that he was articled to the engraving business "at the age of fifteen
or sixteen," and his apprenticeship, according to Mr. Hood, junior,
lasted "some years" even _before_ his transfer from Mr. Sands to Mr. Le
Keux. The apprenticeship did not begin until after the father's death;
but the year of that death is left unspecified, though the day and
month are given. These dates, as the reader will readily perceive, are
sometimes vague, and sometimes contradictory. In the text of my notice,
I have endeavored to pick my way through their discrepancies.]

Towards the middle of the year 1820, Hood was re-settled in London,
improved in health, and just come of age. At first he continued
practising as an engraver; but in 1821 he began to act as a sort of
sub-editor for the _London Magazine_ after the death of the editor,
Mr. Scott, in a duel. He concocted fictitious and humorous answers to
correspondents--a humble yet appropriate introduction to the insatiable
habit and faculty for out-of-the-way verbal jocosity which marked-off
his after career from that of all other excellent poets.

His first regular contribution to the magazine, in July, 1821, was a
little poem _To Hope_: even before this, as early at any rate as 1815,
he was in the frequent practice of writing correctly and at some length
in verse, as witnessed by selections, now in print, from what he had
composed for the amusement of his relatives. Soon afterwards, a private
literary society was the recipient of other verses of the same order.
The lines _To Hope_ were followed, in the _London Magazine_, by the
_Ode to Dr. Kitchener_ and some further poems, including the important
work, _Lycus the Centaur_--after the publication of which, there could
not be much doubt of the genuine and uncommon powers of the new writer.
The last contribution of Hood to this magazine was the _Lines to a Cold
Beauty_. Another early work of his, and one which, like the verses _To