the girl's ruin. But the Rubicon once passed, how difficult is the
retreat! There are but two paths open to a man, who would avoid living a
life of sin: the one, to marry his victim; the other, to break off the
connection before it is too late. The first is, of course, the more
proper course; but there are cases where marriage is impossible. From
the latter a man of any heart must shrink with horror. Yet there _are_
cases, even, where the one sin will prove the least--where she who has
loved too well may grieve bitterly at parting, yet will be no more open
to temptation than if she had never fallen. Such cases are rare, and it
is not probable that the young person with whom Hook had become
connected would have retrieved the fatal error. She became a mother, and
there was no retreat. It is clear that Hook ought to have married her.
It is evident that he was selfish and wrong not to do so;--yet he shrank
from it, weakly, wickedly, and he was punished for his shrinking. He had
sufficient feeling not to throw his victim over, yet he was content to
live a life of sin, and to keep her in such a life. This is perhaps the
blackest stain on Hook's character. When Fox married, in consequence of
a similar connection, he 'settled down,' retrieved his early errors, and
became a better man, morally, than he had ever been. Hook _ought_ to
have married. It was the cowardly dread of public opinion that deterred
him from doing so, and, in consequence, he was never happy, and felt
that this connection was a perpetual burden to him.

Wrecked and ruined, Hook had no resource but his literary talents, and
it is to be deplored that he should have prostituted these to serve an
ungentlemanly and dishonourable party in their onslaught upon an
unfortunate woman. Whatever may be now thought of the queen of 'the
greatest gentleman'--or _roue_--of Europe, those who hunted her down
will never be pardoned, and Hook was one of those. We have cried out
against an Austrian general for condemning a Hungarian lady to the lash,