34), _Edwin the Fair_ (1842), some minor
poems, and the romantic comedy of _A Sicilian Summer_ (first called _The
Virgin Widow_), which was published with _St. Clement's Eve_. He had
(as, it may be noted curiously, had so many of the men of the transition
decade in which he was born) a singular though scanty vein of original
lyric snatch, the best example of which is perhaps the song "Quoth
tongue of neither maid nor wife" in _Van Artevelde_; but his chief
appeal lay in a very careful study of character and the presentation of
it in verse less icy than Talfourd's and less rhetorical than Milman's.
Yet he had, unlike either of these, very little direct eye to the stage,
and therefore is classed here as a poet rather than as a dramatist.
There is always a public for what is called "thoughtful" poetry, and
Taylor's is more than merely thoughtful. But it may be suspected by
observers that when Robert Browning came into fashion Henry Taylor went
out. Citations of _Van Artevelde_, if not of the other pieces (none of
which are contemptible, while the two last, inferior in weight to their
predecessors, show advance in ease and grace), are very frequent between
1835 and 1865: rare I think between 1865 and 1895.

And so we come at last to the twin poets, in the proper sense
humorous,--that is to say, jesting with serious thoughts behind,--of the
first division of this class. They were very close in many ways--indeed
it is yet a moot point which of the two borrowed certain rhythms and
turns of word and verse from the other, or whether both hit upon these
independently. But their careers were curiously different; and, except
in comparative length of life (if that be an advantage), Praed was
luckier than his comrade. Thomas Hood, who was slightly the elder, was
born in 1798 or 1799 (for both dates are given) in the Poultry; his
father being a bookseller and publisher. This father died, not in good
circumstances, when the son was a boy, and Thomas, after receiving some
though not much education, became first a merchant's clerk and then an
engraver, but was lucky enough to enjoy between these uncongenial
pursuits a long holiday, owing to ill-health, of some three years in
Scotland. It was in 1820 or thereabouts that he fell into his proper
vocation, and, as sub-editor of the _London Magazine_, found vent for
his own talents and made acquaintance with most of its famous staff. He
married, wrote some of his best serious poems and some go