A PERIODICAL GATHERING. BY THOMAS HOOD, AUTHOR OF "THE COMIC ANNUAL," "WHIMS AND ODDITIES," &c. With Numerous Ellustrations, from Designs by Leech. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1844. 234.54.51,5 WARVARY CALLEGE AUG 19 1918 LIBRARY Welsh fund PRINTED BY WILLIAM WILCOCKSON, ROLLS BUILDINGS, FETTER LANE. PREFACE. IT is proper to state that the majority of the papers in the present Volumes were contributed to the New Monthly Magazine during the Author's late Editorship of that Periodical. Whether they deserved reprinting or repressing, must be determined between the public and the literary Court of Review. As usual the Reader will vainly look in my pages for any startling theological revelations, profound political views, philological disquisitions, or scientific discoveries. As fruitlessly will he seek for any Transcendental speculations, Antiquarian gossip, or Statistical Table Talk. And least of all will he find any discussion of those topics which occupy the leaders and misleaders of the daily prints :-for any enlightenment, Bude or Boccius, on the dark ways of Parliament and Downing Streets, or the dangerous crossing between the Church and the Catholic Chapel. He might as well expect to have his cigar lighted by the Sun, or his "Arms Found" by the Morning Herald. As little will the anticipations be realized of the feminine reader, who seeks for love rhapsodies, higher flown than the Aerial Carriage; for scenes of what is called Fashionable Life; or the serious sentimentalities of that new Paradoxurus the Religious Novel. She might as well go to St. Benet Sherehog for Berlin wool; or hope to dance, at the Ball of St. Paul's, to Weippert's last New Quadrilles. My humble aim has been chiefly to amuse: but the liberal Utilitarian will, perhaps, discern some small attempts to instruct at the same time. He will, maybe, detect in "The Defaulter," a warning against rash and uncharitable judgments; in the "Black Job,” a "take care of your pockets," from the Pseudo-Philanthropists; in "Mr. Withering's Cure," a hint on Domestic Economy; in the Omnibus," a lesson to Prudery; and in the "News from China," a satire on ma دو ternal over-indulgence, and the neglect of moral culture in the young. He may, possibly, discover in the "Earth Quakers, a hit at the astrological quackery, not only of Doctor Dee, but of more modern Zadkiels; and recognize in the "Grimsby Ghost," the correction of a Vulgar Error, that Spirits come and go on very immaterial errands. In the "Schoolmistress Abroad," a deliberate design is acknowledged, to show up that system of Boarding School Education which renders a Young Lady as eligible for a wife, as a strange female would be for a Housekeeper, with only a Twelfth Night character. Here this Preface might end: but old associations, and the approach of a season specially devoted to hospitality, good-fellowship, charity, and the Christian virtues, irresistibly impel me to the expression of a few benevolent wishes towards the World in general, and my own Country, nay, my own County in particular. We have all an open, or sneaking kindness, for our peculiar province, as the sporting yeomanry well knew, and felt, when they translated Pitt's |