Comic Annual,  5 (1834), v–x.

Preface

[Thomas Hood]

Genre:

Preface, Drollery

Subjects:

Natural History, Exploration, Magnetism, Utilitarianism, Medical Practitioners

Institutions mentioned:

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge


    The annual is making its fifth autumnal appearance 'like the annual Woodcock'. Since last season Hood has plied his bill 'around the springs of the Humorous and the Comic, which are, in the words of Bewick, "oozing rills that are rarely frozen"'. (v) Hood feels a 'sincere Captain Ross-like pleasure' in re-appearing before his friends, although he cannot expect 'quite so pointed and fervent a welcome as a gentleman whose absence has kept all his well-wishers sitting on magnetic pins and needles' (vi). As usual, Hood has 'endeavoured to conciliate the utilitarianism, by mingling a little instruction with amusement, after the manner of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge' (vii). As sole contributor, Hood has no acknowledgements to make but to himself, and should thus make them in private 'after the fashion of the eccentric Doctor Monsey, who, when he had taken his own advice for his own indisposition, used to transfer the usual Physician's fee from his right hand pocket to the left' (ix).



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