Chambers's cyclopaedia of English literature : a history critical and biographical of authors in the English tongue from the earliest times till the present day, with specimens of their writing . ichmade the life ofThomas Hoodone long father diedafter a few daysillness in 1811,when Thomas wasonly twelve yearsold, leaving thewidow and re-maining childrenin reduced circum-stances. In his Literary Reminiscences^ published in thefirst series of Hoods Own, Hood tells us that heowed his earliest instruction to two maiden ladies,of the name of Hogsflesh ; that he was then sentto a suburba
Chambers's cyclopaedia of English literature : a history critical and biographical of authors in the English tongue from the earliest times till the present day, with specimens of their writing . ichmade the life ofThomas Hoodone long father diedafter a few daysillness in 1811,when Thomas wasonly twelve yearsold, leaving thewidow and re-maining childrenin reduced circum-stances. In his Literary Reminiscences^ published in thefirst series of Hoods Own, Hood tells us that heowed his earliest instruction to two maiden ladies,of the name of Hogsflesh ; that he was then sentto a suburban boarding-school (the ClaphamAcademy of his famous Ode), and ultimately toa day-school at Clerkenwell. After the age ofthirteen or fourteen his own keen and catholic loveof reading was the foundation of that singularversatility and resource which marked both hispoetic and his humorous vein. Through the in-fluence of a friend of the family he was placed ina merchants counting-house in the City, but hishealth proving unable to stand the confinement tothe desk, he was shipped off to Dundee, where helived among his fathers relations from 1815 to1818. The threatened consumption was for a time. THOMAS From tlie Portrait in the N warded otT—the boy led the healthiest of outdoorlives in fishing and boating ; he had ample leisurebesides for reading and sketching, and he beganto practise his pen both in verse and prose inthe pages of local newspapers and 1818 he returned to London with his healthapparently re-established, and entered the studioof his uncle, the engraver. After a short appren-ticeship of only two years he began to work onhis own account, until he discovered where laythe true field for his genius. About the same time, a young man oftwo - and - twenty,he was appointedsub-editor of theLondon Maga-zine. Nothing morepropitious forHoods geniuscould have hap-pened. It eman-cipated him forever from the en-gravers desk, andit threw him atonce into a societyof write
Size: 1426px × 1752px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectenglish, bookyear1901
