BOOK FRIENDS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 275, 20 November 1935, Page 21

BOOK FRIENDS

with such men as Allan Cummingham, Dβ Quincey, Keats, Hazlitt and, above all, Charles Lamb, with, whom a close friendship sprung up, destined to be one of the best influences in Hood'e literary life.

Much of Thomas Hood's work you will know already—especially "The Bridge of Sighe," and the poem beginning "I remember, I remember, the house where I was born," and perhaps also "Eugene Aram." Another very famous one, "The Song of the Shirt," is a poem which shows the widening eense of humanity in the people of the day. The merits of these serious poems, however, are somewhat obscured by Hoodfs merit as a, humorist. Thomas Hood was perhaps the most successful punster that ever lived, but he turned this form of wit to purposes of which no one had over supposed it capable. He gave it the transfiguring power of real imagination and with his humour is often blended pathos and even real tragedy. Beneath this humour, however, Hood had a deep sympathy with his fellowmen, and it is these two qualities that quicken his finest genius. Quite early in life Hood had contracted a fatal disease, which during the last three months of his life grew gradually worse, and in 1845 he died, leavin" a durable fame as a poet who made his writings delightful by an imaginative genius and the humanity of a lover of his kind.

THOMAS HOOD. A poet who had to work hard for his living, but yet managed to leave behind imperishable examples of his art as a ■writer of rare individuality was Thomas Hood, born in London in 1798. At the early.age of 13 or 14, Tom had to leave Khool; but his keen love of reading wae tie foundation of that, singular versatility and resource which marked both ifs poetic and humorous vein. f'Abo'it 1815 he hegan to practise with jiis p'eii both in verse and prose in the pages of local newspapers and magazines. In 1818, he entered the studio of Ms. uncle, .an engraver. .After a short apprenticeship of only two years he hegan to work on his own account, until the literary instinct became uppermost in his life. About the same time he was appointed sub-editor of the London magazine. This position gave him the society of writers who became his friends and drew put all the best of his work. He now. found himself in daily companionship