Devonshire Lodge, Finchley Road. He wrote in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, then edited by Theodore Hook: his _Rhymes for the Times_,
the celebrated _Miss Kilmansegg_, and other compositions, first
appeared here. Hook dying in August 1841, Hood was invited to succeed
him as editor, and closed with the offer: this gave him an annual
salary of £300, besides the separate payments for any articles that he
wrote. The _Song of the Shirt_, which it would be futile to praise or
even to characterize, came out, anonymously of course, in the Christmas
number of _Punch_ for 1843: it ran like wildfire, and rang like a
tocsin, through the land. Immediately afterwards, in January 1844,
Hood's connection with the _New Monthly_ closed, and he started a
publication of his own, _Hood's Magazine_, which was a considerable
success: more than half the first number was the actual handiwork of
the editor. Many troubles and cross-purposes, however, beset the new
periodical; difficulties with which Hood was ill fitted, by his now
rapidly and fatally worsening health, to cope. They pestered him when
he was most in need of rest; and he was in need of rest when most he
was wanted to control the enterprise. _The Haunted House_, and various
other excellent poems by Hood, were published in this magazine.

His last days and final agonies were a little cheered by the granting
of a Government pension of £100, dating from June 1844, which, with
kindly but ominous foresight, was conferred upon Mrs. Hood, as likely
to prove the survivor. This was during the ministry of Sir Robert Peel,
whose courteous communications to the poet, and expressions of direct
personal interest in his writings, made the boon all the more
acceptable. Hood, indeed, had not been directly concerned in soliciting
it. At a somewhat earlier date, January 1841, the Literary Society had,
similarly unasked, voted him a sum of £50; but this he returned,
although his circumstances were such as might have made it by no means