that very room, to show them with the light it feeds and
make them able to break wine-glasses and get drunk from tumblers. This
we may be sure Hook himself did, for one, and the rest were probably not
much behind him.

In late life this gift of Hook's--improvising I mean, not getting
intoxicated--was his highest recommendation in society, and at the same
time his bane. Like Sheridan, he was ruined by his wonderful natural
powers. It can well be imagined that to improvise in the manner in which
Hook did it, and at a moment's notice, required some effort of the
intellect. This effort became greater as circumstances depressed his
spirits more and more and yet with every care upon his mind, he was
expected, wherever he went, to amuse the guests with a display of his
talent. He could not do so without stimulants, and rather than give up
society, fell into habits of drinking, which hastened his death.

We have thrown together the foregoing anecdotes of Hook, irrespective of
time, in order to show what the man's gifts were, and what his title to
be considered a wit. We must proceed more steadily to a review of his
life. Successful as Hook had proved as a writer for the stage, he
suddenly and without any sufficient cause rushed off into another branch
of literature, that of novel-writing. His first attempt in this kind of
fiction was 'The Man of Sorrow,' published under the _nom de plume_ of
_Alfred Allendale_. This was not, as its name would seem to imply, a
novel of pathetic cast, but the history of a gentleman whose life from
beginning to end is rendered wretched by a succession of mishaps of the
most ludicrous but improbable kind. Indeed Theodore's novels, like his
stage-pieces, are gone out of date in an age so practical that even in
romance it will not allow of the slightest departure from reality. Their
very style was ephemeral, and their interest could not outlast the
generation to amuse which they were penned. This first novel was written
when Hook was one-and-twenty. Soon after he was sent to Oxford, where he
had been entered at St. Mary's Hall, more affectionately known by the
nickname of 'Skimmery.' No selection could have been worse. Skimmery
was, at that day, and, until quite recently, a den of thieves, where
young men of fortune and folly submitted to be pillaged in return for
being allowed perfect licence, as much to eat as they could possibly
swallow, and far more to drink than was at all good for them. It has