his engagements. His tendency
to caricature was innate; but even this would probably have been in a
great measure repressed, had he allowed himself sufficient time for
correction: while, on the contrary, in detached scenes, which sprang
up as pictures in his mind, replete with comic circumstance, in
brilliant dialogue and portraiture of character, not to mention those
flashes of sound wisdom with which ever and anon his pages are
lighted up, his wit and genius had fair play, revelling and rioting
in fun, and achieving on the spur of the moment those lasting
triumphs which cast into the shade the minor and mechanical blemishes
to which we have adverted."

Hook was a successful dramatist, and an extensive journalist. Of his
novels, 'Gilbert Gurney' may be considered to be the most remarkable.

Hook's furniture was sold by George Robins, in September, 1841. In 1855
the aqueduct was erected by the Chelsea Water Works Company, for
conveying the water from Kingston-upon-Thames to the metropolis, and it
was necessary that the contractor, Mr. Brotherhood, should get possession
of Egmont Villa, to enable them to erect the tower on the Fulham side.
Here the piles and timbers of the old Bishop's Ferry, used for the
conveyance of passengers across the river from Putney to Fulham, before
the old bridge was built, were discovered. It was subsequently
considered desirable to pull the villa down; and there now remains no
trace of the house in which Hook lived and died, and which stood within a
few paces of his grave. Bowack mentions that Robert Limpany, Esq.,
"whose estate was so considerable in the parish that he was commonly
called the Lord of Fulham," resided in a neat house in Church Lane. He
died at the age of ninety-four. Beyond the Pryor's Bank on the right, is
the Bishop's Walk, which runs along the side of the Thames for some
little distance, and from hence a view of the Bishop's Palace is
obtained. This palace has been from a very early period the summer
residence of the Bishops of London. The land consists of about 37 acres,
and the whole is surrounded by a moat, over which are two bridges.

Following the course of the Bishop's Walk, we come to the road leading to
Craven Cottage, originally built by the Margravine of Anspach, when
Countess of Craven, and since altered and improved by Walsh Porter, who
occasionally resided in it till his death in 1809. Craven Cottage was
co