his estate confiscated. In 1784 the property was purchased by John Stevens, the inventor, who in 1804 laid it out as a town. For the next thirty-five years its "Elysian Fields" were a famous pleasure resort of New York City. Hoboken was incorporated as a town in 1849 and as a city in 1855. On the 30th of June 1900 the wharves of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company and three of its ocean liners were almost completely destroyed by a fire, which caused a loss of more than 200 lives and over $5,000,000. HOBSON'S CHOICE, i.e. "this or nothing," an expression that arose from the fact that the Cambridge-London carrier, Thomas Hobson (1544-1630), refused, when letting his horses on hire, to allow any animal to leave the stable out of its turn. Among other bequests made by Hobson, and commemorated by Milton, was a conduit for the Cambridge market-place, for which he provided the perpetual maintenance. See _Spectator_, No. 509 (14th of October 1712). HOBY, SIR THOMAS (1530-1566), English diplomatist and translator, son of William Hoby of Leominster, was born in 1530. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1545, but in 1547 he went to Strassburg, where he was the guest of Martin Bucer, whose _Gratulation ... unto the Church of Englande for the restitution of Christes Religion_ he translated into English. He then proceeded to Italy, visiting Padua and Venice, Florence and Siena, and in May 1550 he had settled at Rome, when he was summoned by his half-brother, Sir Philip Hoby (1505-1558), then ambassador at the emperor's court, to Augsburg. The brothers returned to England at the end of the year, and Thomas attached himself to the service of the marquis of Northampton, whom he accompanied to France on an embassy to arrange a marriage between Edward VI. and the princess Elizabeth. Shortly after he returned to England he started once more for Paris, and in 1552 he was engaged on his translation of _The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio_. His work was probably completed in 1554, and the freedom of the allusions to the Roman church probably accounts for the fact that it was withheld from publication until 1561. The _Cortegiano_ of Baldassare Castiglione, which Dr Johnson called "the best book that ever was written upon good breeding," is a book as entirely typical of the Italian Renaissance as Machiavelli's _Prince_ in another direction. It exercised an immense influence on the standards of chivalry throughout Europe, and was long the recognized authority for the education of a nobleman. The accession of Mary made it desirable for the Hobys to remain abroad, and they were in Italy until the end of 1555. Thomas Hoby married in 1558 Elizabeth, the learned daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, who wrote a Latin epitaph on her husband. He was knighted in 1566 by Elizabeth, and was sent to France as English ambassador. He died on the 13th of July in the same year in Paris, and was buried in Bisham Church.