d they gave
him, what he did not dislike, a good dinner. Like many of the great men
in Germany, Schiller, Wieland, and others, he did not scruple to become
editor of a magazine; and his name alone gave it a recommendation of the
greatest value, and such as made it a grace to write under him.

I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore Hook coming in
unexpectedly to dinner, and amusing us very much with his talent at
extempore verse. He was then a youth, tall, dark, and of a good person,
with small eyes, and features more round than weak; a face that had
character and humor, but no refinement. His extempore verses were really
surprising. It is easy enough to extemporize in Italian--one only
wonders how, in a language in which every thing conspires to render
verse-making easy, and it is difficult to avoid rhyming, this talent
should be so much cried up--but in English it is another matter. I have
known but one other person besides Hook, who could extemporize in
English; and he wanted the confidence to do it in public. Of course, I
speak of rhyming. Extempore blank verse, with a little practice, would
be found as easy in English as rhyming is in Italian. In Hook the
faculty was very unequivocal. He could not have been aware of all the
visitors, still less of the subject of conversation when he came in, and
he talked his full share till called upon; yet he ran his jokes and his
verses upon us all in the easiest manner, saying something
characteristic of every body, or avoiding it with a pun; and he
introduced so agreeably a piece of village scandal upon which the party
had been rallying Campbell, that the poet, though not unjealous of his
dignity, was, perhaps, the most pleased of us all. Theodore afterward
sat down to the pianoforte, and enlarging upon this subject, made an
extempore parody of a modern opera, introducing sailors and their
clap-traps, rustics, &c., and making the poet and his supposed flame,
the hero and heroine. He parodied music as well as words, giving us the
most received cadences and flourishes, and calling to mind (not without
some hazard to his filial duties) the commonplaces of the pastoral songs
and duets of the last half century; so that if Mr. Dignum, the Damon of
Vauxhall, had been present, he would have doubted whether to take it as
an affront or a compliment. Campbell certainly took the theme of the
parody as a compliment; for having drank a little more wine than usual
that evening, and hap