[33] A Scotch baronet, and the once well-known promoter of Sabbatarian legislation. Sir Andrew identified himself in the House of Commons with the efforts of an English Association, the "Lord's Day Society," and introduced a Bill to prohibit all open labour on Sunday, excepting "works of necessity and mercy,"—a measure bound, under any scheme of working, to inflict the direst hardship and injustice. After three defeats, the Bill was actually carried in 1837, but was afterwards allowed to drop.
[34] For the purposes of his pun on "night-mare," Hood adroitly utilizes the story of the famous Lady Hester Stanhope, whom Kinglake, in his Eothen, first made familiar to so many of us. He there speaks of the "quiet women in Somersetshire," and their surprise when they learned that "the intrepid girl who used to break their vicious horses for them" was reigning over the wandering tribes of Western Asia!
[35] This dates from the old days of transportation and Botany Bay. The judge indicated was Mr. Justice Alan Park, of the Common Pleas, and Mr. Cotton was Chaplain of Newgate.
[36] The exquisite wit and fancy of these verses need not blind us to their touching earnestness. They might well be printed and circulated still in the service of the great cause of Early Closing. The "Knight" mentioned was, of course, the excellent Charles Knight, pioneer and forerunner of all subsequent movements for cheapening and popularizing good literature.
[37] The daughter of Hood's friend William Harvey, the artist.
[38] Charles Lamb had been reading these verses when he wrote to his friend Dibdin, in June, 1896, and called him "Peter Fin Junior."
[39] Thomas Moore is a forgotten poet, and it cannot therefore be impertinent to remind the reader that in his early days he published certain rather "vain and amatorious" poems under the pseudonym of "Thomas Little."
[40] The muffin-boy, with his "evening bell," is still in the land; but the evening postman, perambulating the streets and collecting letters "just in time," has "passed away" for ever.
[41] These verses form a good specimen of Hood's capabilities for writing to order. They first appeared in the Bijou for 1828, accompanying a vignette by Thomas Stothard of two knights, mounted, and in complete armor, engaged in deadly conflict. This was doubtless (after the then custom of Annuals) placed in Hood's hands for him to supply the appropriate letterpress.
[42] The allusion to our modern "Black Prince" is apparently to Prince Le Boo, whose death, while on a visit to England, had so impressed the public imagination. He came, however, from the Pelew Islands, not the "Sandwich;" and it was smallpox, not measles, that "took him off."