Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/278

 was exuberant and endowed with a perfectly exceptional faculty of playing upon words. As a poet he is no unworthy disciple of Lamb and Hunt; as a humorist he resembles Barham, with less affluence of grotesque invention, but with a pathos to which Barham was a stranger. In his two most famous poems, the ‘Song of the Shirt’ and the ‘Bridge of Sighs,’ this pathos is almost detached from the humorous element in which it is commonly imbedded, and the result is two of the rarest achievements of contemporary verse—pieces equally attractive to the highest and the humblest, genuine Volkslieder of the nineteenth century. He is, however, most truly himself when the serious and the comic are inextricably combined, as in those masterpieces ‘Miss Kilmansegg’ and the ‘Epistle to Rae Wilson.’ Here he stands alone, even though the association of poetry and humour is the general note of his literary work. As a man he was highly estimable; and the tragic necessity laid upon him of jesting for a livelihood while in the very grasp of death imparts a painful interest to his biography. 

HOOD, THOMAS, the younger (1835–1874), known as, humorist, only surviving son of [q. v.], poet and humorist, was born at Lake House, Wanstead, Essex, 19 Jan. 1835. From March 1835 till 1838 he was with his parents abroad. After attending a private school at St. John's Wood, he went to University College School in 1845, and then to the grammar school at Louth, Lincolnshire. On 10 Jan. 1853 he matriculated from Pembroke College, Oxford, with a view to reading for the church; he passed his examinations, but did not take a degree. He early commenced writing. His first poem, ‘Farewell to the Swallows,’ appeared in ‘Sharpe's Magazine,’ 1853, ii. 44. While residing at Shutta, near Looe in Cornwall, in 1857, his first book, ‘Pen and Pencil Pictures,’ passed through the press, and soon reached a second edition. He obtained employment on the ‘Liskeard Gazette’ in 1856, and was editor during 1858–9. He lived in Cornwall till 1860. While there he was a frequent guest of Sir William and Lady Molesworth at Pencarrow. Chiefly through Lady Molesworth's interest he was admitted into the war office as a temporary clerk in the accountant-general's department on 11 July 1860. There he became a great favourite, and was noted for his skill as a caricaturist. He left the war office in May 1865 to become editor of ‘Fun,’ the comic newspaper which had been founded in 1861. Hood not only wrote much for his paper, but drew and engraved many of its illustrations. His jokes were somewhat mechanical, but his verses were always lively, and were produced with little effort. His ‘Rules of Rhyme, a Guide to English Versification,’ printed in 1869, was twice reissued (1877 and 1889). For the ‘Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine’ he wrote his best novel, ‘Captain Masters's Children,’ a work issued in three volumes in 1865. ‘Tom Hood's Comic Annual’ was first issued by him in 1867, and has been continued annually since. With his sister, [q. v.], he illustrated and wrote many children's books, and throughout his life he practised painting, drawing, modelling, and carving. He died at Gloucestershire Cottage, Peckham Rye, Surrey, 20 Nov. 1874.

Hood's novels, besides that already noticed, include: His ‘Favourite Poems’ appeared at Boston, Massachusetts, 1877, with a memoir by his sister. Hood edited many miscellaneous collections in prose and verse.
 * 1) ‘Vere Vereker's Vengeance,’ 1865.
 * 2) ‘A Golden Heart,’ a novel, 1867, 3 vols.; 1868.
 * 3) ‘The Lost Link,’ 1868, 3 vols.
 * 4) ‘Money's Worth,’ 1870, 3 vols.
 * 5) ‘Love and Valour,’ 1871, 3 vols.



HOOK, JAMES (1746–1827), organist and composer, born at Norwich in 1746, was the only son of John Hook, minister of the Norwich Tabernacle. He showed a talent for composition before he was seven years old, and was placed under Garland, the cathedral organist, for musical instruction. Migrating to London, he published a ‘Collection of new English Songs sung at the new Richmond Theatre’ (about 1765); was for a long time organist of St. John's, Horselydown; was organist and composer at Marylebone Gardens from 1769 to 1773; and at Vauxhall Gardens from 1774 to 1820. He gave music lessons, and excelled as an organist, performing an organ concerto every night at Vauxhall. He died at Boulogne in 1827. Hook's first wife was Miss Madden (d. 1795). Their two sons were [q. v.], afterwards