NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR THOMAS HOOD was born in the Poultry, London, in 1798. His father was a native of Scotland, and for many years acting partner in the firm of Vernor, Hood and Sharp, extensive booksellers and publishers. Thomas Hood was noted as a child for great vivacity of spirits, and, at a very early age, gave tokens of the genius for which he was afterwards distinguished. He was continually making shrewd and pointed remarks upon topics of which he was presumed to know nothing. This information we have derived from the Third Volume of the Book of Gems. For our further knowledge of the first half of the poet's life, we are entirely dependent upon the account which Hood has given of himself in his Literary Reminiscences, and we cannot do better than to extract the substance of those agreeable papers in the author's own words. "There is something vastly flattering in the idea of appropriating the half of a quarter of a century, mixing it up with your personal experience, and then serving it out as your own Life and Times. On casting a retrospective glance, |