“TEE HEE OOK.” “_Master Bailies hesquire_, _Manger hof thee_, _T.R.P.B. and halso Proper rioter thereof_.” On Saturday, Hook records in his ‘Diary’ his having refused his “firmest friend’s command” that he should dine with him—“because,” writes Hook, “I cannot on account of the things to be done at Pryor’s Bank.” Of the memorable Monday, the 30th of December, Hook notes:— “To-day, not to town, up and to Baylis’s; saw preparations. So, back, wrote a little, then to dinner, afterwards to dress; so to Pryor’s Bank, there much people,—Sir George and Lady Whitmore, Mrs. Stopford, Mrs. Nugent, the Bully’s, and various others, to the amount of 150. I acted the ‘Great Frost’ with considerable effect. Jerdan, Planché, Nichols, Holmes and wife, Lane, Crofton Croker, Giffard, Barrow. The Whitmore family sang beautifully; all went off well.” The part of the Great Frost to which Hook alludes was in a masque, written for the occasion, and printed and sold in the rooms, for the benefit of the Royal Literary Fund; and among the record of miscellaneous benefactions to this most admirable charity are registered—“Christmas masquers and mummers at the Pryor’s Bank, Fulham, the seat of Thomas Baylis, Esq., F.S.A., and William Lechmere Whitmore, F.S.A. (1840), £3 12s. 6d.” Thus carrying out in deed as well as act the benevolent feelings of the season. What little plot there was in this production had reference to the season, the house in which it was performed, and temporary events. Egomet, an imp, most piquantly personified by Mr. John Barrow, opened the affair in a moralising strain prophetically applicable to the moment. After stating who and what he was, he starts:—