.

"One return, indeed, I shall ask of you,--that you will give me the
opportunity of making your pers