HOOD, THOMAS (1799-1845). An English poet and humorist, born in London, May 23, 1799. After leaving school he was placed in a merchant's counting-house, but his health failing, he was sent to Dundee. At the age of nineteen he returned to London, and studied the art of engraving with his uncle. In 1821 he became assistant sub-editor of the London Maya.:-in,, He contributed to it considerable verse, and made the acquaintance of its brilliant staff, which included De Quineey, Hazlitt, and Lamb. His first separate publication was entitled Odes and Addresses on Great People, written in con junction with J. li. Reynolds (1823). In MG he published Whims and Oddities, of which a second series appeared during the following year. In 1829 lie began the Comic Annual, and con tinued it for nine years. The same year he edited the Gem, one of the popular annuals, contributing to its pages his striking poem en titled "Engine Aram's Dream." In 1824 Hood married the sister of .1. 11. Reynolds, and in 1S31 lie went to reside at Wanstead, in Essex, where he wrote his novel Tylney Hall (1834). While there Ile suffered from the failure of a publisher. In 1835. now weakened in health, lie went to the Continent, where lie remained five years, first at Coblenz• on the Rhine. and then at Ostend. He, however, continued his Comic Annuals, started Hood's Own (1S3S), eon taining a portrait and reminiscences, and made Smollett's Humphrey Clinker a framework for some humorous sketches called UP the Rhine (1839). In 1840 he returned to England. and began to write for the New Monthly Magazine, of which he became editor the following year.
Here appeared "Miss Kilmansegg," his best comic poem. Withdrawing from this magazine toward the close of 1843. he started Hood's Magazine, .January, 1844; and in the same year collected his fugitive pieces under the title of calities, which were illustrated by Leech. By Christmas he took to his bed, which he never again left. During his last illness Sir Robert Peel conferred on him a pension of £100 a year, which lie transferred to his wife. lie died on May 3. 1S45. and was buried in Mensal Green Cemet ery.
Hood takes a high place both as humorist and as serious poet. Ile is great at mice in comedy and in pathos, and he sometimes curiously mingles and combines both. As a punster be is supreme: he connects far-separated words and ideas by the most subtle analogies, and sends them loose. Much of his comedy, however, is verbal and shallow, and will he soon forgotten. It is as a poet that. Hood will be remembered. His "Eugene Amin's Dream." "Song of the Shirt ." and "Bridge of Sighs" are among the most perfect poems of their kind in the English language. Consult: Memorials, ed. by his daughter (Lon don, 1860) ; Literary Reminiscences in Hood's Own, first series (ib., 1838); Eliot, Hood in. Scotland (Dundee, 1885) ; Works, ed. by son and. daughter (10 vols., Loudon, 1869-73) ; Poems, ed. by Ainger, in "Everley Series" (12 vols., ib., 1897) ; and Haunted House, with memoir by Aus tin Dobson (ib., 1895).