THEODORE EDWARD HOOK.

The Greatest of Modern Wits.--What Coleridge said of Hook.--Hook's
Family.--Redeeming Points.--Versatility.--Varieties of Hoaxing.--The
Black-wafered Horse.--The Berners Street Hoax.--Success of the Scheme.--
The Strop of Hunger.--Kitchen Examinations.--The Wrong House.--Angling
for an Invitation.--The Hackney-coach Device.--The Plots of Hook and
Mathews.--Hook's Talents as an Improvisatore.--The Gift becomes his
Bane.--Hook's Novels.--College Fun.--Baiting a Proctor.--The Punning
Faculty.--Official Life Opens.--Troublesome Pleasantry.--Charge of
Embezzlement.--Misfortune.--Doubly Disgraced.--No Effort to remove the
Stain.--Attacks on the Queen.--An Incongruous Mixture.--Specimen of
the Ramsbottom Letters.--Hook's Scurrility.---Fortune and Popularity.--
The End.


SYDNEY SMITH.

The 'Wise Wit.'--Oddities of the Father.--Verse-making at Winchester.--
Curate Life on Salisbury Plain.--Old Edinburgh.--Its Social and
Architectural Features.--Making Love Metaphysically.--The Old Scottish
Supper.--The Men of Mark passing away.--The Band of Young Spirits.--
Brougham's Early Tenacity.--Fitting up Conversations.--'Old School'
Ceremonies.--The Speculative Society.--A Brilliant Set.--Sydney's Opinion
of his Friends.--Holland House.--Preacher at the 'Foundling.'--Sydney's
'Grammar of Life.'--The Picture Mania.--A Living Comes at Last.--The
Wit's Ministry.--The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay.--Country Quiet.--
The Universal Scratcher.--Country Life and Country Prejudice.--The
Genial Magistrate.--Glimpse of Edinburgh Society.--Mrs. Grant of Laggan.--
A Pension Difficulty.--Jeffrey and Cockburn.--Craigcrook.--Sydney