Would I were laid

Under the shade

Of the calm grave, and the long grass of

years,

That love might die with sorrow :—I am sorrow;
And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press

Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow
Only new anguish from the old caress;
Oh, this world's grief,

Hath no relief,

In being wrung from a great happiness.

Would I had never filled thine eyes with love,
For love is only tears: would I had never
Breathed such a curse-like blessing as we prove;

Now, if "Farewell" could bless thee, I would sever!
Would I were laid

Under the shade,

Of the cold tomb, and the long grass for ever!

[The "Comic" this year is announced in the "Athenæum," in September, by a longer letter than usual addressed by my father to his publishers.]

DEAR SIRS,

I am truly happy to inform you that the report was premature of my being "lost in the Hoffnung; Murphy, of and to Cuxhaven." It was however a most narrow escape. After running foul against the wind all the morning, about 4 p.m. a heavy squall struck our topmasts, and split the mainsheet to rags before the reefs could be furled, nearly all the crew being underhatched at the time, the rascally steers

man even was not at the steerage. The consequence was exactly what Captains Hall or Marryat, or any experienced naval officer would expect. The rudder would not answer the helm, she luffed away from the wind, shipped a sea that carried away all the left larboards and gave such a lee-lurch to port that we expected she would pitch head-foremost on her beam-ends, in which case she must inevitably have missed stays with her keel uppermost. Providentially at this awful crisis she broached-to athwart hawse, which unexpectedly righted her, though not without damage. When we went to hoist sail upon it, we found that the mast had stepped out, but we fished with a spare stern-post for a jury, and by dint of tacking were able to claw off to a lee-shore, where slipping our cables we brought up fifteen fathoms of water and a sandy bottom with our best bower anchor. It was a miraculous escape. "For the moment," Murphy said, "he thought all hands were on their last legs."

In such an extremity it was a comfort to reflect that even the "babe unborn" was well provided for; I mean the Comic for 1836, the materials for which I deposited in your hands on leaving England. By this time I suppose it is all engraved, printed, and bound; but I must reiterate my injunction not to bring it out before the First of December. A more premature publication, after the tone of my last preface would be too much like "flying in my own face."

As to your query of "where can you write to me?" The only certain address I could give you would be poste restante Timbuctoo. To-day for instance I am at Berlin, to-morrow figuratively at Copenhagen, the next day at Geneva, and the day after that at Damascus. It is not unlikely therefore that in my search after "fresh fields and pastures new," I may find myself some day under the mud crust of that great dirt pie an African hut, surrounded by fresh fields of

sand that would new pasture a herd of all the hour-glasses in the world.

Between ourselves I expect that this travelling will benefit my own health and that of the Comic besides. There are three things which the public will always clamour for, sooner or later; namely: novelty, novelty, novelty; and it is well to be beforehand.

I remember Grimaldi being hissed once at Sadler's Wells, after singing his celebrated comic song of "Tippety-witchet," and he appealed to the audience. "He had nodded," he said, "frowned, winked, sneezed, choked, gaped, cried, grinned, grimaced, and hiccupped; he had done all that could be done by brows, chin, cheeks, eyes, nose and mouth, and what more did they want?"-"Why, we want," yawned a languid voice from the pit, "we want a new feature."

I am, dear Sirs,

September 2, 1835.

Yours truly,

THOMAS HOOD.

1836.

[FROM the "Comic " for this year nothing remains available for my present purpose but the Preface. Like its more immediate predecessors, it was given to the world without any dedication.]

THE COMIC ANNUAL FOR 1836.

PREFACE.

ONCE more-from a crest overlooking Kaltererberger in the Eifel-I make my annual bow. To be sure, I am more than two thousand feet above the level of the sea; on a Teutonic mountain, in the midst of a palpable fog, to which it is accustomed eight days out of seven,-but neither difference nor distance makes any difference to us Germans, in our salutes :-we can bow round a corner, or down a crooked lane. To see us bow retrospectively sometimes, would remind you of that polite Author, who submitting to a classical authority, said with an appropriate bend, "I bow to the Ancients."

And truly, of all bowers that ever bowed, including Lord Chesterfield, the Royal inventor of the "Prince's bow," the "booing" Sir Archy Macsycophant, Tom Moore, and his Bowers of Bendermeer, all the admirals of blue, white, and red, with their larboard bows, and starboard bows, all the bow-loving schoolmasters with their "Where's your bow?" and finally, Macduff and his whole army, who boughed out Macbeth-of all these, no man ever scraped his foot without

a scraper, or bent so agreeably to his own bent, as your very humble obedient servant. To be candid, I am in the humour to bow-age commands respect-to an old post. "Tis better than bowing to a post obit.

"Oh! my masters!" as the labourer said to the bricklayers after falling through the roof and rafters of an unfinished house, "I have gone through a great deal since you saw me last."

First, there was my narrow escape in the Hoffnung off Cuxhaven, so narrow indeed, that I felt upon what is called "the edge of doom," newly ground. I only wonder, that terrible storm, instead of letting me bow to you smilingly like Sir Robert Smirke, did not shake, terrify, and bully me into a serious writer; solemnly bending, as we might suppose Blair to have done, with a presentation copy of his "Grave.” Secondly, there was my dangerous consultation of complaints, in the Spring, with its complication of High German physicians; namely, two Animal-Magnetisers; three Homœopathics, four "Bad" advisers, and the famous Doctor Farbe. The practice, which does not make perfect, of the first set of sine-cure-ists is well known,-the unit doses of the Hahnemannites have been tried as well as all the orts you have to eat after them; and the "bad" recommendations have been well tested by thousands of Accums. I need not describe how combining exercise with mineral waters, I walked by uneasy stages from Mayence to Coblentz and back again, with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other; drinking my own health, at every hundred yards, in a tumbler of one part pickle, one part soda water, one part soapsuds, one part ink, one part sour milk, one part musty egg, one part gall, and one part pump-water. I need not describe, how I bathed at Ems and Schlangenbad, but I will describe how I bathed at Schwalbach, as the Author of Bubbles from