But, notwithstanding the round of gaiety and pleasure in which the greater number of his evenings were spent, the time so employed cannot be said to have been altogether wasted; for, to a writer who has to draw from life, whose books are men and women, and to whom the gossip and _on dits_ of the day are the rough material of his manufacture, a constant mixing in society of every accessible rank is absolutely necessary--to one of his taste and discrimination, the higher the grade the better. Whithersoever he went he carried with him not only an unfailing fund of entertainment, but also unslumbering powers of observation, that served to redeem what otherwise would have appeared mere weakness and self-indulgence. And that he was not slow to avail himself of the advantages that fell to his share, no one will deny, who casts a glance over the list of productions he gave to the world, during a period when the intellectual exertion of his convivial hours alone would have exhausted the energies, physical and mental, of well-nigh any other man. In 1832 he published the "Life of Sir David Baird," a standard biographical work, and one spoken of in the highest terms by the best reviews of the day. So satisfied were the family with the manner in which he executed his task, that they presented him with a magnificent gold snuff-box set with brilliants, the gift of the Pasha of Egypt to the subject of the memoir. Hook seems to have tossed the trinket aside as an unconsidered trifle into a drawer, from which it was happily rescued on the accidental discovery of its value and importance. In 1833 he sent forth no fewer than six volumes, full of originality and wit; a novel called the "Parson's Daughter," and a couple of stories under the title of "Love and Pride." In one of the latter, the supposed resemblance of Liston to a certain noble lord is happily turned to account; the being mistaken for _Mr. Buggins_, principal low comedian of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, forming a light and pointed climax to the _congeries_ of ridiculous miseries heaped on the unfortunate Marquis. In 1836, Theodore Hook undertook the editorship of the _New Monthly Magazine_, at a salary of four hundred pounds a year, irrespective of the sums to be paid for original contributions. Here he commenced his "Gilbert Gurney," accommodating himself to the exceedingly uncomfortable practice, now all but universal among popular and prolific novelists, of delivering his tale by monthly instalments. To this plan, though obliged to succumb to it, he always took exception, as not only wearisome to the reader, but fatal to fair development of plot.