Leaving the church by the other entrance, we are in Church Lane. The first house opposite the gate of the churchyard is Pryor’s Bank, to which a separate chapter of our little volume is devoted, so that we can pass on immediately to the next house, Thames Bank, the present residence of Mr. Baylis, whose well-known taste will no doubt soon change its present aspect. Granville Sharp’s {188a} House stood opposite. It was pulled down about twenty-five years ago. John’s Place (erected 1844) is on the site. Next to Thames Bank, formerly stood Egmont Villa, the residence of Theodore Hook, and the house in which he died, now pulled down, the back of which, is shown in the annexed sketch. This house, though of the smallest dimensions, was fitted up with much good taste. [Picture: Back of Egmont Villa] There was a small boudoir on the side of the drawing-room, which was very rich in articles of virtù, more especially in some remarkably fine carvings, attributed to Cellini, Brustolini, and others. These were left to Hook by his brother, the late Dean of Worcester. As an improvisatore, Hook was unapproachable. In regard to his literary merits, let the following suffice, taken from the late Mr. Barham’s life of Hook, published in 1848:— “There can be no need,” says the Editor, “at this day to enter upon any lengthened criticism of Theodore Hook’s merits as a novelist; they have been discussed over and over again, with little variety of opinion, by every reviewer of the kingdom. Indeed, both his faults and his excellencies lie on the surface, and are obvious and patent to the most superficial reader; his fables, for the most part ill knit and insufficient, disappoint as they are unfolded; repetitions and omissions are frequent: in short, a general want of care and finish is observable throughout, which must be attributed to the hurry in which he was compelled to write, arising from the multiplicity and distracting nature of 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.