“The Angel of Death;” one of them—very fine.
“Joiners;” Vicar and Moses.
“Drill and Broadcast;” nature and art.
“High-born and Low-born;” odd differences.
“Lawk! I’ve forgot the brandy!” abominably provoking—only look!
“Comparative Physiology” is “a wandering camel-driver and exhibitor, parading, for a few pence, the creature’s outlandlish hump, yet burthened himself with a bunch of flesh between the shoulders.”—
“Oh would some power the giftie gi’ us
To see oursel’s as others see us!”
Mr. Hood’s talents are as versatile as his imagination is excursive: and it would be difficult to decide, whether he excels in the ludicrous or the grave. He depicts a pathetic scene with infinitely delicate and discriminative touches, and his powers are evidently equal to a high order of poetical grandeur. His “Sally Holt and the Death of John Hayloft,” is an exquisite specimen of natural feeling.
“Nature, unkind to Sally Holt as to Dogberry, denied to her that knowledge of reading and writing, which comes to some by instinct. A strong principle of religion made it a darling point with her to learn to read, that she might study in her Bible: but in spite of all the help of my cousin, and as ardent a desire for learning as ever dwelt in scholar, poor Sally never mastered beyond A-B-ab. Her mind, simple as her heart, was unequal to any more difficult combinations. Writing was worse to her than conjuring. My cousin was her amanuensis: and from the vague, unaccountable mistrust of ignorance, the inditer took the pains always to compare the verbal message with the transcript, by counting the number of the words.
“I would give up all the tender epistles of Mrs. Arthur Brooke, to have read one of Sally’s epistles; but they were amatory, and therefore kept sacred: for plain as she was, Sally Holt had a lover.