genius and coruscating with wit, dark with the lengthening and deepening
shadow of death.

The father of Thomas Hood was engaged in business as a publisher and
bookseller in the Poultry, in the city of London,--a member of the firm
of Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe. He was a Scotchman, and had come up to the
capital early in life, to make his way. His interest in books was not
solely confined to their saleable quality. He reprinted various old
works with success; published Bloomfield's poems, and dealt handsomely
with him; and was himself the author of two novels, which are stated to
have had some success in their day. For the sake of the son rather than
the father, one would like to see some account, with adequate
specimens, of these long-forgotten tales; for the queries which Thomas
Hood asks concerning the piteous woman of his _Bridge of Sighs_
interest us all concerning a man of genius, and interest us moreover
with regard to the question of intellectual as well as natural
affinity:--

"Who was his father,
Who was his mother?
Had he a sister,
Had he a brother?"

Another line of work in which the elder Hood is recorded to have been
active was the opening of the English book-trade with America. He
married a sister of the engraver Mr. Sands, and had by her a large
family; two sons and four daughters survived the period of childhood.
The elder brother, James, who died early of consumption, drew well, as
did also one or two of the sisters. It would seem therefore, when we
recall Thomas Hood's aptitudes and frequent miscellaneous practice in