table. He next edited an annual called the Gem, and for this work be wrote the Dream of Eugene Aram, appending to it as an explanatory note: "The late Admiral Burney went to school at an establishment where the unhappy Eugene Aram was usher subsequent to his crime. The admiral stated that Aram was generally liked by the boys; and that he used to discourse to them about murder in somewhat of the spirit which is attributed to him in this poem." In 1843 Hood became editor of the New Monthly Magazine. His last periodical was Hood's Magazine, which he continued to conduct till within a few weeks of his death.

Of Hood's serious poems the most important are the Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, which he dedicated to Charles Lamb, and his Hero and Leander, dedicated to S. T. Coleridge. In the first of these it was his design, he tells us, to celebrate, by an allegory that immortality which Shakespeare has conferred on the fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. "It would have been a pity," he adds, "for such a race to go extinct, even though they were but as the Butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world." The subject of the second is of course borrowed from classical antiquity. The Bridge of Sighs tells its own story. In Lycus the Centaur, a waternymph, by whom the hero is beloved, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to Circe, but the treache rous sorceress gives her an incantation to pronounce which should change him into a horse. The horrible effect of the charm causes the nymph to break off in the midst, and Lycus becomes a Centaur. Hood's last serious production was the Song of the Shirt, which appeared in the London Punch, and was intended to awaken public sympathy for the over-worked and illpaid sempstresses of London. This now celebrated poem begins as follows:

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.

Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh! to be a slave,

Along with the barbarous Turk!

Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

The forlorn needle-woman longs for the fresh air, for a brief respite from her monotonous toil: Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet.

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!

Oh! but for one short hour!

A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread.

The remaining verses are almost too painful for We prefer giving a few other specimens of Hood's serious style.

quotation.

TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER.

Love thy mother, little one!

Kiss and clasp her neck again,

Hereafter she may have a son

Will kiss and clasp that neck in vain.

Love thy mother, little one!

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love to thee,
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes.

Press her lips, the while they glow
With love that they have often told,
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe,
And kiss them till thine own are cold.

Press her lips the while they glow!

Oh! revere her raven hair!
Although it be not silver grey;
Too early Death, led on by Care,
May snatch save one dear lock away.
Oh! revere her raven hair!

Pray for her at eve and morn

That Heaven may long the stroke defer,
For thou may'st live the hour forlorn
When thou wilt ask to die with her.

Pray for her at eve and morn!

THE DEATHBED.

We watch'd her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

'Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school: '

There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,
And souls untouched by sin.

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in.
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran.

Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can;

But the Usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease:

So he leaned his head upon his hands, and read The book upon his knees.

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide:

Much study had made him very lean,

And pale, and leaden-eyed.

"And well", quoth he, "I know for truth

Their pangs must be extreme,

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought last night I wrought A murder, in a dream!

One that had never done me wrong
A feeble man and old;

I led him to a lonely field,

The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold!

Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,
And one with a heavy stone,
One hurried gash with a hasty knife,
And then the deed was done:
There was nothing lying at my foot
But lifeless flesh and bone!