Tom Hood.

His father ' s name , however , is mentioned in "Illustrations of the Literary History of the 18 th Century , " by J . B . Nicholls , F . S . A ., as having died at Islington , of a malignant fever . He Avas a bookseller of the Poultry , ancl Mr . Nicholls says he was a native of Scotlandand came

, to London to seek his fortune , where he Avas in a humble position for four or five years . Mr . Hood Avas one of the associated booksellers AVIIO selected old books for reprinting . The firm consisted of Messrs . VernonHoodand Sharpeand

, , , they Avere the publishers of " The Beauties of England aud Wales , " " The Mirror , " Bloomfield's ( the Suffolk poet ) poems , and those of Kirke White .

Mr . Hood married a Miss Sands , sister to the engraver of that name , to whom his famous son was afterwards articled . At his house in the Poultry on the 23 rd May , 1799 , Tom Hood Avas born . The elder Mr . Hood Avas a man of cultivated taste and literary inclinationsand

, was the author of tAvo novels , Avhich attained some popularity in their day , although now their very names are forgotten . No doubt his favourite pursuits and his business avocations influenced in no small degree the amusements and

inclinations of his children ; and for those days they must have been a very fairly intellectual family . As I have before stated , Tom Hood was articled to his uncle as an engraver , preferring the drudgery of an engraver ' s desk to encroaching upon the 3 mall famil y store , and he Avas subsequently transferred to one of the Le Keux . His elder brother

James died early , a victim to consumption , which ultimately carried off his mother and two sisters . His father had died rather suddenly , and the widoAV and children—there were six in all—Avere rather slenderly provided for . He was a most devoted and excellent

son to his mother , and the last days of her widowhood and decline Avere soothed b y his tender care and affection . . Many of the readers of the MASONIC MAGAZINE will remember the SAveet verses he wrote , " To a Child Embracing his Mother . "

The lines entitled the " Death-Bed , " in the Englishman ' s Magazine , Avere written at the time of her death . The poem has been frequently quoted' without the name

of the author , and so Avith several other of Hood's poems , is not generally knoAvn to be his . Shortly after his death it appears that a Latin translation of the "Deathbed " ajipeared in the Times . An opening that offered more congenial employment presented itself at lastwhen

, he was about twenty-one . By the death of Mr . John Scott , the editor of the London Magazine , who Avas killed in a duel , that periodical passed into other hands , and became the property of Hood ' s friends , Messrs . Taylor and Hessey , who soon sent

for him , and he became a sort of sub-editor of the magazine . Mr . Hessey describes him when young as a singular child , silent and retired , Avith much quiet humour , and apparently delicate in health .

He was educated at a school at Clapham or Camberwell ; ancl it appears Avhilst there Avas the hero of many schoolboy tricks and adventures , which might go among the exempla minora to prove the rule" the child is father of the man . "

, He Avas articled at fifteen or sixteen to his uncle , but the confinement not suiting him , and his health beginning thus early to suffer , the engagement Avas put an end to ; he was sent to a relative in Scotland —at Dundee , I believe—aud it Avas here

that his first literary productions appeared in the Dundee Advertizer . His first introduction to the literary world , hoAv ever , was no doubt the London Magazine , and here he amused himself by concocting

humorous notices and answers to correspondents in the Lion ' s Head . The "Echo " in Hood's magazine was a continuation of this idea , ancl some of them are very quaint and amusing . I cannot do better than quote one or tAvo ;—

VnniTY . —It is better to have an enlarged heart than a contracted one , and even such a hemorrhage as mine , than a spitting of spite . A CHAPTER ON BUSTLES is under consideration for one of our back numbers .

N . N . —The most characteristic Mysteries of of London are those which have lately prevailed on the land and the river , attended by collisions of vessels , robberies , assaults , accidents , and other features of Metropolitan interest . If N . N . be ambitious of competing with the writer whom he names , let him try his han . i at a genuine , solid yellow , November fog . It is dirty , dangerous , smoky , stinking , obscure , unwholesome , aud favourable to vice and violence .