of Hood's
writings upon us, that our thoughts, whether we will or not, are more
intent on their serious than on their comic import.

In all the writings of Hood that are not absolutely serious the
_grotesque_ is a present and pervading element. Often it shows itself,
as if from an irresistible instinct of fantastic extravagance, in the
wild and reckless sport of oddity. Combinations, mental, verbal, and
pictorial, to ordinary mortals the strangest and the most remote, were
to Hood innate and spontaneous. They came not from the outward,--they
were born of the inward. They were purely subjective, the sportive
pranks of Hood's own ME, when that ME was in its queerest moods. How
naturally the impossible or the absurd took the semblance of consistency
in the mental associations of Hood, we observe even in his private
correspondence. "Jane," (Mrs. Hood,) he writes, "is now drinking
porter,--at which I look half savage.....I must even _sip_, when I long
to _swig_. I shall turn a fish soon, and have the pleasure of angling
for myself." This, if without intention, would be a blunder or a bull.
If it were written unwittingly, the result would be simply ludicrous,
and consign it to the category of humor; but knowingly written, as we
are aware it was, we must ascribe it to the category of wit.

This presence or absence of _intention_ often decides whether a saying
or an image is within the sphere of humor or of wit. But wit and humor
constantly run into each other; and though the absence of intention
at once shows that a ludicrous surprise belongs to the humorous, the
presence of it will not so clearly define it as belonging to the witty.
Nor will laughter quite settle this question; for there is wit which
makes us laugh, and there is humor which does not. On the whole, it is
as to what is purely wit that we are ever the most at fault. Certain
phases of humor we cannot mistake,--especially those which are broadly
comic or farcical. But sometimes we meet with incidents or scenes which
have more in them of the pathetic than the comic, that we must still
rank with the humorous. Here is a case in point. A time was when it
was a penal offence in Ireland for a priest to say Mass, and under
particular circumstances a capital felony. A priest was malignantly
prosecuted; but the judge, being humane, and better than the law,
determined to confound the informer.

"Pray, Sir," said the judge, "how do you know he said Mass?"

"Because I he