at merry din;
Except I wish one bell were at the door
To ring new trowsers in."

After a column on "The Awful State of Ireland" Hood was, on the 3rd of
March, 1844, editorially reckoned on the Staff. But the decree of Fate
was against him, and he only contributed two more pieces altogether.
_Punch_, as he acknowledged, was the one bright meteor that had flashed
across his milk-and-watery way in his latter years, and gave him,
together with Sir Robert Peel's tactful and charming bestowal of a
pension, his last delight. But already death, he said, had thrown open
wide its door to him, and he was "so near to it that he could almost
hear the hinges creak." And when he died, there were engraved upon his
tombstone, at his own desire, the simple words, "He Sang the Song of the
Shirt."

The first arrival of 1844 was Dr. Edward Vaughan Kenealy, who, many
years after, acted for and defended the historic "Claimant," the
self-confessed Orton, _alias_ Castro, _alias_ "Sir Roger Tichborne,"
with so much violent ability, lost his balance and came to utter grief.
In his youth one of his scholarly relaxations was to translate English
verse of various sorts into various languages--Greek, Hebrew, Arabic,
Hindustani, and the like, for he was a remarkable linguist. His unique
_Punch_ contribution was the rendering of "The King of the Cannibal
Islands" into Greek, and very good Greek too. The _jeu d'esprit_ is to
be found on p. 79, Volume VI., as well as in his volume of verse
dedicated to Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, whom he was destined
afterwards to waste his life in vilifying, while shattering his own
career in his savage and ineffective assaults.

In the following month T. J. Serle struck up an ephemeral connection. He
had been Macready's secretary, and acting manager of Drury Lane, and had
written "The Shadow on the Wall," and other successful plays; and
Jerrold's eldest son was named Thomas Serle, after him. His first paper
was "A Fine Lady," on the 10th of March; but after one further
contribution, two months later, he appeared no more. About the same time
there was printed "The Magnitia," by Frank Moir (May 3rd, No. 199).

J. W. Ferguson was a far more important and more useful contributor,
whose work was full of talent, whose versification was clever and
pointed, and whose topical "_Punch's_ Fairy Tales" (with obtrusively
obvious morals) are models of their kind. His "Little Frenchman's First
Lesson" (May 18th, 1844) pur