Whether Harmony will ever make the

House of call,

"Arms" her

Or whether this here mobbing—as some longish heads foretell it,

Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it.

Howsomever, for the present, there's no sign of any peace, For the hubbub keeps a-growing, and defies the New Police ;

But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man, Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan, Why, I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,

For I'd have another candidate-and that's the Parish

Beadle,

Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by

proxy,

And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy ; Whereby if folks was wise-instead of either of them

Scholars,

And straining their own lungs along of contradictious

hollers,

They'll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as

follers,

Namely Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

NOTES

Ode to Mr. Graham (p. 1).—In Hood's day Mr. Graham was one of a group of distinguished aeronauts which included Monck Mason, Hollond, Green, and others. Mr. Graham had made a memorable ascent in his Balloon in 1823.

A Friendly Address to Mrs. Fry (p. 9).—Elizabeth Fry had set up her school for the children in Newgate as early as 1817. Moll Brazen, Suky Tawdry, Jenny Diver, and the rest, are names borrowed from Gay's Beggars' Opera.

Ode to Richard Martin (p. 14).-The well-known Humanitarian, M.P. for Galway, the author of "Martin's Act" for the protection of animals from ill-treatment, and one of the founders of the noble society having the same object. He died in 1834.

Ode to the Great Unknown (p. 17).-After nearly eighty years it is almost pardonable to remind the reader that in the earlier days of the Waverley Novels their author was much talked of by the above title. The variety of Hood's reading, and his resource in simile, are very noticeable in this Ode. The likening of Dominie Sampson to Lamb's friend, George Dyer and the comparison of Mause Headrigg to Rae Wilson on his travels, are admirable examples.

Ode to Captain Parry (p. 39).—The famous Arctic explorer was engaged for many years, from 1818 onwards, in his various efforts to discover the North-West Passage. He died in 1855..

Ode to W. Kitchener, M.D. (p. 46).-Hood, for obvious purposes, slightly departs from the true spelling of Dr. Kitchiner's name. He was an M.D. of Glasgow, who, having been left a handsome fortune by his father, abandoned the active practice of his profession, and devoted himself to science, notably to that of optics, as well as to gastronomy, being himself eminent as a gourmet. He was the author of a once

famous Cookery Book, The Cook's Oracle; and an improved kitchen range still bears his name.

Faithless Sally Brown (p. 60).-These famous verses were first published as from an anonymous correspondent in the London Magazine. When Hood reprinted them, under his own name, in the first series of Whims and Oddities, he prefaced them with the following words :

"I have never been vainer of any verses than of my part in the following Ballad. Dr. Watts, amongst evangelical nurses, has an enviable renown; and Campbell's Ballads enjoy a snug, genteel popularity. Sally Brown has been favoured perhaps with as wide a patronage as the Moral Songs, though its circle may not have been of so select a class as the friends of 'Hohenlinden.' But I do not desire to see it amongst what are called Elegant Extracts. The lamented Emery, dressed as Tom Tug, sang it at his last mortal benefit at Covent Garden; and ever since it has been a great favourite with the watermen of Thames, who time their oars to it, as the wherrymen of Venice time theirs to the lines of Tasso. With the watermen it went naturally to Vauxhall, and over land to Sadler's Wells. The Guards-not the mail-coach, but the Lifeguards-picked it out from a fluttering hundred of others, all going to one air, against the dead wall at Knightsbridge. Cheap printers of Shoe Lane and Cow Cross (all pirates!) disputed about the copyrights, and published their own editions; and in the meantime the authors, to have made bread of their song (it was poor old Homer's hard ancient case!) must have sung it about the streets. Such is the lot of Literature! the profits of 'Sally Brown' were divided by the Ballad Mongers ;-it has cost, but has never brought me, a halfpenny."

As it fell upon a Day (p. 63).-When these verses first appeared in Whims and Oddities, Hood introduced them with some words of mock regret that "W- the well-known ami des enfants," had never thought well to treat such a subject as this in verse. Even without this hint, it would be evident that the verses are a very fair parody of Wordsworth's early ballad style. Indeed they are more faithful to the original than even the famous utterance of Nancy Lake in the "Rejected Addresses." Hood was skilful in parody. The Tale that follows, the "Stageyed Lady," would certainly never have been written had not Beppo and Don Juan gone before; and the Irish Schoolmaster is undisguisedly intended as a humorous pendant to Shenstone's Schoolmistress.

Death's Ramble (p. 98). Of course suggested by Coleridge and Southey's Devil's Walk. It is ablaze with wit and real imagination. Old nursery tales are not so well remembered in

these days that it is superfluous to point out that the "fee" being a prelude to faw" and "fum," is taken from the formula of the Ogre in Jack and the Bean-Stalk, whose usual preliminary to the slaughter of his victims was

"Fee, Faw, Fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman!"

Epping Hunt (p. 107).—Originally published in 1830 in a thin duodecimo, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. It was while Hood was living at Winchmore Hill that he had the opportunity of noting the chief features of this once famous Civic Revel- the Easter Monday Hunt-even then in its decadence.

Lines to a Lady on her Departure for India (p. 134).-A parody of John Hamilton Reynolds's once popular lines, beginning

"Go, where the water glideth gently ever."

I'm not a Single Man (p. 146).—Written in the album of Miss Smith, daughter of Mr. Horace Smith, of the Rejected Addresses. Miss Smith happily still survives to show her friends with pride these admirable verses, inscribed in Hood's neat and clear handwriting.

The Compass, with Variations (p. 160).-Written when Walter Scott was familiarly known as the "Wizard of the North," the title which is the key to the present poem. Scott died in September 1832, in the interval between the writing and the publishing of the verses, for which Hood makes regretful apology in the Preface to the Comic Annual for 1833, in which they appeared.

The Fall (p. 169). "Edgar Huntley, the Somnambulist," was the title of a popular novel of the time.

Ode to Sir Andrew Agnew (p. 181).-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.

The Sweep's Complaint (p. 201).—These verses fix their own date. The Act 4 and 5 William IV. (1834), "For the better regulation of chimney-sweepers and their apprentices, and for the safer construction of chimneys and flues," has for its Section XV. the following: