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HOO engraver he succeeded best in small works—many of which are very admirably executed. De Hooghe engraved a good many portraits and some plates of costumes. He died early in the eighteenth century—J. T—e.  HOOGSTRATEN,, a laborious writer, born at Rotterdam in 1658, practised medicine at Dordtrecht. He became Latin professor at Amsterdam, but resigned in 1722, and died in 1724. He edited Latin classics and a Flemish Latin dictionary, and took part in compiling a historical dictionary. He also wrote poems in Latin, Flemish, &c.—B. H. C.  HOOK,, a celebrated composer of English ballads, was born at Norwich in 1746, and died at Boulogne in 1827. He was instructed in the first principles of music by Thomas Garland, organist of Norwich cathedral. His early attachment to that art, by which he rendered himself so popular in this country, was not more remarkable than the immense number of his musical productions. These, which amount to more than a hundred and forty complete works, consist chiefly of musical entertainments for the theatres, organ concertos, and sonatas, an excellent instruction-book for the pianoforte, entitled "Guida Musica," an oratorio called "The Ascension," composed in 1776, and more than two thousand songs. Shortly after his first arrival in London he was engaged at Marylebone Gardens; and being subsequently invited to accept a similar situation at Vauxhall Gardens, he became organist and composer there, and filled these offices between forty and fifty years. As an organ player Mr. Hook highly excelled, and his organ concertos—one of which he performed every night at Vauxhall—evinced much science, taste, and execution. As a composer he was for many years extremely popular; and for natural and pleasing melodies in his songs, &c., he has not, perhaps, been surpassed. He was for several years organist at St. John's church, Horsleydown, and was a good deal occupied in teaching the pianoforte. His annual receipts from only two schools—one at Chelsea and the other at Stepney—amounted to six hundred pounds. Mr. Hook was twice married. His first wife, whose maiden name was Madden, was the daughter of an officer in the British service. She was an accomplished lady, and greatly excelled as an artist in miniature painting. She was the author of the successful operatic piece performed at Drury Lane theatre in 1784, entitled the Double Disguise. By this lady he had two sons—the late reverend Dr. Hook, prebendary of Winchester, and the renowned wit and author, Theodore Hook.—E. F. R.  * HOOK,, R.A., was born about 1820; studied in the Royal Academy, where he won the gold medal, and afterwards spent some time in Italy. His earlier pictures (1844-51) were many of them Venetian in subject, and showed the influence of the study of Giorgione and other of the great Venetian colourists, along with much of the refinement of Eastlake, whose manner he for a time rather closely imitated. From Venetian and Shakspearian Mr. Hook turned to romantic and religious subjects, as "The Chevalier Bayard wounded at Brescia." 1849; "The Persecution of the Christian Reformers in France," &c., 1854; and then happily to thoroughly original representations of English sea-shore and pastoral life and scenery; choosing his types chiefly from the hill-sides and commons of Surrey, and the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Of these he has continued since 1854 to put forth a constant succession of little exquisitely finished pictures—idylls in colours instead of words—in which the sunny side of peasant life is shown with a truth of imitation and purity of taste and feeling, and an appreciation of what is charming in character, that are perfectly Wordsworthian; and with a glowing yet chastened harmony of colour that could only have resulted from the closest study of nature out-of-doors in an English atmosphere, following a patient consideration of the technical methods of the great Venetian masters. He was elected A.R.A. in 1850, R.A. in 1860.—J. T—e.  HOOK,, an eminent English wit, dramatist, novelist, and journalist, was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, London, on the 22nd of September, 1788, the son of James Hook the musical composer. His mother, a woman distinguished for her beauty, talents, and worth, died when Theodore was of an age most needing her watchful care. When his father married again, he did not give the boy a second mother. This circumstance is alluded to in certain passages of Theodore's novel, "Gilbert Gurney," which in some other respects may be regarded as an autobiography of the author. He was sent to Harrow school, but returned home on his mother's death in 1802. Being good-looking, witty, and full of fun, his wifeless father was easily persuaded not to send him back to school. Ere long his talents for singing and songwriting were turned to good account by the composer, who not only enjoyed his son's society with a keen relish, but availed himself of the opportunity of getting words written for his music at home. Thus Theodore, while but a youth of sixteen, had the misfortune to be free of the theatre, the pet of the green-room, the indulged companion of a light-hearted race of singers, actresses, and players, while his brother, eighteen years his senior, was beginning the steady, grave career which was to terminate in the deanery of Worcester. At the urgent remonstrance of the latter, an attempt was made to prepare the younger brother for the bar, and Theodore went down with the future dean to be entered at Oxford. But accustomed to be his own master, the junior cared little for the authority of the senior, and found no charms in the cloistered shades of the university. "You seem very young, sir," said the vice-chancellor to him, "are you prepared to sign the Thirty-nine Articles?" "O yes, sir," replied Theodore briskly, "quite ready, forty if you please." The dignitary shut the book; but the brother apologized—the culprit looked contrite—and in the end the ceremony of matriculation was completed. Theodore quitted his brother for London, in order to go through a preparatory course of reading; but he soon abandoned the prescribed career for the theatre, and before his twentieth year he had written several farces and dramas, which, in their day, were very popular, and employed the histrionic talents of Matthews, Liston, Bannister, and other actors of note. In the farce of "Killing no Murder," Matthews and Liston made playgoers mad with merriment for weeks; and "Paul Pry," a humorous delineation of Mr. Thomas Hill, is still identified with Liston's fame. In 1808 this precocious writer published, under the pseudonym "Alfred Allandale, Esq.," a novel entitled "Musgrave," which was afterwards recast with some improvements in "Sayings and Doings," under the title of "Merton." One result of young Hook's high spirits and frolicsome humour, was a strong taste for the uncomfortable kind of practical joking, called hoaxing. Some of his achievements in this department of folly are described in "Gilbert Gurney," and many are noticed by Mrs. Matthews in her Memoirs of her Husband, Theodore's frequent accomplice in tricks of this kind. The Berners Street hoax, in 1809, created great excitement, and produced no little mischief. Hook had written and despatched a thousand letters to persons in every grade of society, from the duke of York to the little shopkeeper in Whitechapel, pressingly urging each one to present himself at one particular hour on a given day, at the quiet house of a widow in Berners Street. The crush of so many converging vehicles, variously laden with the persons of the dignitaries, or with the goods ordered from the tradesmen, was so tremendous as to cease to be ridiculous, and the promoter of the many mischances which ensued was glad to keep himself out of the way until the storm he had raised had blown over. A very remarkable and in England almost a unique talent possessed by Hook, was the faculty of improvisation. In a numerous company of strangers he has been known to compose, without a moment's premeditation, a verse upon every person in the room, full of the most pointed wit and with the truest rhymes, gathering into his subject as he rapidly proceeded every incident occurring at the moment. Occasionally he failed in this feat, either early in the evening or very late; but when the call was well-rimed, and his ambition excited by the quality of the company, the felicity he displayed was truly marvellous. He accompanied himself on the pianoforte, and frequently the music was as new as the verse. Hook's passage from the comparatively humble society of theatrical circles into the regions of the aristocracy, was brought about through Thomas Sheridan, whose father had been struck by Hook's talents at a Drury Lane dinner. At the marchioness of Hertford's in Manchester Square, he played and sung before the regent, who condescended to say afterwards that "something must be done for Hook." He not only became a favourite in Mayfair, but received solid proofs of his royal patron's sincerity in an appointment received late in 1812, to be accountant-general and treasurer to the Mauritius, with a salary of about £2000 a-year. He reached the scene of his new employment in 1813, and for four happy years enjoyed life in what he calls that paradise, as a young man of twenty-five of his spirits and temper could enjoy it. In 