a sick-bed from which he never rose, and there also composed well-known poems such as "The Song of the Shirt", which appeared anonymously in the Christmas number of Punch, 1843 and was immediately reprinted in The Times and other newspapers across Europe. It was dramatised by Mark Lemon as The Sempstress, printed on broadsheets and cotton handkerchiefs, and was highly praised by many of the literary establishment, including Charles Dickens. Likewise "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Labourer", which were also translated into German by Ferdinand Freiligrath. These are plain, solemn pictures of the conditions of life, which appeared shortly before Hood's death in May 1845. Hood was associated with the Athenaeum, started in 1828 by James Silk Buckingham, and was a regular contributor to it for the rest of his life. Prolonged illness brought straitened circumstances. Applications were made by a number of Hood's friends to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, to grant Hood a civil list pension, with which the state rewarded literary men. Peel was known to be an admirer of Hood's work and in the last few months of Hood's life he gave Jane Hood the sum of £100 without her husband's knowledge, to alleviate the family's debts. The pension that Peel's government bestowed on Hood was continued to his wife and family after his death. Jane Hood, who also suffered from poor health, had put tremendous energy into tending her husband in his last year and died only 18 months later. The pension then ceased, but Peel's successor Lord John Russell, grandfather of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, made arrangements for a £50 pension for the maintenance of Hood's two children, Frances and Tom. Nine years later, a monument raised by public subscription in Kensal Green Cemetery was unveiled by Richard Monckton Milnes. The monument was originally surmounted by a bronze bust of Hood by the sculptor Matthew Noble and had circular inset bronze roundels on either side, but all have been stolen. Thackeray, a friend of Hood's, gave this assessment of him: "Oh sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain!... Here is one at least without guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted." The house where Hood died, No. 28 Finchley Road, St John's Wood, now has a blue plaque.