I have a delightful rather than a difficult, or even a delicate duty to perform in speaking of those remains of Hood which are not in the keeping of the graveyard’s silent warders, but in the custody of ever-living generations of men and women. I have at this day no intelligent opinions of Thomas Hood’s ability and achievements to oppose; no detractions from his just and symmetrical fame to rebuke; no reluctant acknowledgments of his mastership to stimulate. The most that can be done now for the dear, dead poet, is to waft his fame, on the breath of honest applause, to circles of men outside of the serried ranks which have already closed in upon his shrine.
It appears from the researches of his children that he was born May 23, 1799.
It rarely happens in the history of genius that the verdict of posterity becomes unanimous within its own generation. Yet, this is true of Thomas Hood. He was, indeed, broadly and lovingly appreciated in life, and he had not been long dead when every murmur of doubt, every dissonance of judgment concerning his kingship among the humorous poets of the nineteenth century, died away. Where now he is not admired and extolled and loved for what he did for letters and humanities, let us charitably suppose he is only not known. Of him it is preëminently true,
“None know him but to love him;
None name him but to praise.”
I have no hesitation in making my discourse this afternoon his eulogy. If I could not have praised him as a matchless humorist, as a great poet, and as a noble example of manhood, I would have kept silence concerning him.
No name in the literary annals of our century better deserves to be inscribed upon the hearts of the people than does his. He was the friend of the people, and of all the motley he chose to wear, no garb better fitted him, or was more commonly worn, than that of brotherly kindness. This, indeed, he always wore, like a close-fitting tunic, and even when the gay tissues and tinsel of Momus or Harlequin glittered upon the outside, the cerement of charity was between them and his bosom.
The chief reputation Hood achieved in his lifetime was not that which now cleaves to his name. He was known and admired for what is, however admirable in itself, the lesser of his two great gifts. These were wit and poetry, and he shone most to the public eye in the former. I have pronounced him a matchless humorist and a great poet. The proof of my words must be sought in his works.