fficulty in obtaining abundance of work. My doubts on this point had
been pretty well settled.

But we had no hundred and thirty or forty dollars to lay out for a
machine now, and there was no prospect of our being able to save enough
to purchase one. Hence I never even hinted to my mother what my wishes
were, as it would only be to her a fresh anxiety. I did mention the
subject to my sister, but she did not seem to favor my plans. She was a
great favorite at the factory, and why should not the factory be as
great a favorite with her? I have no doubt that our pastor, who was as
wealthy as he was generous and good, would have promptly loaned us, or
even me, the money; but he had heard nothing of the fact that my
father's sudden death had alone prevented my obtaining a machine, nor
during his frequent visits to our house did we ever mention what we had
then expected or what I now so much desired. Besides, it would be a
great debt, so large that I should have hesitated about incurring it. We
had been a long while in getting clear of the other, and the apparent
hopelessness of discharging one nearly three times as great, and that,
too, from my individual earnings, was such, that in the end I concluded
it would be better for me to avoid the debt by doing without the
machine, than to have it only on condition of buying it on credit.

MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.

A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.

THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS.

Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on
the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer,
who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James
became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent
Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and
also an author.

His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the
green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's
fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta
songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more
than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth
to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period,
Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of
Hook's farces: for they were his "props."

In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them
limited, and w