August 13th, 1834 {p.118} [Page Head: THEODORE HOOK.] Dined at Roehampton yesterday with Farquhar. Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Blackwood and Theodore Hook dined there among others. After dinner he displayed his extraordinary talent of improvisation, which I had never heard but once before, and then he happened not to be in the vein. Last night he was very brilliant. Each lady gave him a subject, such as the 'Goodwood Cup,' the 'Tithe Bill;' one 'could not think of anything,' when he dashed off and sang stanzas innumerable, very droll, with ingenious rhymes and excellent hits, 'his eye begetting occasion for his excellent wit,' for at every word of interruption or admiration, every look or motion, he indulged in a digression, always coming back to one of the themes imposed upon him. It is a _tour de force_, in which I believe he stands alone, and it is certainly wonderfully well worth hearing and uncommonly amusing. August 14th, 1834 {p.119} Yesterday there was a bother with the Chancellor about Lord Westmeath's case pending before the Privy Council.[2] He took it into his head (probably having been got at by Lady Westmeath or some of her friends) to have it decided forthwith, and sent to desire a Committee might be convened. Westmeath's counsel was out of town; Follett, whom he relies on, is on the Northern Circuit, but his other counsel is to be had, being at Chislehurst. Accordingly the Chancellor desired that the case might stand over from Thursday, the day he first appointed it (giving only two days' notice), to Monday, and that it should be notified to the parties that if they did not then appear the case should go on without them. Westmeath came to me in a frenzy of rage, and said the Chancellor was the greatest of villains, and so he would tell him in the House of Lords or in the Privy Council. I begged him to hold his tongue, and I would speak to the Chancellor. So I went to the House of Lords where he was sitting, and told Lemarchant what had passed, and that the case ought not to be thus hurried on. He thanked me very much, and said he would go to Brougham; but he soon returned, and said that the Chancellor would hear nothing, and would have the case brought on, and he therefore advised me not to give myself any further concern in it, and to leave him and Westmeath to settle it as they might. In the meantime Westmeath went down to the House of Lords, and after speaking to Wynford, whom the Chancellor had asked to attend (as he learnt from me), was going to get up in the House of Lords and attack him, and was only prevented by Wynford dragging him down by the tail of his coat. I had already spoken to Wynford, and I afterwards spoke to Lord Lansdowne, telling them that the case ought not to be hurried on in this peremptory way, and I persuaded Lord Lansdowne to set his face against it. However, in the meantime Wynford had urged the Chancellor to put it off, and not exasperate that madman, who would say or do something