unwelcome. From Christmas 1844 he was compelled to take to his bed, and
was fated never to leave his room again. The ensuing Spring, throughout
which the poet lay seemingly almost at the last gasp day by day, was a
lovely one. At times he was delirious; but mostly quite clear in mind,
and full of gentleness and resignation. "Dying, dying," were his last
words; and shortly before, "Lord, say 'Arise, take up thy cross, and
follow me.'" On the 3d of May 1845 he lay dead.

Hood's funeral took place in Kensal Green Cemetery: it was a quiet one,
but many friends attended. His faithful and loving wife would not be
long divided from him. Eighteen months later she was laid beside him,
dying of an illness first contracted from her constant tendance on his
sick-bed. In the closing period of his life, Hood could hardly bear her
being out of his sight, or even write when she was away. Some years
afterwards, a public subscription was got up, and a monument erected to
mark the grave of the good man and true poet who "sang the Song of the
Shirt."

The face of Hood is best known by two busts and an oil-portrait which
have both been engraved from. It is a sort of face to which apparently
a bust does more than justice, yet less than right. The features, being
mostly by no means bad ones, look better, when thus reduced to the mere
simple and abstract contour, than they probably showed in reality, for
no one supposed Hood to be a fine-looking man; on the other hand, the
_value_ of the face must have been in its shifting expression--keen,
playful, or subtle--and this can be but barely suggested by the
sculptor. The poet's visage was pallid, his figure slight, his voice
feeble; he always dressed in black, and is spoken of as presenting a
generally clerical aspect. He was remarkably deficient in ear for
music--not certainly for the true chime and varied resources of verse.